Breaking the Ice in Antarctica
The first tests in Antarctica of a drill designed to drill cores on Mars.
Category: Points of Information
Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
The coming train wreck for Commercial Human Spaceflight
This post by retired NASA engineer Wayne Hale explains why it probably is a good idea if Congress cuts the subsidies for new commercial space: The coming train wreck for commercial human spaceflight. This is the key quote, where Hale describes the regulations NASA is requiring these new companies to meet:
The document runs a mind-numbing 260 pages of densely spaced requirements. Most disappointing, on pages 7 to 11 is a table of 74 additional requirements documents which must be followed, in whole or in part. Taken all together, there are thousands of requirement statements referenced in this document. And for every one NASA will require a potential commercial space flight provider to document, prove, and verify with massive amounts of paperwork and/or electronic forms.
More TSA abuse
Another example of the TSA’s abuse of airline passengers. And here’s another, this time abusing a three-year-old.
Third crack found on Discovery’s external tank shell
A third crack has been found on Discovery’s external tank shell.
The comet is carbonated
The comet is carbonated!
School Reverses Course After Ordering Student to Remove American Flag From Bike
In a victory for free speech (from a battle that shouldn’t have been fought in the first place), a school has reversed course after ordering a 13-year-old student to remove the American flag from his bicycle because some students said they’d be offended. Key quote:
[School superintendent Edward] Paraz says the school . . . now will be shifting its focus to the students who complained. “In no way did we want to take that right away from Cody,” Paraz told Fox40 on Friday. “…We think we know who the instigators are that were trying to do that and we need to meet with their parents and those students to just kind of explain that this isn’t what we want to have.”
Is the Mars rover Spirit dead?
Is Spirit, the Mars rover, finally dead?
Big Sis Forced To Respond To Nationwide Revolt Against TSA
The private race to build space stations
The cold war is back! Companies in the U.S. and Russia are in a race to build the first private space stations.
British bureaucrats offended by “gingerbread man”, rename him “gingerbread person”
Political correctness gone mad: British bureaucrats, offended by the term “gingerbread man” on school menus, had the menus changed to read “gingerbread person.”
Facts and ideology, science and politics
Facts vs ideology in the politics of science.
Vase earns record auction price
Why a yard sale to get rid of your junk is not always a good idea: An old vase, ignored by a surburban family for years, fetched them a record $83 million in an auction today.