Category: Points of Information

Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.

The next Mars rover will land at Gale Crater

11:46 am

The next Mars rover will land at Gale Crater.

The car-sized Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity, is scheduled to launch late this year and land in August 2012. The target crater spans 96 miles (154 kilometers) in diameter and holds a mountain rising higher from the crater floor than Mount Rainier rises above Seattle. Gale is about the combined area of Connecticut and Rhode Island. Layering in the mound suggests it is the surviving remnant of an extensive sequence of deposits. The crater is named for Australian astronomer Walter F. Gale. . . . The portion of the crater where Curiosity will land has an alluvial fan likely formed by water-carried sediments. The layers at the base of the mountain contain clays and sulfates, both known to form in water.

More here, including images of landing site.

Leave a comment

The journal Science finally admits things have not gotten warmer in the past decade

8:52 pm

The journal Science finally admits things have not gotten warmer in the past decade.

The explanation provided, that recent volcanic eruptions cooled a warming earth, might be true, though the conclusions are based not so much on data but on climate computer models, a fact that leaves me somewhat skeptical. Nonetheless, what is significant to me about this article is that Science — which has been decidedly in the global warming political camp for years and has frequently lambasted scientists who suggested the climate’s warming has slowed or even stopped in the past decade — has now been forced to admit that the warming has stopped. That they feel compelled to push the global warming threat in the same sentence only reveals their continuing scientific bias.

Leave a comment

Perry and other lawmakers blast Obama over shuttle retirement

8:43 pm

Texas Governor Rick Perry, as well as other lawmakers from Congress, blasted Obama today over the shuttle retirement.

Bah. Perry claims to be a so-called small government conservative, yet he wants the government to spend a fortune to build and run the space program. Meanwhile, Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Kate Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas) were around in Congress when President George Bush announced the shuttle’s retirement seven years ago. Their effort since then to fund pork through NASA and thus have NASA build a giant new rocket system, either Constellation or its new Congressionally-designed replacement, has been a disaster. Right now it would be better, and far cheaper, if they stopped fighting the new commercial space companies and instead get behind them, especially since the Obama administration itself has done a very poor job of selling this new industry.

A little support from Congress could go a long way to not only reinvigorating the aerospace industry, it could speed our country’s return to manned space, with multiple competing companies.

3 comments

A new study finds that just looking at the American flag makes one more prone to support the Republican Party

8:26 pm

A new study finds that just looking at the American flag makes one more prone to support the Republican party.

I have doubts about these results. Nonetheless, the research does sort of confirm the earlier study from Harvard that suggested that patriotism and celebrating the Fourth of July tended to make people favor the Republican party over the Democratic party. In both cases, these results really tell us a great deal about the perception people have of both parties. It is not hard for people to imagine modern Democrats as almost being hostile to America and its founding principles.

Leave a comment

Obama plans birthday bash costing almost $40k per ticket on default day

12:04 pm

Tone deaf: Obama is planning a birthday bash fundraiser for himself costing more than $35k per ticket on August 3, the day the debt limit is reached and could default.

Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson is expected to perform at the birthday bash at the historic Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. The event will be one of the president’s biggest fundraisers of the year. Publicity literature featuring a red, white and blue Happy Birthday logo has already been produced. The event will be “multi-tiered,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported. The Hudson concert would cost $50; admission to the party $200; a premium seat $1,000; a souvenir photo with the president $10,000; and VIP seating and dinner with Obama $38,500.

One comment

The Republican-controlled House today passed legislation raising the debt ceiling and cutting federal spending by $6 trillion

9:53 pm

Now it’s in the Democrats’ court: The Republican-controlled House today passed legislation raising the debt ceiling and cutting federal spending by $6 trillion.

Republicans have now passed their second bill this session that attempts to address the exploding deficits and the debt crisis, the first being Paul Ryan’s budget plan in April. Meanwhile, Democrats in the Senate haven’t bothered to pass any budget resolution in over 800 days, and the White House still refuses to offer any specific ideas.

Leave a comment

All charges dropped on woman who groped a TSA agent

9:07 pm

All felony charges dropped against the woman who groped a TSA agent.

Jerry Cobb, a spokesman for the Maricopa County attorney’s office, said county prosecutors concluded the facts of the case don’t rise to the level of a felony. The case against Yukari Miyamae, of Longmont, Colo., now goes to Phoenix’s city prosecutor’s office, which handles all misdemeanors in the city. That office said it hasn’t received the case and hasn’t decided whether to charge Miyamae.

Leave a comment

The dying NASA astrophysics program

11:25 am

The dying NASA astrophysics program.

With support from President Barack Obama, the agency’s Earth science budget is at an all-time high. Over the next four months, the planetary science division is due to launch three major missions: to the Moon, to Mars and to Jupiter. And the heliophysics division plans to send a probe plunging into the blistering atmosphere of the Sun, closer than ever before. But because the overall NASA science budget is relatively flat, something had to give. Since 2008, astrophysics funding has plunged relative to other NASA science and relative to physics and astronomy funding at other agencies.

2 comments

Russia vows not to exploit manned space flight monopoly

7:21 pm

That’s so nice of them: Russia vows not to exploit its manned space flight monopoly.

Actually, this isn’t really news. Since the fall of the Soviet Union the Russians have always driven a hard bargain when they have sold tickets to get crew or cargo into space. However, once the contract has been signed they have also honored those contracts, to the letter. As the U.S. already has a signed contract to get its astronauts to ISS using Russian rockets and capsules, there won’t be any opportunities for Russian exploitation — until that contract expires.

In other words, the U.S. had better get some manned launch capability on line before too long. And on that note, see this article: NASA considers man-rating the Atlas V.

6 comments

Colorado woman who refused TSA groping accused of groping TSA agent

10:35 am

Two wrongs don’t make a right: A Colorado woman who refused a TSA patdown has been accused of groping a TSA agent.

Though her behavior appears to have been an assault and therefore the arrest apparently justified, why is it that this woman gets charged with a crime while all around her TSA agents freely do exactly the same thing repeatedly to innocent Americans and are never charged as well?

The answer has to do with power, wielded by the government to dominate its citizens, and done so in a complete defiance of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

2 comments
1 … 835 836 837 838 839 … 925