Russia has decided to delay the rest of its military launches this year, pending a full review of the upper stage problems of the Proton rocket.
The future dies to exhibit the past: To get the space shuttle Endeavour to its new home in Los Angeles city officials have decided to cut down about 400 trees along the route.
Several alternatives for the Oct. 12 move were considered but ultimately discarded. Taking the massive shuttle apart would have damaged the delicate tiles that acted as heat sensors. Airlifting the 170,000-pound craft was also ruled out. Not even heavy-duty helicopters could sustain that kind of weight, Rudolph said. A freeway route was considered until engineers realized that the five-story-tall, 78-foot-wide shuttle could not travel under overpasses. “We had to identify a route that had no permanent infrastructures like buildings and bridges,” Rudolph said.
They settled on a final route that will follow Manchester Boulevard to Crenshaw Drive, then onto Crenshaw Boulevard and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard — wide thoroughfares with few permanent obstacles. To make way for the shuttle, some trees will be pruned, power lines will be raised and traffic signals will be removed. Inglewood will lose 128 trees, and communities in South Los Angeles about 265 trees, though the exact number has not yet been determined.
Normally I wouldn’t sweat over the removal of some trees, but this is quite disgusting. It once again raises questions about the choice of Los Angeles over Houston for a shuttle.
Surgery in weightlessness? Two doctors and an engineer are about to test equipment that might make it possible.
The idea actually has more significance for controlling bleeding during brain and spinal surgeries here on Earth.
Planets without end: Another planet has been found in the habitable zone.
Gliese 163c could have a size between 1.8 to 2.4 Earth radii, depending if it is composed mostly of rock or water, respectively. It receives on average 40% more light from its parent star than Earth from the Sun, making it hotter. In comparison, Venus receives 90% more light from the Sun than Earth. We do not know the properties of the atmosphere of Gliese 163c but, if we assume that it is a scaled up version of Earth’s atmosphere, then its surface temperature might be around 60°C [140°F]. Most complex life on Earth (plants, animals, and even humans) are not able to survive at temperatures above 50°C [122°F], however, plenty of extremophilic microbial life forms can thrive at those temperatures or higher.
A new study of the Earth’s past climates has revealed that during warming periods the number of species multiplied.
The article spends a lot of time explaining that just because global warming in the past was beneficial for life does not mean that global warming today will be a good thing. Or to put it another way: “Absolutely not! We mustn’t think that! It can’t be! Never!!!! My fingers are in my ears! La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!”
Talk about an inappropriate use of federal funds: The Democratic and Republican conventions received $136 million in taxpayer subsidies.
NOAA today posted its monthly update of the ongoing sunspot cycle of the Sun. This latest graph, covering the month of August, is posted below the fold.
The Sun continues to fizzle.
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The Forest Products Laboratory of the U.S. Forest Service has opened a $1.7 million pilot plant for the production of cellulose nanocrystals, which have the potential to be stronger, stiffer, and lighter than Kevlar or carbon fibers.
It appears that the lab has been researching the useful properties of these nanocrystals, which is a good thing. However, I can’t help wondering why they are now building a production plant. Shouldn’t this be left to the private sector? What business is it of the Forest Service to be a producer of this product? It could be that the plant is aimed not at production but at figuring out how to make it affordable and practical, a goal that might make sense for a government agency to pursue. If not, however, it seems inappropriate for a government agency to use taxpayer dollars to run a facility aimed at selling a product to the private sector.
The article, as well as the lab’s webpage, do not make this clear.
Though this is a nice write-up describing Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser, the part where they talk about using the vehicle like the shuttle to repair other orbiting satellites is a bit of a stretch.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory captured an incredible video of an August 31 eruption on the Sun. Video below the fold.
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The head of the Russian space center that built the upper stage that failed on two recent Proton launches has been fired.
Putin’s action here suggests the Russians are taking these problems seriously. especially with the looming competition from SpaceX. At the same time, the boss doesn’t actually build anything, and firing him won’t fix anything if there aren’t also changes on the factory floor.
