Kevin Delaney Makes a Cloud
An evening pause: Hat tip Edward Thelen. As he wrote in an email to me, “Don’t let anyone tell you that science isn’t fun.”
Author: Robert Zimmerman
Europe reconsiders reusability in its rockets
The competition heats up: Pressured by SpaceX, Europe has restarted a research program into developing a reusable first stage to its rockets.
The headline is actually an overstatement. The European managers quoted in the article actually spend most of their time explaining why trying to reuse a rocket’s first stage makes no sense, but they feel forced to reluctantly look into it anyway because of what SpaceX is doing with its Falcon 9.
This story makes me think of two blacksmiths around 1900. One poo-poos cars, saying that the repair cost is so high no one will ever buy them. He goes back to pounding horseshoes. The other decides that if he learns how to fix cars, he can turn his shop from fixing horseshoes to fixing cars, and make more money. Europe is the first blacksmith, while SpaceX is the second.
Which do you think is going to succeed?
Sierra Nevada loses its protest of NASA contract decision
The GAO has ruled against Sierra Nevada’s protest of NASA’s decision to pick Boeing for its manned spacecraft decision.
The ruling is not really a surprise. Even if political considerations gave Boeing an unfair advantage, the space agency has enough legal leeway to make this decision as it did. The GAO recognized that it would be inappropriate to overrule them.
Falcon 9 launch scrubbed
Due to issues in the rocket’s steering system this morning’s Falcon 9/Dragon launch was scrubbed.
They will try again Friday morning at 5:09 am Eastern.
The search for Philae goes on
Analysis of new data from Rosetta has still failed to locate Philae, though engineers are confident that sometime in May/June the sun will begin to charge its batteries so it turn back on and tell us where it is.
Mary Black and Joan Baez – Ring Them Bells
An evening pause: A hopeful song for the new year.
Hat tip Danae.
Chinese service module journeys to and from Moon
The competition heats up: The service module of China’s first lunar return capsule, launched and successfully returned to Earth in November, is returning to lunar orbit after journeying to L2 more than 35,000 miles from the Moon.
After testing its maneuvering ability at L2, engineers are now moving it back to lunar orbit for further tests.
China lifts export limits on rare earth minerals
Having lost its case before the World Trade Organization China has lifted the limits it had placed on the export of rare earth minerals back in 2009.
Because of low costs, China produces about 90% of all rare earths worldwide, needed for most high tech electronics. This decision eases a concern that has existed now for better part of a half decade.
SpaceX job offers posted for Brownsville Texas
Want to work for SpaceX? You can! They are now posting job openings for those who want to work at their new spaceport in Brownsville Texas.
Some details on the SpaceX’s attempt to land its Falcon 9 first stage
This SpaceX press release gives some good info on the difficulty they face getting the first stage on Tuesday’s Dragon launch to land successfully on its floating sea platform:
To complicate matters further, the landing site is limited in size and not entirely stationary. The autonomous spaceport drone ship is 300 by 100 feet, with wings that extend its width to 170 feet. While that may sound huge at first, to a Falcon 9 first stage coming from space, it seems very small. The legspan of the Falcon 9 first stage is about 70 feet and while the ship is equipped with powerful thrusters to help it stay in place, it is not actually anchored, so finding the bullseye becomes particularly tricky. During previous attempts, we could only expect a landing accuracy of within 10km. For this attempt, we’re targeting a landing accuracy of within 10 meters.
They are going to try however, and they will be filming their attempt all the way. Stay tuned for some very interesting footage.
Why the pause in global temperature rise?
The pause in global temperature rise has now lengthened past 18 years, and climate scientist Fred Singer asks some good scientific questions why.
Global warming skeptics like myself have been quick to note the long pause in any temperature increase since 1998, the lack of which has essentially invalidated all the climate models put forth by the global warming activists in the climate community. Singer goes one step further, however, asking the next question: Why has the temperature not risen? He doesn’t know, but he does put forth a number of suspects that the good scientists in the climate field should be pursuing, assuming they can open their eyes and work with real data for a change.
