Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
Medicine in space does not have the right stuff.
After 28 months, the medication stored in space generally had a lower potency and degraded faster than those stored on the ground. Six medications on the space station underwent physical changes, such as discoloration and liquefaction, while such changes only occurred in two medications stored on the ground.
NASA has awarded the next set of commercial crew development agreements, giving contracts worth from $22 to $92 million to four companies, Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada, SpaceX, and Boeing. More here and here.
The amounts that NASA is giving these companies is minuscule, compared the monies spent on the program-formerly-called-Constellation. Yet I bet they all get their rockets/capsules launched and in operation, supplying cargos and crews to low Earth orbit, before NASA even test fires its heavy-lift rocket.
Christian protesters in France destroy “Piss Christ” and other anti-christian art on display in a museum.
As inappropriate and disgusting I might consider this art, it is not good for westerners to lower themselves to Islamic standards.
In London: “Wear a headscarf or we will kill you.”
The UN loses 50 million nonexistent climate refugees, predicted by them in 2005 to overwhelm us by 2010.
What could possible go wrong? The Obama administration on Friday proposed that all your private passwords be replaced by a single credential, issued and controlled by the federal government.
Surprise! NASA administrator Charles Bolden told lawmakers on Monday that with the new budget the Orion capsule had to be scaled back somehow.
Watch over the next few years as Orion and the new heavy-lift vehicle (the program-formerly-called-Constellation) slowly evaporate, even as both cost us billions in money we no longer can afford.
Competition! China finds SpaceX’s launch prices low — and a challenge to meet.
Declining to speak for attribution, the Chinese officials say they find the published prices on the SpaceX website very low for the services offered, and concede they could not match them with the Long March series of launch vehicles even if it were possible for them to launch satellites with U.S. components in them.
So you think you have freedom of speech? The TSA specifically singles out people who complain about TSA security.
Our land of freedom: SWAT team sent in to confiscate 13-year-old over unneeded medication.
