But will we do anything about it? In 2009 Social Security will be in the red for the first time since the last legislative overhaul in 1983.
Decline and fall? Out of cash, Camden, New Jersey, is going to close all three of its public libraries on December 31.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon, any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
In a break from its ban on selling military weapons, Japan is considering exporting its Standard Missile-3 missile system.
Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!
From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.
“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of founder of the Mars Society.
All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.
The Senate last night passed its version of NASA’s authorization. You can read the authorization bill here [pdf]. It appears that the bill favors the development of a government-built heavy-lift rocket, and sets the deadline for its launch as 2016, though providing less money for the effort than under the Constellation program.
In a letter response to the EPA’s effort to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, Texas has essentially told the EPA to go to hell. Three key quotes from the letter:
In order to deter challenges to your plan for centralized control of industrialized development through the issuance of permits for greenhouse gases, you have called upon each state to declare its allegiance to the Environmental Protection Agency’s recently enacated greenhouse gas regulations — regulations that are plainly contrary to United State law. ….. To encourage acquiesence with your unsupported findings you threaten to usurp state enforcment authority and to federalize the permitting program of any state that fails to pledge their fealty to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [emphasis mine]
The State of Texas does not believe the EPA’s “suggested” approach comports with the rule of law.
Texas will not facilitate EPA’s apparent attempt to thwart these established procedures and ignore the law.
Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke
These Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter images show in increasing magnification a puzzling feature in the southeast part of a ice mound in Louth Crater on Mars. Located at 70 degrees north latitude, this is the farthest south that scientists have found permanent water ice. The close-up image suggests melting ice with the draining water running down hill to the south, though on Mars the low air pressure would cause any liquid water to evaporate instantly. Key quote:
These may be the crests of partially defrosted dark sand dunes or perhaps some other feature that we do not understand. This is the only area on Louth where these enigmatic ridges are found.
Government by the stupid. A health inspector in Portland, Oregon, forced a seven year old to shut down her lemonade stand last week or face fines of $500.
At an aerospace industry conference last week SpaceX outlined the company’s plans for building its own heavy-lift rocket, as well as their long range exploration goals. Key quote from rocket development facility director Tom Markusic: “Mars is the ultimate goal of SpaceX.”
Scientists studying Apollo lunar samples have found evidence that most of the Moon appears very dry, with no water at all. These results obviously contradict the recent findings of water in the craters near the lunar poles, and will require some explaining.
Alliant Techsystems (ATK) has scheduled the second test of the five segment solid rocket motor, planned for use on the Ares I rocket, for August 31. Fun quote:
When fired, the motor will produce a maximum thrust 3.6 million pounds, or 22 million horsepower [half the power of the first stage of the Saturn V rocket]. The cases [segments] have all previously flown on the space shuttle, collectively launching on 57 missions.
NASA managers have delayed the first spacewalk to replace the pump module from Friday until Saturday, 7 am (EST), with the second spacewalk now delayed from Monday to Wednesday. This is to give them more time to fine tune their plans.
NOAA has issued an update on its annual hurricane prediction, calling for an active season with 14 to 20 named storms. This prediction is in conjunction with the formation of the cool La Niña in the mid-Pacific Ocean.
Want to know what museum holds that mummy of a fish found in Egypt in 1905? Check out Animal Mummies, the largest animal mummie database in the world.
After a very long winter where the Arctic Oscillation has been deeply negative, setting records and resulting in very cold conditions in the northern hemisphere, the oscillation has finally entered its positive phase in the last month.
This stunning image of Saturn, taken by Cassini on June 24, 2010, shows the ring’s widening shadow across the planet. As the planet orbits the Sun the tilt of its rings relative to the Sun changes with time. In August 2009 the tilt was essentially zero, so that the shadow was very narrow. Since then the tilt has been increasing, as has the width of the shadow.
This long and fascinating interview about the Israeli-Arab conflict is quite eye-opening. Key quote:
Most Israelis are here because they fled from Muslim and European countries. They don’t feel that either of those blocs have the right to lecture them about anything. Why should a country where your parents were expelled or killed have the right to tell you how to conduct yourself in a war against people who are trying to kill you today? This is something hardly any non-Israelis understand. They don’t understand how galling we find this.
Israelis are often accused of being arrogant, but they find it extremely arrogant for Europeans and Arabs to lecture them about morals, especially during a war. What has Israel ever done that is as brutal as what Europe did to the Jews, or what Arabs routinely do to even each other during armed conflicts?
