Category: Essays And Commentaries

Long essays or op-ed length commentaries on the issues of the day or on topics of special interest.

Ryan’s speech

9:57 am

If you depend on the conservative commentary about Paul Ryan’s acceptance speech yesterday at the Republican convention to find out how he did, you would have no doubt that this was the greatest and most effective speech since Genesis. To quote just one report:

Paul Ryan’s speech, in two words? Nailed it. Everything that I like (and surmise that others will like as he becomes more and more familiar to them) about Paul Ryan was on perfect display during his half hour-ish on stage. He was intelligent without being intimidating; he was stern and serious but still optimistic and even funny; and he hinted at his wonkiness without getting into jargon and maintained his approachability. But the most beautiful thing about Paul Ryan as the potential vice president of the United States is his uncanny knack for breaking through populist myths and shrill leftist attacks and instead communicating the merits of free-market economics and small government, all without being shrill or polarizing.

Because I’m not spending a lot of time watching these conventions, mostly because they really are nothing more than public relations events staged by both parties, I didn’t see the speech live. After reading reports like the one above, however, I decided late last night to go to youtube and dig up Ryan’s speech and see this amazing performance for myself.
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Romney, the Republicans, and Space

3:47 pm

The Republican Party, as part of their national convention taking place in Florida this week, yesterday released their party platform for the upcoming election campaign.

Normally, I don’t waste my time with party platforms. No one really reads it, and no president ever follows it. Granted, it can give you a general sense of where a party and candidate is headed philosophically, but this is politics. If you think philosophy is their number one priority then I have a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you.

However, this document is helpful to us, at least when it comes to the nation’s space effort, as it actually devotes one entire (though short) section on the subject. Considering how vague Mitt Romney has been on what he will do with NASA and space, and how schizophrenic the Republicans in Congress have been, any hint on how they might approach this particular program should they win the election is helpful.

Here is the entire statement of the Republican party platform on the subject of space exploration:
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More rumors about a year-long mission on ISS

9:05 am

The possibility that NASA might finally agree with Russia’s repeated request to fly a year-long mission to ISS grew stronger this morning with two stories:

The first, by James Oberg, digs into the underworld of NASA politics to find that plans might very well be more advanced than NASA is letting on:
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Cave exploration the astronaut way

11:18 am

How not to go cave exploring:

An international crew of six astronauts will start training for a caving adventure designed to prepare them for spaceflight. CAVES, an abbreviation of Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising human behaviour and performance Skills, prepares astronauts to work safely and effectively and solve problems as a multicultural team while exploring uncharted areas using space procedures.

Or to put it more bluntly, overly complicated, bureaucratically organized, and not very efficient. For example:
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Neil Armstrong

2:04 pm

I think the gracious statement by Neil Armstrong’s family sums up his life quite well.

We are heartbroken to share the news that Neil Armstrong has passed away following complications resulting from cardiovascular procedures.

Neil was our loving husband, father, grandfather, brother and friend.

Neil Armstrong was also a reluctant American hero who always believed he was just doing his job. He served his Nation proudly, as a navy fighter pilot, test pilot, and astronaut. He also found success back home in his native Ohio in business and academia, and became a community leader in Cincinnati.

He remained an advocate of aviation and exploration throughout his life and never lost his boyhood wonder of these pursuits.

As much as Neil cherished his privacy, he always appreciated the expressions of good will from people around the world and from all walks of life.

While we mourn the loss of a very good man, we also celebrate his remarkable life and hope that it serves as an example to young people around the world to work hard to make their dreams come true, to be willing to explore and push the limits, and to selflessly serve a cause greater than themselves.

For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.

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Sunspots and climate

8:54 am

Scientists have found new evidence that the solar sunspot cycle has influenced the Earth’s climate in the recent past.

Sirocko and his colleagues found that between 1780 and 1963, the Rhine froze in multiple places fourteen different times. The sheer size of the river means it takes extremely cold temperatures to freeze over making freezing episodes a good proxy for very cold winters in the region, Sirocko said.

Mapping the freezing episodes against the solar activity’s 11-year cycle — a cycle of the Sun’s varying magnetic strength and thus total radiation output — Sirocko and his colleagues determined that ten of the fourteen freezes occurred during years when the Sun had minimal sunspots. Using statistical methods, the scientists calculated that there is a 99 percent chance that extremely cold Central European winters and low solar activity are inherently linked.

Also this:
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The mysterious dark streaks on Vesta

11:25 am

dark material on Vesta

In a preprint paper published today at the Los Alamos astro-ph website, scientists have taken a detailed look at the mysterious dark streaks seen by Dawn on the surface of the asteroid Vesta and have concluded that the material comes from impacts, not from volcanic activity.

