Selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in January 1978, McBride became an astronaut in August 1979. His NASA assignments have included lead chase pilot for the maiden voyage of Columbia and pilot of STS 41-G, which launched from Kennedy Space Center on Oct. 5, 1984, aboard the Orbiter Challenger.In May 1989, McBride retired from NASA to pursue a business career. He is currently a member of the Astronaut Encounter group at the Kennedy Space Center’s Visitors’ Complex. He also does limited consulting to business organizations and serves on several boards of directors and advisory groups.

For more information, contact Leslie Cragwall, coordinator of events and programs at APSU, by telephone at (931) 221-7431 or by e-mail at .

WASHINGTON, D.C.: The ongoing economic crisis, volatile energy prices, and the rapid increase in global CO2 levels will force critical choices on climate action by the new President in the early days of the next administration, according to a report released today by Clean Air-Cool Planet (CA-CP), an independent organization dedicated to finding and promoting solutions to global warming.

“The next president can lead America and the world in addressing climate change if he links our effort to reduce emissions to the revitalization of our economy and the creation of a more secure energy future.” ~~ Rafe Pomerance, CA-CP’s president.

To advance a new strategy, the report recommends 25 early steps through which the incoming President can establish clear priorities for his administration, build a consensus for legislation in Congress, and inspire the public and private sector to action to reduce the threat of climate change.    “Building a Foundation for Success:  Recommendations for Early Action on Climate Change for the 44th President of the United States” outlines a focused set of actions that can be accomplished within 150 days of taking office, as opposed to prescribing long-term policy outcomes. The actions include organizational steps, administrative and diplomatic initiatives and early approaches with Congress.  Taking account of the changed political situation resulting from high-energy prices and the turbulence in financial markets, CA-CP also proposes a new, auction-based approach to cap and trade legislation that will return 80 percent of the auction revenues to the public through tax reductions.

“The next President will have the opportunity to establish American leadership on climate change with a robust new strategy, but to be successful will require taking early action in a number of areas, including White House organization and the administration’s initial budget proposal,” said Brooks Yeager, executive vice president for policy at CA-CP. “The first steps in crafting a more successful approach have to be taken during the transition and the first 100 days of the administration – and they must lay the foundation for a comprehensive approach which builds a new consensus for action on this critically important issue.”

CA-CP identifies seven broad climate change goals for the upcoming presidential transition:

1. Pick the right team to carry the initiative;
2. Reallocate budget resources, to make climate change a priority;
3. Legislate for economy-wide emissions reductions;
4. Aggressive research and development for low-carbon energy technology;
5. Federal planning for adaptation to climate change impacts;
6. Enable and encourage citizens to build efficiency and conservation in their homes and communities;
7. Re-engage cooperation with international partners.

The recommendations draw on interviews with more than 40 professionals experienced in presidential transitions, senior White House officials and Executive Branch staff from Republican and Democratic administrations, economists and climate change experts.  The agenda is derived out of the concerns of New Hampshire citizens, expressed at the grassroots level and in town meetings during the 2007 primary season.

“In 1961, President Kennedy began the Space Race with the intent to land a man on the moon within the decade. His powerful speeches and leadership were the driving forces in diminishing public skepticism and making a lunar landing a reality,” said Rafe Pomerance, CA-CP’s president, “In a similar way, the next president should inspire citizen engagement on climate action in communities all though America by stressing the moral importance of action, and the growth of clean energy jobs and investments in the future as tools for economic revitalization.”

A link to the entire report and executive summary is online at http://www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/cpc/PLI_report.php

Summary of Early-Action Recommendations by CA-CP

Picking the right team to carry the initiative: The central issue for the next President is how to organize the
Administration’s core team, starting with White House staff, to help him carry out a climate agenda. The President should:

• Establish a transition team focused on climate policy before Inauguration Day.
• Create a National Energy and Climate Council in the White House to ensure a central, empowered entity that reports directly to the President.
• Designate a Special Envoy on Climate Change to undertake initial high-level international contacts.
• Put critical sub-Cabinet positions on the fast track for nomination and confirmation.

Reallocation of budget priorities: The President’s budget proposal for FY2010 is the first key policy opportunity to make climate change a priority. The President should:

• Identify climate change as an early budget priority.
• Include a climate change rebate in the budget of $80 billion annually over 10 years, derived from future carbon auction revenues.
• Expand capacity at key agencies and provide at least $400-500 million to make a new climate strategy operational.
• Increase funding for the Climate Change Science Program from $1.8 billion to $2.1 billion, and to $3 billion byFY2013.
• Increase funding for the Climate Change Technology Program from $3.7 billion to $6 billion, and to $13 billion by FY2015.

