Senators Warned of Terrorist Attack on U.S. by July

Wednesday, February 03, 2010
By MARK MAZZETTI, The New York Times

WASHINGTON -- America's top intelligence official told lawmakers on Tuesday that Al Qaeda and its affiliates had made it a high priority to attempt a large-scale attack on American soil within the next six months.

The assessment by Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, was much starker than his view last year, when he emphasized the considerable progress in the campaign to debilitate Al Qaeda and said that the global economic meltdown, rather than the prospect of a major terrorist attack, was the "primary near-term security concern of the United States."

At Tuesday's hearing, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asked Mr. Blair to assess the possibility of an attempted attack in the United States in the next three to six months.

He replied, "The priority is certain, I would say" -- a response that was reaffirmed by the top officials of the C.I.A. and the F.B.I.

Citing a recent wave of terrorist plots, including the failed Dec. 25 attempt to blow up an airliner as it approached Detroit, Mr. Blair and other intelligence officials told a Senate panel that Al Qaeda had adjusted its tactics to more effectively strike American targets domestically and abroad.

"The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11," said Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director. "It is that Al Qaeda is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect."

As the C.I.A. continues its drone attacks aimed at Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, the officials also said that the network's splinter groups in Yemen and Somalia were taking on more importance.

But Mr. Blair began his annual threat testimony before Congress by saying that the threat of a crippling attack on telecommunications and other computer networks was growing, as an increasingly sophisticated group of enemies had "severely threatened" the sometimes fragile systems undergirding the country's information infrastructure.

"Malicious cyberactivity is occurring on an unprecedented scale with extraordinary sophistication," he told the committee.

His emphasis on the threat points up the growing concerns among American intelligence officials about the potentially devastating results of a coordinated attack on the nation's technology apparatus, sometimes called a "cyber-Pearl Harbor."

He said that the surge in cyberattacks, including the penetration of Google's servers from inside China, was a "wake-up call" for those who dismissed the threat of computer warfare. "Sensitive information is stolen daily from both government and private-sector networks, undermining confidence in our information systems, and in the very information these systems were intended to convey," Mr. Blair said.

In another departure from last year's testimony, Mr. Blair appeared alongside other top intelligence officials, including the heads of the C.I.A., the F.B.I. and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Last year, the intelligence director sat alone before the committee, a partly symbolic gesture intended to demonstrate the authority of the director, whose office has been criticized for commanding little power over America's 16 intelligence agencies.

At times, the senators seemed more interested in debating one another than in hearing testimony from witnesses. Midway through the hearing, partisan bickering broke out about whether terrorist suspects ought to be tried in civilian courts and whether the man charged as the Dec. 25 bomber should have been given Miranda rights that could protect him against self-incrimination.

As senators traded barbs, the intelligence officials stared stonily ahead or shuffled their notes.

The intelligence chiefs also raised warnings about nuclear proliferation, particularly focusing on Iran and North Korea.

Mr. Blair said that Iran "has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons," and that the discovery of a secret enrichment plant near Qum heightened suspicions about Iran's intentions to build a nuclear bomb.

Still, he said that Tehran was following a "cost-benefit approach" to its nuclear decision-making and that it remained unclear whether Iran's leadership would make a political calculation to begin producing weapons-grade uranium, allowing other nations to "influence" that decision through diplomatic steps.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10034/1033043-84.stm?cmpid=news.xml#ixzz0eULPfe48

Virgin Oceanic: Underwater Airplane Unveiled

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Virgin unveiled the latest addition to Richard Branson's luxury fleet on Friday: an underwater plane that will fly riders into the depths of the Caribbean Sea.

Guests on Necker Island, a retreat in the British Virgin Islands, will be able to dive underwater in a submarine dubbed the Necker Nymph for $25,000 a week. But that's only after shelling out around $300,000 for a one-week stay on Necker, the private island owned by billionaire and Virgin Group chairman Richard Branson.

Beginning on Feb. 20, two riders and a pilot and will be able to take the plunge from land, or from a boat. The underwater plane uses the downward pressure on its wings to fly through the water for up to two hours at a time, while an open cockpit will give riders a 360-degree view.

The Necker Nymph's typical speed is 2 to 5 nautical miles per hour and it can dive more than 100 feet, said Karen Hawkes, a spokeswoman for Hawkes Ocean Technologies, the company that designed the Nymph.

