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- Written by: Lake County News reports
WASHINGTON, DC – NASA's EPOXI mission spacecraft successfully flew past comet Hartley 2 Thursday morning, and scientists say initial images from the flyby provide new information about the comet's volume and material spewing from its surface.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said images taken and other science collected should help reveal new insights into the origins of the solar system as scientists pore over them in the months and years to come.
“This mission represents one of NASA's most successful deep space exploration projects,” Bolden said.
Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington, D.C., said of the flyby, “This was really an exploration moment, seeing something no one on Earth had ever seen before.”
EPOXI principal investigator Michael A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, College Park, said early observations of the comet show that, for the first time, scientists may be able to connect activity to individual features on the nucleus.
“We certainly have our hands full. The images are full of great cometary data, and that's what we hoped for,” A'Hearn said.
EPOXI is an extended mission that uses the already in-flight Deep Impact spacecraft. Its encounter phase with Hartley 2 began at 4 p.m. EDT on Nov. 3, when the spacecraft began to point its two imagers at the comet's nucleus. Imaging of the nucleus began one hour later.
The comet zoomed past the spacecraft at a relative speed of more than 27,000 miles per hour, NASA reported.
“The spacecraft has provided the most extensive observations of a comet in history,” said Weiler. “Scientists and engineers have successfully squeezed world class science from a re-purposed spacecraft at a fraction of the cost to taxpayers of a new science project.”
Images from the EPOXI mission reveal comet Hartley 2 to have 100 times less volume than comet Tempel 1, the first target of Deep Impact. More revelations about Hartley 2 are expected as analysis continues.
Initial estimates indicate the spacecraft was about 435 miles from the comet at the closest-approach point. That's almost the exact distance that was calculated by engineers in advance of the flyby.
“It is a testament to our team's skill that we nailed the flyby distance to a comet that likes to move around the sky so much,” said Tim Larson, EPOXI project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. “While it's great to see the images coming down, there is still work to be done. We have another three weeks of imaging during our outbound journey.”
Said Bolden, “EPOXI is a wonderful example of the strong collection of NASA science missions we have coming up in the next few years that will enable us to visit destinations across the solar system in new and exciting ways, look through new windows out across our vast cosmos, and expand our understanding of our own home planet. Our increased investment in science will continue to yield valuable dividends for the future.”
The name EPOXI is a combination of the names for the two extended mission components: the Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh), and the flyby of comet Hartley 2, called the Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI).
The spacecraft has retained the name Deep Impact. In 2005, Deep Impact successfully released an impactor into the path of comet Tempel 1.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the EPOXI mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
The spacecraft was built for NASA by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colo.
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- Written by: Tom Philpott
If past budget requests are any guide, going back deep into the George W. Bush’s presidency, then higher TRICARE fees could be sought anew and perhaps now a more deficit-conscious Congress will be receptive.
But in phone interview, Taylor, who serves temporarily as the Defense Department’s top health official, mostly discussed higher priorities, for both him and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, including sustaining wartime medical support, improving wounded warrior care and coordinating better delivery of services across the $50 billion-a-year military health system.
Intentionally or not, Taylor’s list of top challenges, and impressive recent advances to help the wounded, made the prospect of unfreezing beneficiary fees for the first time since 1995 seem almost incidental.
The health system’s top priority, said Taylor, is ensuring that fighting forces have the medical teams on scene that they need – properly equipped, properly staffed and with the most advanced technology and procedures available anywhere. The result is surviving what was once unsurvivable.
A second priority is that warriors get the best possible care to recover from injuries, particularly lost limbs, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder – the signature injuries of current wars.
For amputees, Taylor noted the extraordinary gains in prosthetics but also in the work of the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine and partners like Wake Forest University so that, perhaps within a decade or even five years, they “can actually build new fingers and new ears, new noses and new toes, new feet and, eventually, new legs.”
Meanwhile, field-level policies have been changed to better protect those exposed to bomb blasts, so all receive medical evaluations after an incident and are not returned to the fight with undetected injuries.
Research is advancing to find biomarkers to detect brain injury. DoD and VA continue to partner on psychological health issues, exploring alternative therapies and more effective clinical guidelines to PTSD.
Several thousand behavioral health specialists have been hired into the military direct care system and they partner routinely with civilian mental health experts.
Taylor, a retired three-star officer and former Air Force surgeon general, is deputy assistant secretary for force health protection and readiness.
But until Congress confirms Dr. Jonathan Woodson, Obama’s nominee to be assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, Taylor is performing those duties. So he is DoD’s top health official and Gates’ principal health advisor on health budget and policy including TRICARE.
On whether higher TRICARE fees are in the offing, Taylor said, “Every year for most of the years I’ve been around, the department has proposed changes to the benefit structure.”
Congress has blocked most attempts to raise out-of-pocket TRICARE costs, even for working-age retirees and their families. But some key lawmakers are signaling it may be time to allow at least modest fee hikes.
At a Sept. 28 armed services committee hearing, ranking Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona seemed to be setting the table, asking Deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn, “Isn’t the biggest cost escalation to DoD today in health care?”
