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The latest generation Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, TDRS-K, updates existing technology with an eye to the future. New electronics and better power management will help extend the TDRS constellation for at least another decade, but NASA already is looking ahead to major changes in the system’s capabilities that would define the next-generation TDRS.

One day after unveiling a long-awaited executive order concerning a wide-range of cybersecurity concerns, President Barack Obama’s top cybersecurity advisers admit that the order only goes so far in dealing with pressing Internet security needs. They say that the order is only a “down payment” and no substitute for permanent congressional legislation on the matter.

“We cannot look back years from now and wonder why we did nothing in the face of real threats to our security and economy,” President Obama said in reference to his executive order and the urgency to act during his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night.

Michael Daniel, special assistant to the president and White House cybersecurity adviser, told reporters and congressional staffers at a Commerce Department briefing on Wednesday that the executive order, and a companion Presidential Policy Directive (PPD-21), “rest on three pillars”:

• Information sharing
• Privacy
• A framework of standards

Both documents build on numerous cybersecurity measures already in use within the government, dating back to Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7 (HSPD-7) signed during the previous Bush administration. Daniel describes the philosophy behind the most recent order as a “whole of government” approach designed to engage all agencies in a stepped-up effort to secure the nation’s digital infrastructure. In addition, Daniels says, the executive order reflects the work of “a number of other stakeholders,” primarily during last fall’s push to gain passage of comprehensive cybersecurity legislation on Capitol Hill.

Imagine a wire that can stretch eight to 10 times its original length and still send crystal clear audio from your music player to your earphones, or imagine accidentally cutting a cable to a tactical radio and repairing the cut just by physically putting the wires back together.

Those are just two of the many possible products that could result from materials science research now underway at North Carolina State University under the direction of Dr. Michael Dickey, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the university.

Both scientific developments are the result of separate but related avenues of scientific research into advanced materials, explains Dickey, who says much of the work has been conducted by graduate and undergraduate students. “They’re related in the sense that we’ve used some common materials, but they are two different projects,” he says.

“Both ideas are almost embarassingly simple,” Dickey goes on to relate. “What we’ve done is taken the architecture of a conventional wire, which is a metal core surrounded by a plastic casing, and we’ve done two things. We’ve replaced the plastic casing with an elastomeric polymer that’s more like a rubber band, so it's stretchable, and then for the core of the wire, we use a special liquid metal alloy.”

That alloy, made up of gallium and indium, is a liquid at room temperature but has a unique characteristic. “We can shape it because there’s an oxide ‘skin’ that forms on the metal. The best analogy I can use is a waterbed, which, in the absence of a plastic casing, would be a big puddle.”

Emergency responders working under U.S. Air Forces Europe are preparing to receive an advanced simulation trainer that they expect will greatly improve the realism and efficacy of their training. Though procured mainly for firefighters, the system can be employed to exercise many types of crisis situations. Other organizations around the world already are using it for different purposes while benefitting from one another’s efforts. Anytime one user makes an improvement, that knowledge is shared with everyone, creating a constantly evolving capability.

The Advanced Disaster Management Simulator (ADMS) will allow U.S. Air Forces Europe (USAFE) the opportunity to train more realistically on the task of putting out aircraft fires than current or previous tools, according to Master Sgt. Joey R. Meininger, USAF, the fire emergency services program manager for USAFE and Air Forces Africa. He explains that the system will allow personnel to see what happens when an aircraft goes ablaze, training them for events that planners cannot reproduce. With the ADMS, users can simulate all forms of response from the minute emergency personnel receive the call about the problem through the end of the programmed event, including simulating the experience of driving to the emergency location. Incident commanders can immediately see the various effects their decisions have on situations. Once the commander assigns tasks, personnel will perform their actions in the simulated environment, giving everyone a chance to observe how choices influence events. The system will record each piece of input to help determine whether or not decisions were correct.