An evening pause. Hat tip Phill Oltmann. I had sworn I had posted this already, but now can’t find it on BtB. And even if I have posted it, it is worth watching again. My only comment is that I am baffled by the film’s description of the event as “horrifying.” I don’t find this natural event horrifying, I find it awe-inspiring. It reminds us that the scale of the universe if far far beyond anything we can imagine.
A Kentucky county clerk continues to defy federal court rulings by refusing to issue any marriage licenses so as to avoid issuing same-sex licenses as well.
A Kentucky county clerk, defying a new U.S. Supreme Court decision and citing “God’s authority,” rejected requests for marriage licenses from same-sex couples on Tuesday in a deepening legal standoff now two months old. Citing her religious objections, Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis has refused to issue any marriage licenses since the Supreme Court in June ruled that same-sex couples had the right to marry under the U.S. Constitution.
On Monday the same court rejected Davis’ request for an emergency order allowing her to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples while she appeals a federal judge’s order requiring her to issue them. Eight people filed a federal lawsuit against Davis in July challenging her office’s policy of not issuing marriage licenses to any couples – gay or straight.
I do not support any government official who arbitrarily decides to not follow the law. The issue here is whether the Supreme Court ruling itself followed the law. There are many legal experts who would say no.
Either way, this story illustrates the coming persecution of Christians and Jews whose faith tells them that any support of homosexual activities is wrong. You see, it is no longer acceptable to the homosexual community for these religious people to simply leave homosexuals alone and allow them to do what they want, as has been the case for the past half century. It is now demanded that the religious participate and endorse homosexual behavior, even if it goes against their own deeply held beliefs.
I want to point out again that no homosexuals have been prevented from living their lifestyle during this whole same-sex brouhaha. They remain free to live as they wish. The only people being persecuted are Christians, merely because they have refused to endorse that behavior. With these facts in mind, who do you think are the fascists?
With 8 days left in its campaign to raise $10 grand so that the Space Show can upgrade its website and make its archives searchable, the campaign is 70% funded.
As a regularly guest on David Livingston’s excellent show, I ask all my readers to consider donating to this campaign. For the past decade and a half The Space Show has probably provided the best and most complete coverage of the aerospace industry. The success of this campaign will allow the show to continue while also making the wealth of information buried in its archives more easily available to everyone.
The uncertainty of science: Planetary geologists are presently baffled by a conflict in the atmospheric data between New Horizons and data gathered from Earth.
On 29 June, a few weeks before the fly-by, Young organized astronomers across New Zealand and Australia to watch Pluto as it passed in front of a distant star. Tracking how the star’s light faded during the passage provided information on how much gas is in Pluto’s atmosphere. Using the same method, planetary scientists have seen the atmosphere grow denser since 1988 — and analysis of the 29 June observations shows that the trend remains intact. Young calculates that the current atmospheric pressure at Pluto’s surface is 22 microbars (0.022 pascals), or 22-millionths the pressure at sea level on Earth.
But on 14 July, New Horizons measured Pluto’s surface pressure as much lower than that — just 5 microbars. “How we link the two, we’re still working on,” says Cathy Olkin, a deputy project scientist for New Horizons at SwRI.
The difference could simply be that Pluto’s atmosphere is not smooth, that some regions are dense while others are thin, and New Horizons happened to look at a thin place. The Earth observations don’t have the resolution to separate the two.
There are other proposals to explain the problem. Regardless, the answer is likely hidden in the data from New Horizons that has still not been downloaded back to Earth. In a few months, all might very well become clear.
Or not, as is the natural state of science.
This article, describing the 2007 flight of the first Malaysian in space, launched as a passenger in a Russian Soyuz capsule, is mostly worth reading because it goes into details on the Islamic religious rules the astronaut had to follow to practice the religion in space.
Muszaphar had to spend time going through an instruction manual on daily religious rituals provided by Malaysian mullahs. Vyacheslav Urlyapov of the Moscow-based Centre for Southeast Asia, Australia, and Oceania Studies, RAS Institute of Oriental Studies, sums up the cosmonaut’s experience: “The 11-day flight overlapped in part the holy month of Ramadan. Muslims had been in orbit before him, but it fell to Muszaphar to comply with the detailed instructions written for him by Islamic theologians (ulema) to remain a true believer in space, too.”
Muslims are required to face in the general direction of the city of Mecca while saying the mandatory – five times a day – prayers. But locating the tiny city from space is not an easy task, especially when you are hurtling around Earth at more than 17,000 km per hour. Also, in space there is no sense of direction – as we know it on land. The Malaysian cosmonaut was therefore all at sea during his first space flight.
Mercifully, Muszaphar was released from fasting, and was allowed to say shorter prayers and perform daily rituals according to Kazakhstan time. Plus, he didn’t have to face the constant ordeal of locating Mecca.
Kind of describes the problems when a medieval religion is thrust into the 21st century. The medieval religion has to change.
SpaceX has decided to delay its next launch for several additional months as it continues its investigation into the June Falcon 9 launch failure.
