How high is Everest?

In an effort to put an end to generations of controversy, the authorities in Nepal are trying to ascertain the precise height of the world's biggest mountain. The project could take up to two years - and even then it is more than likely that not everyone will agree.

While for well over 100 years Everest has been recognised as the planet's highest point, there are differences of opinion as to the exact dimensions and even over what should actually be measured.

For more than half a century, Nepal has recognised the generally accepted height of 29,028 ft for the mountain they call Sagarmatha - despite the insistence by neighbouring China that what it refers to in Tibetan as Qomolangma (Holy Mother), is actually 29,017 ft. The mountain straddles the border and neither side wishes to back down.

"We have begun the measurement to clear this confusion," Gopal Giri, a spokesman with Nepal's land management ministry. "Now we have the technology and the resources we can measure ourselves. This will be the first time the Nepal government has taken the mountain's height."

The task of measuring the height of the world’s highest mountain was first performed during the days of British rule in the subcontinent by a Bengali mathematician, Radhanath Sikdar, employed in the office of the surveyor general, Sir Andrew Waugh.

At the time the British authorities were conducting the so-called Great Trigonometric Survey and it was believed that Kangchenjunga in Sikkim was the world's highest. But based on data collected from the field, Sikdar concluded in 1854 that another nearby peak, at the time referred to simply as Summit XV, was higher.

For two years, the team reassessed the findings and then, confident of what they had discovered a new giant, announced their news. Several years later, in 1865, Sir Andrew declared that the peak would be known as Mount Everest, in honour of his predecessor, Sir George Everest. Based on the average figure obtained from six separate surveying stations, each 100 miles from the mountain, it was said to have a height of 29,002 ft.

This height remained in accepted use for the best part of a century, including in 1953 when Edmund Hilary and Norgay Tenzing made their way to the summit and safely descended.

The following year, a survey by the Indian authorities suggested a new height for the mountain, of 29,028 ft, based on the average reading for 12 survey stations, located between 30 and 50 miles from Everest. But the availability of new technology in the subsequent years led new teams to question the estimate. In 1992 a joint Chinese and Italian expedition team was the first to use GPS technology and came up with a figure of 29,031 ft.

In 1999, a team led by the late American mountaineer Bradford Washburn spent several years working with GPS devices to make a new calculation. Washburn's climbers were able to reach the summit and use their measuring devices.

Not only did they come up with a new height, 29,035.3 ft, but they said they had also been able to measure the movement of the Everest massif, being pushed by the Eurasian continental shelf. They estimated that the mountain was moving north-east by around a quarter of an inch a year.

There the matter may have ended, but for the wishes of the Chinese to take yet another measurement. In 2005, a team of mountaineers and researchers climbed Everest from the Chinese side and announced a new reading of 29,017 ft. However, they said this only measured the actual rock formation of Everest and not the snow cap on the very top.

Nepali officials complained that during discussions about the border with their much larger neighbour, China insisted on using its own measure. But last year, the two countries agreed that both measurements might be correct.

"Both are correct heights. No measurement is absolute. This is a problem of scientific research," Raja Ram Chhatkuli, director general of Nepal's survey department, said at the time.

Mr Chhatkuli will be overseeing Nepal's own attempt at a precise assessment in which scientists will place three GPS devices on different locations on the mountain from which to obtain data.

If you are a regular reader you may be asking, why the sudden interest in Everest by the Lighthouse Keeper on a blog that has previously made its name largely covering the final two missions of the US Space Shuttle?

Well, the Lighthouse Keeper hasn’t made it any where near the top of this mighty mountain - but this autumn is the tenth anniversary of my first visit to Nepal and a high-level trek through the Everest region.

That was in the days before blogs so, come next month, the Lighthouse Keeper will be putting things right and embarking on the trip all over again - this time from the relative comforts of home.

A kind of day-by-day blog retrospective reliving the journey in words and pictures - from the excitement and heat of Kathmandu to the extreme cold and wilds of the lower reaches of Everest. Stay tuned for a great upcoming adventure!

