Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black., You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:


1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.


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The IPCC and the UN is planning to re-engineer the Earth to save it

6:00 pm

What could go wrong? Railroad engineer and head of the IPCC Rajendra Pachauri announced at the Cancun climate summit today that he has decided that the threat of global warming is so great that the IPCC is going to recommend in its next report (AR5) that actions be taken to re-engineer the climate. Key quote:

“The AR5 has been expanded and will in future focus on subjects like clouds and aerosols, geo-engineering and sustainability issues,” [Pachauri] said.

Later this year IPCC “expert groups” will meet in Peru to discuss geo-engineering. Options include putting mirrors in space to reflect sunlight or covering Greenland in a massive blanket so it does not melt. Sprinkling iron filings in the ocean “fertilises” algae so that it sucks up CO2 and “seeding clouds” means that less sunlight can get in. Other options include artificial “trees” that suck carbon dioxide out of the air, painting roofs white to reflect sunlight and man-made volcanoes that spray sulphate particles high in the atmosphere to scatter the sun’s rays back into space.

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Genesis cover

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.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"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

NASA engineers struggle to analyze cause of cracks in tank

2:12 pm

NASA engineers continue to struggle to analyze the cause of the cracks in Discovery’s external tank. Key quote:

Forty-three tanks have been constructed with the lighter alloy, requiring just more than 4,600 stringers. So far, 31 cracks have been found, including those on Discovery.

“All of those have been known assembly issues,” Shannon said of the previous cracks, which were traced to misalignments of the stringers as they were fastened to the tank or to mishandling in which the fragile stringers struck or were struck by other hardware. Discovery’s cracks were the first found and repaired at the launch pad using techniques previously employed only at the production plant.

The ongoing detective work is immune to schedule and budget pressure, according to Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations.

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Conscious Choice cover

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.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“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 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.

Leaving Earth cover

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.

 

Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.

 
"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

A hint that the Republicans might be wimping out again

11:50 am

It’s stories like this that fill me with dispair: House Majority Leader-designate Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) says that Republicans will keep some provisions of Obama’s healthcare law intact. Key quote:

Provisions that Republicans will seek to retain include the barring of insurance companies from refusing coverage to patients with a pre-existing condition and allowing young people to stay on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26.

You would think the numerous demonstrations, the loud townhall protests, and finally, the election results themselves would have given Cantor a hint of what the public really wants: total and complete repeal of this stinker of a bill.

Cantor’s desire to keep the pre-existing condition clause will only make the entire insurance business unprofitable. When I lived in New York and the state legislative passed a similar bill, more than half of all insurance companies immediately abandoned the state, as they understood that no one had any reason to buy health insurance, until they actually got sick. And without the premiums from healthy people, the companies knew they would have no resources left to pay the expenses of those who were sick. (See my 1994 article on this subject for the magazine The Freeman.)

As for the clause allowing young people to stay on their parents’ plan until 26, all this will do is force insurance companies to drop all coverage for children, as this union did in New York.

Either way, what gives Eric Cantor and the Republicans (or the Democrats before them) the lordly wisdom to determine how this particular business (or any) should be run? Freedom demands that these business transactions should be left to the market, the insurance companies, and their customers, not to the whims of politicians.

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TSA security harasses a mother over her breast milk

12:32 am

TSA security in Phoenix harassed this mother over her request that her breast milk not be sent through the x-ray machine, as per TSA’s own regulations. Though eventually backing down, the security personnel make her wait so long she misses her flight. The whole event, recorded on surveillance tapes that the woman demanded and got from the TSA, is so outrageous you have to watch it, even though it is long.

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The unimaginative Union of Concerned Scientists does it again

9:42 pm

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), the reusable X-37B — in orbit at the moment and expected to return to Earth in the near future — has no compelling use.

“It’s hard to think of what could make that mission compelling,” [UCS scientist Laura] Grego told SPACE.com. “It doesn’t protect you from antiaircraft fire, and the element of surprise doesn’t really work in your favor if you’re launching on Atlas V [rocket].”

In reading this article, it is fascinating how completely unimaginative the scientists from the Union of Concerned Scientists seem. Nor do I find this surprising. For the last few decades this organization has opposed almost every new aerospace engineering project that might actually have made possible the human exploration of space. It’s as if these scientists feared new ideas and grand achievement. Sadly, the UCS had great influence with policy makers in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and thus helped limit the American government’s space program capabilities during that time period.

Fortunately, the UCS’s influence has waned in recent years. Though the American government space program might be dying, it is because of budget limits and a lack of leadership by the Obama administration, not the unimaginative thinking of the UCS. Furthermore, their lack of imagination — which once seemed so culturally dominant — seems to no longer influence the rest of society. The happy result is the creative innovation coming from many new private aerospace companies.

