Month: March 2012

New numbers released today from the Congressional Budget Office estimate that the cost of Obamacare over the next decade will be $1.76 trillion, not $940 billion as predicted by the Democrats who passed it.

3:20 pm

Finding out what’s in it: New numbers released today from the Congressional Budget Office estimate that the cost of Obamacare over the next decade will be $1.76 trillion, not $940 billion as predicted by the Democrats who passed it.

The only word I can think of that aptly describes the people who pushed this law on us is incompetence. That any rational person would consider voting for these people again boggles the mind.

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More video showing how easy it is to vote illegally, this time in Vermont.

12:24 pm

More video showing how easy it is to vote illegally, this time in Vermont.

Unlike in the previous video in New Hampshire, this time the fake voters were able to get permission to vote using the names of both dead and living voters. And of course, no ID was requested. The video illustrates the absurdity of the situation by contrasting this situation with other examples where IDs are required.

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Research on ISS has found that prolonged spaceflight causes vision problems and might even damage the human eye.

8:38 am

Research on ISS has found that prolonged spaceflight causes vision problems and might even damage the human eye.

There had been hints of this discovery in an earlier report, but today’s paper is the first published science on the subject.

The results are not only important for finding out the medical challenges of weightlessness. They illustrate once again the need to do long extended flights on ISS. Without that research we are never going to be able to fly humans to other planets.

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The blistering hot exoplanet where it snows

4:13 pm

The blistering hot exoplanet where it snows.

These results have led to a suggestion that [HD 189733b] could continually experience silicate snow. In the lower atmosphere of [the exoplanet], magnesium silicate sublimates, that is, it passes directly from a solid into a gas. But we know there are small silicate particulates in the upper atmosphere. Formation of these particulates requires that the temperature be lowered, and so must have been formed at a temperature inversion in the atmosphere. The generally windy conditions would help some of the tiny particulates grow into respectable snow crystals.

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Lord Monckton tries to educate a college professor and his students.

8:59 am

Lord Monckton tries to educate a college professor and his students about the science of climate change.

This is why:

“We shall lose the West unless we can restore the use of reason to pre-eminence in our institutions of what was once learning. It was the age of reason that built the West and made it prosperous and free. The age of reason gave you your great Constitution of liberty. It is the power of reason, the second of the three great powers of the soul in Christian theology, that marks our species out from the rest of the visible creation, and makes us closest to the image and likeness of our Creator. I cannot stand by and let the forces of darkness drive us unprotesting into a new Dark Age.”

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An up and down Sun

11:52 pm

close-up

Late last week NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center released its monthly update of the ongoing solar cycle sunspot activity, covering February 2012. Though I am slightly late in posting it, as I do every month, you can now see the full graph below the fold. I have also created a close-up of the graph’s relevant area, shown on the left, because it is hard to decipher what is happening on the full graph.

Since the Sun began it ramp up to solar maximum back in 2009, the pattern has been consistent, two steps forward, one step back. First there are several months in a row in which the number of sunspots show a steep rise, followed immediately by several months in which the sunspot numbers decline just as steeply, though by not as much. All told, since 2009 we have seen this pattern repeat four times.

February’s numbers have continued that pattern.
» Read more

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Playing hardball

9:23 am

The director of Russia’s manned program told the press today that the Russians do not have that a signed contract with NASA to fly astronauts to ISS after 2015, despite NASA’s announcement that such an agreement exists.

If true, NASA’s management has committed a very serious error which will cost the U.S. a great deal of money in the coming years, especially if there are significant delays in getting the new commercial companies online to provide the U.S. an American capability for ferrying humans to orbit.
» Read more

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A Thank You From Japan

7:01 am

One year ago today Japan was hit with one of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history, followed almost immediately by one of the most powerful tsunamis in recorded history. Since then, that nation and its people have done an incredible job recovering from that disaster, proving once again that there really is no limit to what humans can do.

The video below is their thank you to the rest of the world for the help and support brought to Japan by people everywhere. As they say, “Arigato.”

I say, bless you all for never giving up.

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The spaceship companies in Mohave are hiring

7:44 am

Want a job building spaceships? The spaceship companies in Mohave are hiring.

There are several hundred open positions in Mojave as companies such as the Spaceship Company, XCOR and Scaled Composites begin to ramp up operations. “It’s ironic that we’re having a recruitment problem in Mojave,” said Stu Witt, CEO and general manager of the Mojave Air and Space Port. He added that this is a good problem to have.

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A new bill in Congress would clarify the rights of 1960s astronauts to the space-flown artifacts they took home after their flight.

6:01 pm

A new bill in Congress would clarify the rights of 1960s astronauts to the space-flown artifacts they took home after their flight.

What I don’t like about this is that it is so specific, only protecting the rights of the astronauts from the 1960s. Why not extend these rights to all those who fly on NASA missions?

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