Pictures from above

As a keen photographer the Lighthouse Keeper is always looking for a new angle or perspective on a familiar subject - but from an earthly vantage point even perched atop of a high crane is no match for the kind of views astronauts have from the orbiting International Space Station.

This night time view of India-Pakistan borderlands was one of a series of night-time shots captured recently by one of the six crew members, who often say that one of their favourite off-duty pastimes is gazing back at Earth as there is "always something spectacular to see".

Clusters of yellow lights on the Indo-Gangetic Plain of northern India and northern Pakistan reveal numerous cities both large and small.

Of the hundreds of clusters, the largest are the metropolitan areas associated with the capital cities of Islamabad, Pakistan, in the foreground and New Delhi, India, at the top. For scale these metropolitan areas are approximately 700 km apart.

The lines of major highways connecting the larger cities also stand out. More subtle but still visible at night are the general outlines of the towering and partly cloud-covered Himalayan ranges immediately to the north (left).

A striking feature of this photograph is the line of lights, with a distinctly more orange hue, snaking across the central part of the image.

It appears to be more continuous and brighter than most highways in the view and is actually the fenced and floodlit border zone between the countries of India and Pakistan. The fence is designed to discourage smuggling and arms trafficking between the two countries.

This image was taken on a digital SLR camera with a 16 mm lens to provide a wide field of view, as the Space Station was tracking towards the southeast across the subcontinent of India.

The distinct, bright zone above the horizon (visible at top) is produced by airglow, a phenomena caused by excitation of atoms and molecules high in the atmosphere (above 80 km altitude) by ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. Part of the ISS and a solar panel array are visible at right.

This photograph below, taken from the Space Station at the end of July 2011, shows the Moon with the limb of Earth near the bottom, transitioning into the orange-coloured troposphere, the lowest and most dense portion of Earth's atmosphere.

The troposphere ends abruptly at the tropopause, which appears in the image as the sharp boundary between the orange and blue-coloured atmosphere. The silvery-blue noctilucent clouds extend far above the Earth's troposphere.

Faith and fragrance

Warm rain poured out of a dark sky on a typically humid evening in Hyderabad, India. But along the Hussainsagar lake it was a cacophony of noise and light, a carnival atmosphere as the climax of the boisterous Hindu Ganesh festival was in full swing.

People had been arriving all day for the traditional ending which involves immersing carefully prepared Ganesh idols in the murky waters of the lake. A series of cranes lined the lakeside, lowering each Ganesh on a platform into the water to be received by holy men.

Trucks and vehicles of all shapes and sizes, decorated with flowers and flags and stacked with families and Ganesh idols began arriving early in the day and continued throughout the evening as people poured into the city to experience the religious fervour.

Ganesh is one of the best-known and most popularly worshipped deities in Hinduism and, although known by many other attributes, Ganesh's elephant head makes for easy and familiar identification.

The Ganesh festival for 2011 - an occasion on which Lord Ganesh, the son of Shiva and Parvati, is believed to bestow his presence on earth for all his devotees - has just ended.

It is the birthday of Lord Ganesha and is observed in the Hindu calendar month of Bhaadrapada, starting on the shukla chaturthi (fourth day of the waxing moon period), typically between 20 August and 15 September.

The Lighthouse Keeper’s own and unexpected eye-witness experience of the Ganesh festival came during a stay several years ago in Hyderabad for a business conference and exhibition, which was hijacked for the day as police closed roads and access across the city.

As it happened the city's Marriott hotel was just across the road from the Hussainsagar lake so, being ‘confined to quarters’ for a day and night was not such a bad option, as the thick of the action was just a ‘stroll’ across the road and offered a great opportunity for photography.

The Ganesh festival is completed only with the immersion of the idols but civic bodies in many Indian cities are becoming increasingly concerned with the ecological issues surrounding the festival and the environmental impact on the bodies of water that are a focus of the ceremony.

This year an estimated 1,300 tonnes of rubbish has already been lifted from the main spots around the Hussainsagar lake as more than 100 vehicles and 2,500 municipal staff were pressed into service during a massive clean-up operation.

