Month: April 2011
NASA Awards Next Set Of Commercial Crew Development Agreements
NASA has awarded the next set of commercial crew development agreements, giving contracts worth from $22 to $92 million to four companies, Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada, SpaceX, and Boeing. More here and here.
The amounts that NASA is giving these companies is minuscule, compared the monies spent on the program-formerly-called-Constellation. Yet I bet they all get their rockets/capsules launched and in operation, supplying cargos and crews to low Earth orbit, before NASA even test fires its heavy-lift rocket.
Eddi Reader – Leezie Lindsay
An evening pause: Chorus by Robert Burns c1795, verses by Eddi Reader and Boo Hewerdine.
Oh the lights in this city are like diamonds
The street lamps, the signs and the cars
Though it’s bright in the city what are diamonds?
When they’re turning out all of our stars.
Christian protesters in France destroy “Piss Christ” and other anti-christian art
Christian protesters in France destroy “Piss Christ” and other anti-christian art on display in a museum.
As inappropriate and disgusting I might consider this art, it is not good for westerners to lower themselves to Islamic standards.
The real disaster in Japan
Getting control of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima is going to be a challenging job, no doubt. Nonetheless, it remains a minor and comparatively trivial problem for Japan after the earthquake and tsunami destroyed the country’s northeastern coast, and it saddens me that so much of the American press and public seems unable to absorb this simple fact.
This footage of the tsunami hitting a small coastal town in Japan gives us a clear and unvarnished look of the real disaster there. Near the end you can see people fleeing for their lives, and throughout the video the voices of the watchers can only express horrified gasps at what they are seeing.
“Wear a headscarf or we will kill you.”
In London: “Wear a headscarf or we will kill you.”
The UN loses the 50 million climate refugees that they predicted in 2005 would exist by 2010
The UN loses 50 million nonexistent climate refugees, predicted by them in 2005 to overwhelm us by 2010.
Grey Eye Glances — Angel
An evening pause: Because this band, Grey Eye Glances, is not that well known, there are very few videos of them on youtube. Yet, I found their 1997 album, Eventide, to be incredible. Though the video below of the song Angel shows only lyrics, it is worth listening to for the music alone.
David Bowie — Space Oddity (1969)
An evening pause:
Always Forgetting Passwords? I’m With the Government, and I’m Here to Help
What could possible go wrong? The Obama administration on Friday proposed that all your private passwords be replaced by a single credential, issued and controlled by the federal government.
Every Picture of Abraham Lincoln Known to Exist
An evening pause: On the anniversary of his death.
Bolden says Orion to be scaled back
Surprise! NASA administrator Charles Bolden told lawmakers on Monday that with the new budget the Orion capsule had to be scaled back somehow.
Watch over the next few years as Orion and the new heavy-lift vehicle (the program-formerly-called-Constellation) slowly evaporate, even as both cost us billions in money we no longer can afford.
China finds SpaceX’s launch prices challenging
Competition! China finds SpaceX’s launch prices low — and a challenge to meet.
Declining to speak for attribution, the Chinese officials say they find the published prices on the SpaceX website very low for the services offered, and concede they could not match them with the Long March series of launch vehicles even if it were possible for them to launch satellites with U.S. components in them.
TSA security looks at people who complain about … TSA security
So you think you have freedom of speech? The TSA specifically singles out people who complain about TSA security.
SWAT Team Sent In to Confiscate 13-Year-Old Over Unneeded Medication
Our land of freedom: SWAT team sent in to confiscate 13-year-old over unneeded medication.
“Our current unfunded entitlement liabilities run about $100 trillion.”
Federal funding for IPCC back in budget
The pigs win: Funding for the IPCC restored to budget in 2011 budget deal.
No deal
No deal. Key quote:
If Democrats are not going to do even minor surgery on Medicare and Medicaid and Republicans are not going to raise taxes, there is no hope of big budget deal to cut a deficit now running at 11 percent of gross domestic product.
And that raises another question. How long can the Federal Reserve continue financing these deficits? China, choking on U.S. debt, is reportedly beginning to divest itself of U.S. bonds. Japan will need to sell U.S. bonds to get hard currency to repair the damage from the earthquake and tsunami. And the Fed is about to end its QE2 monthly purchases of $100 billion in U.S. bonds. Where is the Fed going to borrow the $125 billion a month to finance this year’s deficit of $1.65 trillion, and another of comparable size in 2012? Bill Gross’ Pimco, the world’s largest bond fund, has sold all his U.S. bonds and begun to short U.S. debt. Pimco is betting that the value of U.S. Treasury bonds will begin to fall.
We may be about to enter a maelstrom.
Useful idiot hanged by Palestinians
Useful idiot: Pro-Palestinian activist murdered by Islamic Palestinians.
Air Force and NRO ink deal with SpaceX
Who says there aren’t customers for the new rocket companies? The Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office have inked a deal with SpaceX, preliminary to using the company’s rockets to launch military satellites.