Lynn conceded medical is the “largest account … growing at a substantial pace” and that in “the fiscal year 2012 budget I think we will be proposing to Congress some ideas about how to restrain health care costs.”
Pressed by McCain, Lynn agreed health costs are growing “dramatically,” in some recent years by 10 percent or higher.
That same day, at a breakfast meeting with reporters, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, called rising health care costs “unsustainable” and said, after 15 years, it’s time to raise TRICARE fees.
A few days later the Office of Personnel Management announced health insurance premiums paid by federal civilian workers and retirees will jump in 2011 an average of 7.2 percent. That could apply more political pressure on Congress to accept some sort of TRICARE fee increase.
What might be proposed for the fiscal 2012 budget is still “in department negotiations,” Taylor said. He said he doesn’t yet know what DoD will sign out, or what the White House will accept.
“It’s quite possible the budget won’t contain any benefit changes,” Taylor said. Or “in terms of the core enrollment benefit, it could be that it will contain some pharmacy benefit changes.”
Taylor noted that Gates is “very well on record that health care costs are eating us alive and we need to do something about it. There are only limited things you can do … You can decrease the total number of people that you have; you can change the benefit; you can change the use [of it] and, lastly, the actual technology or state of medicine.”
Looking at past proposals to raise health fees and co-payments, the most successful and accepted have sought to change patient behavior, he said, specifically the tiered co-payments adopted for the pharmacy benefit.
Patients pay higher co-pays today if they fill prescriptions in the TRICARE retail network where a 90-day supply costs TRICARE an average of $294. Lower co-pays are set for TRICARE’s mail order program, now called “home delivery.”
A 90-day supply of mail-order drugs costs TRICARE an average of $169, or 42 percent less than the neighborhood drug store.
Similarly, patients who use generic rather than brand name drugs see even lower co-payments.
The tiered structure for pharmacies changed behavior without “impeding the benefit,” Taylor said. “So we continue to explore those kinds of options.”
The new goal for TRICARE pharmacy plan is to more than double usage of home delivery so 500,000 prescriptions are filled by mail each week. The potential yearly savings would be $238 million, Taylor said.
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- Written by: Lake County News reports
The County of Lake Information Technology Department is seeking photographs for the digital portal to Lake County government – www.co.lake.ca.us – that will highlight the best of our environs.
High-resolution digital photos will be rotated each day as the backdrop on the county Web site, showcasing the various amenities of the area where we work, live, and recreate.
Photos must be digital, in a .JPG, .TIFF, or .PNG format, with dimensions of 1400 x 450 pixels or larger.
The person submitting the photo must have all rights to the photo, and sign a statement to that affect.
No financial compensation will be provided by the county of Lake for use of photo, but the photographer will be credited on the county of Lake Web site.
If you would like to submit a photo or have questions, send an email to
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
LAKEPORT, Calif. – On its busiest night of the year, the Lake County Registrar of Voters Office had a frustrating encounter with Murphy's Law.
Just a few hours past the 8 p.m. closing of the county's 53 precincts Tuesday night, two of the county's three voting machines jammed. Cleaning them didn't work, Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley reported on KPFZ Tuesday night.
Fridley said she said she and her staff were able to rely on a third machine from the department's store room in order to continue the count, which she said was going at about half speed.
In case it didn't work, she was prepared to borrow a machine from Sonoma County.
However, just after 1 a.m. Fridley's office released the preliminary results, with absentees and provisional ballots turned in on Tuesday yet to be counted during the 28-day election certification period.
The results tallied Tuesday night showed that, at least on the local level, voters chose challengers over incumbents, while Congressman Mike Thompson and state Assemblyman Wes Chesbro were returned to office, and Assembly member Noreen Evans won the state Senate seat currently held by Patricia Wiggins, who is retiring.
In the sheriff's race, Francisco Rivero received 8,102 votes or 53.9 percent of the vote, defeating 16-year incumbent Rod Mitchell, who had 6,919 votes, accounting for 46.1 percent of votes cast.
Don Anderson is projected to be the new district attorney, taking 7,597 votes or 53.3 percent of the vote compared to his opponent Doug Rhoades, who received 6,663 votes, or 46.7 percent.
Lake County News was unable to reach Rivero by phone early Wednesday morning, but spoke with Mitchell at close to 1 a.m.
Mitchell said it was just after midnight, when 50 percent of the results had been tallied, that he sought out Rivero at the Lake County Courthouse.
At that point he informed Rivero that he could begin the transition for his new administration as sheriff after Thanksgiving.
Mitchell, noting that he loves Lake County, said, “I owe it to the citizens to make sure that I facilitate as smooth a transition as possible.”
He said he hasn't thought about what he will do next, once his term runs out at the end of the year.
“There's too much to do right now in terms of getting ready for a new administration,” he said.
Because of the lateness of results being finalized, Lake County News will follow up with the rest of the candidates in the lead races later Wednesday.
Overall, voter turnout reported thus far was at 48.8 percent, with precinct ballots cast totaling 8,132, or 25 percent, compared to 7,749 absentees ballots, or 23.8 percent of the vote, according to the voting data released by Fridley's office.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