Misty mellowness

There seems to be no doubt that the seasons are advancing and arriving earlier each year. And it is becoming a rather peculiar thing.

September is traditionally renowned as the genteel easing from summer into the golden days of autumn, a calm, collected and wonderfully settled time of year when the harvest is finally gathered.

So, here we are in the very first week of the month experiencing fearsome gales and storms associated more with the unpredictability of October. Perhaps there has been some kind of shift in the matrix?

We know from the changing habits of migrating birds and tree records that in recent years spring has been arriving at our shores considerably earlier than in the past - some three or four weeks compared with even 20 years ago.

If spring is around the corner as we’ve barely closed our curtains on the winter calendar surely the other seasons are marching forward apace too.

Even before the UK’s most recent late summer public holiday at the end of August a farmer friend was delighted to tell me during a chat in the local pub that he had already completed the annual harvest - some three to four weeks earlier than normal.

And the very next day, as if to prove a point, a low morning mist hung in the dewy autumnal early morning air. It certainly seemed that the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ as portrayed so eloquently by John Keats back in 1820 was well and truly upon us.

The powers that be already preform minor adjustments to our calendar and time-keeping to hold our days and time in check - every four years we have a leap year. Infact, it’s actually more like a ‘leap day’, inserted at the end of February.

So, to combat our rolling seasonal disorder why not introduce a leap month? It could be just the solution governments have been looking for. A cheeky way to ignore the vagaries of encroaching climate change - a kind of turning back the clock.

But would it really be a good alternative to buckling down and getting to grips with excessive power and energy consumption, which might at least slow down the man-made acceleration to climate change in the first place?

Questions, questions. I guess in the end it comes down to a personal level - how which are we all prepared as individuals to change our lifestyles, if at all?

In today’s quick fix society having a ‘leap month’ every now and then might just prove more politically attractive. A solution without solving the actual problem. And instead of ‘climate change’ we could rebrand it ‘season change’.

The only thing then to decide is which month should we skip to bring things back into alignment? We might all have our favourites - which one would you pick?

A twist of fate

No one would have dared predict that the first Russian rocket to be launched to the International Space Station (ISS) following the retirement of the US Space Shuttle this summer would be doomed to failure.

It is an ironic turn of events that means for the time being the ISS is currently flying with no means of replacing the astronauts and cosmonauts working on the recently completed orbiting outpost.

At the very least last week’s Russian rocket failure will likely delay the first post-Shuttle era launch of new crew members to the Station. And at worst it could mean a complete withdrawal of all crew before the year’s end if Russia is unable to resume manned flights of its Soyuz rocket.

Despite the delivery of important logistics by the final Space Shuttle mission in July, safety concerns with landing Soyuz capsules in the middle of winter could force the Space Station to fly unmanned beginning in November, according to Michael Suffredini, NASA's ISS programme manager.

Investigations started immediately into why the upper stage of a Soyuz-U booster carrying an unmanned Russian Progress supply ship malfunctioned and shut down five minutes and 20 seconds after launch from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.

Some 2.9 tons of supplies and equipment for the Space Station were lost as the Progress M-12M/44P spacecraft crashed back to Earth during what was ironically the first launch to the orbiting complex since the Space Shuttle was retired in July.

The supply train to the ISS is critical for supporting a full-time crew of six but for now the Station remains in good shape thanks to the deliveries by Atlantis in July.

The Soyuz-U upper stage is virtually identical to the third stage used by Russia’s manned Soyuz spacecraft, which was targeted to launch again on 22 September.

With two Soyuz crew launches and two Progress deliveries scheduled before the end of 2011, the failure is certain to disrupt plans to ferry new crews and cargo shipments to the ISS.

Three current crew members — Expedition 28 commander Andrey Borisenko, Alexander Samokutyaev and Ronald Garan — will have their return to Earth, which was scheduled for 8 September, postponed for several weeks to keep six people at the ISS for as long as possible.

But Garan and his two cosmonaut colleagues could only extend their stay until late October when they would have to return to Earth. The Soyuz spacecraft they will fly home in has an orbital life due to ‘expire’ around 22 October - which means the ship is certified by engineering teams as safe for the return flight to Earth until that date.

