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  • Big day set for big-bang machine

    Michael Hoch / CERN
    The silicon tracker for one of the Large Hadron Collider's main detectors, the Compact Muon Solenoid, is installed in December 2007. The LHC's
    startup is now set for Sept. 10. Click on the image for a larger version.

    The countdown to the startup of the world's most powerful particle collider has begun with today's announcement that the first beam of protons will be sent all the way through the 17-mile-round Large Hadron Collider on Sept. 10.

    A key phase of the final preparations for the $10 billion project begins this weekend, when Europe's CERN particle-physics center begins testing the last links in the high-powered chain of magnets that will eventually send beams shooting through the collider's ring with the energy of a bullet train. During this weekend's tests, low-intensity protons will be injected into a small section of the collider and zip around one-eighth of the ring.

    The tests will grow in strength and complexity all the way up to "Red Button Day."

    If the schedule holds, the collider on the French-Swiss border will make a splash at 9 a.m. local time (3 a.m. ET) Sept. 10, a week after a federal judge in Hawaii begins hearing a motion to dismiss a civil lawsuit claiming that the device could destroy the world. Over the past few months, scientists at CERN (and the federal government) have laid out their case that a globe-gobbling catastrophe could never happen. Nevertheless, the court proceedings could provide a sideshow for the main event. Or they could be finished up by that time.

    Here's the relevant section from CERN's news release about the startup:

    "CERN has today announced that the first attempt to circulate a beam in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be made on 10 September. This news comes as the cooldown phase of commissioning CERN's new particle accelerator reaches a successful conclusion. Television coverage of the start-up will be made available through Eurovision.

    "The LHC is the world's most powerful particle accelerator, producing beams seven times more energetic than any previous machine, and around 30 times more intense when it reaches design performance, probably by 2010. Housed in a 27-kilometer tunnel, it relies on technologies that would not have been possible 30 years ago. The LHC is, in a sense, its own prototype.

    "Starting up such a machine is not as simple as flipping a switch.

    "Commissioning is a long process that starts with the cooling down of each of the machine's eight sectors. This is followed by the electrical testing of the 1,600 superconducting magnets and their individual powering to nominal operating current. These steps are followed by the powering together of all the circuits of each sector, and then of the eight independent sectors in unison in order to operate as a single machine.

    "By the end of July, this work was approaching completion, with all eight sectors at their operating temperature of 1.9 degrees above absolute zero (-271 degrees C). The next phase in the process is synchronization of the LHC with the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) accelerator, which forms the last link in the LHC's injector chain. Timing between the two machines has to be accurate to within a fraction of a nanosecond. A first synchronization test is scheduled for the weekend of 9 August, for the clockwise-circulating LHC beam, with the second to follow over the coming weeks. Tests will continue into September to ensure that the entire machine is ready to accelerate and collide beams at an energy of 5 TeV [trillion electron volts] per beam, the target energy for 2008. Force majeure notwithstanding, the LHC will see its first circulating beam on 10 September at the injection energy of 450 GeV (0.45 TeV).

    "Once stable circulating beams have been established, they will be brought into collision, and the final step will be to commission the LHC's acceleration system to boost the energy to 5 TeV, taking particle physics research to a new frontier.

    "'We're finishing a marathon with a sprint,' said LHC project leader Lyn Evans. 'It's been a long haul, and we're all eager to get the LHC research program under way.' ..."

    CERN then lays out the accreditation procedures for journalists wanting to cover the startup, and notes that the event will be Webcast as well.

    Red Button Day will be the big media day for the collider: The BBC, for example, plans to broadcast all day from CERN. However, it will take weeks more to get the proton beams in working order and bring collisions up to the 5 TeV level. That's why CERN has scheduled the big party for dignitaries (like French President Nicolas Sarkozy, for example) well after Red Button Day, on Oct. 21.

    The collider isn't expected to reach its full power of 14 TeV until 2009 or 2010. As I noted earlier this week, that could leave a window for Fermilab's Tevatron in Illinois to steal some of the LHC's thunder - perhaps by making the first detection of the Higgs boson, the last fundamental particle predicted by current theory that has not yet been found. The Higgs boson (a.k.a. "the God Particle") is thought to play a key role in determining the properties of particle mass.

