Japan’s Mount Shinmoe erupts again
Japan’s Mount Shinmoe volcano erupted again today.
Senate May Vote Today On Health Repeal
I guess it was the supermarket confrontation that’s making Harry Reid do it: The Senate may vote today on the repeal of Obamacare.
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. If you buy it from 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
Harry Reid confronted in supermarket over lack of Obamacare repeal vote
Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada) was confronted in a supermarket on Saturday over his refusal to allow a vote on the repeal of Obamacare.
Stardust refines its flight path towards comet Tempel
On Monday Stardust did a final mid-course correction in anticipation of its February 14 fly-by of of Comet Tempel 1.
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.
Crew of simulated Mars mission “arrives on Red Planet”
The crew of a simulated 500 day long Mars mission has reached “Mars orbit” after 8 months of confinement in a facility in Russia.
Israeli team enters Google Lunar X Prize competition
An Israeli team has entered the Google Lunar X Prize competition, hoping to land a nanosat on the moon for only $8 million.
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
Russia regains contact with missing military satellite
Russia regains contact with missing military satellite, finds that it was placed in the wrong orbit.
Remembering Boris Yeltsin
A monument to Boris Yeltsin was unveiled today in his hometown on the 80th anniversary of his birth.
In this week of memorials to American space tragedies, this event in Russia brings to mind the far more important and significant events, affecting millions of people worldwide, that unfolded in the Soviet Union during the late 1980s and mid-1990s. The communist superpower was collapsing, and there was the real possibility that that collapse could lead to worldwide war and violence.
Yeltsin, far more than any other man, helped shepherd the former Soviet Union out of that chaos, and he did it as a civilized man, with relatively little bloodshed. As he shouted defiantly as he stood on a tank in front of the Russian parliament building on the day of the August coup, “Terror and dictatorship . . . must not be allowed to bring eternal night!”
Unlike many former communist leaders, Yeltsin had the openness of mind to recognize that the state-run centralized command society that he had grown up in and had helped run for years simply did not work. “We have oppressed the human spirit,” he noted sadly during a press conference shortly after the coup. More importantly, he also had the courage to take action on this realization, and force the painful changes that were necessary to save his country.
Yeltsin was no saint, and the Russian transition from dictatorship to freedom was far from perfect. No one even knows if that transition is going to hold, today, twenty years later. Nonetheless, the world should remember Yeltsin for his success, and honor that memory.
Vapor trails
White nose confirmed on Indiana bats
White nose syndrome, a fungus that is linked to the death of approximately a million bats throughout the eastern United States, has now been confirmed on two Indiana bats. You can read the actual Indiana Department of Natural Resources press release here. [pdf]
The bats are thus finally spreading the fungus north, as has been expected.
Remembering Columbia
An evening pause: On this day eight years ago, the space shuttle Columbia broke up as it returned from orbit. Rather than watch that sad sight again, I’d rather remember the shuttle’s achievements. Watch this footage of Columbia’s first landing on April 14, 1981, which proved it was possible to glide powerless back from space and land safely on a runway. Though we as a nation might be abandoning this approach right now, future generations will use this as their standard way to return to Earth.
Several things to note as you watch the video. First, the shuttle’s angle of descent is extremely and frighteningly steep, until the very last moment. And every shuttle landing is like this. The shuttle is heavy, but it is still attempting to glide powerless to a landing. To do so it needs the thickness of the atmosphere combined with high speed to give it lift. Thus, it plows downward at a mucher higher speed and angle than any airplane, then quickly levels out at the last moment.
Secondly, this first landing did not have a drogue chute to slow the shuttle down. Rather than complicate things, they simply let the shuttle roll until it came to a stop.
FEMA considers, than cancels spending a billion on MREs
Government stupidity in action: FEMA considered then canceled (thank goodness) a proposal to spend more than a billion dollars on Meals-Ready-to-Eat on the very slim chance that the New Madrid fault in the midwest might produce a major earthquake sometime in the three years.
Unfortunately, they still haven’t canceled plans to buy 7 million emergency blankets and 550 million gallons of water in individual 1-liter plastic bottles.