ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (Reuters) -- President Bush on Friday urged that affordable high-speed Internet access known as broadband be available to all Americans by 2007.

"We ought to have universal, affordable access to broadband technology by the year 2007," Bush said in a speech focusing mostly on homeownership. "And then we ought to make sure that as soon as possible thereafter consumers have plenty of choices..."

Telephone and cable television companies like Verizon Communications and Comcast Corp. have been competing fiercely to sign up customers to high-speed Internet service, which is seen as a lucrative market.

There is already a fund that subsidizes telephone service in rural areas and for those who cannot afford it. Policymakers have debated whether the Universal Service Fund should also subsidize Internet access to American homes.

They have also been debating what regulations should apply to broadband services. Telephone companies that dominate a market have to share their networks with rivals for telephone service and there have been extensive debates about whether those rules should apply to broadband.

Cable companies do not presently have to share their networks with rivals but some allow subscribers to have an alternative Internet service provider.

There were about 20.6 million homes and small businesses that subscribe to high-speed Internet as of June 2003, the latest data available from the Federal Communications Commission.

More consumers have signed up for the broadband from cable companies, with about 13.7 million lines compared to 7.7 million using telephone companies' digital subscriber line services.

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Massachusetts remains the state best positioned to take advantage of a high-technology economy, while Mississippi lags the rest of the nation, according to a new study released Wednesday.

The Milken Institute, a Los Angeles-area think tank backed by former junk bond king Michael Milken, used 75 separate measurements to come up with its State Technology and Science Index, the second one produced by the institute.

Like the 2002 study before it, the new survey found a link between how well a state scores in the index and its per-capita income. Moreover, the researchers contend that the more a state invests in technology and develops technology businesses, the better off its citizens will be.

"If they don't become part of the knowledge economy, they risk some very large dislocations among their population," Ross DeVol, director of regional economics for the Milken Institute, told Reuters.

The same states occupied the top five and bottom five spots as in the last index, though in slightly different order. California rose to No. 2, while Colorado slipped to No 3.

Massachusetts was the only state to score higher than 80 out of 100 and was well ahead of California, while less than 1 point separated California from No. 4 Maryland.

At the bottom of the table, Arkansas traded places with Mississippi, now last in the nation with a score just over half of the national average.

Rhode Island made the biggest leap, coming in at 11th in the new survey from 21st in the 2002 study, while Texas suffered the biggest decline, falling to 23rd from 14th.

"One that was really quite striking to me ... was the state of Texas," DeVol said. "A lot of that relates to the high concentration in communications equipment, telecoms equipment ... the implosion in semiconductor orders, how it affected the Austin and Dallas areas, especially."

One trend DeVol said was an area of concern was outsourcing, a hot-button political issue in this election year as small towns across the country complain of their jobs being shipped overseas, where labor is cheaper.

"It is a real issue because some states that have tried to move themselves up the economic development ladder have relied on strategies like bringing in call centers that are increasingly going to India and other locations," he said.

"With the globalization that's occurring with high-speed communications capabilities and the Internet, the world is changing so fast it is very difficult for state officials and even private industry to stay up with these changes."

Among the states coming in near the bottom of the index, DeVol said many had begun initiatives to pull themselves up and increase their focus on high technology. He cited efforts in Hawaii to increase research and development, and in Louisiana to establish development clusters as good examples.

"What it comes down to is putting together a strategy and sticking to it over the long term," DeVol said.

CUETZALAN, Mexico - British Royal Navy divers on Thursday led to safety all six explorers trapped in a warren of caves in eastern Mexico.

The men were to be taken to a hospital in Puebla, 105 miles (170 km) away, to be checked out.

With the divers' help, Chris Mitchell was the first to emerge from caves after traversing a tunnel 100 yards long and 6 feet high that was filled with water.

Officials said he was in apparent good health. The men became trapped a week ago when flash floods soaked the area.

Four Red Cross vehicles, including ambulances, arrived Thursday morning at the site of the rescue effort -- near the town of Cuetzalan, northeast of Mexico City.

The navy divers arrived at the site Wednesday, accompanied by representatives of the British Embassy in Mexico City.

Four of the cavers are members of the British military.

Diplomacy flap
The underground saga has had an impact in high places. On Wednesday, Mexican President Vicente Fox -- traveling in Honduras -- expressed irritation at the presence of the British military.

Fox said the team had entered Mexico on tourist visas and failed to notify the Mexican government that some were members of the British military and that they were going on an expedition.

