The New York Times has details on the airline industry’s requirements for paying off passengers bumped off their flights.

Travelers can now receive up to $400 if they are involuntarily bumped and rebooked on another flight within two hours after their original domestic flight time and within four hours for international. They are eligible for up to $800 in cash if they are not rerouted by then. The final amount depends on the length of the flight and the price paid for the ticket.

Even stricter rules apply in Europe, where compensation ranges from 125 euros (about $185) to 600 euros (about $888), depending on the length of the flight and the amount of time the passenger will be delayed.

Compensation must be paid immediately in cash, or with a voucher if the passenger accepts it, and the airline must offer a choice of a refund, a return flight to their departure city or an alternative flight. Volunteers also receive compensation, which they negotiate with the airline.

CNN.com on this week’s Spanair crash in Madrid:

Relatives of people who died in the crash met Friday night with Spanair representatives and complained angrily that the company was not providing any information on what might have caused the crash.

Some said their loved ones had sent them cell phone text messages saying that had tried to get off the plane after the mechanical problem emerged, but were not allowed to. Spanair declined to comment on this Saturday.

It happened to me in 2003 on my first trip to Africa. And again in ‘04, ‘05, ‘06, and twice in ‘07. Once you experience Africa, it infects you with the ceaseless urge to go back. Evidently, this infection has reached Matt Damon, too. In this month’s Condé Nast Traveller:

MATT DAMON’S BIG IDEA—THAT EUREKA moment during a journey when you see something or have a conversation with someone and you are, for an instant, touched and in some way transformed—came in Zambia. He was there in 2006 with DATA (Debt AIDS Trade Africa), the rock star-activist Bono’s organization, wondering how he might put his own celebrity muscle to the best use.

MSNBC reports today it costs the US Secret Service $45,000 per day to protect each presidential candidate. That’s part of a larger near-$90 million budget for the 2008 campaign.

The timing of this year’s conventions poses a unique challenge for the Secret Service as well. Coming off protection details in China where U.S. dignitaries traveled for the Olympics, the agents and officers go straight to Denver for the Democratic National Convention and then have just three days before the Republican counterpart kicks off. In 2004, there were 32 days between the two conventions; and there were 11 days between the 2000 conventions.

NASA on their Constellation Program:

NASA tested the parachutes for the recovery system on its Orion crew exploration vehicle above the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona on July 31. The test proved unsuccessful when a test set-up parachute failed.

The failed parachute — called a programmer chute — deployed, but it did not inflate properly and failed to get the test article that simulated the Orion crew module into the correct orientation, altitude and speed for the test, causing the parachute system for the test vehicle to fail.