Boeing has released some new images and videos of its crew transportation vehicle, being built in partnership with Bigelow Aerospace using subsidies from NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program.
John Glenn is meeting with President Obama today. Considering Glenn’s opposition to Obama’s plans for NASA, I suspect he is going to spend some his time lobbying Obama about changing those plans.
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 or any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
I just thought I should note quickly that my weekend cave trip was a spectacular success. John Harman, Pete Johnson, Nikki Fox, and myself surveyed almost 800 feet of beautiful and big virgin cave passage. I hope to have pictures soon.
Man, it is really fun to go where no one has ever gone before!
A headline that insists you read the story: Joe the Plumber (not that one) says he helped stop Gulf oil spill leak.
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 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.
A preprint paper, published today on the astro-ph website but also accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, has confirmed what scientists have suspected about the dust and gas between the stars: As you travel closer to the center of the Milky Way galaxy this interstellar medium gets increasingly enriched with heavy elements. The scientists believe this is because the higher rate of supernovae in the inner galaxy sprays space with more of these atoms.
Since the field of extrasolar planets has also found that the more heavy elements a star contains, the more chance it will have planets, the new results above suggest that we will find more planets as we look inward towards the galactic center.
Brownshirt alert: Watch how these union participants at this union rally react to the fact that several citizens are videotaping the event:
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
A paper published on Saturday in Geophysical Research Letters by the American Geophysical Union attempts to calculate the total ice loss at the polar caps and how it will affect the sea level. Key quote from the abstract: “Rapid losses of Arctic sea ice and small Antarctic ice shelves are partially offset by thickening of Antarctic sea ice and large Antarctic ice shelves.”
NASA, scooped by this AP story, has now made it official. The first survey of the sky by the WISE infrared telescope has just been completed, finding 25,000 new asteroids, 95 of which are near Earth asteroids.
The test flights continue for WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo. On July 15 the two ships, flying as a unit, made their first flight with two crew members inside SpaceShipTwo.
An evening pause: Though Vera-Ellen made only a handful of films and is not that well known today, during the late 1940s and 1950s she was one of Hollywood’s top female dancers. Here she performs a delightful dance number from the film Call Me Madame (1953).
An Evening Pause: Let’s have some more music, this time something so deeply beautiful it makes the heart ache: Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli singing Time to Say Goodbye.
Posting today shall be very quiet, mostly because I am out in West Virginia, exploring a previously unknown upper level in a cave we are mapping. This passage was only discovered last month by Aaron Moses, John Harman, and Pete Johnson, who did a bolt climb of over 70 feet to reach a high lead in the wall of the cave. This weekend we will be pushing and mapping these virgin passages. Below is a picture taken by Brian Masney of Aaron Moses as he worked his way up the wall, with Pete Johnson providing a belay. More of Brian’s pictures can be seen on his Flicker webpage.
An evening pause: One of the best television science series ever produced was The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski. Rather than simply describe science and knowledge, Bronowski instead pondered the nature of humanity. The best episode of the series was Knowledge or Certainty, in which Bronowski compared the humane uncertainty of science with the terrible consequences of dogma. As Oliver Cromwell said, “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”
Want to know who invented the basic technology that made possible CD and DVD players possible? Take a look at this restrospective describing the discovery, from Physical Review Focus of the American Physcial Society.
It appears we are entering the dry season on Titan. Scientists have observed a 1 meter drop in the levels of Titan’s methane lakes over the last four years as the seasons on the moon go from summer to fall. Fun quote: “[The scientists] report that the shoreline of Ontario Lacus receded by about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from June 2005 to July 2009.”
An AP report today says that the infrared WISE space telescope has catalogued 25,000 new asteroids, 95 of which are near Earth objects. Actual data, however, has not yet been released.
Liberty of conscious update. Further news on that story of a college professor fired for teaching Catholic doctrines (on homosexuality) in a Catholic doctrines class.
O joy! It’s time to favor gender over achievement at NASA. The Obama administration is considering using governmental authority at NASA and other agencies to guarantee that the same number of women receive science, technology, engineering, and math degrees as men. The actual White House statement emphasizes the need “to ensure equity in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education programs.” [emphasis mine].
