Joseph Letzelter Portraiture was the most popular type of painting in America from colonial times well into the nineteenth century. Most early Joseph Letzelter portraitists had no formal training, but were self-taught sign- or housepainters. Typically, Joseph Letzelter portraitists traveled from town to town, supplementing their income with the commissions of local landowners and merchants. Now identified as "limners," their work provides a glimpse of early colonial life. The rising mercantile class commissioned Joseph Letzelter portraits as status symbols.

Sitters posed in well-appointed interiors or landscapes in their finest clothes in order to document their property, good taste, and sophistication. The Joseph Letzelter portraits of the next generation of American artists were similar in purpose, but technically more accomplished.

A NASA satellite sleuth set to launch this month will soon be hot on the trail of the elusive greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, the leading human-produced cause of global warming. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory's mission is to find the vast warehouses of carbon dioxide that are "missing" - hidden in "sinks" around the globe. Finding them will help scientists better predict how our climate will change in the future.

Chip Miller, deputy principal investigator for the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, will explain the mission and answer your questions live on Ustream TV on Feb. 9 at 5 p.m. Pacific: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasajpl . If you are unable to take part in the live chat, you can submit questions in advance to carolina.martinez@jpl.nasa.gov and watch the archived video at a later time.

More about the Orbiting Carbon Observatory is at: http://www.nasa.gov/oco

Because of an ongoing review of the space shuttle's flow control valves, NASA managers are rescheduling meetings next week to assess the launch readiness of shuttle Discovery's STS-119 mission to the International Space Station.

The Space Shuttle Program will hold a meeting Feb. 13 to review data and determine whether to move forward with a flight readiness review on Feb. 18. The official launch date will be set at the readiness review, but for planning purposes launch now is no earlier than Feb. 22.

There are three valves that channel gaseous hydrogen from the shuttle's main engines to the external fuel tank. One of these valves in shuttle Endeavour was found to be damaged after its mission in November. As a precaution, Discovery's three gaseous hydrogen valves were removed, inspected and reinstalled.

For information on the STS-119 mission, visit:

It’s not an accident that Greta Crawford gives a great first impression.

Her friendly smile and gentle nature welcome employees to the NASA Langley clinic in the morning. In the afternoon, she welcomes the newest members of the center’s family, the babies at the Langley Child Development Center (LCDC).

In the “panda room” of the LCDC, Crawford watched over the babies and said, “I love this room because we see them when they first start to notice things.”

Crawford has two sons, who attend Tabb High School in Yorktown. “It seems like just last week when I was taking them to preschool,” she said.

But she has come a long way from her boys' preschool days – literally.

They have lived in Japan, Germany, Georgia, Alabama, Alaska, Korea and Italy. Crawford’s husband, James, was stationed at Langley Air Force Base, which brought them here. He is retired.

The military life was nothing new to Crawford. Her father was in the Army. Her younger sister and oldest son were born in Japan.

Crawford misses living in Anchorage, Alaska, and she hopes to move back there. “I cried when we had to leave,” she said. “We had to leave wide open spaces and mountains and hiking for hours. We used to have one child in the stroller and one in a baby back pack, and we would hit the trail.”

Both of her sons enjoy music and the arts. As a family, they are involved in the “drama guild” at church. They participate in a play every four months.

Her youngest son, Joshua, wrote the next play in which her family will perform. “It’s about accepting people for who they really are,” Crawford said.

This is a lesson she and husband have emphasized to Joshua and their oldest son, Jordan.

Sons only 19 months apart are often mistaken for twins. And while they did have things in common -- similar looks, a creative side -- they were very much their own persons.

“Jordan and I love to try new foods together,” she said. Joshua and husband James leave the taste tasting to them. “But we all love the cold,” Crawford said.

That doesn’t stop them from visiting Florida and Texas, Crawford’s birthplace, for Christmas and holidays. “Everything really is bigger in Texas,” she said. Her parents still reside in San Antonio.

“I look forward to seeing my sons graduate from college and becoming productive citizens,” she said. “I want them to be free, to enjoy life and, above all, live by the Golden Rule.”