"I have instructed the foreign relations minister to file a formal protest immediately and to request a clarification from the British government what were they doing here," Fox said.


An unidentified member of the British exploring team stands in the cave near Cuetzalan, Mexico, this month.
In London, British Ministry of Defense spokesman Paul Sykes denied Thursday that the explorers lacked the necessary authority to enter Mexico or the caves.

"We don't allow adventurous training like this ... without completion of a clearance procedure," he said in a phone interview. "And that's done before they go."

He added, "We are very clear, in our own minds, that the necessary liaison did take place and clearance procedures were completed."

Sykes said officials at the Foreign Office in London discussed the situation Thursday with Juan Jose Bremer, Mexico's ambassador to Britain.

The press attaché for Bremer said the ambassador had asked for information about what the men -- all British nationals -- were doing in Mexico.

Steve Whitlock, leader of the expedition, has said the cave structure may be among the world's longest and that the group is trying to map it for the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain.

The expedition set off March 16 on what was to have been a two-day trip. When flash floods cut off their exit the next day, they went to a prepared underground camp that was stocked with food, sleeping bags, a first-aid kit and a radio.

Should Schools Be Wired To The Internet?

(TIME, May 25) -- As TIME wrote last October, "all kids, not just ones from families that can afford a home computer, should grow up with a mouse in their hand." The President and I could not agree more. Access to the basic tools of the information age is no longer a luxury for our children. It is a necessity.

Today communications and information technology are transforming our economy and our society, changing the way we live, the way we work and the way we relate to one another. In recent years, information technology has been responsible for more than one-quarter of real economic growth. Jobs in information technology pay significantly more than nontechnology jobs. By the year 2000, 60% of all jobs will require the technology skills that only a fraction of Americans now have.

But technology skills become important long before people look for jobs. They become important as soon as children begin to learn. In a decade-long series of studies, the Education Department reports that students in classes that use computers outperform their peers on standardized tests of basic skills by an average of 30%. And a 1996 study showed that students with access to the Internet not only presented their final projects in more creative ways but also turned in work that was more complete and had better syntheses of different points of view. Numerous other studies show that children in technology-rich learning environments showed more enthusiasm, had higher attendance rates, developed better writing skills and displayed a greater capacity to communicate effectively about complex problems.

That's why the President and I have worked so hard to enable all of our schools and libraries to have affordable access to telecommunications and information technology. The E-Rate program, for instance, gives crucial discounts to schools and libraries, with the steepest discounts going to the neediest communities. Through this tailored program, we are committed to helping ensure that all children--regardless of race, income or geography--can have an equal chance to learn and succeed.

Without such help, technology is yet one more hurdle for poor and rural communities struggling to keep up with richer ones. Already, America is sharply divided between those with access to computers and the Internet and those without it. Only 13% of classrooms in schools with a high percentage of minority students are connected to the Internet, compared with 27% of classrooms overall.

Some critics view the new technology as a frivolous tool of education. But more and more, computers are at the very heart of how schools teach and children learn. Other critics are worried about the changes they imagine the new technology may bring. Over the course of history, progress often spurs anxiety. When Greek merchants began importing Egyptian paper into Athens, Socrates condemned it, complaining that the use of paper would, according to writer Nicholas Allard, depersonalize interactions, disrupt human ties and "replace public discourse with less desirable and potentially dangerous private communication."

Still other critics say we are diverting needed resources away from other, more pressing educational priorities. But we need not limit ourselves to investing in one or the other. We can do both, and we must.

Since 1993, we have worked hard to improve education from preschool to postgraduate level. We expanded Head Start, created Goals 2000 to help states set high academic standards, expanded charter schools, focused Title 1 funds more on low-income children, while setting the same standards for those children as for all others, and made college affordable to everyone through grants, loans, scholarships and tax benefits.

In the President's balanced budget, which he sent to Congress in February, we propose to build on those accomplishments by expanding those key investments while also paying for 100,000 new teachers, providing tax incentives to accelerate new school construction or renovation and investing more in education technology.

All parents want to help prepare their children for the future. Today that challenge means helping them grow up in a world in which information and communications technology dominate the economy and shape our society. We must give our children--all our children--the chance to succeed in the information age, and that means giving them access to the tools that are shaping the world in which they live.

Fifty-seven years after combat pilot Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, NASA will make a second attempt Saturday at flying an aircraft at 5,000 mph -- about seven times Mach 1, the speed of sound.