The scientists also concluded that

the majority of the spectra of [dark material] are similar to carbonaceous chondrite meteorites mixed with materials indigenous to Vesta.

Carbonaceous chondrite meteorites are considered to be the most primeval material in the solar system. This means that Vesta has the potential to give scientists a convenient laboratory for studying that primeval material and the early formation of the solar system. Ideally, the best way to do this would of course be to go there.

The scientists also theorize that much of this material was brought to Vesta by a single large impact.
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Politicians who don’t want to do their job

9:51 am

The Houston Chronicle today has an editorial entitled “Let’s bring logic to NASA’s budget process” which describes and supports a bill introduced by two Republican Congressmen which would

model NASA’s budget process after that used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Doing so would make the agency less political and more professional. It calls for the president to appoint the NASA director to a 10-year term and would make the budget cycle multiyear rather than annual.

The editorial also quotes sponsor Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Virginia) as explaining the goal of the bill is ” to take the politics out of NASA … and create continuity in the space agency.”

Bah. The last thing I want is to take the politics out of NASA’s operations.
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The Sun continues to fizzle

9:56 am

Yesterday NOAA posted its monthly update of the ongoing sunspot cycle of the Sun. You can see this latest graph, covering the month of July, below the fold.

As we have seen now for almost four years, the Sun continues to under-perform the predictions of solar scientists when it comes to the number of sunspots it is producing. In fact, that the sunspot number did not rise in July is surprising, as July had appeared to be a very active month for sunspots, with some of the strongest solar flares and coronal mass ejections seen in years. Instead, the number declined ever so slightly.
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The new Mars rover…

8:54 am

Tonight at 10:30 pm (Pacific), the new Martian rover Curiosity will hopefully touch down safely on the Martian surface to begin several years of research in the crater Gale.

What has been most amazing to me is the amount of interest in this landing by the press, especially the mainstream press. Normally these outlets don’t care that much for space exploration, a trend that began after the Apollo 11 landing in 1969 when it became trendy in liberal circles to down play space exploration so that “the money could instead be spent solving our problems here on Earth.”

Today, however, I count more than forty news articles on this upcoming landing, most of which come from mainstream sources. It seems that these outlets have finally discovered something that has been obvious from the beginning: the American public is fascinated with space exploration, and if you want to attract readers, it is better to provide coverage of what interests them rather than push a political agenda that few agree with.

Anyway, if you want to follow the landing live, go here for a full outline of options. Or go directly to NASA TV. Most of what you will see will the control room at JPL, with many engineers staring at computer screens waiting to find out if the landing was a success, about twenty minutes after it took place. This is because it will take that long for the communications signals to travel from Mars to the Earth. Essentially, Curiosity is on its own in this landing.

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Have astronomers found a future supernova?

1:49 pm

A press release from the Carnegie Institute today described a recent paper by astronomers that might have identified a star in the Milky Way that might go supernova sometime in the future. The star QU Carinae, is a cataclysmic variable, a binary system in which material dumped from one star onto another periodically causes an outburst of X-rays.

I emailed Stella Kafka, the lead scientist of the research paper, to find out how far away QU Carinae is and how soon it might go supernova. She responded as follows:
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A journalist takes objective look at global warming

10:13 am

For the past week there has been a new spat of articles written about human caused global warming, instigated by an op-ed (subscription required) written by scientist Richard Muller in the New York Times, where he wrote:

Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.

Not surprisingly, the mainstream press has jumped on this op-ed and the public release of new data by Muller’s team as further proof that the debate over global warming is settled and we should all bow to our governmental overlords and agree to any regulations they propose to save the planet.

Not so fast.
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Water Ice in Shackleton Crater?

9:58 am

Ice in Shackleton?

New results from the radar instrument on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has found evidence of water-ice on the slopes of Shackleton Crater, located at the Moon’s south pole. The paper, published on Saturday in Geophysical Research Letters – Planets, suggested that about 5 to 10 percent of the weight of the material on the slopes of the crater is comprised of water ice, to depths of 6 to 10 feet.

The box on the upper left in the image to the right shows the data from a radar sweep of the crater taken on April 18, 2010, and compares that to five computer models. As you can see, the data here most closely matches the 5% ice model. Two other sweeps showed similar results.

The water-ice, if there, is not in slabs of ice, as sometimes portrayed in the press, but would be mixed into the Moon’s regolith, or “topsoil”, and would have to be processed out like ore to be useful. Or to quote the paper’s conclusion:

The fundamental conclusions made with high resolution, ground based radar of Shackleton remain unaltered — that no large-scale, meters thick ice deposits are evident within the crater. Rather, Mini-RF data are consistent with roughness effects or with a small percentage of water-ice deposits admixed into the uppermost 1-2 meters of silicate regolith within Shackleton, possibly accounting for the observations made by the Clementine bistatic experiment.