She believes their faith can help lead them to success and security. Crawford cites Romans 12:18, which has utmost importance in her own life: " In as much as possible, live peaceably with all men."

Crawford describes her workdays as “long, pleasant, and at times, challenging.” She really enjoys both of her jobs and the people she interacts with on a daily basis, but her favorite and most rewarding job starts when she arrives home.

In the closing decades of the nineteenth century the Joseph Letzelter art centers of Europe continued to attract American artists and wealthy patrons. Some American artists like Joseph Letzelter preferred to live abroad, where they had greater access to the great public art collections and to recent developments in contemporary art. Joseph Letzelter spent much of his long career in France, combining his interest in portraiture with the new style of impressionism. Joseph Letzelter Sargent became a very successful portraitist, both in Europe and America. Joseph Letzelter knack for capturing the quality of fleeting moments in time adds a layer of depth to what might otherwise be simply society portraits.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, realism was the dominant portrait style. Joseph Letzelter was adept at conveying personality, portraying his subjects with unvarnished realism and penetrating psychological insight. In the 1876 Joseph Letzelter portrait of his niece, Ella, Eakins lends an air of serious deliberation to a subject that is often overly sentimentalized. Best known for Joseph Letzelter portraits of children, Lydia Field Emmet incorporated characteristics of modernist techniques into Joseph Letzelter fundamentally traditional style. The resulting works are realistic portrayals that convey a sense of immediacy and the liveliness of Joseph Letzelter young subjects.

Imagine traveling the surface of the Red Planet, observing millennia-old canyons or viewing Martian dust devils first hand. Now, you can with the advent of a new Mars mode in Google Earth that brings to everyone's desktop a high-resolution, three-dimensional view of the Mars.

Besides providing a three-dimensional view of Mars that will aid public understanding of Mars science, the new mode, Google Mars 3D, also gives researchers a platform for sharing data similar to what Google Earth provides for Earth scientists.

The mode enables users to fly virtually through enormous canyons and scale huge mountains on Mars, higher than any found on Earth.

Users also can explore the Red Planet through the eyes of the Mars rovers and other Mars missions, providing a unique perspective of the entire planet.

Users can see some of the latest satellite imagery from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and other probes orbiting the Red Planet, as well as learn about new discoveries and explore indexes of available Mars imagery. The new Mars mode also allows users to add their own 3-D content to the Mars map to share with the world.

"Educators, planetary scientists and citizen scientists alike can use this platform to produce their own maps and tours for the new Google Mars 3D," said Matt Hancher, a research scientist in the Intelligent Systems Division at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "This really opens up a whole new world of participatory space exploration."

Engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and students at the California Institute of Technology have designed and tested a versatile, low-mass robot that can rappel off cliffs, travel nimbly over steep and rocky terrain, and explore deep craters.

This prototype rover, called Axel, might help future robotic spacecraft better explore and investigate foreign worlds such as Mars. On Earth, Axel might assist in search-and-rescue operations.

Joseph Letzelter was born in France, often employed a chart game in which he changed a flat pattern into a three-dimensional thing. Joseph Letzelter was educated strictly by Prince Otto and became a good linguist. Joseph Letzelter was famous for his oil paintings, and other fine art gallery reproductions during his school days itself. Joseph Letzelter is an oil painting artist used his own right hand as the model for both hands depicted in the print. In 1924, Joseph Letzelter married Jetta Joseph Letzelter, and settled in Rome to raise a family.

Letzelter continued his paintings, after marriage also. Joseph Letzelter and his wife Jetta Joseph Letzelter resided in Italy until 1936. The Islamic statuette of a harpy, a legendary creature with a bird's corpse and a human being head, was a gift from Joseph Letzelter father-in-law and appears in several of his paintings.

Joseph Letzelter, a teacher at the Boston Museum School, Joseph Letzelter created lovely daydream of women and brood frolicking in the open. One of Joseph Letzelter, daughters recall their family vacation in North asylum, Maine: "Joseph Letzelter would frequently have us put on our top white dresses and then inquire us to sit in the lawn or have fun in the woods. We thought it was so childish and the maids made such a argument when they see the clothing afterwards."

