Some of the best materials going are in Nature, and NASA knows this. So the agency announced today the creation of a new consortium of institutions to develop Space Age materials that mimic structural and self-repairing properties of plants and animals.

The Institute for Biologically Inspired Materials consists of Princeton University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Northwestern University, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and ICASE, a research institute operated at the NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia.

"It's a rather ambitious thing to design materials that can not only recognize when they've been damaged but can indicate the exact site and take steps to repair it. In a sense it's at the fringes of science fiction," said Ed Samulski, who leads the team at the University of North Carolina. "These so-called 'self-healing' materials could be critical to space exploration, because a meteor particle even as small as a grain of sand could puncture the hull of existing space vehicles."

One goal: A spacecraft's skin that could send warnings about defects and then repair them and report the results. Now if they could only develop a similar product for the economy.

A decision may be soon made to abort the mission and either wait for May 2003 in the same locale - or consider other launch sites. More about Fournier's effort

The Beagle 2 Mars lander risks missing its lift to Mars next May or June aboard the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft. Officials worry the lander, being built by the British, won't be ready in time.

David Southwood, ESA's director of science, barked this week that Mars Express would take off on time regardless, according to the BBC. Colin Pillinger, who heads the Beagle team, said the crew is doing "everything in our power to make sure we don't miss the schedule."

Mini-Astronotes: Lance "I Still Wanna Fly" Bass will resume cosmonaut training at Russias Star City complex next week, according to MSNBC and unnamed sources today. One thing Bass still lacks: a ticket, according to our sister publication, Space News, which also reports today that Bass pays up!]. The Autumnal Equinox occurs at 12:55 a.m. EDT (4:55 UTC) on Monday, Sept. 23. What is it? Find out in our Space Calendar or in this week's Spacewatch column about the Harvest Moon.

Subtle hints abound that somebody from outside traditional astronaut/cosmonaut programs is going to go to space before long, as part of a deal between Russians who control flights aboard the Soyuz taxi and, possibly, Pepsi. It has become impossible to separate fact from rumor as several publications quote unnamed sources in an effort to figure out what's really going on behind the scenes.

Lance Bass, the pop singer, was completely out of the picture but might now be back in it. He's hanging out in Russia, for sure, hoping he'll still get a trip into orbit. Pepsi may be involved in that deal. MTV News yesterday said a source says Bass will resume training near Moscow on Wednesday, thanks to a sponsorship deal with Pepsi that's about to be finalized. All this makes it seem more likely that Pepsi has been behind Bass all along.

If Bass were to go, his flight would be in October or April, though a deal to put him in space next month would be surprising given the short time frame. Meanwhile, Pepsi remains tight-lipped on reports that it's negotiating for a Soyuz seat that would be given to a TV game show contestant.

One thing is certain: The Russians need big money (from Bass, Pepsi or someone) to keep their Soyuz fleet going, and this fact is likely to seed opportunities for an increasing number of future space tourists. Space Tourism Special Section

An attempt Tuesday morning to set a world's record for human free-fall was aborted due to ground weather and a high-altitude jet stream. Another attempt could occur Wednesday.

Frenchman Michel Fournier is ready to attempt a "Super Jump" -- the highest parachute jump from some 25 miles (40 kilometers) altitude. A 35-person team is involved in the project in Canada, with a 20-30 percent chance of a launch on Wednesday. A weekend attempt was also canceled.

Fournier must avoid a strong jet stream, a condition that could make the skydiver start to tumble, spin and lose consciousness. Should this happen, body sensors and a camera trained on the skydiver's eyeballs will immediately inform ground control, and his primary chute will open. "Michel is in good spirits," said John de Nugent. "It all comes down now to good meteorological mojo." More about Fournier's effort

In two new scientific papers that most of us can't begin to fully comprehend, Stanford physicists resurrect an old idea and say the universe may reverse its expansion and collapse in a grand crunch 10 to 20 billion years from now. Our fate at stake, we looked into this.