An 89-year-old California engineer and World War II veteran has developed a bat and bird safe wind turbine.
And it only cost him $550!
An evening pause: “Silly, isn’t he?”
From 1944, with numerous references to the war effort. What I like most, however, is the brazen confidence. Bugs Bunny in more ways than can be imagined so clearly represents the American spirit of the war years.
It is healthy for America that the president be criticized and even mocked. Deference to a Dear Leader has no place in a democracy. It’s healthy for race relations, too, that he be judged on his record rather than held to a lower standard in the name of racial progress. When a black politician is treated just like any other politician, that’s genuine progress.
And then there’s this:
Obama’s journalistic supporters live in a bizarre alternate reality in which a politician’s actual words mean nothing. When the president says something foolish and offensive, he didn’t say that. Meanwhile every comment from a Republican can be translated, through a process of free association, to: “We don’t like black people.”
Taranto’s second point above suggests to me that there are a lot of people on the left whose recent behavior is making them ripe targets for some very healthy ridicule.
Read the whole thing.
Eleven incredible navigable aqueducts.
Not surprisingly, they are all in Europe, where the art of canal building has never died off.
Have scientists found an oral drug that can cure all strains of malaria?
News you can use: Henri the cat and the videos about him has won the Golden Kitty, first place at the Internet Cat Film Festival in Minnesota.
The winning video is below the fold.
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The competition heats up: On Friday SpaceX successfully completed a launch pad dress rehearsal for the next Falcon 9 launch to ISS.
An evening pause: As Dawn begins its journey away from Vesta, the science team has put together this stunning video tour of the giant asteroid.
New Horizons — on its way to Pluto — will take a look at a different Kuiper Belt object in January 2015.
The encounter will take place at a range of about 75 million km, a distance somewhat subject to change depending on how the probe makes its course correction. At such a great distance, New Horizons will not be able to discern features on the surface of the KBO, nor will it be able to make spectroscopic observations to try to determine the composition of the surface material.
However, New Horizons will be in an excellent position to look for small, close-in moons around the object. It will also be in a position to observe the object’s phase curve, which is a measure of how the reflectivity of the surface changes as a function of viewing angle. This will reveal a great deal about the fluffiness of the surface material (note – fluffiness is a technical term meaning, roughly, “the opposite of dense”). These two observations cannot be made from Earth, even with the most powerful telescopes available.
Congress asks NASA why it is sending “50 or more” employees to a conference in Italy.
Scott Rasmussen: “While partisan activists tune in when their team’s big show is on the air, most unaffiliated voters view the conventions as a waste of time and money.”
Read the whole thing. His analysis of the meaninglessness of the political conventions to the ordinary voter is right on the money. More significant, his willingness to separate himself from the political atmosphere of Washington and try to empathize with those ordinary voters illustrates clearly why he is today’s most reliable pollster.
Police once again raid the wrong house and kill a pet dog.
What is it with these damn cops and their eagerness to kill dogs? There is simply no justification for this. First, the dog is someone else’s property. They have no right to destroy it, even if they do have a warrant. Second, there are many better and more humane ways to pacify a dog than killing it. With all their training, paid for by tax dollars, you’d think someone might tell them this.
Science marches on! Scientists have determined that the shape of a beer glass can influence how much beer you drink.
After watching video of both sessions and recording how much time it took for the drinkers to finish their beer or sodas, Attwood’s team found that one group consistently drank much faster than the others: the group drinking a full glass of lager out of curved flute glasses. In a paper published this month in PLoS ONE, the team reports that whereas the group with straight glasses nursed their 354 milliliters of lager for about 13 minutes, the group with the same amount of beer served in curved glasses finished in less than 8 minutes, drinking alcohol almost as quickly as the soda-drinkers guzzled their pop. However, the researchers observed no differences between people drinking 177 milliliters of beer out of straight versus fluted glasses.
The last sentence reveals the large amount of uncertainty that surrounds this important research.
An evening pause: Of the movies from which these dance sequences come, how many can you name? All of them are worth watching, over and over again.