The UCS meanwhile reminds me of an old curmudgeon, who won’t keep quiet but everyone still ignores.

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Superman – The Mad Scientist

8:03 pm

An evening pause: The first Max Fleischer Superman cartoon, The Mad Scientist (1941), from a time when Americans believed that all things were possible, and that our nation stood for the best of those possibilities. When evil men try to destroy skyscrapers and kill innocent people, you don’t stand idly by, you fight them, and stop them.

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Martian stream gullies

9:55 am

The image below from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows gullies remarkably similar to gullies formed on Earth by flowing water, thus providing striking evidence that at some time in the past liquid water did flow on the Martian surface, something that is not possible now. Key quote from the caption:

The gullies shown in the subimage (approximately 710 x 1100 yards) have well developed alcoves, deeply incised channels, and large depositional fans, and are similar to terrestrial landscapes sculpted by surficial water.

The gullies shown in the subimage experienced several periods of activity, as evidenced by older channels cut by younger ones or by their deposits. The current and recent Martian temperatures and atmospheric conditions would not allow for water to be stable at the surface for extended periods of time: it is so cold that the water would freeze, and then it would sublime quickly, because the air is very thin and dry. These gullies could have formed under a different climate, or maybe by repeated bursts of transient fluids. Current leading hypotheses explaining the origin of gullies includes erosion from seepage or eruption of water from a subsurface aquifer, melting of ground ice, or dust-blanketed surface snow.

gullies in Sisyphi Planum

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ELISABETH SABADITSCH-WOLFF’s November 23 court hearing

11:57 am

As the court proceedings occurred during Thanksgiving week, I am late reporting this: On November 23 Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff had her court hearing in Austria, where she faces imprisonment for speaking out against Islam. You can see a very detailed report of the hearing here. The next hearing is now scheduled for January 18, 2011.

All in all, this whole trial is a travesty of justice. Sabaditsch-Wolff merely quoted the Koran in describing why she considers it a threat. More importantly, doesn’t freedom of speech mean freedom of speech? That some Muslims were offended by her comments is completely irrelevant.

You can send money to Sabaditsch-Wolff’s legal fund here.

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Killing bats to save them!

9:45 am

In a wonderful example of government stupidity, environmental officials in Wisconsin want to try to “exclude” bats from caves in order to prevent the spread of white nose syndrome.

Some quick background: White nose syndrome appeared in upstate New York about four years ago, killing about 90 percent of the bats affected. It has since spread down the east coast following bat migration patterns as they travel during the summer months. (While human activity might spread the syndrome as well, the evidence all points to the bats as the primary vector.) A newly discovered fungus that is seen on all affected bats, for which the syndrome is named, is the prime suspect for killing them, as it disturbs them during hibernation, causing them to wake more frequently, burn up their reserves,and thus starve to death.

Wisconsin officials, in their infinte wisdom, have decide that the way they will save the bats of their state will be to declare the fungus an invasive specie. They will then be empowered to do anything they can to prevent its spread. And how will they do this? By preventing bats from entering caves and bringing the fungus with them.

Let me say that again: Wisconsin environment officials want to “exclude bats from caves” in order to save them. The result of course will be a biological genocide, since without access to caves during the cold hibernation period the bats will surely die.

If you don’t believe me, see this press release. To quote:

The third proposed rule adds provisions to NR 40.04 and 40.07 relating to early detection and prevention of the spread of the disease due to human activities, including the decontamination of clothes and equipment that have been used in mines or caves, and limited access of bats or people to caves or mines. [emphasis mine]

If you still don’t believe me, read the state’s actual proposed management plan [pdf]. To quote page 5:

Under the proposed rules, the department may ask any person who owns, controls, or manages property here a cave or mine may be present to install and properly maintain physical barriers to limit access to the cave or mine by either individuals or bats, in accordance with a plan approved by the department. The department is seeking funding to assist with the installation of barriers, and therefore cost to those parties who install such barriers should be negligible. Additionally, commercial caves will have the option to exclude bats from their cave(s) with the help of the department, allowing them to remain open for tourism, and resulting in no loss of tourism dollars. [emphasis mine]

Moreover, this plan will give these officials the power to enter private property without the landowners’ permission.

Cavers have been trying to explain to the Wisconsin officials that this entire approach is madness. So far, these pleas have had very little effect. You can see their efforts here.

This whole story might be one of the best examples of why it is always bad idea to concentrate a lot of power in the hands of government. Better to spread the power around among a lot of private landowners, as then you also spread the stupidity around as well, and reduce the chances that the only approach taken is the worse approach.

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