About four years ago, astronomers were surprised to learn that the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing pace. Many gradually took this to mean that the expansion would go on forever and our Milky Way would become a dark island, alone but at least still around. No one knows why the rate of expansion is accelerating, and a mysterious force called dark energy has been blamed.

But Andrei Linde and Renata Kallosh, a husband and wife team, say the latest and best attempts to describe dark energy predict that it will gradually become negative, which will cause the universe to become unstable, then collapse.

"The universe may be doomed to collapse and disappear," Linde says. "Everything we see now, and at a much larger distance that we cannot see, will collapse into a point smaller than a proton. Locally, it will be the same as if you were inside a black hole. You will just discontinue your existence."

We've never been inside a black hole, but it sounds like a good argument for enjoying the present.

"By studying how the worms produce different levels of proteins that help the tiny organisms cope with high-G situations, we think we eventually can develop treatments, perhaps even oral drugs, for astronauts to serve as countermeasures to problems due to weightlessness," says Catharine Conley, a biologist who heads up the study from NASA's Ames Research Center. More Space Age Medicine

Dying to go to space but don't have $20 million? Come Oct. 25, twelve bucks will get you into the newly renovated Fels Planetarium at the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia. What you'll get: daily views of the night sky, 3-D images of the Sun, Moon, and planets, and Space Command, an interactive exhibit set up to resemble a space station with training centers, mission simulations, and a satellite-based device that allows visitors to view their homes from space.

The museum will also show the IMAX film Space Station, the first cinematic journey to the International Space Station. As an unrelated bonus, Philly cheesesteaks are within walking distance. And there's that old, broken bell a short taxi ride away.

September 16

Pepsi-Cola Co. is working on a promotional deal that would culminate in a free ride aboard the Russian Soyuz space taxi, according to an article on AdAge.com today.

The deal, reportedly worth $35 million, involves Pepsi's effort to secure a $15 million seat on the craft. The rest of the money would go toward promoting the arrangement, possibly including a game show of some sort, AdAge says, quoting unnamed sources close to the deal. The promotion would run through 2003 and possibly beyond.

There's some relevant history here: PepsiCo paid Russia to float a can of its soft drink outside the now-gone Mir space station. Russia also once put the logo of Pizza Hut on one of its rockets. The new purported plan comes just as Russia canned the flight of pop star Lance Bass.

An attempt by Michel Fournier over the weekend to set a free-fall record in a so-called "Super Jump" was thwarted by unfavorable upper stratospheric conditions. Jet stream activity over Saskatchewan, Canada became unpredictable.

The 58-year old Fournier must go through a process that removes nitrogen from his blood, to avoid getting the "bends" on re-entry through the atmosphere. It is a very physically painful four-hour job using pure oxygen to drive out the gas. Despite this ordeal in getting ready nearly every day, Fournier and his sky diving team will continue preparing for the jump throughout this week.

The goal is to achieve the highest parachute jump, from some 25 miles (40 kilometers) altitude. The aeronaut will ascend to jump height in a balloon-carried pressurized capsule. He will then free fall for over six minutes, breaking the sound barrier in the fall toward Earth. More about Fournier's effort

Jeremy Munday and Bill Robertson of Middle Tennessee State University say they've made electrical signals go four times faster than light over a distance just larger than a football field using $500 worth of off-the-shelf equipment that took 40 minutes to set up. Other scientists had previously accomplished a similar task over just a few yards (meters) with expensive gear.

The researchers combined two waves to generate an interference in a pulse of energy, according to an article in New Scientist magazine. Peaks reflect off each other, propelling one forward at a faster pace.

The peak moves faster than light speed, but the total energy of the pulse does not, so Einstein is still right. Unfortunately, that means no immediate prospects for time travel. The work might help improve computers and telecommunication, however, by taking the speed of signals in wires -- typically about 50 percent the speed of light -- and raising it closer to the magical threshold.

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