Hong Kong International Airport bags the title World’s Best Airport for 2008, in a worldwide passenger survey conducted by Skytrax. This is the airport’s seventh win in ten years, definitely a notable achievement.

Singapore Changi Airport, which placed second in 2007, firmly remains in the same position. It is followed by Seoul Incheon International Airport in third place. Rounding up the top four is another Asian airport, Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

“We congratulate Hong Kong for their repeated success in winning the World’s Best Airport title,” said Edward Plaisted, CEO of Skytrax. “In recent years, the whole air travel experience has become much more focused on the time customers spend in the airport environment, and Hong Kong has established itself as a clear passenger favorite in this respect.

“The World Airport Survey evaluates a broad spectrum of product and service touch points across the airport experience, covering a wide spectrum of passenger types. Hong Kong was particularly notable for gaining highest satisfaction ratings in such a diverse market. Like any other business, an airport is striving to deliver world-class standards that will make a customer want to use it again, and achieving this level of loyalty requires the highest levels of quality consistency – something where Hong Kong was singled out again and again during the survey.

“Over the last ten years, the Skytrax World Airport Awards have become recognized as the trusted, global symbol of quality for airports. Our survey participants represent the most experienced, diverse and discerning travelers in the marketplace, and airports throughout the world recognize the inherent value that comes with their endorsement.”

Munich Airport, which ranked fifth worldwide, won the Best Airport in Europe title. San Francisco was named Best Airport in North America, while Tel Aviv is the Best Airport in the Middle East. World top ten first timer Cape Town is the Best Airport in Africa, beating Johannesburg and Addis Ababa, which ranked second and third, respectively.

The World Airport Survey is conducted by Skytrax, a UK-based aviation research organization. More than 8.2 million questionnaires were completed by passengers across the world during the ten-month survey period.

Passenger interviews include a detailed appraisal for more than 40 categories of product and service quality, such as terminal cleanliness, terminal signage, staff courtesy, staff efficiency, security processing, walking distances, immigration and customers, shopping, dining options, and internet services.

The 2008 Top 10 Airports in the World
1. Hong Kong
2. Singapore Changi
3. Seoul Incheon
4. Kuala Lumpur KLIA
5. Munich
6. Kansai
7. Copenhagen
8. Zurich
9. Helsinki
10. Cape Town

Who would have thought that long-forgotten, mothballed ships could still be of use? Well, David Kreamer has. A geoscientist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Kreamer would like to have old ships transformed into desalination facilities that will turn seawater into drinking water.

The supply of these old military ships and private ships is enough to do the task, according to him. Kreamer finds no problem in getting them to actually become mobile desalination plants as he believes that hundreds of these ships are very well capable of performing their new purpose.

According to Kreamer, these ships could serve coastal communities, where water is badly needed. An estimated half of the world’s residents live within about 100 miles of a coast. The ships could cruise away to avoid a hurricane, if need be, returning afterward to supply a city lacking water and power.

At a meeting of the Geological Society of America in Houston, Texas, Kreamer said that mobile desalination facilities will alleviate many of the environmental problems that hinder their development on land, and pointing out that these renewable energy solutions could power the oceangoing desalination plants.

Both solar and wind are possible energy sources that could utilize the into the power of the sea itself: turbines that turn using wave or tidal power, or techniques that extract power from differences in the density or temperature of seawater at different depths.

Kreamer will be making these plans a reality after he and the Water Standard, a Houston-based company have purchased a ship that will modified to serve as a desalination plant that is targeted to be up and running by late 2009.

Although mobile desalination offers the environmental benefits, Kreamer and the Water Stardard noted that the price of water made this way will be competitive with that made by land-based desalination.

Their vessel, a former vegetable oil tanker that will be rechristened the H2Ocean Cristina, is expected to produce more than 13 million gallons of water a day. So far, the plan is going smoothly, however, the consumers of the water generated by this “new mission” have yet to be determined.

Pages from an Israelis astronaut’s diary that survived the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia and a 37-mile fall to earth are going on display this weekend for the first time in Jerusalem.

The diary belonged to Ilan Ramon, Israel’s first astronaut and one of seven crew members killed when Columbia disintegrated upon re-entering the atmosphere on Feb. 1, 2003. Part of the restored diary will be displayed at the Israel Museum beginning Sunday.

Museum curator Yigal Zalmona restored 37 pages from Ramon’s ill-fated diary that survived extreme heat, explosion and was said to be attacked by microorganisms and insects. According to Zalmona, there is “no rational explanation” how it was recovered when most of the shuttle had not.

Two pages will be displayed. One contains notes written by Ramon, and the other is a copy of the Kiddush prayer, a blessing over wine that Jews recite on the Sabbath. Zalmona said Ramon copied the prayer into his diary so he could recite it on the space shuttle and have the blessing broadcast to Earth.

The diary provides no indication Ramon knew anything about potential problems on the shuttle. Columbia’s wing was gashed by a chunk of fuel tank foam insulation at liftoff and broke up in flames just 16 minutes before it was scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. All seven astronauts on board were killed.

The diary is being displayed as part of a larger exhibit of famous documents from Israel’s history, held to mark the country’s 60th anniversary this year. Also on display will be Israel’s 1948 declaration of independence, the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan and a bloodstained sheet of paper with lyrics to a peace anthem that was carried by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at the time of his assassination in 1995.

On September 20, an Air Combat Command RQ-4A Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system from the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base crossed the Atlantic with the help of Navy officials. The flight from Patuxent River Naval Air Station to Southwest Asia took 19 hours. Air Force and Navy officials worked side by side in order to save time and resources.

Airman 1st Class Matthew Milles, an avionics specialist, said, “The Navy has all of the supplies that we have, plus contracted support. It’s a lot easier than just going to a remote location. Working hand in hand with the Navy moves the plane faster to the deployed location.”

Going east has its own significance and also shows that the Air Force is committed to providing global vigilance, reach and power in the future by exploring new options.

“Going this direction, specifically allows us to cut out a lot of different stops in a lot of different areas,” stated ACC Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Division chief Col. George Zaniewski. “Overall, it gets the aircraft over into the area of responsibility much easier, and more importantly than that, it allows us to work with the Navy, who will be doing more and more in the Global Hawk environment.

“Specifically for the Global Hawk, we are getting more and more into maritime environments, so we are going to be able to work with the Navy much more than we ever have.”

The Global Hawk’s trans-Atlantic flight is just the beginning of an increased relationship between the Air Force and the Navy. It is also a step toward the chief of staff’s initiative to increase unmanned aircraft system capacity for the joint flight.

Col. Zaniewski added, “What I hope for the future is that it becomes one common way… that we work with all our sister services, to where we can streamline both the acquisition process, but also the operational process.”

Working with another service may not always be easy, but the Patuxent River NAS mission was a win-win for both the Air Force and the Navy.

“There is a bit of a different language, different process, but overall we are still the same airframe,” stated Navy Lt. Cmdr. John Tracey, the Naval Global Hawk project officer. “We are kind of the smaller, kid brother of the Global Hawk community, so it’s nice to work with everybody else.”