Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
The second Falcon 9 rocket passes fuel test in anticipation of an October 23 launch.
New results from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, including a new global topographic map.
From the caption: A lunar topographic map showing the Moon from the vantage point of the eastern limb. On the left side of the Moon seen in this view is part of the familiar part of the Moon observed from Earth (the eastern part of the nearside). In the middle left-most part of the globe is Mare Tranquillitatis (light blue) the site of the Apollo 11 landing, and above this an oval-appearing region (Mare Serenitatis; dark blue) the site of the Apollo 17 landing. Most of the dark blue areas are lunar maria, low lying regions composed of volcanic lava flows that formed after the heavily cratered lunar highlands (and are thus much less cratered).
The space war continues. Here is another article outlining the political state of war between the House, Senate, and administration over NASA’s future. Don’t expect anything good to come out of these political shenigans.
Europe to the Moon! The U.S. may no longer have a coherent lunar exploration program, but Europe sees that water at the Moon’s south pole and wants it, awarding contracts today to begin the work of getting a lunar lander there.
Lost freedom, compounded! The artist who had first proposed the idea of “Everybody Draw Mohammad Day”, then backed off out of fear of attack, has now been forced to abandon her life and career and go into hiding.
It is just this kind of event that makes me wonder: Why would anyone consider Islam a “religion of peace?”
The U.S. is doing its own satellite maneuvers, placing for the first time a spacecraft into the Earth-Moon L1 and L2 points.
China is continuing the mysterious maneuvers of the two satellites that might have actually touched earlier this month. Key quote:
The maneuvers, which appear to involve rendezvous operations between the SJ-06F satellite and the more recently launched SJ-12 craft, could amount to practice for space station dockings or coordinated satellite observations from orbit. Few folks would have a problem with that. But they also could be aimed at developing the expertise for lurking near someone else’s satellte and eavesdropping, or even knocking that satellite out of commission in the event of a crisis. That’s the worrisome part.
A judge has overruled Andover Township in Ohio over its effort to squelch a Constitution Day rally by a Tea Party group, allowing the rally to go forward. Key quote:
“It’s very ironic that an effort to celebrate the Constitution results in a violation of the Constitution,” attorney Curt Hartman, part of the legal team representing the group, noted.
Freedom of speech alert! Ohio town forbids celebration of U.S. constitution in town square because of the “political affiliation” of the event’s organizers. Key quote:
Several residents of the small central Ohio town formed the Andover Tea Party in May 2010, and in that same month, they asked to use the square for a rally to commemorate Constitution Day, which celebrates the anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787. But on July 19, a trustee informed one of the tea party organizers, Margaret Slingluff, that they would not be allowed to hold the event, which would have included singers performing patriotic songs and public policy-related speakers, in the square.
A court suit has already been filed.
There really is a light at the end of the tunnel: The 33 trapped miners might still be trapped, but all told they have so far received more than one thousand job offers.
How blind cave fish find food. Key quote:
“Vibration Attraction Behavior” (or VAB) is the ability of fish to swim toward the source of a water disturbance in darkness. Postdoctoral associate Masato Yoshizawa measured this behavioral response in both wild caught and laboratory raised cave and surface-dwelling fish using a vibrating rod at different frequencies as a stimulus. Most cavefish displayed VAB and would swim toward the vibrating rod and poke at it, while few surface fish did.
University of Arizona scientists have built a hydroponic lunar vegetable garden on Earth. More information here. Key quote:
The membrane-covered module can be collapsed to a four-foot-wide disk for interplanetary travel. It contains water-cooled sodium vapor lamps and long envelopes that would be loaded with seeds, ready to sprout hydroponically.
In a preprint paper [pdf] posted on the astro-ph website tonight, scientists have increased the odds, by one order of magnitude, that the asteroid Apophis will hit the Earth on April 13, 2036. Fortunately, these new odds remain low, at 1 chance in 4.5 million.
Freedom of speech alert: NJ Transit worker fired for burning pages of Koran.
NASA has now officially extended Boeing’s contract to operate the International Space Station through 2015.
Say goodbye to sunspots?
The federal government’s very expensive and probably unnecessary project to build a high speed railroad line between two cities in Wisconsin — using stimulus money — is having a significant influence on the elections there. Key quote:
With the U.S. economy in shambles and our national debt strangling the country, it doesn’t bode well for Feingold that he supported the wildly unpopular health-care bill, which [challenger] Johnson wants repealed, as well as last year’s big clunker, the stimulus bill. Feingold’s support for the unfunded and bottomless money pit of [high speed rail] doesn’t appear to be working for him either. If an entrenched insider like Feingold loses, it could have serious ramifications for the future of high-speed rail across the country. [emphasis mine]
Science discovers the obvious! The US Geological Survey has learned that if water looks and smells bad, you probably shouldn’t drink it.
The harsh environment of space, normally hostile to most materials, acts beneficially to cure certain epoxy resins. Key quote:
“You don’t have to take it up there in the shape that you eventually want,” said University of Sydney physicist Marcela Bilek, a co-author of the new study. “You can take something in a packaged form, all folded up, and then inflate it in space and have it cure into a mechanically solid structure.”
Read the research paper here.
Good news for science: UCLA has backed off from its plan to fire a politically incorrect professor, giving Dr. James Enstrom an eight month reprieve as it reviews his case.
Don’t bet the bank on this: In a preprint paper posted tonight on the astro-ph website, scientists predict the discovery of the first Earthlike extrasolar planet — using statistical analysis alone! Fun quote:
Using a bootstrap analysis of currently discovered exoplanets, we predict the discovery of the first Earth-like planet to be announced in the first half of 2011, with the likeliest date being early May 2011.
Back to the climate-theory drawing board: A paper published today in Nature Geoscience suggests that the ocean conveyor belt that brings warm water to the northern Atlantic is far more complex than the original theories proposed. These results strengthen earlier reports that also questioned the conveyor belt theory.
The number one injury reported by astronauts appears to be fingernail and hand injuries resulting from the use of spacesuit gloves. Key quote:
A previous study of astronaut injuries sustained during spacewalks had found that about 47 percent of 352 reported symptoms between 2002 and 2004 were hand related. More than half of these hand injuries were due to fingertips and nails making contact with the hard “thimbles” inside the glove fingertips. In several cases, sustained pressure on the fingertips during EVAs caused intense pain and led to the astronauts’ nails detaching from their nailbeds, a condition called fingernail delamination.
Using archival Hubble Space Telescope images astronomers have discovered 14 objects orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune. Key quote:
The newfound objects range from 25 to 60 miles across (40 to 100 kilometers), said the researchers.
All systems go! The project engineer of the Dawn mission has posted a very detailed update (as of August 30), describing the spacecraft’s status in its journey to the asteroid Vesta.
Good news for private space! Scaled Composites put WhiteKnightTwo back in the air today, only three weeks after one of its landing gears failed during a landing. You can read the test flight logs here.
Engineers are reviewing the life expectancy of the International Space Station, in light of the desire of politicians to keep it operating through the 2020s. Intriguing quote:
Airlines and airplane contractors commonly inspect aircraft for such fractures, but with the space station out of reach more than 200 miles up, engineers rely on complex models to predict their growth in orbit.
The space war over NASA continues. The Orlando Sentinel has an article today selling the merits of the Team Direct concept that would use most of the shuttle hardware to replace it.
Paul Spudis at Air and Space magazine has some more thoughts about the origins of that natural bridge on the Moon that Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographed recently.
The Sun is spotless again. By this stage in the ramp up to solar maximum, such things should no longer be happening.