A statement released Friday by Virgin Limited Edition, the luxury arm of Virgin Hotels, described the Nymph's launch like a plane's takeoff. "Gliding on the water's surface like an aeroplane on a runway, one of the three pilots will operate the joystick to smoothly dive down."

Vacationers will be able to fly the Necker Nymph while chartering the Necker Belle, Branson's 105-foot yacht, or the submarine can be launched from shore. Necker Belle is rented out to guests for $88,000 a week, bringing the full Necker Island experience to more than $400,000 per week.

Riders must follow SCUBA procedures and be trained or accompanied by a certified pilot before entering the underwater plane. SCUBA tanks are mounted in the submarine and passengers must wear masks while underwater, said Hawkes.

The Necker Nymph claims "near-zero" environmental impact because its "positive buoyancy prevents the sub from landing on a reef, and its low light and noise emissions ensure the fragile ocean ecosystems remain undisturbed," Virgin said.

Sikorsky venture to develop unmanned Black Hawk

February 1, 2010

HARTFORD, Connecticut — Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. is launching a $1 billion venture featuring a pilot-less Black Hawk helicopter as military demand rises for technology to fight two wars.

The Stratford-based helicopter maker and military contractor announced Monday the creation of Sikorsky Innovations, intended to speed the transformation of the mechanical helicopter into a computerized aircraft.It also will promote projects that are now designing helicopters to fly faster, simulate vision and monitor their own performance.

The Black Hawk is a military workhorse, used in Afghanistan, Iraq, Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989 and the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

It’s also part of military packages sold to other nations and has been used in civilian missions such as rescuing snowbound mountain climbers.The Black Hawk helicopter, used for air assault and medical evacuation, was featured in the book and movie, “Black Hawk Down,” chronicling a battle in Somalia in 1993 when two helicopters were shot down, killing 18 soldiers.Some of the deadliest crashes involving five Black Hawk helicopters in Iraq killed 51 soldiers between 2003 and 2007.

The helicopter is relied upon in Afghanistan, a mountainous nation with long stretches of desert and few decent roads.

Unmanned war planes are not recent, but are drawing interest from commanders trying to reduce casualties while not relenting in combat.“The new thing here is to apply technologies in small airplanes and rotorcraft to the 20,000 pound Black Hawk,” said Chris Van Buiten, director of Sikorsky Innovations.

“It ups the stakes.”Mark Miller, vice president of research and engineering at the subsidiary of United Technologies Corp., said officials want to harness Sikorsky’s rapid growth —” revenue and profit have more than doubled over the past five years — with technological advances that are remaking helicopters.

Sikorsky Innovations can now “change the game” in the manufacturer’s next generation of helicopters, he said.Sikorsky will design and build an “optionally piloted helicopter” to resupply troops or engage in battle.

It will give commanders a choice between operating a Black Hawk with one pilot or two or none.

“We’ll let it adapt to the mission,” Van Buiten said.Sikorsky is jumping into a lucrative and growing market. Steven Zaloga, a senior analyst at Teal Group Corp. in Fairfax, Virginia, said unmanned aerial vehicles represent “one of the few dynamic markets” in the aerospace industry hit hard in the recession.

The Teal Group estimates the global market for unmanned aerial vehicle hardware will rise from $2.9 billion this year to $5.5 billion in 2019, Zaloga said.

Helo demonstrationMark Tattershall, director of marketing and business development at Kaman Corp., a Bloomfield, Connecticut-based aerospace manufacturer, said Kaman and Lockheed Martin Corp. demonstrated an unmanned cargo helicopter in Utah last week.

“To control something that’s within sight is one challenge,” he said. “To control something on the other side of a mountain and have it safely put down a load successfully and safely is a big challenge.”

The Defense Advanced Research Projects has developed the A160, which is now being tested by the Army and its network of researchers.

Phil Hunt, a program manager at the agency, said challenges include unmanned aircraft seeing and avoiding other aircraft in federally-regulated or military airspace and the potential dangers of carrying weapons at the time of a crash.

Sikorsky Innovations, which over 10 years will spend $1 billion from Sikorsky and its customers, also is researching technologies that would vastly increase a helicopter’s speed, enable helicopters to use computers to see through dust storms kicked up during takeoffs and landings, allow helicopters to gather data about their own condition and tailor the performance for quieter and more comfortable rides if necessary.

