Year: 2013

SpaceX has confirmed that it plans to begin vertical take-off and landing tests of a full scale Falcon 9 first stage.

6:02 pm

The competition heats up: SpaceX has confirmed that it plans to begin vertical take-off and landing tests of a full scale Falcon 9 first stage.

The tests would be in New Mexico’s spaceport, and are essentially a scaled up version of the Grasshopper tests the company has been doing in Texas. It appears they are going to do these ground-up tests in conjunction with attempts on each future Falcon 9 launch to land the first stage.

1 comment

The state of SLS construction.

10:40 pm

The state of SLS construction.

The article is mostly focused on the engineering challenges of building a new rocket out of old pieces of the space shuttle. Kind of reminds me of Frankenstein. Nonetheless, I do get the impression for the first time that this heavy lift rocket will be built, and will fly at least once.

After that, however, I expect it to die from lack of funds. In fact, its history will probably parallel that of the Soviet Union’s Energia rocket, which flew twice, once to launch their shuttle copycat Buran and once to lift a failed payload whose purpose has never been clearly revealed. Soon thereafter came bankruptcy and the end of the Soviet Union, which couldn’t afford such a monstrosity. SLS will likely see a similar fate.

5 comments

Homeland Security has lost track of more than one million foreigners after they have entered the country.

7:39 pm

Does this make you feel safer? Homeland Security has lost track of more than one million foreigners after they have entered the country.

The government does track arrivals, but is years overdue in setting up a system to track departures — a goal set in a 1996 immigration law and reaffirmed in 2004, but which has eluded Republican and Democratic administrations. “DHS has not yet fulfilled the 2004 statutory requirement to implement a biometric exit capability, but has planning efforts under way to report to Congress in time for the fiscal year 2016 budget cycle on the costs and benefits of such a capability at airports and seaports,” GAO investigators wrote.

Homeland Security, like the TSA, is a fraud. Neither is capable of protecting us. Both are very skillful however at abusing innocent American citizens. Both should be eliminated. The country was actually safer — and freer — before they existed.

1 comment

New satellite data covering the period from 2000 to 2011 now shows that the atmosphere traps far less heat than predicted by every global warming climate model.

10:08 am

The uncertainty of science: New satellite data covering the period from 2000 to 2011 now shows that the atmosphere traps far less heat than predicted by every global warming climate model.

The models had predicted that the increase in CO2 — which is insufficient on its own to cause a greenhouse effect — would cause feedbacks with water (the atmosphere’s real greenhouse gas) that would increase the amount of atmospheric humidity which would thus trap heat in the atmosphere and raise the global temperature. The new data instead shows the opposite. The atmosphere is not trapping any heat. The greenhouse effect is not occurring as predicted.

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