Category: Behind The Black

SpaceX has delayed the launch of its Dragon test mission to ISS, with the launch now scheduled sometime between May 3 and May 7.

9:09 pm

SpaceX has delayed the launch of its Dragon test mission to ISS, with the launch now scheduled sometime between May 3 and May 7.

“After reviewing our recent progress, it was clear that we needed more time to finish hardware-in-the-loop testing and properly review and follow up on all data,” SpaceX spokeswoman Kirstin Brost Grantham wrote in an email. “While it is still possible that we could launch on May 3rd, it would be wise to add a few more days of margin in case things take longer than expected. As a result, our launch is likely to be pushed back by one week, pending coordination with NASA.”

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The Space Launch System is a threat to JSC, Texas jobs

9:23 am

An op-ed in Houston: “The Space Launch System is a threat to JSC, Texas jobs.”

It appears that even some NASA employees are beginning to see the madness of spending billions on a launch system that will likely only fly one mission almost a decade from now. And it will seem even more mad to more people should Dragon and Cygnus prove successful in the coming year.

To put it bluntly, the long term politics are very much hostile to SLS. It is going to die, if only because the federal government is bankrupt and can’t afford it. I just wish our elected officials had the brains to realize this now rather than three years down the road.

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The Piano Guys – Cello Wars

6:01 pm

An evening pause: In honor of the 35th anniversary today of the premiere of Star Wars in 1977, a beautiful and silly rendition by the Piano Guys.

For those who were not alive in the 1960s and 1970s, it is hard to explain the impact of Star Wars. For more than twenty years, science fiction fans had dreamed of seeing a really good space opera science fiction film on the big screen. Sadly, we saw disappointment after disappointment instead. Except for Forbidden Planet (1956) and television’s Star Trek in the 1960s, practically every science fiction film about space exploration told childish stories that made no sense.

And then came Star Wars.

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Data now suggests that the bats are showing signs of recovery in the first caves hit by white nose syndrome in New York.

5:39 pm

Good news: Data now suggests that the bats are showing signs of recovery in the first caves hit by white nose syndrome in New York. More here. Plus here’s a link describing some of the research being done on this subject.

Note that the death toll listed in these stories is nothing more than an arbitrary exaggeration by government officials. The National Speleological Society estimates that the numbers are probably far less, and based on my own caving experience, I agree.

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It’s not just a good idea, it’s the law!

8:59 am

Mexico has passed its own very strict climate change law.

The new law contains many sweeping provisions to mitigate climate change, including a mandate to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 30% below business-as-usual levels by 2020, and by 50% below 2000 levels by 2050. Furthermore, it stipulates that 35% of the country’s energy should come from renewable sources by 2024, and requires mandatory emissions reporting by the country’s largest polluters.

Some predictions:
» Read more

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New data from a neutrino telescope in Antarctica had found that cosmic rays don’t come from gamma ray bursts, as had been believed by astronomers.

9:43 pm

The uncertainty of science: New data from a neutrino telescope in Antarctica has found that cosmic rays don’t come from gamma ray bursts, as had been believed by astronomers. You can read the paper here. [pdf]

Which means that astronomers at this moment have no idea what produces these high energy cosmic rays.

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House panel proposes giving commercial space $500 million.

3:27 pm

NASA budget battles: House panel proposes giving commercial space $500 million.

The Obama administration proposed giving commercial space $830 million, the Senate appropriations subpanel earlier this week proposed $525 million. All in all, this looks good for commercial space.

One other thing: that the House did not propose taking from NOAA the job of launching weather satellites and giving it to NASA is more proof to me that the proposal was merely an attempt by Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland) to shift federal dollars to the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

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Senate Democrats don’t even bother to show up for a budget meeting called by their own leader.

8:20 pm

Senate Democrats don’t even bother to show up for a budget meeting called by their own leader.

Since the year 2009, not one single Democrat or Democrat-aligned member of the United States Senate has voted “yes” on any budget. They’ve refused to present their own ideas, of course, but they’ve also unanimously voted down every last alternative, from both Republicans and their own party’s president. Think about that.

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Dark matter disappears

9:15 am

The uncertainty of science: A new study has found no evidence of dark matter within 13,000 light years of the Sun, something that had not been expected.

According to widely accepted theories, the solar neighborhood was expected to be filled with dark matter, a mysterious invisible substance that can only be detected indirectly by the gravitational force it exerts. But a new study by a team of astronomers in Chile has found that these theories just do not fit the observational facts. This may mean that attempts to directly detect dark matter particles on Earth are unlikely to be successful.

These findings will be as controversial as the now abandoned faster-than-light neutrino results last fall. Here, however, the new data is likely going to be more robust, which will cause the entire astrophysical community some real conniptions.
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