A departure at that point would leave just three people on the ISS until Soyuz launches can resume. A crew of three can maintain the outpost but science and research work would suffer.

The other half of the Station's six-person crew — NASA flight engineer Michael Fossum, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa — are supposed to return home on 16 November.

"The November crew has a little different issue," Suffredini said this week. "If we're not launching by then and we have to de-man the Space Station, we pretty much have to do that probably by about the middle of November."

That crew's Soyuz capsule, named Soyuz TMA-02M, blasted off June 7 and would need to land in late December or early January.

"One of our requirements is to land in daylight, and it has to be an hour from sunset or sunrise," Suffredini said. "On 19 November we reach that cutoff and we go dark."

The next daylight landing window opens in late December, but NASA and Russian officials will then be concerned about extreme winter weather conditions in the Soyuz landing zone on the steppes of Kazakhstan.

"The weather is severe out there in the winter time," Suffredini said. "So from a search and rescue standpoint, that's probably something we don't want to do. Even if it's within our requirements, we probably don't want to be landing two hours before sunset. If we had any problem at all, we would be searching for the crew in a blowing snow storm in the middle of night."

The Soyuz-U rocket has a good safety record over the past four decades of operations — 745 successful launches and 21 failures — and this is the first time there has been such a failure since construction of the Space Station started a decade ago.

With the United States' Shuttle fleet retirement last month, Russian Soyuz spacecraft are currently the only vehicles capable of flying astronauts to and from the Space Station. NASA is investing in the development of commercial ‘private’ space taxis, but those craft remain in development stage and are not estimated to be ready before 2015 or 2016.

Ken Kremer, who has reported on all of the last Space Shuttle flights to the ISS in recent years for Spaceflight magazine, said the loss of the Russian Progress highlighted the "utter folly" of the Shuttle programme shutdown.

Close encounters

For some time NASA has been working hard to counter the notion that the end of the Space Shuttle era means the end of US human spaceflight. And there are commercial companies waiting in the wings.

At Kennedy Space Center just before the launch of Atlantis in July several companies were taking advantage of the large media presence to showcase their proposed spacecraft and rockets of the future.

In one air conditioned ‘tent’ Lockheed Martin displayed a test model of its Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle that may one day take Americans to destinations beyond the Space Station – like the asteroids and Mars.

Next door, Boeing showcased its CST-100 capsule concept, one of the ‘crew taxis' NASA eventually hopes to hire to get its astronauts to and from orbit by mid-decade.

And Elon Musk's SpaceX company threw open its doors on the nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station where it has a rocket integration hanger and launch pad. From here it flies its Falcon rocket – the next test flight is planned for this autumn – and ‘Dragon Rider' capsule, another commercial answer to America's astronaut taxi dilemma.

Whilst these companies are all pursuing the more ‘traditional’ route into orbit others, like the US Air Force and the Colorado-based Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), are convinced the future is still in winged reusable spacecraft. SNC's mini-shuttle called Dream Chaser could be launched for the first time in 2015.

Many argue that these new spacecraft represent a more affordable, commercial and even more exciting approach to future human spaceflight.

Not surprisingly NASA administrator, Charlie Bolden, himself a former Shuttle astronaut, is convinced that human spaceflight has a bright future. "You'll hear me say that over and over and over again. The future is incredible and you're witnessing the first steps NASA is taking to create that future right now," he told the gathered media.

As a clear signal of its intention to crank up the momentum wherever possible NASA this week gave SpaceX approval to launch its next Falcon 9 on 30 November — followed nine days later by the Dragon capsule berthing at the International Space Station (ISS).

During the tour of its facilities in July, SpaceX was keen to show us that its has been hard at work preparing for this next flight — a mission designed to demonstrate that a privately-developed space transportation system can deliver cargo to and from the Space Station.

NASA has now agreed in principle to allow SpaceX to combine all of the tests and demonstration activities originally proposed as two separate missions into one time-saving flight.