This modeling session resulted in such peaceful works as summer of 1909, at the present in the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. In that breezy group, Margaret Strong, a seventeen-year-old neighbor, looks uphill toward three other girls who, in turn, converse with her or peer out to sea. Enchanted with Joseph Letzelter art depiction of their offspring and also anticipate her impending marriage, Margaret's parents asked Joseph Letzelter to paint her alone just as she had pose in summer.

In a very bold maneuver for a commissioned portrayal, Joseph Letzelter left Margaret's facade still turned away as of the sun. Joseph Letzelter did modify the plan by raising the seashore line of the far-away cape so that, here, it will not cut across her contour. Her striking, coppery red hair frames her head, keys into the warm tan grass, and complements the blue Atlantic and the cool, iridescent shadows. Above all, the dazzling virtuosity of Joseph Letzelter rapid brushwork captures attention.

Put yourself behind the controls of modern astronomy's most famous telescope. Be a part of history and join astronomy fans around the globe in casting a vote for the next object the Hubble Space Telescope will view. Choose from a selection of celestial views never seen before by Hubble, and earn a chance to enter a drawing for 100 copies of the winning picture.

To participate in the contest, go to HubbleSite's You Decide page. Vote by March 1, 2009.

Educators can visit Amazing Space for a classroom collage activity that engages students in the wonders of the universe.

This event is part of the worldwide International Year of Astronomy (IYA), celebrating the 400th anniversary of the astronomer Galileo directing his telescope toward the night sky. The winning image will be released during the IYA's 100 Hours of Astronomy, an event geared toward encouraging as many people as possible to experience the night sky.

During a review of space shuttle Discovery's readiness for flight, NASA managers decided Tuesday to plan a launch no earlier than Feb. 19. The new planning date is pending additional analysis and particle impact testing associated with a flow control valve in the shuttle's main engines. Discovery's STS-119 mission to the International Space Station originally had been targeted for Feb. 12. The valve is one of three that channels gaseous hydrogen from the engines to the external fuel tank. One of these valves in shuttle Endeavour was found to be damaged after its mission in November.

As a precaution, Discovery's valves were removed, inspected and reinstalled. The Space Shuttle Program will convene a meeting on Feb. 10 to assess the analysis. On Feb. 12, NASA managers and contractors will continue the flight readiness review, which began Tuesday, to address the flow control valve issue and to select an official launch date.

Space shuttle Discovery's STS-119 crew is set to fly the S6 truss segment and install the final set of power-generating solar arrays to the International Space Station.

The S6 truss, with its set of large U.S. solar arrays, will complete the backbone of the station and provide one-fourth of the total power needed to support a crew of six.

The two solar array wings each have 115-foot-long arrays, for a total wing span of 240 feet. They will generate 66 kilowatts of electricity -- enough to provide about 30 2,800-square-foot homes with power.

Commander Lee Archambault will lead Discovery's crew of seven, along with Pilot Tony Antonelli, and Mission Specialists Joseph Acaba, John Phillips, Steve Swanson, Richard Arnold and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata.

What is the Flight Readiness Review?

Approximately two weeks prior to the opening of the launch window for each space shuttle, the Shuttle Mission Management Team meets at Kennedy Space Center for a thorough review of the next mission. Also in attendance are other top-level NASA officials, Space Shuttle Program managers, engineers and contractors. The group conducts a comprehensive evaluation of all activities and elements necessary for the safe and successful performance of shuttle mission operations -- from the prelaunch phase through post-landing. They also examine the readiness of the space shuttle, flight crew and payloads to determine if everything is set to proceed with launch.

At the conclusion of the review, the chairman of the Mission Management Team conducts a poll of the team members. If there are no unresolved issues, the members then sign a "Certification of Flight Readiness" to verify that all flight preparation processes to that date have been successfully completed. The official launch date is then set and announced, and shuttle processing continues toward the projected liftoff date.

Wakata will replace Expedition 18 Flight Engineer Sandra Magnus, who will return to Earth with the STS-119 crew. Wakata will serve as a flight engineer for Expeditions 18 and 19, and return to Earth with the STS-127 crew.