Legislation for economy-wide emissions reductions:  New legislation to limit emissions of greenhouse gases is an essential policy step. The President should:

• Articulate principles for Congressional action that include long-term emissions reductions linked to the goal for global emissions reductions of 50% by 2050, and which establish a program with auctioned permits that returns 80% of revenue from the auction process to the American public.
• Establish a White House-Congressional bipartisan working group to shape legislation.

Aggressive research and development for low-carbon energy technology: While currently available technologies can do much to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, new breakthroughs will be needed for the long term. The President should:

• Establish and empower the Advanced Research Projects Administration for Energy (ARPA-E) to embrace a risk-taking culture and a focus on game-changing technology.
• Fully fund ARPA-E start up in a separate funding line in the DOE budget at $150 million in FY2010.

Federal planning for adaptation to climate change impacts: The reality of climate change at the local level is placing a new priority on helping Americans understand and adapt to its impacts. The President should:

• Issue an Executive Order requiring all federal agencies to report on the potential impacts of climate change on their areas of responsibility.
• Increase investment in regional climate change assessments and update regional scientific assessments on vulnerability.
• Restore the “Mission to Planet Earth” as a NASA priority and invest in our capacity to monitor the changing  climate.
• Direct the Secretaries of Commerce, Interior and the EPA Administrator to provide needed information on climate change impacts to the American public through an initial pilot project on water resources.

Enable and encourage citizens to build efficiency and conservation in their Homes and Communities: The next President has the opportunity to mobilize the American public to be more energy efficient in their homes and communities, the most effective strategy for cutting energy bills and greenhouse gas emissions. The President should:

• Initiate a national effort to retrofit half of America’s homes and buildings by 2020 with average energy savings of 30%.
• Support a fundamental change in electric utility rules that creates incentives for electric utility companies to help building owners save energy.
• Call for the establishment of local energy committees across the United States, and direct EPA and DOE to assist local efforts to increase efficiency with information and technical support.

Re-engage cooperation with international partners: Climate change cannot be solved without U.S. leadership for a global response that engages key countries. The President should:

• Direct the Special Envoy on Climate Change to consult with key nations.
• Declare a change in U.S. policy, the centerpiece of which is the commitment to enact a mandatory domestic  emissions reduction program.
• Act early to engage developing countries through bilateral and collective efforts to reduce emissions.
• Initiate or expand practical emissions reductions efforts in which other nations can participate, such as the Methane to Markets Partnership and a cooperative effort to reduce short-lived climate forcing pollutants in the Arctic.
• Fully engage in the U.N.-based international negotiating process.

The premier holiday of the summer symbolizes more than a time for grilling, fireworks and road trips and just general fun stuff!

The 4th of July is widely acknowledged as “THE Summer Holiday” here in the United States. The traditional events of the day are well enshrined in our popular culture. People are planning big family cookouts, grilling, barbecuing, pool parties, sports events of all kinds- baseball, soccer, softball, badminton, volleyball, swimming, bicycling and small and super fireworks displays – all typical holiday celebration activities.

Yet there is far more to this holiday of holidays, this one uniquely American blowout. Sacrifices have been made that allow us to engage in these festivities. The lives which have been been laid down that allow us these exercises of indulgence also need to be acknowledged. There are so many individual sacrifices that have occurred in the course of our history that have received little, if any, recognition. What follows is a somewhat skewered collection of notable moments that have added to our American story.

From the early settlement attempts in the colonies to the successful establishments of Plymouth Colony, Virginia Colony and Charleston, South Carolina, Native Americans aided settlers in a myriad of ways. With the turf wars of the French, Spanish and English, lives were upended with sometimes tragic results, many Northeast tribes lost their ancestral lands and independence.

The continued advance of the emerging nation came at the expense of the native people who already resided in these fertile soils. As the American nation continued to grow and expand, the Native American peoples found themselves at odds with the European settlers. The western expansion saw former slaves and freedmen serving in the segregated US Army Cavalry. These men served proudly facing hostile Native Americans, segregation and racial prejudice and hatred from within the Army structure itself as well as the settlers and townspeople they guarded and escorted to and on the western frontier.

From Crispus Attucks falling in the opening volley in the preclude of the American Revolution, through the full blown agony of the Civil War, or as some would call it, The War Between the States, to the sacrifices made by the brave and gallant men Native Americans called “Buffalo Soldiers” in opening up the American Western Frontier, to the many who came forward in World War I and again in World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam. Even now Afghanistan and Iraq claim American military servicemembers lives on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Significant achievements are lost in the haze of our smoke-filled celebratory night skies and patriotic band music.

Here then are a few of the little notes which have also played a part in America’s story and should be honored:

From the very start, Native Americans did not reject the new arrivals upon their shore, those New World colonists who would decimate their world, population and culture in later years to come. Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery Expedition was greatly enhanced by their guide, Sacajawea, the Native American woman of the Lemhi Shosone nation.

Africans brought to this country as human chattel became skilled craftsmen and professionals and built much of America’s treasures. Even before slavery, Chicago and Washington D.C. were both designed by skilled engineers who were of African descent. Many scientific advances which have greatly improved and enhanced our lives can be traced back to African Americans:

• George Washington Carver and his myriad of inventions from peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans and pecans include a rubber substitute, adhesives, foodstuffs, dyes, pigments, and many other products;
• Dr. Charles R. Drew and his advances in plasma led to today’s storage of blood and use of plasma;
• Elijah McCoy, a mechanical engineer and inventor, invented the steam engine lubricator, air-brakes for trains, and an automatic train coupler. His high-quality inventions were the source of the expression ‘the real McCoy’, meaning the real, authentic, or high-quality thing;
• George Crum invented the potato chip;
• Garrett Morgan invented the gas mask and the traffic signal light.

Despite Hollywood’s depiction to the opposite, America’s wars have seen her all of people step forward. Native Americans and African Americans, and other minorities have all fought for this nation and shed their blood. During World War II, the language of the Native Americans became a tool of the war, the “Wind Talkers” used their native language as code to confound the Japanese as they relayed instructions and battlefield information by radio.

Guion Bluford (l) became NASA’s first African American astronaut, and Mae Jemison (r) became the first African American female astronaut. Fred Gregory was the first African-American Space Shuttle pilot. Gregory also became the first African-American to command a spaceflight when he led the STS-33 mission of Discovery in 1989. After his third and final flight in 1991, Gregory has worked his way up through the management at NASA to become Deputy Administrator. Since 2005, he has served as NASA’s Chief Administrator, leading our nation’s space flight program.

Among NASA’s greatest heroes is astronaut Mike Anderson, (l) who perished in February 2003 in the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia on its STS-107 mission. Anderson was serving as the payload commander on the mission, his second spaceflight, when the Shuttle and its seven member crew was lost during re-entry.

America’s story is best reflected through the lives of those not so celebrated but noteworthy for their individual achievements. As such, may we offer Lt. Emily Perez for your reflection. This West Point Graduate was the first African American female to achieve the rank of Corps Command Sergeant Major. She served in Iraq, where she died in service to her country.

As we rejoice and celebrate this holiday weekend, let us be mindful that America’s story truly is a tapestry of many colors, colors that are not monotone, but vivid and diverse. Let us be mindful that truly, “This land is your land, This land is my land. This land was made for you and for me!”

It’s past time to look at all the pages of America’s family album!

Wherry began June 3 at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. On Sept. 2, he will begin the fall semester at NASA’s Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., and remain there until Dec. 12. During the Langley internship, Wherry will work with atmospheric scientist Mike Pitts, whose research focuses on the formation and evolution of polar stratospheric clouds using data known as CALIPSO.

Langley Research Center has a new atmospheric trajectory model that staff would like to use to study how the clouds form and evolve with time. Wherry will help the center run the computer models for a number of different scenarios and possibly interface the model with the CALIPSO measurements. Wherry will return to APSU for the Spring 2009 semester.

Students and mentors in the Governor’s School for Computational Physics being held for the next five weeks at Austin Peay State University talk on the first day of the school June 1. This is APSU’s first Governor’s School.

“The students selected for this program are very impressive,” said Dr. Jaime Taylor, professor of physics and interim dean of the College of Science and Mathematics. “They want to learn, and they are quick-minded.”The Governor’s School in Computational Physics was approved late last summer, long after other Governor’s Schools had begun recruiting for their Summer 2008 programs. Despite this disadvantage, APSU’S Governor’s School received about 100 applications.

Funded by the state, Governor’s Schools are designed for gifted high school students with each school providing challenging, intensive learning experiences in specific disciplines. The Governor’s School in Computational Physics is APSU’s first Governor’s School.

From these applications, only 36 students were selected for the five-week Governor’s School at APSU. Among those 36, eight of the students attending the Governor’s School at APSU this summer are No. 1 in their class, and three rank No. 2 in their class.

Computational physics combines physics, computer science and applied mathematics to provide scientific solutions to complex problems. Taking two intensive courses, participants will earn eight hours of college credit and will take trips to such computational research centers as Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s National Center for Computational Sciences and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

Austin Peay’s department of physics and astronomy, one of the first in the U.S. to implement a required course in Computation Methods, has earned a reputation for recruiting, retaining and placing students in prestigious fellowships, assistantships and doctoral programs. In 1999, the department had nine majors. By 2005-06, it had more than 60 majors.