Several points:
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Water on the Moon? The battle continues

2:18 pm

LEND data of lunar south pole

A little over a month ago I reported here on Behind the Black some recent results from the LEND instrument on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) that had found significantly less water in the permanently shadowed craters at the lunar poles than previously thought. To quote again from that paper’s abstract, which I will henceforth refer to as Sanin, et al:

This means that all [permanently shadowed regions], except those in Shoemaker, Cabeus and Rozhdestvensky U craters, do not contain any significant amount of hydrogen in comparison with sunlit areas around them at the same latitude.

And from the paper’s conclusion:

[E]ven now the data is enough for definite conclusion that [permanently shadowed regions] at both poles are not reservoirs of large deposits of water ice.

Paul Spudis of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas and one of the world’s top lunar scientists then commented as follows:

You neglect to mention yet another possibility — that this paper and its conclusions are seriously flawed in almost every respect. The veracity of the LRO collimated neutron data [produced by the LEND instrument] have been questioned on serious scientific grounds. Other data sets (spectral, radar) suggest significant amounts of water at both poles, billions of metric tons in total.

Spudis also discussed this scientific dispute at length on his own blog.

When I read Dr. Spudis’s comment I immediately emailed William Boynton of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, one of the authors of the Sanin et al paper, to get his reaction. Today he sent me the following detailed explanation, describing the basis of the controversy and why he believes the LEND data is valid.
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The cost of launch

5:57 pm

Two news items from NASA today:

What I find most interesting about these stories is the fees charged by the two companies. SpaceX will be paid $82 million for its one launch, while ULA will be paid $412 million for its three launches, or about $137 million per launch.
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A Tea Party event today in Tucson

10:28 pm

Last week I received an email from the local Tucson tea party, asking if I would be willing to attend a demonstration today in response to last week’s Supreme Court decision on Obamacare. To quote the email,

We would like to stage two simultaneous protests against the train wreck they call ObamaCare, at two separate locations Monday July 2nd, 4:00pm-5:45pm. 75 people at both locations are needed to make the necessary impact. They say the Tea Party is dead. What say ye? We need your commitment.

Today those protests took place at two different prominent street corners in the Tucson area. At each location there were about fifty people lining the sidewalk and holding signs and American flags out to passing motorists. My wife Diane and I went to one of those protests. Here are my impressions:
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Second Anniversary Bleg

7:16 am

Today, July 1, Behind the Black celebrates its second anniversary. Though I began posting a day or two before that, I consider July 1 to be the official premiere date. Since then I have published more than 6,200 posts, about 8.5 posts per day, focusing on issues relating to science, technology, politics, and space exploration. In between I’ve also added a sprinkle of popular culture and entertainment, for both my and your pleasure.

For those who have contributed to the website, either with intelligent comments or with financial donations, I thank you. I especially appreciate the quality of the comments, even from those who frequently disagree with me. We might disagree, but in general people have kept the discussion on a rational basis, with very few personal attacks. This is how it should be.

It is my hope to continue this blog for as long as I can, assuming I can afford to do it. Of course, the more donations I receive from my loyal readers, the more likely I will be able to keep it up. If you are a regular reader and would like to help keep this blog going, please consider giving a donation. The tip jar is located at the bottom of the column on the right.

And if you have already donated, thank you again. I can’t express how much it means to me as a writer, working alone in my office, to be recognized by others in this way. Not only does it help pay the bills, it helps juice the soul, making the daily grind easier to take.

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The Stoning of Christians — in Michigan

10:29 am

Even though Dearborn, Michigan lost a $100,000 court suit for falsely arresting and denying Christians their freedom of religion during the annual Dearborn Arab Festival, it appears the police in Dearborn have not learned their lesson. Not only do they do nothing to prevent the throwing by Muslim children of rocks, bottles, garbage, eggs, and concrete at a group of Christians who are merely standing on the sidewalk holding signs, the police eventually force the Christians to leave. As one man tells the police, “You’re rewarding riotous behavior. You’re teaching that crowd that if they riot, they’re rewarded by that rioting by kicking out the people they don’t want.”

Watch the video below the fold. It is very important to note again that these Christians were doing nothing but standing there with their signs on a public street. The response of the Muslim crowd is hardly in accordance with American principles of tolerance, and reveals a savagery and hate that is horrifying. And the willingness of the police to allow the violence is despicable.
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The pork of Obamacare

3:00 pm

The Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), created by Obamacare, announced its first round of grants today, part of a funding program of fifty “pilot projects” totaling $30 million.

