Some countries are not known for being interested in the space program. They just go on their way with everyday life and apply their funds to other, domestic projects. There is certainly nothing wrong with this, if that is what a country chooses to do. Great Britain is one such country. They have, from time to time, shown some interest in space projects, but not really much in exploration on a governmental level. It seems that when they get near a vote on funding, they vote against spending the money that way. While we keep this in mind, we have to believe the statement that was made recently by a British space official, who played down reports that Britain is thinking about a moon mission. The director of space science stated that a moon mission would be the "most unlikely outcome" of any British planes for space. The statement was made at a workshop where over 170 scientists from all over Europe spoke about their work. The scientists were representing European and British space agencies. The BBC had reported on different proposals for two different space missions by Britain, they had been submitted to the funding body for British space exploration, they went on to say, "The UK could soon have its first mission to the moon, an orbiting spacecraft that would fire instruments into the lunar surface," Many in Britain just can't wait to get out there, but will there ever be funding approved for such research? If the government continues to take such a conservative view when it comes to space matters, the unfortunate answer may be no.

Did you know that 7/10ths of 1 percent of all Americans are in jail? That is 2,135,901 people. Some small countries have less of a population than that. The occupancy rate in our jails is about 108 percent. Did you ever wonder what the rate was for other countries, well wonder no more, here it is:

	Total Prison Population	% of the population	Jail occupancy %
China	1,548,500	.118	N/A
Russia	828,900	.581	79.5
Brazil	336,358	.183	182.7
India	322,357	.031	140.2
Mexico	201,940	.191	125.6
South Africa	156,175	.344	164.1
England/Wales	76,678	.143	108.9
Japan	76,413	.060	105.9

So what have we learned from this? Hey we have far too many people in jail, South Africa seems to not have enough jails as witnessed by their 164.1 occupancy rate and Japan seems to be doing something right with a rate of only .060. The other thing that I should mention is that this doesn't take into account those are are just executed instead of being put into jail.

Lasers are now being put into limited use to help with the radioactive waste problem. A discovery was made that when you use a 360J laser pulse you can transmute a radioactive isotope with a half life of an incredible 15+ million years to one that has a half life of only 25 minutes. This was demonstrated on iodine-129. The iodine-129 was changed into iodine-128 which becomes non radioactive in just a day or two. Can this technique be applied to other forms of radioactive material, I guess we will just have to wait and see. Science is finding out that lasers can do many different things, when it comes to working with radioactive isotopes. In 1999 nuclear fission was laser induced.by shooting a laser beam into Uranium 238.

For hundreds of years, astronomers have been reporting strange optical flares on the surface of the moon. What is actually happening is that a small part of the surface of the moon increases in brightness and blurs. There have been many guesses as to what is causing this phenomena that range from volcanic activity to luminescence. A new theory has recently been put forth and this one states that out gassing into the moon's outer areas of gas rich in radon is the cause. This conclusion was attained when a Columbia scientist correlated out gassing events with these events that scientists call TLPs. Apparently what astronomers are seeing is the gas lingering over a portion of the surface of the moon and that must reflect light in such a way as to make the surface seem brighter. This would also account for the blurriness of the view.

Every spring there are violent eruptions at the south polar cap of Mars. This has been of interest to many scientists. The eruption is caused by carbon dioxide gas as it warms and bursts through to the surface. As the gas erupts, it causes a dark material to fall back on to the surface of the planet. This material has puzzled scientists for many years. Scientists were surprised to find out that Mars is still an active planet. It has been thought that it was more of a dead planet, than anything else. If you were there, you'd be standing on a slab of carbon-dioxide ice," said Phil Christensen of Arizona State University, Tempe, principal investigator for Odyssey's camera. "All around you, roaring jets of carbon dioxide gas are throwing sand and dust a couple hundred feet into the air." The research began when a team of scientists began to investigate the dark spots on the surface of the planet.

Scientists in Hungary are studying strange particles that seem to be coming from a distant galaxy. These particles are not like the ordinary ones that are found in space. The scientists seem to think that the particles might be an indication of parallel dimensions. The particles are found around dense stars that have extreme gravity. The scientists think that there may be some connection to extreme gravity and the extra dimensions mentioned above and to this end are examining the Cygnus X-3 binary system, in which a normal star orbits a second object, generally thought to be a neutron star and where extreme gravity exists. The particles have been named cygnets. These particles are believed to strike the Earth's atmosphere and then change into Muons. If this turns out to be true, the cygnets will be the only known particle that have ever been able to survive a trip of 37,000 light years without decaying.