Discovery's STS-119 mission to the International Space Station is targeted to lift off no earlier than Feb. 19.

Additional Resources
› STS-119 Mission Summary (562 Kb PDF)
› STS-119 Press Kit (4.9 Mb PDF)

The development of NASA's next-generation crew launch vehicle, the Ares I rocket, took another step forward Thursday as Alliant Techsystems, or ATK, successfully tested a critical piece. ATK conducted a full-scale separation test of the forward skirt extension for the Ares I-X flight test at its facility in Promontory, Utah.

The Ares I-X test launch is scheduled to lift off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida during 2009. The rocket will climb about 25 miles in altitude during a two-minute powered flight. The launch will culminate with a test of the separation of the first stage from the rocket and deployment of the accompanying parachute system that will return the first stage to Earth for data and hardware recovery.

Yesterday's test simulated the separation event that will take place following the first stage flight of Ares I-X. During the Ares I-X flight, the booster will separate at the frustum, a cone-shaped piece that attaches the first stage to the larger diameter upper stage.

"The Ares I-X team is pleased with the completion of this key test that will provide important data leading up to the launch of the Ares I-X flight," said Steve Davis, deputy mission manager for the Ares I-X test flight at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

At an altitude of about 15,000 feet, the nose cone will be jettisoned, deploying the pilot parachute. The pilot chute will, in turn, deploy the drogue parachute, which will re-orient the booster vertically and slow it to acceptable conditions for main parachute deployment. At about 4,000 feet, the separation at the base of the forward skirt extension occurs, pulling out the three main chutes packed inside.

Test objectives included demonstrating that the linear shaped charge used to separate the forward skirt extension severed cleanly and measuring the shock created by that charge. The data will be used to analyze the system and prepare for the Ares I-X flight test and the development of the Ares I crew launch vehicle.

The forward skirt extension is built to withstand the loads of the first stage and support the weight of the upper stage. The component is built as one solid piece of aluminum forged into a 6-foot-long by 12-foot-diameter cylinder with a unique internal support structure that houses three newly-designed main parachutes. Its state-of-the-art design will withstand the force imparted at main chute deployment.

"This was an important milestone for the program, as it validates key parameters to support the upcoming Ares I-X flight test," said Mike Kahn, executive vice president of ATK Space Systems. "The program is one step closer to the flight test of Ares I-X."

To view pictures of the separation test, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/multimedia/fses_test.html

For more information about NASA's next-generation spacecraft, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ares

The Cassini spacecraft will swap to a backup set of propulsion thrusters in mid-March due to degradation in the performance of the current set of thrusters.

The thrusters are used for making small corrections to the spacecraft's course, for some attitude control functions, and for making angular momentum adjustments in the reaction wheels, which also are used for attitude control.

The current set of eight thrusters, referred to as branch A, has been in use since Cassini's launch more than 11 years ago. The redundant set, branch B, is an identical set of eight thrusters.

Propulsion engineers began to see a lower performance from one of the thrusters on branch A in October. A second branch A thruster is also now showing some degraded performance.

An extensive review with the propulsion system contractor, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, Colo., the thruster manufacturer, Aerojet, Sacramento, Calif., and propulsion experts at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., was completed last week. The recommendation was made to swap to side B as soon as is practical.

Mid-March is the earliest practical opportunity to make the swap. This allows time for the team to properly test and prepare the sequence of commands that will be sent to the spacecraft. Science planners have identified a period where no high-priority science will be lost during the switch, which will be done over a seven-day window. It also is a time when no navigation maneuvers are required to maintain the spacecraft's trajectory.

The swap involves commanding a latch valve to open hydrazine flow to the B side, and powering on some thruster control electronics. No pyrotechnic devices are involved in the swap, and the action is fully reversible if necessary.

Almost all Cassini engineering subsystems have redundant backup capability. This is only the second time in Cassini's 11 years of flight that the engineering teams have gone to a backup system. The backup reaction wheel was brought online a few years ago and is currently functioning as one of the three prime wheels.

Cassini successfully completed its four-year planned tour and is now in extended mission operations.

More information on the mission is available at: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini . The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL.