Enabling and Enhancing Science Exploration Across the Solar System: Aerocapture Technology for SmallSat to Flagship Missions

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The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Rural Barriers to Job Creation Remain, Even in Today's Information Age

New information technologies hold a promise of integrating rural businesses and communities more closely with the Nation's urban centers of commerce. But while allowing rural businesses to compete better for urban jobs, those technologies also allow urban businesses to compete better for rural jobs. To take advantage of the new opportunities, rural areas will have to modernize their communications networks, educate their workers, and broaden their outlook

Can Video Games be Valid Predictors of Success for the Private Pilot Phase Check?

A study was conducted at a Midwestern university to determine whether or not video game performance can be an accurate predictor of success on the private pilot phase check. In this study, there were thirty-three potential participants enrolled in AT 145, the private pilot flight training course. Twenty-three (70%) students agreed to participate. These volunteer participants were asked to complete a video game (Super Mario Galaxy). The final score and time to finish a pre-selected level were recorded. These scores were correlated with the aggregated scores that the participants earned during their private pilot phase checks. Although a survey of literature suggested there might be a correlation between video game performance and pilot performance, the results of this study showed no significant correlation

Do Certified Mail Third-Wave Follow-ups Really Boost Response Rates and Quality?

The Total Design Method (TDM) of designing and implementing mail surveys has been shown to achieve high response rates. One key step in the TDM is sending a third-wave of surveys by certified mail. However, little research exists to verify the effectiveness of this step in improving response rates and quality relative to its increased expense, although this is the 50th anniversary of certified mail in the U.S. Perhaps as a result, scholars rarely use certified mail third-waves or omit third-wave mailings altogether. This article presents the results of two experiments that we embedded in two large-scale organizational mail surveys. Both studies reveal that sending a third-wave of questionnaires significantly increases the rate of response over the first two waves of mailings. Also, the results of Study 1 show that sending a certified mail third-wave has no appreciable effect on response quality. Study 2 shows that a certified mail third-wave does not significantly increase response rate or quality compared to sending the third-wave by regular, 1st-class mail. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005response rate, response quality, questionnaire design, Total Design Method (TDM), Tailored Design Method, certified mail, third-wave surveys,