Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
Better late than never: The FAA today issued a license to SpaceX, allowing it to bring its Dragon capsule back to Earth after launch.
Sorry about the late posting, as I spent the day on the road, driving halfway across the country (rather than fly and get treated like a criminal).
More airport insanity. The TSA confiscated the camera of a woman filming the arrest of a man who decided to strip down to his underwear rather than go through the pat down. Note that man got arrested, not for taking off his clothes, but for refusing to put them back on so the TSA security guards could then give him the pat down.
Update: link fixed. Sorry about that!
TSA pat-down leaves traveler covered in urine. Key quote:
“Every time I tried to tell them about my medical condition, they said they didn’t need to know about that.”
An update on the efforts to rescue 29 trapped New Zealand miners.
Meanwhile, TSA management has its head up our ass, insisting that everyone who enters the security area submit to its abuse or face heavy fines.
Even the TSA agents know how stupid and ugly the new security procedures are. That they hate the more aggressive pat downs means everyone should insist on them, if only to increase the chances they will finally decide it ain’t worth doing them.
Via Clark Lindsey, it appears that NASA has taken from storage its two X-34 suborbital spaceships and is considering returning the ships to flight status.
The new space race: Virgin Galactic and KLM Airlines.
While sexually abusing the rest of America, Homeland Security head Napolitano is considering allowing Muslim women to pat themselves down at airports.
TSA stupidity of the day: Nail clipper bad! Assault rifle good!
Scientists are once again debating whether Pluto really is a planet.
Hooray for private space! Future tests of SpaceShipTwo will be even more challenging.
A glimpse at the universe before the Big Bang?
A deal with the devil: Former shuttle manager decries NASA’s commercial crew safety regulations. Key quote:
The U.S. government did not always rely on voluminous specifications to safeguard pilots or astronauts, Hale said, citing requirements for the first U.S. military aircraft which covered only 2.5 pages and those of NASA’s Gemini capsule which were about 12 pages long.
Maybe these businesses are simply not economically viable? Faced with the end of federal grants, the wind and solar power industries are pushing for more federal money or legal mandates to prop up their business.
It came from another galaxy.
Gas explosion today in a New Zealand coal mine has trapped 27 miners.
Our TSA at work: “She put her full hand on my breast and said, ‘What is this?’.
The future of funding for public radio in the next Congress truly looks dim. NPR had zero Republican support in a funding bill approved by Democrats on Thursday,
What Obama fails to understand.
How the U.S. snoops on Russian nukes from space.
Hooray for private space! SpaceShipTwo successfully completed its third glide flight yesterday.
NASA managers have once again delayed the launch of Discovery, now set for no earlier than December 3.
Astronomer and comet/asteroid tracker Brian Marsden has died. Marsden was the kind of gentleman that makes writing astronomy articles so much fun. Even when I was a newby science writer back in the early 90s he was always willing to answer any of my questions, and give me blunt and honest answers to boot. R.I.P.
Some cogent thoughts from James Delingpole about climate politics on the one year anniversary of the release of the climategate emails and the refusal of the elite ruling class to address the issue. Key quote:
And why is this so? In part, at least, it is because of the abject, ongoing failure of our Mainstream Media to report environmental issues with the robust scepticism that ought to be the natural tack of responsible journalists. Too many environmental reporters are still regurgitating press releases handed to them by activist organisations like the WWF, Greenpeace and Friends Of The Earth. In the MSM, as in government, it’s like Climategate never happened.
More madness: Police arrested seven men, for playing chess in an upper Manhattan park.
California prosecutors say they’ll charge TSA agents if pat-downs are inappropriate.
How to properly fight terrorism at airports.