    Even if the Tevatron finds the Higgs, it will be up to the LHC to study the particle in depth - and plumb other mysteries of the universe, ranging from the nature of dark matter and black holes to the possibility of extra dimensions in space.

    For further background on the LHC and other frontiers of physics, check out the following dispatches - and stay tuned for our upcoming big-picture look at the big-bang machine:

    Update for 3:30 p.m. ET: U.S. researchers involved in the LHC project are planning several media events to mark the LHC's first beam, including a "pajama party" at Fermilab. Check out this listing at the US/LHC Web site. 

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  • The latest Buzz from space

    TODAY
    Click for video: Buzz
    Aldrin on the TODAY show.

    There's a new Buzz on the big screen: No, it's not Buzz Lightyear in a "Toy Story" sequel. Instead, you'll see an animated version of Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin in the new 3-D children's movie, "Fly Me to the Moon."

    If anything, Aldrin gets even more animated in real life, particularly when he's talking about what he'd do to fix America's space program.

    Aldrin has to rank among the most visible and most traveled astronauts from the Apollo era: Just in the past week, he popped up at the Virgin Galactic rollout of SpaceShipTwo's mothership and on NBC's TODAY show as well as the New York and Los Angeles premieres of "Fly Me to the Moon."

    He's currently in talks for a movie based on his life story - and Aldrin's wife, Lois, thinks Reese Witherspoon would be the perfect actress to take on her role in the film. "Lois likes Reese Witherspoon because she played a similar part in [the Johnny Cash biopic] 'Walk the Line,'" Buzz Aldrin told reporters.

    Like Cash, Aldrin has faced his own demons, including bouts of depression and alcohol abuse in the wake of his flight to the moon in 1969. Aldrin and Neil Armstrong came under extra pressure because of their status as the first humans on the moon - and while Armstrong is dealing with the burden of fame by carefully guarding his privacy, Aldrin is dealing with it by immersing himself in public life.

    Nowadays his greatest passion is getting space exploration back on track, and he's come around to a view that's different from NASA's. When I called up Aldrin today to talk about the movie, which premieres Aug. 15, his perspective on exploration was the first thing we talked about.

    Here's an edited transcript of the Q&A:

    Cosmic Log: You have so many opportunities to meet with people and get your message out about space exploration - how do you choose what you're going to do, and what you just let pass?

    Aldrin: Well, I move with the flow. … Since our focus in exploration is on returning to the moon in preparation for further exploration to near-Earth objects, asteroids, moons of Mars and the surface of Mars, that'll keep us busy through a good bit of the first half of this century.

    The American people need to realize that exploration of space – particularly in things that the U.S. can do well, which is human exploration of space – is a worldwide indication of leadership that for historians stems way back to World War I, the intervening times, World War II, the Cold War, the "space race," the end of the Cold War and the era of permanence in space in low Earth orbit, exhibited by the international space station.

    Now there is a resurgence of exploration, hopefully leading toward a permanent growing colony on Mars – not necessarily the moon. That's dependent upon robotic advances and commercial activities on the moon. If commercial activities can pay for the habitation of humans on the moon, and pay for the necessity of having humans augmenting robots, then it'll lead to human occupancy of some number on the moon.

    Just as an aside, the moon is not a good place to set up housekeeping. Having been there for a brief stay, I can attest to the hazards of doing that, and the hazards of bureaucracies consuming U.S. taxpayer funds for something that may not be all that fruitful or rewarding to the United States.

    I have chosen to focus on specific 40th anniversaries of space activities, catching up with the beginnings of space exploration from Sputnik through Mercury and Gemini. There's the 50th anniversary of NASA and the 40th anniversary of the first manned Apollo flight in October. Then there is Apollo 8, 9 and then 10 in April, coinciding with Yuri's Night. I hope to rename that "Yuri, Al and John's Night," to commemorate Yuri Gagarin [the first human in space], Alan Shepard [the first American in space] and John Glenn [the first American in orbit].

