Have yourself a mellow shopping season

Driving with aloha will be even more important this holiday shopping season, what with parking at the world’s largest open-air mall curbed due to major construction work.

Ala Moana Center is doing everything it can to open up more parking stalls, including encouraging mall employees to take the bus to work. But the best advice for shoppers may be to chill out, expect a wait and time their outings for off-peak hours. Right when the mall opens, in the evening before it closes, or weekdays are best.

Of course, Ala Moana Center isn’t the only mall in town, so a traffic hassle there might drive business elsewhere.

New satellite is big step toward going small

Proof that miniaturization is the future was shown again by the size of a satellite that University of Hawaii students created for use by the U.S. Department of Defense — "something that can fit in the palm of your hand," said project manager Larry Martin.

Launched into orbit on Tuesday, the 9-pound, 4-by-4-by-13-inch "Hooponopono 2" will calibrate DOD radar stations around the world to track objects in space, said Martin, one of 50 students in the UH College of Engineering’s Small Satellite Program who has worked on the project over the past four years. Funding for the $220,000 project, the result of a competition between students at different universities and a milestone for the UH program, was split between the Air Force’s University Nanosatellite Program and NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites Program.

Martin said the two satellites the Hooponopono 2 replaced in orbit are 20 times larger and 40 times more expensive to operate. "This is something we can be proud of," he said. We agree.