Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
Freedom of speech alert! Threats of violence by anti-religion activists force a Spanish cardinal to cancel a lecture at a university.
From Clark Lindsey, with video: The static test firing of the Falcon 9 rocket today was a success. Actual launch is planned for Tuesday.
In a paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters of the American Geophysical Union, scientists note that the rise of giant volcanic caldara under Yellowstone National Park has slowed significantly since 2006 and since 2008 has actually subsided somewhat. Key quote from the paper:
Here we propose that as the caldera source continues inflating, the accumulated strain energy in the deformed crust could promote earthquakes with mechanisms such as hydrofracturing,, migration of magmatic fluids, and brittle fracturing of rocks. These events can subsequently depressurize the magmatic systems or release the accumulated strain energy, slowing the uplift or even influencing a change in motion to subsidence. In January 2010 the Yellowstone caldera experienced another large earthquake swarm at its northwestern boundary close to the location of the 1985 swarm. . . . In the following five months the caldera experienced the first overall subsidence since the inception of its uplift in 2004. This scenario is similar to that in 1985 where a reverse of caldera uplift to subsidence was temporally correlated with the largest observed Yellowstone earthquake swarm.
The squealing continues! The Orlando Sentinel demands that NASA gets its funding over everyone else, even as they admit there really is no money for anything. Key quote:
We applaud the Republicans’ determination to cut federal spending. But surely there are riper targets than the space program. The federal government spends billions each year on farm subsidies, a program held over from the Great Depression.
Didn’t the Cold War demostrate that profits, private property, and free enterprise do it better? By order of Congress, however, NASA is planning to put a nonprofit organization in charge of ISS research.
In preparation for its Tuesday test launch, SpaceX attempted a static test firing of the Falcon 9 rocket early today, only to abort at the last second. They plan another attempt on Saturday and still hope to launch on Tuesday.
Photos of the X-37B after landing at Vandenberg Air Force Base.
The religion of peace! An Islamic cleric offers a $6000 reward to anyone who will kill a Christian woman convicted of blasphemy against Islam.
Images of a snowbound England.
I know it’s weather and not climate, but Europe is experiencing its second cold winter in a row, despite predictions by many in the global warming community that such things would never happen again. My point here is that their claims in the late 1990s that hot streaks and big storms were proof of global warming were patently dishonest, and it is worthwhile to remind ourselves of this fact.
This must not happen! There are hints that the White House is asking the lame-duck Congress for the authority to transfer appropriations from one account to another, without Congressional approval. As Ed Morrissey notes
[This request] all but demands a blank check from Congress as a budget plan and ends their ability to direct funding as it sees fit. It’s a carte blanche for runaway executive power. Senate Republicans must pledge to filibuster any budget with that kind of authority built into it. In fact, every member of Congress should protest this demand to surrender the Constitutional prerogative of budgeting and the check on power it represents. Otherwise, they will consign the people’s branch to a mere rubber stamp for executive whims.
Focused like a laser on the really important stuff! Congress today passed a bill requiring the FCC to regulate the volume of television commercials!
Sadly, the pigs appear to be winning. Obama’s deficit commission has failed to pass its recommendations.
Astronomers are proposing that an early-warning system be built to warn us a week in advance should an asteroid be heading our way.
It’s official: The launch of Discovery is delayed until February.
Is this what we hired the TSA for? A CNN Reporter was put on the TSA’s security watch list after he criticized the security agency.
SpaceX is putting together its own plans to provide NASA a heavy-lift rocket. Key quote:
Fast-track development, multi-use and low cost are key, says [SpaceX owner Elon] Musk. “The development timeframe is on the order of five years and would come to fruition before Obama’s likely second term ends. It has got to fit within a NASA budget that fits in 2008 levels, and it’s got to have operational costs when functioning that is as close to zero as you can make it. That latter point demands that whatever components are in use for super-heavy lift must be in use for launching other satellites for say, geostationary commercial and government customers. If not, then the likelihood of success in my opinion is zero.”
Demonstrations planned in support of New Jersey man in prisoning for legally owning two guns.
A Croatian space mission to the Moon?
Bad news for the space shuttle: The root cause of the cracks on Discovery’s external tank is still not identified.
After more than seven months in orbit, the unmanned X-37B space plan has successfully returned to Earth. Key quote:
“Boeing and the Air Force are building another X-37B vehicle scheduled for launch in the spring of 2011.”
Update: Since several different reports are listing slightly different totals for the number of days in orbit, I’ve edited my note above to be less precise. I could add up the days myself, but that involves more math than I prefer to do!
White House initiates a study on whether astronaut corps should be trimmed.
This story is more evidence that I was right when I said Obama was lying when he claimed he loved manned spaceflight. If he was serious about sending humans to asteroids and beyond, he wouldn’t be so eager to find ways to shrink the astronaut corp.
Update: I should emphasize that I am not criticizing the idea of trimming the astronaut corp. I just want it clear that Barack Obama is clearly not a supporter of manned space, and that I believe his proposals (the commercial space subsidies) are merely window-dressing to placate his opponents while he dismantles the program.
More TSA abuse: A woman strips down to her lingerie and still gets a TSA pat down. And it happens twice, the first time forcing her to miss her flight!
The pigs are everywhere! Members of the so-called Tea Party Caucus requested about one billion in earmarks during the now ending 111th Congress.
Who needs laws when you can simply regulate? The EPA moves to bypass Congress.
Sierra Nevada, one of the new aerospace companies competing for NASA’s commercial crew money, appears to be the frontrunner to use the two X-34 suborbital rockets recently taken out of storage.
The telescope in an airplane flew its first observation mission today.
There are more stars in heaven and earth than have been dreamt of by scientists, three times more it turns out. And they are all dwarves!