The space agency's dogged pursuit of extreme speed, officials hope, will ultimately make space flight easier to accomplish.

NASA will roll out the X-43A, capable of reaching speeds more than Mach 7, in a test flight over the Pacific Ocean. The Hyper-X, as it is called, could also give rise to commercial planes that zip passengers between London and New York in less than two hours.

"It's relatively simple in its concept," said Griff Corpening, chief engineer for the X-43A program. "It's incredibly challenging in its execution.... [That is] where 40 plus years of research comes in."

The $250-million Hyper-X program has already attracted the interest of the Air Force and private aerospace companies such as Boeing. But dreams of civilian spin-offs are at least 20 years away, said NASA officials, who are betting the program will first lead to a more durable, cheaper workhorse for the space fleet.

And the future of the program could be hindered by budget cuts as NASA attempts to establish a moon base and launch a manned Mars expedition under an initative by the Bush Administration.

The diminutive, 12-foot-long X-43A test craft will ride atop a Pegasus booster rocket launched from a converted B-52 bomber off southern California. The flight will test aspects of a design to allow planes to overcome the pull of Earth's gravity by reaching 25,000 mph, also known as escape velocity.

During the test, the 49-foot-long booster rocket will propel the X-43A to about 3,700 mph before the experimental plane detaches from the rocket and flies under its own power using a hydrogen-powered "scramjet" engine, the first such test of the technology.

The actual powered-flight is expected to last about 10 seconds and reach Mach 7 before gliding for six minutes and plunging into the Pacific Ocean.

The test will gather crucial information for engineers and scientists trying to make the X-43A NASA's platform for reusable spacecraft and hypersonic planes, or those traveling above Mach 5.

It will be the first time aircraft have detached in mid-flight for hypersonic flight.

"We've never separated two vehicles going Mach 5," said Leslie Williams, spokeswoman for NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center which is overseeing the test. "That's just never happened. It's a very risky thing."

First attempt ends in explosion
The last attempt in 2001 was aborted after stabilizing fins flew off the plane's booster rocket. Controllers ordered the craft destroyed. Researchers blamed a flight control system failure and unanticipated stresses on the rocket.

Since then, a redesign and test changes have reduced the risks, researchers said, but some aspects of the X-43A's propulsion and aerodynamic design remain unproven. Simulating such high speeds on the ground remains difficult.

In many respects, this will be the first trial for crucial technology employing air-breathing "scramjet" engines instead of bulky and expensive chemical rockets to leave the atmosphere. The new engines promise to dramatically lower the risks and expense of flight by freeing spacecrafts from massive and potentially explosive fuel tanks.

"It's hard to say what the future is going to lead to," said Williams. "The [scramjet engines] have been in the wind tunnel for 20 years, but a lot of people will be interested to see if it works in free flight."

Scramjets operate at "hypersonic" speeds by burning hydrogen mixed with compressed air scooped from the atmosphere. There are no moving parts. Instead, sophisticated geometry in the engine allows hydrogen to combust with air moving through the engine at supersonic velocities.

At that speed, a molecule of air stays in the engine for just a millisecond. That creates an enormous amount of thrust -- the exact amount of which is classified -- for an engine which can be reused throughout the life of an aircraft.

In theory, such engines will push crafts beyond Mach 10 and, with the help of chemical rockets, escape Earth's gravitational pull and achieve orbit. That kind of craft would probably employ multiple propulsion systems including a turbo-jet to reach supersonic speeds, scramjets to take the vessel to the edge of the atmosphere and then chemical rockets to enter the void of space.

Searching for a shuttle replacement
But a string of canceled programs and engineering failures have hindered progress. A thrifty and reliable replacement for the agency's problematic space shuttles is still years, if not a decade, away.

Congressional belt-tightening and the cost of shuttle launches (now more than $10,000 per pound; that's about $500 million per flight), have intensified efforts to find a replacement.

It was hoped one could be developed during the last decade, but plans to retire the aging shuttle fleet, now on a deadline of 2010 by President Bush, have floundered.

Engineering obstacles, budget troubles and two space shuttle disasters with Challenger and Columbia swept away a number of promising ideas.

NASA officials maintain that the Hyper-X program will continue regardless of budget cuts.

Keith Henry, spokesman for NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia, said any reduction in funding would only delay the program, not derail it.

"NASA's primary interest is cheaper, more flexible and safer access to space," he said. "It just means the application is a little further."