Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
Government space faces budget realities: The European Space Agency is struggling to find the funds to both extend ISS as well as upgrade their cargo carrier so that it can also return cargo from ISS.
Private space moves forward, without NASA: Clark Lindsey at www.rlvnews.com notes that Robert Bigelow — the man behind the first private space station’s — seems poised to announce the first six nations who’ve agreed to rent space on his stations.
According to the website SpaceRef, NASA administrator Charles Bolden’s trip to Saudia Arabia and China this past week was his idea alone, and that the White House did not want him to go.
The science is settled? According to one scientist’s data, the Sun actually brightened in visible wavelengths during the ramp down from solar maximum to minimum in 2004-2007 — the exact opposite to what was expected — while dropping in the ultraviolet four times more than predicted.
The cause of the mysterious honey bee die-off since 2006 appears to have been identified.
Confusion at NASA: Layoffs continue as NASA slows Constellation spending. This despite a budget in 2010 that requires the program’s continuation, and a Congressional authorization for 2011 that requires NASA to build a comparable heavy-lift rocket.
China’s new lunar orbiter, Chang’e 2, has arrived in lunar orbit.
Digitally remastered footage of the original television recordings from the Apollo 11 mission have been unveiled in Australia.
The plumes that come out of the tiger stripe cracks on Saturn’s moon Enceladus may be carbonated!
More results from the press conference going on right now at the 42nd meeting of the AAS Division for Planetary Sciences:
Pluto’s surface ice is made up of 97% nitrogen, 3% methane, while the surface of the Kuiper Belt object Eris (which is larger than Pluto) is even more rich in methane, with a make up of 90% nitrogen and 10% methane. Both measurements go down to a depth of about 10 inches. To see the abstract for this result, go here.
By diving into the upper atmosphere of Venus above its north pole, Venus Express has found that the atmosphere there is 60% less dense than predicted. This from a press conference going on right now at the 42nd meeting of the AAS Division for Planetary Sciences. They plan an additional dive campaign during the next month. And they plan more dives, going deeper each time, as they judge the consequences to the spacecraft each time.
To read the abstracts of the Venus Express papers, go here.
Updated: The full press release, with images, can be seen here.
From a session today at the 42nd meeting of the AAS Division for Planetary Sciences: After thirteen years of searching, scientists have concluded that Mars has no active volcanic activity, including geysers, anywhere on its surface.
The EPA itself believes that its effort to regulate carbon dioxide under its Prevention of Significant Deterioration program could “slow construction nationwide for years”. And what would this accomplish? Global temperatures would be reduced a whopping 0.0015 degrees! Key quote:
“It is clear throughout the country, PSD (Prevention of Significant Deterioration) permit issuance would be unable to keep up with the flood of incoming applications, resulting in delays, at the outset, that would be at least a decade or longer, and that would only grow worse over time as each year, the number of new permit applications would exceed permitting authority resources for that year.”
The headline says it all: “Treasury Inspector General to investigate White House disclosure of confidential taxpayer data of political opponent.”
Reports today in the Japanese press say that the Hayabusa return capsule did capture minute particles of extraterrestrial material.
Thirteen stunning photos from a 10-Year census of the oceans.
I can see November from my house. New numbers from Gallup are “astonishing.” To quote Michael Barone today in the Washington Examiner: “These two numbers, if translated into popular votes in the 435 congressional districts, suggest huge gains for Republicans and a Republican House majority the likes of which we have not seen since the election cycles of 1946 or even 1928.”
The container used to ship a Soyuz capsule to Baikonur was damaged in transport. No word yet on the condition of the capsule, which was scheduled for a December launch to ISS.
A report on NASA administrator Charles Bolden’s visit this past weekend in Saudia Arabia. Another perspective of his visit can be found here. Note that in either case, it appears that Bolden considers “international cooperation a cornerstone” of NASA’s mission.
Freedom of speech alert! Dutch politician Geert Wilders faces a year in prison, merely because of things he said.
Back to the Carter administration: Solar panels are returning to the White House.
The space tourism company Xcor today signed a deal to fly suborbital flights as soon as 2014 from the island of Curaçao in the Netherlands Antilles.
NASA’s technology chief said today that despite the specific demands Congress included in its authorization bill, NASA will make its own decision on the kind of heavy-lift rocket it wants to build.
The less well known ruins above Machu Picchu in Peru.
Global warming? Russian meteorologists are predicting one of the coldest winters in centuries.
Archeologists have uncovered a stone age dwelling site from 3500 BC, practically intact.
Seems to be a lot of this kind of genocidal thought going around: A columnist for the Independent in Great Britain admitted in an October 4th interview that she considers it a kind act to kill a suffering child. Key quote:
“[I] think that if I were a mother of a suffering child, I would be the first to want I mean a deeply suffering child I would be the first one to put a pillow over its face, as I would with any suffering thing and I think the difference is that my feeling of horror, suffering is many greater than my feeling of getting rid of a couple of cells because suffering can go on for years,” Ironside said.
The Lunar X Prize award for putting the first privately funded robot on the Moon by 2012 is now set at $30 million.
