Secret X-37B Space Plane Spotted Again by Amateurs
The X-37B space plane has been spotted again by amateurs.
The X-37B space plane has been spotted again by amateurs.
Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
The X-37B space plane has been spotted again by amateurs.
More leftwing civility: Wisconsin Republican legislators continue to face threats.
“Protesters have congregated at the homes of Republican legislators, surrounded their cars and jeered at them as they walk to work, Mr. Jefferson said,” the Journal reported.
It appears the operator of a dam in Australia ‘invented’ record rainfall data in order to justify the gigantic release of water that caused the flooding there in January.
A tiny church in England has discovered that its church bible is actually an original 1611 King James bible, “one of perhaps 200 surviving 400-year-old original editions.”
The brightest supernovae yet found.
Supernova 2008am is 3.7 billion light-years away. At its peak luminosity, it was over 100 billion times brighter than the Sun. It emitted enough energy in one second to satisfy the power needs of the United States for one million times longer than the universe has existed.
From Watts Up With That: New sea level data shows that there has been “no acceleration of global sea level over the past 100 years,” despite the increase in temperatures. Key quote from the paper:
It is essential that investigations continue to address why this worldwide-temperature increase has not produced acceleration of global sea level over the past 100 years, and indeed why global sea level has possibly decelerated for at least the last 80 years.
Senate Democrats and the White House offer $20B more in cuts.
This is further evidence that the political winds favor trimming the government. However, to find out how serious the Democrats are we’d need to find out some details about their specific proposed cuts.
More on the space war over NASA from Jeff Foust of The Space Review. Also read this Aviation Week article.
Overall, it is still a mess, with much of the money allocated to NASA a complete waste that will not get us into space.
He has a point: Fred Barnes argues that the Republican incremental approach to cutting the budget makes sense politically. Key quote:
The end zone is far away, however, and impatience won’t get Republicans there. Impatience is not a strategy. It may lead to a government shutdown with unknown results. To enact the sweeping cuts they desire, Republicans must hold the House and capture the Senate and White House in the 2012 election. Then they’ll control Washington. Now they don’t.
More proof of media partisan bias: A Democratic President, and suddenly the press isn’t interested in a military murder scandal in Afghanistan.
Frenzy in Washington grows over nation’s debt.
I like the headline alone, because it suggests the political tide might finally be turning in the direction of actually cutting down the size of federal spending. And the article itself reinforces that sense.
A new statistical study has concluded that big quakes don’t trigger others large quakes far away.
Budget negotiations — and the possibility of a shutdown — are coming to a head.
The pigs continue to squeal: Five anti-hunger organization leaders plan open-ended fasts to protest proposed cuts.
Not bigots: Russia and Israel have agreed on a framework for cooperating in outer space.
Bigots: The University of Johannesburg has ended research with an Israeli School, “a step hailed as a ‘boycott’ by proponents of an international academic campaign to shun Israeli researchers.”
Good news: Japan has reopened its space station control room following the earthquake.
The NASA space war mess.
Congress is now looking to flatline or cut NASA budget (or not enact new ones) while also playing its own game of telling NASA to do things it simply does not have the budget to do. A new slow motion train wreck is in the making.
Get those telescopes out! A asteroid, a quarter-mile in diameter, is going to pass only 200,000 miles from the Earth on November 8, 2011. Key quote:
Although classified as a potentially hazardous object, 2005 YU55 poses no threat of an Earth collision over at least the next 100 years. However, this will be the closest approach to date by an object this large that we know about in advance and an event of this type.
The question of human-caused climate change – unclear now and unclear 8,000 years ago.
Stardust has ended its mission after twelve years and two comet flybys.
Ground controllers will command the spacecraft to fire up its four rocket thrusters one last time at 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT) today to use up its remaining fuel. Engineers plan to watch closely while the probe’s propellant tank ran dry to help future missions gauge their fuel reserves more precisely.
Islamic tolerance: Thousands of Christians displaced in Ethiopia after Muslims torch churches and homes.
X-ray stripes in the expanding remnant of a supernova explosion.
Arab good will: Egypt Air removes Israel from map.
Another example of the great disconnect: Just when you think they finally get it.
An critique of NASA: No vision equals no innovation.
That NASA (and our government) lacks vision is not necessarily a bad thing. For the first time in decades, this is leaving room for new and independent companies to move in and fill the vacuum left by NASA. In the end, I think we will be far better off.
The spaceport at Wallops Island, Maryland has unveiled its rocket assembly building to be used by Orbital Sciences in launching cargo to ISS.