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Iowa native dismisses report he may go to moon

May 4, 2009 By

Jim Kelly A reputable magazine has published a list of astronauts it says are likely to be destined for the moon, a list that includes an Iowan.

Air & Space Smithsonian lists about a dozen astronauts who are contenders for NASA’s next big mission to the Earth’s nearest neighbor.

Burlington native Jim Kelly says he’s seen the article that carries his name and picture and if he’s going to the moon, it’s news to him.

“I don’t know where that came from,” Kelly says. “Certainly, nothing official has come to me. As a matter of fact, not just that, but there’s no way we would have chosen people for that yet anyway. We’re still talking about six years off with a lot of changes and we’ve got a lot of stuff happening before then. At this point, we haven’t even assigned the initial group of people that are going to be trained to go fly.”

The 44-year-old Kelly has flown two space shuttle missions, both as the pilot of Discovery, in 2001 and 2005. He does not yet have his third flight assignment. While he’d love to be assigned to Project Orion, he says he’s likely not in the space agency’s plans for the moon, Mars and beyond.

“When I first came (to NASA), I was all fired up about it, thinking that we’d be able to do that faster than we have,” Kelly says. “When I caught fire from the space program as a kid watching the initial moon landing, I naturally assumed back then that we’d just keep doing it so it’s surprising to me still that it’s going to take so long to get back there, but at this point, I’m probably not in the plans for the moon.”

Virtually everyone has heard the historic recording of what Neil Armstrong said as he first stepped on the moon in July of 1969 — “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” Kelly was asked if he had ever pondered what he would say if he ever got the chance to walk on the moon.

“Never,” Kelly says, laughing. “Nope, that’s not something that ever occurred to me, to think about that kind of stuff. It would be far more interesting what you were going to do there than what you were going to say there, probably.” Under the current timeline, Orion is to start flying in about six years with Americans perhaps again making bootprints in moondust by 2020.

AUDIO: Radio Iowa’s Matt Kelley reports on astronaut Jim Kelly. :47 MP3

Filed Under: Human Interest Tagged With:

Assaults on CR police officers up over last year

May 4, 2009 By

A Cedar Rapids police officer answering a call about loud music was assaulted this weekend, suffering cuts and bruises on his face. Department spokesperson, Cristy Hamblin says there’s been a disturbing trend as this was the 18th assault on an officer this year.

Hamblin says every assault on an officer is a concern, but they are now above the number of assaults from last year and that’s "a bigger concern."  She says the department is looking at how they approach things and what they can do differently to try and avoid assaults. Hamblin says the department has been more aware of the potential for assaults recently after officer Tim Davis was badly beaten and had life-threatening injuries.

Hamblin says that adds another "fear factor" for officers as she says officer Davis’ injuries were about as serious as you can get without the officer dyeing. Officer Davis is now in the midst of a slow recovery from his injuries, and the officer injured this weekend, Lucas Liddle, is also recovering. Hamblin says there seems to be a lack of respect in society that is part of the reason for the assaults.

Hamblin says when she was growing up you respected teachers, parents and police officers, and never spoke back to them out of respect. Hamblin says it’s scary that the amount of respect has declined and she says everyone needs to be held accountable. Hamblin says police officers are held accountable for how they do their job and the public has to be held accountable too.

Five people were arrested in connection with the assault on the officer this weekend, including 19-year-old Jacob Boots, who was charged with interference,assault on a police officer with injury and disorderly conduct.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Culver traveling to tout "I-JOBS" projects

May 4, 2009 By

Governor Culver is making stops in Cedar Rapids, Dubuque and Davenport today, to tout some of the projects that will get financed by the $830 million borrowing plan he pushed legislators to approve late last month.

During remarks this morning in Cedar Rapids, Culver told area residents they’ll get $5 million to help rebuild the Cedar Rapids Library. "Five million more will be for the…city public works building. We’ll have an opportunity to replace that," Culver told a small crowd.

He continued reading from a list of projects: "Ten million dollars for the Czech Museum, direct assistance."

Early this afternoon Culver stopped at an historic building in Dubuque to tout new state tax credits for preservation of historic properties. At 3:30, Culver is due to speak at an event staged on a railroad loading dock in Davenport to tout the creation of a state fund the governor says will help bring passenger rail service to parts of eastern Iowa.

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters, Politics & Government, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , ,

State government’s top doctor provides H1N1 update

May 4, 2009 By

State epidemiologist Patricia Quinlisk (file photo) The top doctor in state government says the governor declared a public health emergency in Iowa this weekend so plans could be put in place to deal with what might turn out to be a big outbreak of the flu.

But Dr. Patricia Quinlisk, the state epidemiologist, admits there still is just one confirmed case of H1N1 flu in Iowa.

"To be honest, the declaration of the public health emergency is done to allow us to do several things as far as sort of technicalities and administration and getting some of the legal things taken care of," Quinlisk says. "So it’s done not so much because of what’s really happening, but just because it allows us to get prepared for what might happen in the future."

The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta is where all the testing’s done to confirm cases of this new strain of the flu, and Quinlisk says because of the backlog, there are likely more "probable" cases of H1N1 in Iowa than the one that’s been confirmed.