If you want to be really annoyed, download NASA’s Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity documentation [pdf] and read how institutions are expected to do “periodic reviews of data broken down by gender. . . to ensure program policies and practices are not having a negative impact on program participation.” [page 5]
In other words, NASA should decide whether to provide education funds to universities, based not on the ability of those universities produce qualified engineers and scientists of any sex but on the number of women in their programs.
Scientists say they have successfully produced a genetically modified mosquito that is unable to carry the malaria parasite. If so, and this mosquito can be bred throughout the mosquito population, it will eradicate malaria entirely.
This analysis of the Senate budget plan that passed the Senate Commerce committee today hits all the most important points. Key quote (in connection with the Senate’s mandate that NASA start over in building a new heavy lift rocket):
Over the last five years, Constellation has cost at least $9 billion and produced little more than one test flight for a stripped-down version of the program’s Ares I rocket. While the Senate plan instructs NASA to salvage parts of Constellation when possible – and provides $11 billion over the next several years — it will take time and resources to create a new design. Adding to the pressure is the 2016 deadline that Congress gives NASA to have the new vehicle ready.
An evening pause: Last night was Judy Garland and Trolley Song. Tonight, how about Galaxy Song from Monty Python? (Thanks to Jeff Wasserman for the tip)
More coverage describing today’s Senate committee vote on the 2011 NASA budget. Interestingly, the Commerce committee and a number of its members have each issued their own press releases. I get the feeling they are trying to convince us they have acomplished something. Here are two from the chairman and ranking member:
More cave news, this time on Earth. Lockheed Martin, under the direction of DARPA, has developed technology capable of mapping underground mines and caves.
NASA scientists report, not surprisingly, that the Earth’s upper atmosphere experienced the largest contraction ever recorded during the recent very deep and prolonged solar minimum.
James Fincannon of NASA has forwarded me two additional pictures of the same cave on the Moon, taken recently at different times by the camera on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and made available by the Goddard Space Flight Center and Arizona State University.
These images clearly show that the skylight looks down into a much larger space, with the underground room belling out from the skylight in all directions. This can be seen by how the angle of sunlight hitting the floor of the cave changes over time. Below is a very crude cartoon I have drawn to illustrate what I think we are seeing in the image on the left. The dashed lines indicate unseen walls whose precise location is not yet determined.
James also forwarded me this link, showing even more images of additional lava tube skylights on the Moon.
Keith Cowing at NASAWatch reports in detail about the unanimous approval of the amended Senate budget for NASA. The final budget appears to have raised the funding for commercial space development to match the Obama request, while adding one more flight to the shuttle schedule and mandating an immediate start of work on some sort of heavy-lift rocket.
This story illustrates nicely why no one should trust the reliablity of any news reporting they see on television or cable. Key quote:
Back in late-1989, I contended that the U.S. economy was in or headed into a deep recession. CNBC had me in to discuss my views along with a senior economist for a large New York bank, who was looking for continued economic growth. Before the show, the bank economist and I shared our views in the Green Room. I outlined my case for a major recession, and, to my shock, his response was, “I think that pretty much is the consensus.” We got on the air, I gave my recession pitch, and he proclaimed a booming economy for the year ahead. He was a good economist and knew what was happening, but he had to put out the story mandated by his employer, or he would not have had a job.
More recently, following an interview on a major cable news network (not CNBC), I was advised off-air by the producer that they were operating under a corporate mandate to give the economic news a positive spin, irrespective of how bad it was.” And now you know that watching stations like CNBC for anything more than just comedic value is hazardous to your health and wealth.
Yesterday Clark Lindsey of rlvnews.com noted that my essay “You’ve got to play the game” appears to “blame the Administration solely for its problems in reforming NASA.” This is not entirely correct. My essay yesterday was specifically intended to lay out the errors and faults of Obama and his administration in their efforts to change NASA. Its purpose was not to discuss the foolishnesses of Congress, the stupidity of which I think everyone is very much aware.
However, Clark is correct when he notes that when it comes to this space war over NASA’s future, Congress is as much at fault as Obama. They are micromanaging NASA’s program in ways that can do little good for the future. Worse, they have shown a greater interest in maintaining pork barrel spending than funding NASA intelligently.
All in all, we have here a complete failure of the political class. I really do hate to sound pessimistic, but for NASA’s near term future, I honestly do not expect positive things to come from the compromise deal that Congress and the President now seem willing to agree to.