The next mission on SpaceX’s launch calendar had been a U.S. government ocean-monitoring satellite called Jason 3, but Shotwell indicated that a commercial communications satellite would move to the front of the line. Luxembourg-based SES SA has a contract to fly on the first Falcon 9 rocket that features an upgraded first-stage engine. The upgrade will allow SpaceX to attempt to land its rockets back at the launch site from high-altitude missions so they can be refurbished and reused.
They had originally hoped to return to flight in September. This is now probably delayed until November. However, that their next flight will include the upgraded Merlin engine and it will be a commercial flight means they will once again likely try for a vertical landing of that first stage. Moreover, SES has already said that if the landing is successful it wants to buy that first stage for a future launch. SES hopes to save money this way, while also encouraging innovation in the launch market which it sees as a long term gain for putting its payloads into orbit.
An evening pause: As the youtube website explains, “This is perhaps the only hotel in the world where you may need to make way for passing elephants when checking in. During the month of November, a small herd of pachyderms nonchalantly tromps through reception on their way to a wild mango tree.”
Hat tip Danae.
I will be doing another two hours with Georgy Noory on Coast to Coast on Tuesday night from midnight to 2 am, providing him an update of some of the real space and science news that has occurred in the past month, since my last appearance. Tune in for some fun stuff!
I normally don’t bother reporting on polls. They are notoriously unreliable and often force one to the wrong conclusions. Nonetheless, this poll appears significant because it indicates that it isn’t just Trump that the voters are turning to in their disgust of the establishment political elite community.
First, it is the first poll since late July that does not show Trump with a lead. Instead, Ben Carson ties him. Second, Carly Fiorina with 10% and Ted Cruz with 9% come in second and third.
Finally, and most important, Bush, Kasich, and Rubio, politicians who have demonstrated by their actions that once elected they cannot be trusted get little or no support.
For months I have strongly believed that Jeb Bush was going to go nowhere once the voting began. The Republican base does not want another Bush. Similarly, Rubio’s betrayal of the tea party voters who got him elected by his support of the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration bill is well remembered by those tea party voters. They do not trust him.
Instead, I believe that it will be reliable conservatives or brash outsides like Cruz, Fiorina, Carson, and Trump who will get the votes. This poll suggests I might be right.
Having said this, I must emphasize again my mistrust of polls. It is just as likely this poll is a waste, and tells us nothing.
Finding out what’s in it: The IRS has announced that the annual fine to businesses — even businesses with less than 50 employees — for helping employees pay their medical expenses will be a mere $36,500.
“We were told over and over during the Obamacare discussions that if you had less than 50 employees there’s no requirement to provide coverage, so you don’t have to worry about any cost factor,” said Ron Aldridge, Mississippi director for the National Federation of Independent Businesses. … If a company has five employees, the total tax would be $182,500. A “large” employer with 50 employees that did not provide insurance in compliance with the Affordable Care Act, would be subject to $2,000 per employee, with the first 30 employees exempt, for a total of $40,000, Aldridge said.
And then there’s this gem:
The Mississippi Insurance Department said: “The rule appears nowhere in the Affordable Care Act but was developed by the Obama administration’s regulation writers at the IRS.” [emphasis mine]
Not only is this IRS rule illegal, as it isn’t based on anything written in the Obamacare law, it starkly illustrates the inhumane attitude of the Obama administration and people there who wrote it. The rule demands that employers look the other way if their employees are in trouble because of medical expenses. It also surprises everyone by suddenly imposing Obamacare on all businesses, even tiny ones which had been promised they were exempt from the law.
In fact, based on the information in this article, even an independent contractor like myself could be found in violation of this rule and subject to fines.. Essentially, I am not allowed to use my profits from my business to pay for my medical costs,
In other words, this administration wants to hurt people.
A Florida prosecutor has dropped all charges against a man who was arrested by police for playing the Star-Spangled Banner on July 4th for his neighbors.
That the police even considered arresting him was beyond reasonable. And three cheers for the player, Lane Pittman, for refusing to plea bargain.
The competition heats up: The head of Energia, the Russian company that builds the Soyuz capsule, said this week at a space conference near Moscow that they are going to accelerate construction of a prototype of a next generation replacement, capable of launch four astronauts.
We have agreed with the engineers…. to reduce the time for construction and production of the first copy of this spaceship. Despite the fact that we have voiced and agreed on the first launch in 2021, we have set the task to build the prototype by 2019, and I think that we will succeed, ” Solntsev told reporters at the MAKS.
Take this with a grain of salt. Energia has proposed a number of different Soyuz replacements since 2000, none of which ever saw the light of day. At the same time, the situation in Russia has changed, and the government is now committed to financing a robust space program. Previously, Energia had to find private investment capital, which never arrived because, I think, investors did not trust the legal situation in Russia. They had no way of guaranteeing that they would own their shares. In fact, the recent take-over and consolidation of Russia’s entire aerospace industry by the government has proven those investor doubts entirely right.
At the same time, the increased competition in the launch industry and this government takeover might signal something real is finally going to happen.