Radar Problems to Blame for Missile Defense System Fail

Washington (CNN) -- A U.S. missile defense test failed Sunday when a long-range missile missed its target because of radar problems.
The Defense Department said a target missile was launched from an Army test site at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands at 7:40 p.m.

Six minutes later, a second missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, to find the first one and destroy it.
Both missiles flew successfully, but missed each other because of a problem in the sea-based X-band radar, the department's
Missile Defense Agency said.

The X-band radar sits atop a modified floating oil platform and provides information about incoming missiles so military officials can launch a response.

"Both the target missile and ground-based interceptor performed nominally after launch. However, the sea-based X-band radar did not perform as expected," the agency said.

Obama's Budget Nix's Constellation

CNN) -- American astronauts will not return to the moon as planned if Congress passes President Obama's proposed budget.
Obama's budget -- which aims to tighten the nation's purse strings in certain areas while increasing money used to create jobs -- would cancel NASA's Constellation Program, which had sought to send astronauts back to the moon by 2020.
Constellation also intended to study the idea of establishing a moon colony. The program was set to follow the U.S. space agency's shuttle missions, which are due to end in September.

On its Web site, the White House Budget Office says the program to send astronauts to the moon is behind schedule, over budget and overall less important than other space investments.
"Using a broad range of criteria, an independent review panel determined that even if fully funded, NASA's program to repeat many of the achievements of the Apollo era, 50 years later, was the least attractive approach to space exploration as compared to potential alternatives," the site says.

"Furthermore, NASA's attempts to pursue its moon goals, while inadequate to that task, had drawn funding away from other NASA programs, including robotic space exploration, science, and Earth observations."
Overall, Obama's proposed budget increases the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's budget by $6 billion over the next five years. The president's budget would give NASA a $19 billion budget in 2011, compared to its $18.3 billion budget this year.

Congress has to approve the federal budget, and a final ruling may not happen for months.
The budget changes will not prevent NASA from returning astronauts to the moon and exploring the rest of the solar system, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said in a conference call with reporters on Monday.
"Imagine trips to Mars that take weeks instead of nearly a year; people fanning out across the inner solar system, exploring the Moon, asteroids and Mars nearly simultaneously in a steady stream of firsts ... That is what the president's plan for NASA will enable, once we develop the new capabilities to make it a reality," Bolden said.

The NASA administrator emphasized the fact that the president's budget would increase NASA funding overall and said the Constellation program was behind schedule and over-budget anyway.
"The truth is we were not on a sustainable path to get back to the moon's surface, and as we focused most of our efforts and funding on getting back to the moon we were neglecting investment in key technologies to get us beyond," he said.
Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat from Florida, criticized the president for slashing NASA's moon-mission program from his suggested budget.

The move could cause the U.S. to fall behind other countries in space exploration, he said.
"If they don't push hard now for research and development of the new big rocket that'll take us out of low-Earth orbit and let us explore the heavens, then we are going to be falling behind China and Russia, and that's something I don't think will sit well with the American people," he said in an interview with CNN.
Louis Friedman, executive director of The Planetary Society, called that assertion "ridiculous," and said he's hopeful the end of

Constellation would lead to the U.S. returning to the moon more quickly.
Friedman believes that Constellation is a flawed and bloated program, which should be replaced with a new program that would get the U.S. back to the moon more efficiently.

Constellation was behind schedule, and a new program offers a fresh start and puts needed emphasis on space exploration beyond the moon, he said.

"I think the Constellation program probably fell on its own weight as opposed to any major policy change," he said.
Others questioned what will happen to the money NASA has already spent on its program to return to the moon.
"I think that some of the things they're working on could be used regardless of what the program is," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org and a space policy expert. "Some of it however, I think is just going to end up on the cutting room floor."

About $250 million in federal stimulus money has paid for investments in the Constellation Program, according to a CNN report. NASA's current budget gives Constellation $3.47 billion in funding, according to the White House Budget Office.
NASA says the Constellation research and technology would be useful in other space endeavors.
NASA first sent astronauts to the moon in 1969, and the space agency's Apollo program sent astronauts to the moon at total of six times.