Read it all.
The state-owned Ukrainian company, building the first stage of the rocket Orbital Sciences intends to use for ferrying cargo to and from ISS, announced today that there will be two to three month delay in delivery. No explanation for the delay was offered.
The recent history of NASA illustrates a fundamental problem with how our political class thinks.
In 2004 George Bush announced that NASA would have a new goal, that of the exploration of the solar system. The shuttle would complete construction of the International Space Station and then be retired in 2010. NASA would meanwhile build a replacement for the shuttle, designed to return to the Moon and beyond, and have it flying by 2014.
Notice the gap? The shuttle retires in 2010, four years before its replacement is available. Notice also that the plan insisted that ISS would be finished, fully occupied, and in need of significant resupply and maintenance during this entire time, when neither the shuttle or its replacement would be on hand.
Yet, as obvious as this seems, no one at NASA, in the Bush administration, or in Congress, seemed to notice this gap. The Bush plan was implemented exactly as described, so that today we are about to be left with a space station in orbit and no way to reach it for at least four years. (That other countries can reach the station changes nothing: the United States has been left hanging, lacking a method for transporting its crews to its own space station.)
It was as if, among the political and elite class that runs the government, there was great disconnect between the fantasy of the intended plan and the reality of its implementation. » Read more
The revolt continues! Missouri voters rejected the Obama healthcare mandate by more than 3 to 1 yesterday. Also, an incumbent black Democratic congresswoman in Michigan was defeated in the primary.
Correction.Regular reader James Fincannon emailed me to say that he thinks the image below is an artist’s impression. He is correct. I should have looked more closely at the press release. In reading the actual research paper [pdf] on the results it seems that the VLT did some very sophisticated spectroscopy, thereby measuring the uneven distribution of the velocity and density of the gas around the star. The image below was then created, based largely on Hubble images combined with the new data. In other words, this ground-based telescope did not match the abilities of a space-based telescope in any way. Had the Hubble images not existed the astronomers would have struggled to interpret their spectroscopic data.
Some important astronomy news: The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has released this spectacular image of supernova 1987a, the first and so far only supernova visible to the naked eye since the invention of the telescope.
This image is important for two reasons. First, The data shows that the supernova explosion was not symmetrical, with more material being thrown outward in some directions than in others. This fact confirms what astronomers in recent years have increasingly come to believe: Supernovae explosions are not simple spherical bursts, but chaotic events ripping stars apart in a lopsided manner.
Second, this image demonstrates that ground-based telescopes are becoming amazingly good at doing what the Hubble Space Telescope has done routinely for the past two decades. Five years ago, no telescope on the ground could have resolved the inner ring of supernova 1987a. Only Hubble in space had that capability. Now, VLT can do it, almost as well as Hubble. Though a space-based telescope can still beat any ground-based telescope, it is great news that the technology for ground-based telescopes has improved so much, especially since there presently are no plans to replace Hubble.
Archeologists have uncovered a previously unknown tunnel and several chambers under the Temple of Quetzacoatl north of Mexico City. Key quote:
Experts say a tomb discovery would be significant because the social structure of Teotihuacan remains a mystery after nearly 100 years of archaeological exploration at the site, which is best known for the towering Pyramids of the Moon and the Sun. No depiction of a ruler, or the tomb of a monarch, has ever been found, setting the metropolis apart from other pre-Hispanic cultures that deified their rulers.
Waking up is hard to do. Today NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center once again published its monthly graph, showing the progress of the sun’s sunspot cycle in comparison with the consensis prediction made by the solar science community in May 2009.
As I noted when I posted the July graph, the data continues to show that the Sun’s ramp up to solar maximum is far slower and weaker than predicted, despite the stories this week about how Sunday’s coronal mass ejection demonstrates that the sun is “waking up.”
After two summers of drilling the newest Greenland ice core finally hit bedrock on July 27 at a depth of more than 1.5 miles. Hopefully the ice layers from this deep core will provide additional information about the Earth’s climate going back as far as 130,000 years.
WhiteKnightTwo was in the air today, doing another test flight, this time without SpaceShipTwo attached.
That coronal mass ejection thrown out by the Sun on Sunday is expected to energize the aurora tonight and again on Thursday. Look up at night if you live in the high northern latitudes.
