Bigelow’s plans
Enjoyspace.com has a very detailed and nice write-up of Robert Bigelow’s plans to build the first private space hotels.
Year: 2010
Journolist, part 2
Freedom of speech alert. And the danger comes not from the government but from reporters of all things! Leaked emails from a now closed leftwing listserv for journalists reveal an incredible and almost frightening hatred for the right as well as an astonishing willingness by these journalists to use the government to silence opposing opinions. Key quote:
Jonathan Zasloff, a law professor at UCLA, suggested that the federal government simply yank Fox off the air. “I hate to open this can of worms,” he wrote, “but is there any reason why the FCC couldn’t simply pull their broadcasting permit once it expires?”
The article is astonishing. Read the whole thing.
Mars Odyssey in safe mode
Mars Odyssey, in orbit around Mars, went into safe mode on July 14, due to problems with “an electronic encoder.” The spacecraft switched to a backup, and engineers have since been able to bring it back to life slowly. They hope to have everything working normally again by the end of this week.
Supercheap satellites
Want to build and launch your very own satellite? You can, for as little as $8,000!
very big stars
Using the Very Large Telescope in Chile, astronomers have identifed a number of stars with masses thought to range from 150 to as much as 300 times the mass of our Sun. Fun quote from the press release:
Within [star cluster] R136, only four stars weighed more than 150 solar masses at birth, yet they account for nearly half of the wind and radiation power of the entire cluster, comprising approximately 100 000 stars in total.
Stars this gigantic are believed to end their life in an explosion so intense it destroys the star entirely, leaving nothing behind but an expanding debris cloud, from which other stars and planets (and even life) can form.
Russia to build new spaceport
Russia is planning a new spaceport, in its far eastern Amur region near the border with China, to supplement the Baikonur spaceport located in Kazakhstan.
SpaceShipTwo’s first glide flight by the fall
Space.com reports that the first drop flight of SpaceShipTwo, where it is released from WhiteKnightTwo to land on its own, could come as soon as this fall.
Footage of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon
An evening pause: Since it is the anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, let’s watch it as it happened on July 20, 1969. This footage, in a single continuous shot, shows the view out of the lunar module window, beginning when the spacecraft was approximately 40,000 feet above the lunar surface. The key quote as they drop to less than 100 feet off the surface is a voice that first says “60 seconds,” than later “30 seconds.” This is astronaut Charlie Duke, the capsule communicator (capcom) in mission control, telling Neil Armstrong exactly how much time he has left before running out of fuel. Despite these warnings, Armstrong took a careful, almost deliberate look at the surface, realized they were heading for a crater and decided he needed to reposition the landing site. As a result he used almost all the fuel in his tanks, which had people in mission control going nuts as they watched.
NAACP leader arrested trying to attend school board meeting
Freedom of speech alert: the head of a local North Carolina NAACP chapter was arrested when he tried to attend a local school board meeting to protest its actions. He had been arrested for trespassing at a previous board meeting, and it is unclear if his attempted appearance this time was a trespass as well.
RICO lawsuits against BP
Want to guarantee that oil companies will stop drilling in the U.S., and therefore reduce the supply and raise the price? File lots of lawsuits!
Journolist evidence, part 1
More evidence has been uncovered showing that many journalists cared less about reporting the news during the 2008 Presidential campaign than helping Barak Obama get elected. Worse, these reporters were willing to smear their opponents in the worst possible manner, without evidence. Key quote:
In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with [Reverend] Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”
The space war heats up
It appears the space war is heating up again. This analysis of the NASA authorization legislation issued by the House yesterday notes that it has serious differences with the Senate bill. The article notes that the House bill does not fund an additional shuttle mission while insisting that the government continue the construction of some variation of the Orion capsule and Ares rockets. See also this article from the Orlando Sentinel.
More climategate whitewash
Meanwhile, it turns out that the climategate investigation of Phil Jones at the University of East Anglia allowed Jones himself to review and approve the evidence that the investigation would look at!
U.S. government suspends funding to East Anglia University
The U.S. Department of Energy has temporarily suspended all research funding to the University of East Anglia, pending its review of the climategate controversy.
Goons in action part 2
Elite bigotry in college admissions
This analysis of college admissions practices reveals that colleges discriminate badly against students from rural communities, merely because they are from those communities. Key quote:
Participation in such Red State activities as high school ROTC, 4-H clubs, or the Future Farmers of America was found to reduce very substantially a student’s chances of gaining admission to the competitive private colleges in the NSCE database on an all-other-things-considered basis. The admissions disadvantage was greatest for those in leadership positions in these activities or those winning honors and awards. “Being an officer or winning awards” for such career-oriented activities as junior ROTC, 4-H, or Future Farmers of America, say Espenshade and Radford, “has a significantly negative association with admission outcomes at highly selective institutions.” Excelling in these activities “is associated with 60 or 65 percent lower odds of admission.” [emphasis mine]
Amazing isn’t it? If you grow up in a rural American community in flyover country, do well as a teenager by participating responsibly as a leader in the kinds of after-school activities popular in rural communities, elite American colleges are going to hold that against you.
The article also describes bigotry against whites and asians (for racial reasons) as well as individuals with a military background. It is worthwhile reading the whole article.
House releases their text of NASA budget
The House Committee on Science and Technology has released the text [pdf] of its NASA reauthorization bill. The committee’s short thumbnail description of the language suggests it is similar to the Senate language. A quick scan of the text also suggests this as well. I hope to take a closer look at both the Senate and House bills later this week and then give my take on both.
Life as it should be
An evening pause: Tomorrow will be the 41st anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. So, let’s start the week with a clip from the 1972 film version of Man of La Mancha to show why some impossible dreams are certainly possible. In this short scene, Peter O’Toole, as Cervantes, explains why he does not like to look at life, “as it is.”
Russians laugh at Obama goals
The head of the Russian manned space program thinks that NASA’s new goals of building a rocket and capsule for reaching an asteroid by 2015 to be “unreal.”
Modern media journalism at its worst
This story is a few months old, but I think it is important enough to post again, now. Go and watch the two videos at this website. The first is a report by Contessa Brewer of MSNBC about a tea party rally where, according to Brewer, there were “white people showing up with guns.” The second video shows you an uncropped image of these same gun-toting “white people.” Then I dare you to tell me that any of the news reporting by Brewer and MSNBC is trustworthy, especially considering they have done nothing to correct her patently false story in the months since.