    Then there's Apollo 11 and 12 to commemorate in Washington. And you have the individual missions on up through 2015, the 40th anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz mission. That hopefully fills the gap between retiring the space shuttle orbiter [in 2010] and the time when NASA will fly people in its next spacecraft, the Orion [in 2015].

    Q: That's a clever way to address NASA's spaceflight gap.

    A: Hopefully we will come up with some other ways to help fill the gap, so we won't have to be beholden to the Russians. In reviewing the Apollo flights, I find that there's a very interesting thread: From Mercury to Apollo we needed to have something in between to bridge the gap. The Gemini program was a very natural filler of the gap. … We filled the gap, and we had flexibility.

    Now, after Apollo, we didn't have a whole lot of flexibility when we were underfunded. It resulted in a big gap, even though we flew Skylab and we had Apollo-Soyuz. We were not as flexible as we should have been.

    Today, we are looking at another gap, and we need to fill the gap. We certainly need to be flexible, because we have two candidates for president, perhaps with somewhat differing objectives. … I'm trying to be a catalyst for a space transition advisory team.

    Q: With one campaign or the other?

    A: With both. I hope to be visiting both conventions along with a number of advocacy people, and I'm forming this team, hopefully around an organization that feels it doesn't have to wait until January to deal with everybody else who wants to bombard the new administration with their pet plans.

    Q: Are you working with an existing organization?

    A: Some of the think tanks are reluctant to take a position that runs counter to the "stay the course" option that exists now at NASA with regard to the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, called COTS – which involves private-sector stimulation -  and the Defense Department's EELV program. The Defense Department and NASA have had an atrocious record of trying to come together for unified efforts to support space activities.

    Maybe there are commercial interests who could stimulate the Commerce Department to step in and indicate a preference, in a way that the Defense Department or NASA might find inappropriate because of their previous commitments and programs.

    I'm quite sensitive to the fact that the Europeans have a ministerial meeting in November to decide the future of the European space program. They could decide whether they should support Russian programs to low Earth orbit or American programs. The Japanese have indicated the same preference as the Europeans, for a lifting body and a runway lander. I'm sure the Indians would like to not just duplicate the Chinese with a capsule lander, but would like something more advanced. Again, that would be a lifting body and a runway lander.

    That's what I feel we should have as a redundant spacecraft capability in the American space program – to be redundant to the Orion spacecraft and the launch vehicle to put it into orbit and carry it beyond.

    Q: That would be an area where you'd like to depart from the current course – because in the COTS program, both of the companies receiving NASA money are developing space capsules as well.

    A: You're very observant, following my well-chosen words. I'm quite aware that a number of years ago, the Russians had a design that they tested with scale models. We re-engineered and studied it and renamed it the HL-20. … My group of engineers thought it was very, very attractive, and together with Raytheon we were working on a proposal… It really surprised us when the upper management said they'd make no bid for COTS. …

    So I and my engineers searched around and looked for ways of teaming with different people. Initially it was not too satisfying to work with SpaceDev, but after a change of management, it became very appropriate. I've been pursuing that personally and somewhat organizationally ever since. I think that would be a very good alliance to work with, including foreign partners like ESA, JAXA and ISRO [the European, Japanese and Indian space agencies].

    I haven't taken steps yet, but hopefully the Commerce Department may choose to provide a preferential announcement. That would be kind of gutsy for somebody to do. … I think we need to fill the gap, and I'd sure like to see the gap filled early by a lifting body and a runway lander.

    Q: You've just laid out something that could be a life's work.

    A: Well, I'm 78. Lois keeps telling me that we're both going to make 100-plus somehow.

    nWave Pictures
    Apollo 11's crew members voyage through space in a scene from
    the animated 3-D movie "Fly Me to the Moon." Put on your red-
    blue glasses and click on the image for the 3-D effect.

    Q: Keeping your mind busy, which obviously you're doing, is a great way to do that. I'm keeping my mind busy thinking about how we can get into "Fly Me to the Moon."

    A: That's really easy, because the second part of the ShareSpace Foundation is to implement a "Buzz Prizes" opportunity for space exploration through a lottery. And the third part is education. …

    "Fly Me to the Moon" is like all these 40th anniversaries of Apollo, and the 50th anniversary of NASA, and the 60th anniversary of the Air Force. They are all public events stimulating interest. … I wrote a children's book called "Reaching for the Moon" three years ago, and it's doing very well. We are awaiting final production of "Look to the Stars," another children's book coming out in April. So I am quite involved in things that stimulate young people to look at the reality of history, and how well it was carried out in the past.

    Now we have a family-values, animated, exciting film coming out that portrays youthlike tendencies among fictitious insect characters … heh, heh. You can see that three flies stowing away on a spacecraft is the kind of adventurous spirit that young people have, which sometimes runs counter to what parents think they ought to be doing.

    I put my emphasis on renditions of the planets, narrated in an educational way with the latest that we know about planets and the solar system - for example, presenting what's being uncovered on Mars in a realistic way.

    I've taken it upon myself to convince people that after the first couple of preliminary missions to the moons of Mars, and maybe once to the surface of Mars, we should accumulate a population on Mars from each and every human mission that goes there. This is a kind of one-way trip, counting on future breakthroughs to bring people back in their retirement days for a reunion with their families and friends. I really think that that's the economic way to establish a colony living off the land on Mars.

    Q: That parallels the way the New World was settled by the Europeans.

    A: The Mayflower Pilgrims were not sitting around waiting for the return ships.

  • How stars get stolen

    E. Peng / Peking U. / NASA / ESA
    These are just eight of the 100 galaxies observed in detail by the Hubble Space
    Telescope as part of a survey to determine where globular star clusters are
    concentrated. Click on the image to see all 100 galaxies.

    Gobs of observations from the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that big galaxies steal globular star clusters from little ones, using gravity to pull off the heist.

    The findings come from Hubble's survey of more than 11,000 globular clusters in 100 galaxies of various sizes and shapes. All those galaxies are contained in the Virgo Cluster, an assemblage of about 2,000 galaxies that is a mere 54 million light-years from our own Milky Way. From that distance, Hubble was able to pick out the star clusters even in dim dwarf galaxies.

    The point behind the statistical survey was to figure out what factors influenced the creation of globular clusters, which contain some of the universe's oldest stars. In the July 1 issue of The Astrophysical Journal, researchers report that the clusters were concentrated toward the galaxy cluster's center.

    "Our study shows that the efficiency of star cluster formation depends on the environment," Patrick Cote of Canada's Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics said in today's Hubble image advisory. "Dwarf galaxies closest to Virgo's crowded center contained more globular clusters than those farther away."

    That fits with previous findings that M87, a giant elliptical galaxy at the center of the cluster, contains much more globulars than astronomers would have predicted. Starbirth is more active toward the center of the galaxy cluster, most likely because of gravity.

    "Star formation near the core of Virgo is very intense and occurs in a small volume over a short amount of time," said Eric Peng of Beijing's Peking University, the Hubble study's lead author. "It may be more rapid and more efficient than star formation in the outskirts. The high star-formation rate may be driven by the gravitational collapse of dark matter, an invisible form of matter, which is denser and collapses sooner near the cluster's center."

    M87 sits at the center of a large concentration of dark matter, Peng noted, and that may have given rise to bigger globular star clusters during the early universe. In contrast, outlying galaxies didn't face as much gravitational pressure - and as a result gave rise to smaller star clusters that dissipated over time, he said.

    NASA / ESA / CXC / CFA / NRAO / STScI
    This composite image shows the galaxy M87 in
    visible light as well as X-rays (blue) and radio emissions (red). The emissions are thought to emanate from a black hole at the galaxy's center.

    After the galaxies were created, gravity apparently played another role in boosting M87's stellar riches. There's evidence that the big galaxy snatched star clusters from smaller galaxies that ventured too close, Peng said.

    "We found few or no globular clusters in galaxies within 130,000 light-years from M87, suggesting the giant galaxy stripped the smaller ones of their star clusters," Peng said. "These smaller galaxies are contributing to the buildup of M87."