After catching the ISS and coming alongside, the capsule will be grappled by the Station's Canadian-built robot arm and transferred to a docking port. It will likely stay at the ISS for a few weeks, delivering some non-essential cargo in its pressurised cabin before returning to Earth via a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

This next mission represents a huge milestone — not only for SpaceX but also for NASA and the US space programme. When the astronauts stationed on the ISS open the hatch and enter the Dragon spacecraft for the first time, it will mark the beginning of a new era in space travel.

SpaceX was keen to show us the workings of the launch pad where it has made significant upgrades over the summer to streamline the countdown. New liquid oxygen (LOX) pumps, for example, will reduce previous loading time from 90 minutes to under 30, inching the company closer to its long term goal of Falcon 9 going from hangar to liftoff in under an hour.

We also saw the first stage of the 15-story Falcon 9 — the rocket that is now due to blast off 30 November — lying on its side in the integration hanger at Cape Canaveral's Complex 40. It had arrived in April, followed by the launcher's second stage in July.

Company officials, however, were nervous when it came to photography, particularly where the rocket engines were concerned. We were forbidden to take close-ups that showed the engines in detail, though no objections were raised to the ‘space paparazi’ scrambling on their backs underneath the first stage to capture shots of the SpaceX logo!

Also proudly on show, this time in a tent in the grounds of the SpaceX launch control centre close to Port Canaveral, was the burnt and battered Dragon capsule that was successfully flown into orbit and parachuted back to Earth last December. Here you could closely inspect and almost touch something that had orbited Earth less than a year before.

Mighty machines

The Space Shuttles Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis are now all in various stages of preparation as part of their transformation from mighty flying machines to museum exhibits.

Back in July when I watched Discovery rolled out from the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) to the giant Vehicle Assembly Building to make room for some work on Atlantis it looked in a sorry state. Engines and the large tail pods had been removed from the rear, as had the flight avionics from the nose cone and thruster jets.

For their new lives in museums these parts will be rebuilt and simulated - so although each spaceship will look as though they could one day fly again into Earth orbit this will never be possible.

It was in April that NASA announced the new permanent homes for the retired spacecraft - Shuttle Enterprise, the first orbiter built for testing but not to fly in space, will move from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Steven F Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York.

The Udvar-Hazy Center will become the new home for Discovery, which retired after completing its 39th mission in March. Endeavour will go to the California Science Center in Los Angeles and Atlantis will be displayed at the KSC Visitor’s Complex in Florida.

Yesterday, meanwhile, NASA engineers had the opportunity to play with their toys another time as Discovery and Endeavour were rolled out to switch places.

Discovery, which was temporarily being stored in the VAB, switched places with Endeavour, which has been undergoing decommissioning in OPF-1.

Both Shuttles stopped briefly outside for a ‘nose-to-nose’ photo opportunity, captured in the pictures below by NASA photographer Frankie Martin flying overhead in a helicopter. After the brief pause Discovery (at right) was rolled into OPF-1 and Endeavour into the VAB.

Space Shuttle flying days are over and their fate is now similar to some of the other mighty beasts of the past - the great railway locomotives of the steam age, many of which have now been in retirement for decades.

I spent a day at the UK’s National Railway Museum in the city of York this week viewing at some of these engineering marvels up close. Each of these rail transport legends - ranging from Stephenson’s ‘Rocket’ looked pristine and ready to fire up.

It was a timely visit as the world record-holding Mallard loco (LNER class A4 locomotive 4468) had returned for display in York for the summer holidays.

Mallard holds the world speed record for steam traction on rail, travelling at 126 mph on 3 July 1938. She was designed by Sir Nigel Gresley, who thought of the name 'Mallard' while feeding ducks at Salisbury Hall. Sadly, like the Space Shuttles, she is beyond mechanical repair and can no longer ‘fly’ again.

With over 100 locomotives and nearly 200 other items of rolling stock on show, the National Railway museum tells the story of railways from the early 19th century to the present day.

Some of the engines can still be fired up, and for those who need a fix of the real steam and smoke experience there’s a working engine near some of the outside displays, towing children and adults up and down a short piece of track in a guard’s truck.