New operating system for space: High-tech tycoons (AP)

SEATTLE ? The tycoons of cyberspace are looking to bankroll America's resurgence in outer space, reviving "Star Trek" dreams that first interested them in science.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen made the latest step Tuesday, unveiling plans for a new commercial spaceship that, instead of blasting off a launch pad, would be carried high into the atmosphere by the widest plane ever built before it fires its rockets.

He joins Silicon Valley powerhouses Elon Musk of PayPal and Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com Inc. in a new private space race that attempts to fill the gap left when the U.S. government ended the space shuttle program.

Musk, whose Space Exploration Technologies will send its Dragon capsule to dock with the International Space Station in February, will provide the capsule and booster rocket for Allen's venture, which is called Stratolaunch. Bezos is building a rival private spaceship.

Allen is working with aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan, who collaborated with the tycoon in 2004 to win a $10 million prize for the first flight of a private spaceship that went into space but not orbit.

Allen says his enormous airplane and spaceship system will go to "the next big step: a private orbital space platform business."

The new system is "a radical change" in how people can get to space, and it will "keep America at the forefront of space exploration," Allen said.

Their plane will have a 380-foot wingspan ? longer than a football field and wider than the biggest aircraft ever, Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose.

It will launch a space capsule equipped with a booster rocket, which will send the spacecraft into orbit. This method saves money by not using rocket fuel to get off the ground. The spaceship may hold as many as six people.

"When I was growing up, America's space program was the symbol of aspiration," said Allen, who mentioned his love of science fiction and early human spaceflights. "For me, the fascination with space never ended. I never stopped dreaming what might be possible."

For those attracted to difficult technical challenges, space is the ultimate challenge, Allen said.

"It's also the ultimate adventure. We all grew up devouring science fiction and watching Mercury and Gemini, Apollo and the space shuttle. And now we are able to be involved in moving things to the next level," he said, adding that he admires people like his former Microsoft colleague Charles Simonyi who have gone into space to experience it.

Allen is not alone in having such dreams, and the money to gamble on making them come true.

Bezos set up the secretive private space company Blue Origin, which has received $3.7 million in NASA startup funds to develop a rocket to carry astronauts. Its August flight test ended in failure.

"Space was the inspiration that got people into high-tech ... at least individuals in their 40s and 50s," said Peter Diamandis, who created the space prize Allen won earlier and is a high-tech mogul-turned space business leader himself. "Now they're coming full circle."

Diamandis helped found a company that sends tourists to space for at least $25 million a ride, and seven of the eight rides involved high-tech executives living out their space dreams. Simonyi paid at least $20 million apiece for two rides into orbit and attended Allen's Tuesday news conference, saying he wouldn't mind a third flight.

"Space has a draw for humanity," not just high-tech billionaires, Simonyi said, but he acknowledged that most people don't have the cash to take that trip.

Space experts welcome the burst of high-tech interest in a technology that 50 years ago spurred the development of computers.

"Space travel the way we used to do it has a `50s and `60s ring to it," said retired George Washington University space policy professor John Logsdon. "These guys have a vision of revitalizing a sector that makes it 21st century."

But Logsdon said the size of the capsule and rocket going to space seemed kind of small to him, only carrying 13,000 pounds. It didn't seem like a game-changer, he said.

Stratolaunch's air-launch method is already used by an older rocket company, Orbital Sciences Corp., to launch satellites. It's also the same method used by the first plane to break the sound barrier more than 50 years ago.

Stratolaunch, to be based in Huntsville, Ala., bills its method of getting to space as "any orbit, any time." Rutan will build the carrier aircraft, which will use six 747 engines. The first unmanned test flight is tentatively scheduled for 2016.

NASA, in a statement, welcomed Allen to the space business, saying his plan "has the potential to make future access to low-Earth orbit more competitive, timely, and less expensive."

Unlike its competitors, Allen's company isn't relying on startup money from NASA, which is encouraging private companies to take the load of hauling cargo and astronauts to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station. The space agency, which retired the space shuttle fleet earlier this year, plans to leave that more routine work to private companies and concentrate on deep space human exploration of an asteroid, the moon and even Mars.

Allen said his interest comes not just because of the end of the shuttle program or changes in government funding for space, but he does see an incredible opportunity right now for the private sector to move the needle on space travel.

Allen's company is looking at making money from tourists and launching small communications satellites, as well as from NASA and the Defense Department, said former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, a Stratolaunch board member who spoke at a Tuesday news conference.

Just three months ago, Griffin was testifying before Congress that he thought the Obama administration's reliance on private companies for space travel "does not withstand a conventional business case analysis."

This is different because it's private money, with no help or dependence on government dollars, said Griffin, who served under President George W. Bush.

Allen and Rutan collaborated on 2004's SpaceShipOne, which was also launched in the air from a special aircraft in back-to-back flights. Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic licensed the technology and is developing SpaceShipTwo to carry tourists to space. But Allen's first efforts were more a hobby, while this would be more a business, Logsdon said.

SpaceShipOne cost $28 million, but this will cost much more, officials said.

Allen left Microsoft Corp. in 1983, and has pursued many varied interests since then. He's the owner of the Seattle Seahawks football team as well as the NBA's Portland Trailblazers. He also founded a Seattle museum that emphasizes science fiction.

Allen said this venture fits with his technology bent.

"I'm a huge fan of anything to push the boundaries of science," Allen said.

___

Borenstein contributed to this report from Washington.

___

Online:

Stratolaunch Systems: http://www.stratolaunch.com

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111214/ap_on_he_me/us_new_space

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France hands Carlos the Jackal another life prison term (Reuters)

PARIS (Reuters) ? A French court sentenced flamboyant Marxist militant Carlos the Jackal to another life prison term on Thursday for bomb attacks that killed 11 people nearly three decades ago.

The Venezuelan defendant, 62, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, has been locked up in France for almost 20 years serving a life sentence in a separate case for killing two police officers and an informant in Paris in 1975.

Sentencing Ramirez to an additional life term, the special terrorism court in Paris made up of seven magistrates said he should serve a minimum of 18 years in jail.

The verdict could push back the date on which he can apply for conditional release, currently set for 2012.

Defense lawyers called the decision a scandal and said their client would file an appeal.

Ramirez was accused of masterminding four separate attacks in France on two trains, a train station and a Paris street that killed 11 people and wounded nearly 200.

Prosecutors said the bombings were his answer to the police seizure of two of his gang, including his lover, and had argued that he remained a danger to the public.

Earlier on Thursday, Ramirez - once one of the most wanted international criminals - addressed the court in a five-hour monologue, alternately rambling, vitriolic and poignant, calling himself a "living martyr" in defending his innocence.

Ramirez, a self-dubbed "elite gunman," appeared resigned to a guilty verdict. Death in prison, he said at one point, "is the role of a revolutionary."

"I am in prison ... condemned in a pre-decided case," he told the court, his voice rising in volume.

SHADES OF CHE GUEVARA

Ramirez, a colorful figure recognizable at the height of his fame by his Che Guevara-style beret, sunglasses and Havana cigars, sealed his notoriety in a bloody hostage-taking of OPEC oil ministers in 1975.

During the Cold War he received backing from Soviet bloc and Middle Eastern countries, staging attacks throughout Europe for more than two decades before being captured in Sudan in 1994.

During the six-week trial, Ramirez appeared more like a master of ceremonies than a defendant, talking over speakers, interrupting judges, correcting lawyers and occasionally beaming benevolently from his caged-in defendant's box.

He denied any specific involvement in the four bombings in 1982 and 1983 on a Paris street, two trains and a Marseille train station that wounded nearly 200 people and left 11 dead. Prosecutors say the bombings were Ramirez's answer to the police seizure of two of his gang, including his lover.

"There is nothing ... to connect me with these four attacks," he told the court, making a zero sign with his thumb and index finger.

Like a modern-day Scheherazade, Ramirez wove story after story, often smiling and waxing nostalgic about former comrades, and sometimes turning fiery to rail at the system.

His unrelenting discourse touched on a variety of topics, from prison life to Zionist strategy, Soviet passports, the French state, hashish and even the death penalty.

Ramirez broke down, his powerful voice wavering when, at the end of his speech, he read from what he said was the last will of fallen Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

"I will continue the fight," he read from the text, before breaking off, overcome with emotion. A group of about a dozen youths in the courtroom audience raised their fists in the air, shouting encouragement at Ramirez.

"Salam Alaikum," or "Peace be with you," said Ramirez, who converted to Islam while in prison, before giving a final fist in the air to the crowd.

MAN OF COMBAT

Accused of being a gun-for-hire by his opponents, and a cold-blooded killer by a former cohort turned witness against him, Ramirez introduced himself on the first day of the trial as "a revolutionary by profession."

Casting himself as a convenient scapegoat, he questioned why no one had ever been arrested in France for the attacks. He and his lawyers said the evidence in the case was based on unreliable witnesses and photocopies of documents from Eastern European secret service archives.

Clearly enjoying the limelight, Ramirez displayed a fondness for name-dropping, variously citing a cast of historical and modern-day heads of state from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Soviet leader Stalin to former French president Jacques Chirac, mentioning the latter's guilty verdict given in the same courthouse earlier in the day.

He explained to the court the proper way to load a 9-millimeter pistol, correcting a prosecutor's knowledge of how many bullets such a gun holds.

"You really aren't a man of combat," he told him.

Prosecutors had argued Ramirez remains a public danger and demanded he be sentenced to an additional life term and serve a minimum of 18 years.

(Additional reporting by Thierry Leveque and Vicky Buffery; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111216/wl_nm/us_france_carlos

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