Mathilda’s solo
An evening pause:
Author: Robert Zimmerman
SpaceX is planning its own spaceport about three miles north of Mexico at the southern tip of Texas.
SpaceX is planning its own spaceport about three miles north of Mexico at the southern tip of Texas.
SpaceX had been looking at sites at various potential sites, including ones in Florida, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Company officials have said they plan to operate out of Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air Force Base as well. A third, commercial launch site frees them from range restrictions that exist at the other two locations.
Something new found on the Sun
Something new found on the Sun.
The collapse of traditional journalism and why that is good news
The collapse of traditional journalism and why that is good news.
And the good news is probably not what you think.
The virtual aircraft museum
Passover 2
Thank you all for your comments and good wishes. I am still traveling, will return late today, and will resume full posting by tomorrow.
What happens when you put a koosh ball in liquid nitrogen?
An evening pause: “Theories are nice, but the proof is in the experiment.”
Issy Emeney – Appalachian Flatfooting
An evening pause: Issy Emeney doing some Appalachian flatfooting.
Boney M – Rivers of Babylon
An evening pause: From 1978, though the lyrics are a bit older.
Passover
For the next two days posting will be light. I am in Chicago visiting family for Passover, the annual Jewish holiday celebrating the release of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. During the Seder meal, Jews read the Haggadah, which retells the story of the Jewish slavery in Egypt and their escape, with the idea of reminding each person what is like to be a slave, and then to be free. As it says in the Haggadah,
In every generation each individual is bound to regard himself as if he had gone personally forth from Egypt.
Tonight, this is what Jews do. It would be nice if all people reflected on this and did the same.
Twenty doctors disciplined for giving out fake sick notes at Wisconsin demonstrations last year
Slap on the wrist: Twenty doctors have been fined $500 to $4001 and made to attend ethics training for giving out fake sick notes at the Wisconsin union demonstrations last year.
The actual cost to launch
In writing this short post on the efforts of Lockheed Martin and Orbital Sciences to launch rockets for the small satellite market, Clark Lindsey made this comment:
It costs around $50 million to launch a Orbital Sciences Minotaur 4, which can put 1,730 kg into LEO while the Lockheed’s Athena 2 will cost around $65 million to put 1,712 kg into LEO. SpaceX currently posts charges $54M – $59.5M for launching to LEO 10,450 kg (equatorial) and 8,560 kg (polar). If SpaceX is able to sustain these prices in routine operation, it will obviously result in some disturbance to the launch industry.
Let’s deconstruct these numbers again, this time listing them by the cost per kilogram:
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U.S. credit rating downgraded again
The day of reckoning looms: The credit rating of the United States government has been downgraded again.
Is that an elephant on Mars?
Henry Dagg – Somewhere over the rainbow
An evening pause: And now for something truly silly.
How to make water float on oil.
How to make water float on oil.
The Obama administrations Treasury Secretary admitted Wednesday that the federal government’s debt is “unsustainable,” but then added that solving the problem shouldn’t be a top priority, because the government still needs to “do things.”
Modern doublethink: The Obama administration’s treasury secretary admitted Wednesday that the federal government’s debt is “unsustainable,” but then added that solving the problem shouldn’t be a top priority, because the government still needs to “do things.”
Geithner’s refusal to confront what he admits is a looming disaster illustrates for all to see the normal operating policies of this administration.
“The bear population is not in crisis as people believed.”
“The [polar] bear population is not in crisis as people believed.”
The number of bears along the western shore of Hudson Bay, believed to be among the most threatened bear subpopulations, stands at 1,013 and could be even higher, according to the results of an aerial survey released Wednesday by the Government of Nunavut. That’s 66 per cent higher than estimates by other researchers who forecasted the numbers would fall to as low as 610 because of warming temperatures that melt ice faster and ruin bears’ ability to hunt. The Hudson Bay region, which straddles Nunavut and Manitoba, is critical because it’s considered a bellwether for how polar bears are doing elsewhere in the Arctic. [emphasis mine]
The study here illustrates again the unreliability of another prediction by scientists advocating global warming. The polar bear population might be under threat, but the evidence so far doesn’t yet support that theory.
The U.S. Coast Guard announced plans today to sink the tsunami-drifting derelict Japanese ship recently spotted off the coast of Alaska.
The U.S. Coast Guard announced plans today to sink the tsunami-drifting derelict Japanese ship recently spotted off the coast of Alaska.
Update: the deed is done.
Despite lacking a magnetic field of its own, scientists have discovered magnetic storms surrounding Venus.1
Despite lacking a magnetic field of its own, scientists have discovered magnetic storms occurring in the space surrounding Venus.
The finding, reported today in Science1, suggests that magnetic reconnection may generate auroras on Venus, and could have contributed to the loss of a thick, water-rich atmosphere that scientists believe surrounded the planet during its early history, some 4 billion years ago.