Chicken Little report: ESA has issued an update on when and where they think GOCE will impact the Earth.
You can see the ground tracks of the orbits here. It looks like the thing does have a chance of coming down over the U.S., should it come down in the early part of the prediction.
The Obamacare website is a deadly security hole for anyone that uses it.
On his blog, professional software tester Ben Simo began tinkering with HealthCare.gov shortly after it launched and uncovered security holes almost immediately. At first, the site processed an application that he had begun filling out but did not submit—meaning the site took the personal information he had entered and forwarded it to a state agency without his authorization. Next, he tried changing the email address associated with his HealthCare.gov account. With most websites, when you change your email, they send a notice of the change to your old address, so that if your account has been compromised by a hacker who changes the email, you’ll be alerted. Instead, HealthCare.gov sent an email to Simo’s new address about the change—a redundant step that provides no security for users. When doing another bit of routine maintenance on his HealthCare.gov account, Simo found that the site was sending information about his username via unsecure HTTP protocols, rather than the encrypted HTTPS. As anyone even passingly acquainted with shopping on the Internet would realize, this is, as Simo put it, “a huge security flaw” because HTTP information can be intercepted by anyone who cares to look for it.
This single paragraph describes just a few of the security problems at the website, which essentially puts your private information in the hands of numerous third parties who really shouldn’t have it.
Now, tell me again: Who wrote this law? Who shut the government down to make sure it would go into effect on time? Who created this failure of a webpage? And who will you vote for next November?
Engineers now expect the European GOCE research satellite to crash to Earth either late Sunday or on Monday.
Some pieces are going to reach the Earth’s surface, so be prepared to duck. You can see the predicted orbital path here.
Finding out what’s in it: Only 22% of those who are uninsured are interested in signing up for Obamacare.
And that number has plummeted in the last month from 44%. It seems that having seen what Obamacare is like, the uninsured are fleeing in terror.
As I have noted before, Obamacare was sold as a way to get everyone health insurance. In the end, it is likely going to destroy the health insurance industry so that no one has it.
Virgin Galactic has signed a deal with NBC to televise the first commercial flight of SpaceShipTwo.
I note that with this announcement Virgin Galactic has backed off from its previous schedule for launching this flight this year. They now say it will happen in 2014.
Modern American freedom: The UC Berkeley student government has banned the term “illegal immigrant.”
And what happens if someone ignores this ban? Will they send them to a concentration camp?
Considering the overwhelming support for the ban (with only one abstention), I wouldn’t be surprised if that is exactly what these students would like to do. And I expect them to try in the coming years as they move into positions of power.
The lies keep coming: Even as President Obama issued a weak-kneed apology for his lie about keeping your health plan, he added a whole bunch of new lies and misstatements.
Update: Meanwhile, even today the White House official website still claims “if you like your insurance plan, your doctor, or both, you will be able to keep them.”
Ten of the best newspaper corrections.
The House committee investigating the IRS scandal issued a new subpoena yesterday.
In reading the article, it is very clear to me that the Democrats and the Obama administration are stonewalling the House committee, and that the so-called bi-partisan report being prepared in the Senate is likely to be a whitewash.
Unlike an earlier test where one fairing did not release, a second test of Orion’s shroud separation system was successful this week.
A Texas-based company has printed the first 3D-printed metal pistol, a 45 caliber Model 1911.
Video below the fold. The gun clearly functions, though I noticed that in the video they never loaded more three rounds in a magazine, and that the gun seems to cycle weakly. I suspect that they had some feeding problems when they tried to fire a full loaded five round magazine.
Nonetheless, this achievement further illustrates that 3D printing is about to become a major method of manufacture.
» Read more
Successfully growing crops in the desert using salt water and solar power.
The heart of the SFP concept is a specially designed greenhouse. At one end, salt water is trickled over a gridlike curtain so that the prevailing wind blows the resulting cool, moist air over the plants inside. This cooling effect allowed the Qatar facility to grow three crops per year, even in the scorching summer. At the other end of the greenhouse is a network of pipes with cold seawater running through them. Some of the moisture in the air condenses on the pipes and is collected, providing a source of fresh water.
One of the surprising side effects of such a seawater greenhouse, seen during early experiments, is that cool moist air leaking out of it encourages other plants to grow spontaneously outside. The Qatar plant took advantage of that effect to grow crops around the greenhouse, including barley and salad rocket (arugula), as well as useful desert plants. The pilot plant accentuated this exterior cooling with more “evaporative hedges” that reduced air temperatures by up to 10°C. “It was surprising how little encouragement the external crops needed,” says SFP chief Joakim Hauge.
The technology development here is wonderful, but it is unclear from the article whether these crops would be competitive on the open market with ordinary farm crops. The cost for this operation is not outlined.
The competition heats up? Beyonce might beat Lada Gaga into space.
And in related news, TV actor Ashton Kutcher had some serious stomach issues during a zero-G practice flight on the vomit comet.
Engineers successfully completed Mangalyaan’s second engine burn yesterday, raising its orbit to just under 25,000 miles.
Each one of these burns demonstrates the reliability of the spacecraft.
India’s Mangalyaan Mars probe has successfully completed its first orbital engine burn.
Not only was the burn successful, it demonstrated that the probe’s thrusters work as planned, which means it is almost certainly not going to be stranded in Earth orbit and will at least get to Mars.
Worlds without end: The number of candidate exoplanets found by Kepler has now risen to 3,500.
According to this new analysis, researchers estimate about 70% of stars are host to at least one planet, making planets a common cosmic occurrence. There are now 1,750 candidates that are super-Earth-size or smaller, and 1,788 are Neptune-size or larger. Only 167 of the 3,538 candidates are confirmed to be planets, but Kepler has a good track record: the vast majority of these are probably real.
Two dozen of these candidates are in the habitable zone, ten of which are thought to be close to Earth-sized.
Hubble spots an asteroid spout six comet-like tails.
Astronomers viewing our solar system’s asteroid belt with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have seen for the first time an asteroid with six comet-like tails of dust radiating from it like spokes on a wheel. Unlike all other known asteroids, which appear simply as tiny points of light, this asteroid, designated P/2013 P5, resembles a rotating lawn sprinkler. Astronomers are puzzled over the asteroid’s unusual appearance.
The competition heats up? According to People magazine, Lady Gaga will take a Virgin Galactic suborbital flight in 2015 and thus beat Sarah Brightman into space.
A Russian Soyuz rocket successfully launched a new crew to ISS today.
As a Russian publicity stunt, they are carrying the Olympic torch up to ISS, which will be brought back by the returning crew on Sunday.