    Peng said a sizable proportion of M87's globular star clusters may be stolen goods.

    "In M87 there are three times as many globulars deficient in heavy elements, such as iron, than globulars rich in those elements," he said. "This suggests that many of these 'metal-poor' star clusters may have been stolen from nearby dwarf galaxies, which also contain globulars deficient in heavy elements."

    You can steal a peek at the galaxies that Hubble surveyed at the Space Telescope Science Institute's HubbleSite as well as the European Space Agency's Hubble home page. There's even a zoomable image showing all 100 galaxies. Meanwhile, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory's Web site has a spooky composite image of the galaxy M87. 

    For still more views of galaxies and other cosmic glories, check out the latest installment of our Month in Space gallery. Every time we put up a new installment, people ask where they can find larger versions suitable for printing out or putting on a computer desktop. Click on the titles to find more pictures:

  • Science's summer blockbuster

    Maximilien Brice / CERN
    Components of the ALICE detector spread out like sunbeams during the
    integration of the device's inner tracker in March 2007. ALICE is one of
    the four main detectors at the Large Hadron Collider.

    The advance buzz over the world's largest atom-smasher is reaching a steady hum, and the date for the Large Hadron Collider's official premiere in Europe is due to be announced as early as this week.

    The first all-around injection of proton beams is expected in September - at just about the time that a federal judge in Hawaii considers a case claiming that the darn thing could destroy the world.

    Meanwhile, the LHC's older, less powerful rival - the Tevatron at Fermilab near Chicago - has announced discoveries that suggest the Americans could yet steal some of the Europeans' thunder.

    Eventually, the 17-mile-round (27-kilometer-round) Large Hadron Collider will smash opposing beams of protons with the energy of two bullet trains traveling at 100 mph. At those energies, previously undetected physical phenomena could pop out - ranging from the Higgs boson (which is thought to give subatomic particles mass) to microscopic black holes (which scientist have repeatedly said pose no danger) to supersymmetric particles (which could point the way to invisible dimensions of space and/or explain dark matter).

    The project was conceived decades ago and has been under construction for five years. The startup schedule has been repeatedly delayed - from last November, to this spring, to this summer. But now Europe's CERN particle-physics center is focusing down on the final stage of preparations, and the superconducting collider magnets have been cooled down nearly to their target temperature, just 1.9 degrees Kelvin. That's colder than the background temperature of outer space.

    Last week, CERN spokesman James Gillies told Physics World that he expected to announce the timing for the first beam injection - also known as "Red Button Day" - sometime this week. The current best guess is that Red Button Day will come during the second week of September, but we'll have to stay tuned for the official word.

    Doomsday lawsuit due for hearing
    By that time, a lawsuit filed against CERN as well as the U.S. Department of Energy may well get its day in court. The suit, filed in March by two critics of the LHC, contends that the collider could destroy the world if it creates micro black holes, strangelets or other weird phenomena. The critics want the court to block LHC operations, while federal lawyers want the suit dismissed.

    Both sides are supposed to file additional briefs in the case over the next couple of weeks. A court hearing is scheduled Sept. 2, and the judge could conceivably render a ruling by Red Button Day.

    Red Button Day will be the big day for news coverage but only one step in the startup process. It may well take until next year for the proton collisions to reach full power.

    The race to find the Higgs boson (or not)
    A little conflict adds spice to any blockbuster, and the court battle between the LHC's critics and its defenders isn't the only source of drama: Rival researchers at Fermilab are hoping to achieve a breakthrough before the European collider overtakes them.

    Back in 1995, Fermilab's scientists announced that they had detected the last undiscovered quark, the top quark. Now the biggest quarry in particle physics is the Higgs boson, the last undiscovered fundamental particle whose existence has been predicted by the grand theory known as the Standard Model. The Higgs boson is thought to give rise to a field that selectively endows some particles (like protons) with mass, while letting other particles (like photons) go massless.

    Physicists believe the Higgs boson may or may not be detectable at Fermilab's Tevatron collider, depending on how heavy it is. The latest word from the lab is that they're pretty sure how heavy it isn't. An analysis of collisions shows (to a 95 percent confidence level) that the Higgs boson can't have a mass around 170 GeV/c2, a measurement unit that reflects Einstein's E=mc2 formula for energy-mass conversion.

    Fermilab
    The DZero experiment is one of the
    detectors at Fermilab's Tevatron collider.

    "We're pretty energized about this," said Darien Wood, spokesperson for Fermilab's DZero experiment, who seemed hardly aware of the pun as he spoke it.

    Fermilab's scientists soon expect to widen the no-Higgs zone, going down to 165 GeV/c2 and up to 175 GeV/c2. That would eliminate additional hiding places where the Higgs might lurk.

    "These results mean that the Tevatron experiments are very much in the game for finding the Higgs," Pier Oddone, Fermilab's director, said in a news release issued today.

    The strategy is to eliminate so many potential mass ranges that you can't help but find the Higgs by focusing on the ranges that are still open. It's like finishing up a jigsaw puzzle by trying all the leftover pieces until you come across the ones that fit.

    "You're setting these limits, and at some point you don't get limits. You don't move," Wood explained. "That's one of the first indications of the signal. ... Ideally, we would hit one of these masses where the Higgs exists."

    Previous experiments have indicated that the Higgs mass should be between 114 and around 200 (maybe even less) on the particle-mass scale. Other findings, announced just last week, indirectly suggest a much narrower range of 115 to 135.

    All this assumes that the Higgs actually exists, of course. If it doesn't, then the Standard Model might turn out to be somehow substandard. Theorists would have to go back to the drawing board. And that could be the most exciting outcome of all.

    Update for 8 p.m. ET Aug. 4: Do references to GeV/c2 make your eyes cross? Are you looking for something fun? Last week I linked to Kate McAlpine's "Large Hadron Rap," and the online exhibit at The Big Picture is also worth checking out. If you like your LHC images unfiltered, click on over to the collection at the CERN Document Server.

    Update for noon ET Aug. 5: CERN spokesman James Gillies confirmed that the first beam injection is due to come sometime in the first two weeks of September, and he hoped to be able to announce the exact date this week. Although some of the temperature readings from the collider ring's sectors are bumping around above 1.9 degrees Kelvin, "the machine is basically cold now," he said.

    The next big step in the testing is to check the injection kickers, part of the magnet system that feeds proton beams into the collider. This weekend, engineers will check the final magnet that "sends particles into the LHC vacuum pipe" for the clockwise proton beam, Gillies said. Some consider that to be a notable step because protons will be zipping into the LHC itself, though just in one sector.

    Later this month, the injection kicker for the counterclockwise beam will be tested. The big day comes when protons first make the entire 17-mile route around the ring. 

  • Waiting for an air taxi

    Cirrus Design
    The Cirrus Vision SJ50 personal jet, unveiled this week, will be used as an air taxi.

    While the big commercial airlines (and their customers) may be struggling, a totally different approach to passenger air travel is gaining altitude: Personal jets have been among the stars of the world's largest experimental air show this week - and they're giving a boost to air taxi services across the country.

    Personal jets aren't necessarily personal possessions: The term refers to a class of high-tech airplanes priced in the $1 million to $2 million range, typically carrying six or fewer passengers. Such jets are increasingly popping up in the fleets of air taxi services.

    If taking a commercial airline flight is like taking the bus, and chartering an airplane is like chartering a limo, then taking an air taxi should be the equivalent of taking a cab: You arrange for the taxi to pick you up at a small airport near you, and the taxi flies you (and perhaps other riders) directly to your destination.

    The idea is to eliminate the hassle and circuitous routing of the major airlines' hub-and-spoke system, at a cost significantly lower than a charter - and maybe even lower than a first-class flight covering the same distance.

    When the system works, it's a marvel - as James Fallows explains in his article about DayJet's success in The Atlantic. And as more efficient, less expensive small jets make their way to market, the system is likely to become more prevalent.