"I don’t like going and looking at the numbers because the numbers are changing sometimes almost by the hour…I don’t want to play a numbers game. I think the bottom line is we are seeing cases in Iowa," Quinlisk says. "We know that we have spread of the virus in Iowa and we need to make sure everyone in Iowa understands that we need every person to do their bit in trying to keep this under control."

According to Quinlisk, it will be "relatively soon" — perhaps "a week or so" — before public health officials can determine the severity of this new virus.

"We’re watching it very, very closely to see if it becomes a virus where it is causing more severe illness or whether what we continue to see is this sort of mild to moderate illness with very few hospitalizations and deaths. It that continues, it may turn out that this is similar to seasonal flu or least a bad season of seasonal flu," Quinlisk says. "…I think it’s a little bit premature to say exactly what we’re going to see because we’re still quite early in the stages of this outbreak."

Quinlisk says every public health agency in Iowa has been planning "for years" for a pandemic, and she’s been pleased with the way those plans have been followed.

"When we’re dealing with a totally new virus, we don’t know how bad it’s going to be and so we’re usually very aggressive when we’re first trying to deal with it just in case it turns out to be a bad player," Quinlisk says. "Then if it turns out to be not such of a bad player, we heave a sigh of relief and go back to normal."

Quinlisk made her comments today during an appearance on the Iowa Public Radio program, "Talk at 12."

According to a news release issued this morning by the Iowa Department of Public Health, there are seven "probable" cases of H1N1 in Iowa, in addition to the  one confirmed case. 

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters, Health & Medicine, Politics & Government

NW IA mailbox vandals caught by cell phone

May 4, 2009 By

A group of young men from northwest Iowa who apparently went on a small-scale vandalism spree Friday night face charges after one of them made it rather easy for authorities to track him down.

One of four people charged with vandalizing several mailboxes in Sioux County over the weekend made it easy for authorities to contact him. He left his cell phone at the scene of one vandalized mailbox.

Authorities investigated several mailbox vandalism incidents in the Sioux Center area Saturday morning that occured during the overnight hours. That investigation led to the arrests of 20-year-old Austin Feekes, 19-year-old Adam Hoogendoorn, 18-year-old Caleb Faber and 19-year-old Joseph Vanderbrink. All are from Rock Valley and all four have been charged with fifth degree criminal mischief.

That’s a simple misdemeanor and each the four could face up to a month in jail and a fine of at least $50 or as much as $500.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Marshalltown students will have to make up days missed for H1N1 outbreak

May 4, 2009 By

The Marshalltown School District has shut down all school buildings for this week after six probable cases of the H1N1 virus were discovered. While it’s a public health emergency, Iowa Department of Education spokesperson, Elaine Watkins-Miller, says these aren’t free days off for the kids.

Watkins-Miller says since they are shutting down all the schools in the district, they will have to make the days up to comply with the state law that requires 180 days of instruction. She says the district will have some options for making up the days. She says there are some options, but those missed days are typically added on to the end of the school year.

Schools that have missed several days for snowy weather have made up the difference by adding hours to the school day — which is one of the other options. Watkins-Miller says the leaders in the school district were the ones who made the decision to cancel classes — but they had help.

Watkins-Miller says it was a local decision, but they did work with the Education Department, Department of Public Health, and the local health department in making the decision. Watkins-Miller says the shutdown will disrupt the education process, but she says the health concerns overrode the instructional concerns in this case. She says the students will get caught up as the district will make up the days.

Watkins-Miller says this also provides a great opportunity for parents to read to kids, or to have the kids read themselves to keep the learning process going at home. State officials received confirmation of the first case of the N1H1 virus in Iowa Saturday, this weekend and the governor declared a public health emergency to make the state eligible for federal resources to help fight the outbreak.

Filed Under: Education, Health & Medicine

DNR looking for more input on water quality

May 4, 2009 By

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is asking for more public input before lowering water quality standards for more than a hundred streams statewide. After conducting field assessments, the D.N.R. determined 119 streams in 58 counties don’t deserve to be classified as fishable and swimable.

That classification demands higher environmental protections under the federal clean water act. Susan Heathcote, water program director for the Iowa Environmental Council, says she worries the D.N.R is giving up on some streams that could be improved.

"We’re looking at not just trying to assess the actual current uses of streams but assess what uses are attainable if the water quality was improved," Heathcote says. "Because some streams people don’t recreate in because they’re already polluted."

She says many of these streams are downriver from waste water treatment plants that would have to adopt new disinfection practices if the streams are classified as fishable and swimable. Heathcote says local residents need to speak out if they disagree with the D.N.R.’s plans.

"When the D.N.R. does the assessment, they typically go out to the site for a single visit," she says. "They only see what is a snapshot and local people obviously visit their streams more frequently than that and they would have a better knowledge of what types of activities are taking place in those streams."

Heathcote says Iowans have until May 20th to contact the state about a stream in their area. The D.N.R. has a list of the waterways on its website   or you can see a map of the streams on the Iowa Environmental Council’s website .

 

Filed Under: Environment & Conservation Tagged With:
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