As usual, it isn’t as simple as we would like. The sun for example might explain it, but so could a lot of other factors, including a number put forth by global warming advocates. Good science demands that we look at them all, and find out the truth, rather than cherry-pick our favorite answer and ignore all other evidence.
Weather reports moderately favorable for Tuesday’s Falcon 9 launch
The weather for Tuesday morning’s SpaceX launch of Dragon/Falcon are presently 60% favorable.
If all goes right, SpaceX will also try to bring the first stage back to a vertical soft landing on a ocean-going platform. If they succeed, they will immediately revolutionize the entire space launch industry.
Korean satellite threatened by space junk
Debris left over after the collision of U.S. and Russian satellites in 2009 threatens to hit a South Korean research satellite Sunday evening.
It appears that their options to prevent impact are limited. They are adjusting the satellite’s attitude to reduce its footprint relative to the junk, but do not seem capable of shifting its orbit enough to avoid the junk completely.
Obamacare requirements to employers arrive in 2015
Finding out what’s in it: Beginning in 2015 employers of more than fifty employees will begin to pay penalties if they do not provide healthcare in precisely the amount and quality as required by Obamacare.
I challenge anyone who reads the article above to tell me exactly what those Obamacare requirements are. They are so complicated and obtuse that no one can easily decipher them. In other words, employers are going to be under increasing pressure — pressure they have already been under for the past four years — to reduce their workforce below 50 to avoid Obamacare.
Should do wonders for the economy, eh?
Abbott and Costello – Loafing
An evening pause: Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Egyptian leader demands an Islamic reassessment
Pigs fly? Speaking at a religious conference on January 1, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called for a major reassessment by Islam’s religious leaders.
I am referring here to the religious clerics. We have to think hard about what we are facing—and I have, in fact, addressed this topic a couple of times before. It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible!
That thinking—I am not saying “religion” but “thinking”—that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It’s antagonizing the entire world! Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants—that is 7 billion—so that they themselves may live? Impossible!
I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema—Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I’m talking about now. All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it it from a more enlightened perspective.
I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move… because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.
Sisi was bluntly telling the religious leaders of Islam that their radical and violent interpretation of Islam is making the religion an object of hate and contempt and disgust by everyone else in the world, and they had better rethink that interpretation before it destroys the religion.
If only more Islamic leaders were willing to make this kind of demand.
The Chieftains & friends – Give the fiddler a dram
An evening pause: Some post-New Year celebration.
Hat tip Danae.
Eye update
Since so many readers asked, here is a short update on my eye surgery. I saw the doctor again today, and he says all looks good. For me, however, use of the right eye is presently difficult if not impossible. For the moment the eye is covered with a patch, as it hurts too much to use it. In addition, bright lights make both eyes hurt. I find I can only read the computer screen if the room is dark.
Posting should continue, but it will be at a slower pace until the right eye recovers more.
Thanks again to everyone who has expressed their good wishes. I truly appreciate it.
Genesis sale over as of midnight
The amazon.com sale of the ebook edition of Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 ended as of midnight, December 31, Pacific time.
Update: Once again, I want to thank all of those who have purchased the book. Enjoy it, and please feel free to post a review on amazon.com, telling everyone else what you think!
The bigoted root of liberal double standards
Link here.
He lists the innumerable examples in 2014 of blatant liberal hypocrisy, and then notes what to me has become the obvious:
What looks like inexplicably staggering hypocrisy from the conservative perspective is actually remarkably consistent from the liberal perspective.
Well, “perspective” is probably the wrong word because it implies a conscious, deliberate, philosophical point of view. What is really at work is better understood as bias, even bigotry.
If you work from the dogmatic assumption that liberalism is morally infallible and that liberals are, by definition, pitted against sinister and — more importantly — powerful forces, then it’s easy to explain away what seem like double standards. Any lapse, error, or transgression by conservatives is evidence of their real nature, while similar lapses, errors, and transgressions by liberals are trivial when balanced against the fact that their hearts are in the right place.