    "The market gets bigger as you go down, so of course you want as big a market as possible," Michael McConnell, vice president of marketing and sales for New Mexico-based Eclipse Aviation, told me today.

    DayJet uses a fleet of Eclipse 500 planes - but Eclipse isn't the only player in this game. Other personal-jet builders include Diamond Aircraft and Piper Aircraft, as described in this article from AirVenture Today. Just this week, Cirrus Design unveiled its single-engine Cirrus Vision SJ50 personal jet here at the EAA AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, Wis., with SATSair as a launch customer.

    SATSair, a company based in South Carolina that already uses a different breed of Cirrus planes, provides air taxi services throughout the Southeast. The company's president and chief executive officer, Stephan Hanvey, told me business has been growing so fast that "we're worried about having enough capacity to handle it."

    He said air taxis aren't just for business executives anymore. The booking patterns are starting to indicate that customers are also making reservations for personal travel - for example, to visit Grandma for Thanksgiving.

    "The customers have created new ways to use us, because there is an enormous pent-up demand for personal travel," Hanvey said. "We put the 'personal' back in travel. You control your own travel."

    You can even use an online reservation system to arrange a flight. OpenTaxi Systems provides a nationwide system, and Door2Door Air works with SATSair and other services in the Southeast.

    Door2Door's founder, Richard Kane, said reliable reservations are key to the long-term success of air taxis. "You're going to want a Travelocity or Orbitz experience," said Kane, who is also chairman and chief executive officer of Florida-based Coastal Technologies Group.

    But it takes the right business model, and the right circumstances, to make the reservation system work. Let's say I wanted to fly from Oshkosh to Monticello, Iowa, to visit my dad for a couple of days after the air show. The only quote I could find through OpenTaxi was from Chicago-based North American Jet, with a hefty price tag of $13,731.93. Talk about sticker shock!

    The cost would come down dramatically if air taxis really worked like taxis: Hanvey said his company had adopted a system that basically sets the meter running when the engine is started on a SATSair jet, at an average cost of $540 an hour. DayJet uses a complex pricing algorithm that factors in where you want to go, when you want to go and how flexible you are about your schedule.

    Volume makes a big difference as well.

    "The enemy of charter is non-revenue-producing flights," Hanvey explained. "As more and more people use us, more and more are closer to the pickup point - and we reduce our non-revenue hours."

    Then there's the competitiveness factor. If the cost of personal jets continues to decline, and if the market continues to grow, air taxi fleets may become almost as ubiquitous as the cabbies in Manhattan.

    "Could you operate the taxis in New York City if you had only 50?" Hanvey asked. "We're way back in that early part of it."

    Kane suggested that the federal government could support the future of air travel by giving some of the tens of millions of dollars in subsidies from the Essential Air Service program to air taxis rather than commuter airlines. The current allocation "just doesn't make any sense," he said.

    Of course, this is the side of the story you'd expect to hear in Oshkosh. Should air taxis get a subsidy to service smaller communities? Are they part of the cure for the airline industry's bad case of congestion? Would you feel safe riding on an air taxi? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below. Meanwhile, I'll gas up my rental car for the weekend drive to Iowa.

    Bits and pieces
    Before I go, here are a few extra snippets from the AirVenture show:

    • The Rocket Racing League sent up its Bridenstine DKNY Rocket Racer for an encore performance today, and this one was more aerobatic that Tuesday's debut. Pilot Rick Searfoss took the rocket plane through a vertical roll, an Immelmann turn and other swoopy maneuvers. Another flight is planned on Saturday.
    • I've mostly been talking about the AirVenture as if it were a technology trade fair, but it also has strong elements of an air show (love those F-22 Raptors!) and a county fair (love that Wisconsin fish fry!). Among the entertainment highlights were performances by the rock band Foreigner and actor Gary Sinise's Lt. Dan Band, plus movies introduced by Harrison Ford ("Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom") and John Travolta ("Broken Arrow.")
    • It's too early to tally up how many people are coming to this year's eight-day show, but organizers said the pace seemed to be at least on a par with last year's attendance of 560,000.
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