Year: 2012

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter team today released a set of images showing Curiosity’s recent travel on Mars, as well as some fascinating closeups of the spacecraft’s heat shield, parachute, and descent stage.

4:47 pm

Curiosity's first steps

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter team today released a set of images showing Curiosity’s first steps on Mars, as well as some fascinating closeups of the spacecraft’s heat shield, parachute, and descent stage. The image on the left shows the tracks of the rover during its first few days of travel.

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A delayed but higher prediction for the solar maximum?

1:33 pm

The uncertainty of science: The solar scientists at the Marshall Spaceflight Center today revised upward their prediction for the upcoming peak of the solar maximum, from a sunspot number of 60 to 76, while simultaneously delaying the arrival of their predicted peak from the spring to the fall of 2013.

Since Marshall does not archive its predictions, I am required to keep track of the revisions they make and note them here. Previously I had outlined the changes in this prediction since January 2011. Here is an updated listing:
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FAA officials in Seattle have been accused of pressuring employees to vote for Democratic candidates in the November election

7:05 pm

FAA officials in Seattle have been accused of pressuring employees to vote for Democratic candidates in the November election, a violation of the law.

“We write respectfully to request that the Office of Inspector General (OIG) initiate an investigation into Deputy Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety John Hickey and Deputy Director of Flight Standards Field Operations Ray Towles,” Epstein wrote. “We have been informed that during mandatory meetings of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, Mr. Hickey and Mr. Towles encouraged employees to vote for Democratic politicians in upcoming elections, explaining their jobs may very well depend on a Democratic victory.”

The encouraging thing about this story is that it appears that the FAA is taking this allegation very seriously and appears willing to do something about it.

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Delegates today booed the reinsertion of language into the Democratic platform supporting Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as well as the words “God-given.”

7:00 pm

Some reality at a party convention! Delegates today booed the reinsertion of language into the Democratic platform supporting Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as well as the words “God-given.” With video.

As I’ve said, I normally don’t spend much time paying attention to these conventions because they are mostly staged propaganda. However, this moment was not staged, and it revealed a bit of truth about the Democratic Party: A very large percentage, possibly even a majority, of that Party is hostile to both the idea of God and to Israel’s hold on Jerusalem. Very revealing.

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