It didn’t take much research for me to conclude that, while some of this work might be useful, most of it sounds like bureaucratic claptrap. For example, consider the description Nature gives for these three grants:
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The Moon: a desert after all?

10:10 am

LEND data of lunar south pole

The uncertainty of science: A new science paper, published Saturday in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Planets,, has found that there is much less water ice trapped in the permanently shadowed craters of the lunar poles than previously thought. From the abstract:

This means that all [permanently shadowed regions], except those in Shoemaker, Cabeus and Rozhdestvensky U craters, do not contain any significant amount of hydrogen in comparison with sunlit areas around them at the same latitude.

And from the paper’s conclusion:

[E]ven now the data is enough for definite conclusion that [permanently shadowed regions] at both poles are not reservoirs of large deposits of water ice.

» Read more

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The real estate crash: We’ve only just begun

11:37 am

A real estate industry group today announced that there was a nine percent jump in foreclosures during the month of May.

RealtyTrac reported that 205,990 U.S. properties received filings last month, including default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions, marking the first monthly increase since January. Bank repossessions climbed steeply, up 7% to 54,844, after hitting a four-year low in April.

The report also noted that foreclosures made up 26% of U.S. home sales in first quarter and that more than 30% of mortgage borrowers were still underwater.

As someone who just moved to Tucson and spent more than six months searching for and finally purchasing a home, I can add a bit of personal experience to these dry statistics. And my perspective is sadly not encouraging.
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A global view of Vesta

3:32 pm

Vesta

The accumulating data from Dawn has now allowed scientists to compile a global picture of the varied surface makeup of the asteroid Vesta.

The colors were chosen to highlight differences in surface composition that are too subtle for the human eye to see. Scientists are still analyzing what some of the colors mean for the composition of the surface. But it is clear that the orange material thrown out from some impact craters is different from the surrounding surface material. Green shows the relative abundance of iron. Parts of the huge impact basin known as Rheasilvia in Vesta’s southern hemisphere, for instance, have areas with less iron than nearby areas.

It also makes for a very nice image of the giant asteroid.

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Cave exploration in the western mountains

1:01 pm

scree slope
Anthony Smith struggling up a scree mountain slope.

I have only visited Nevada twice before, and those visits had been limited to the area around Las Vegas. Thus, my impression of the state had been similar to what most other people assume: a big ostentatious urban city surrounded by boring flat deserts.

Instead what I found is that Nevada is probably one of the most beautiful states in the nation. It has many mountain ranges, interspersed with wide flat valleys, a number of which have lakes or swampy areas because the water is trapped there, draining neither to the Pacific or Atlantic.

Yet, it is desert country. The limited amount of water means that the state is lightly populated, and the few farms or ranches that you pass actually act to amplify the feeling of emptiness. This is further enhanced by the frequent mountain ranges. Every time you cross over a range, you find yourself high in the air with a spectacular view of the vast valleys below.

The Forest Service job that I was part of this past week was focused on inventorying and surveying a number of known caves covering a large area in northeastern Nevada. The work had actually started several years earlier, so that this particular week was the final wrap up, mapping the last few known caves on the list while also ridge-walking several different canyons in an effort to find some new discoveries.
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Off to Nevada

5:00 am

Nevada

For the next seven days my daytime posting is going to be spotty, as I will be in some remote areas of Nevada working on an on-going Forest Service project to inventory and survey caves in an area in the northeastern area of the state. The project is mostly over, but as I have surveyed, sketched, and done the cartography for many eastern U.S. caves, the guy running the project asked if I would be interested in participating. Interested? I was thrilled.

Though we will be in a somewhat remote area, I still hope to post periodically during the week, not only about the usual topics but also about some of the caves we will have surveyed, some of which are rarely visited. I will also try to post some pictures of the spectacular country we expect to visit. (The photo on the right was provided to me by Tom Gilleland, who is running the project.) Stay tuned.

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A failed public works project — from the year 1350 AD

4:02 pm

Casa Grande

Yesterday my wife Diane and I took my 94-year-old mother on a sightseeing trip to see the Casa Grande ruins southeast of Phoenix, “the largest known structure left of the Ancestral People of the Sonoran Desert.”

This four story high structure was built around 1350 AD from bricks made of concrete-like caliche mud, with the floors and roofs supported by beams of pine, fir, and juniper brought from as far away as fifty miles. (The rooflike structure above the ruins was built by the National Park Service in order to protect it from rain.)

Though impressive, I must admit I’ve seen far more impressive American Indian ruins elsewhere. Casa Grande, which means “Great House” in Spanish, suffered as a tourist attraction from two faults:
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