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A Russian Progress freighter has arrived at ISS with supplies and a spacesuit repair kit for fixing one American spacesuit.
The competition heats up: Arianespace’s Ariane 5 rocket successfully launched two commercial satellites into orbit late yesterday.
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.
Finding out what’s in it: The cost of complying with Obamacare is forcing insurance companies to abandon many state markets.
In February 2010, a month before passage of the law, Obama explained at a bipartisan health care summit at the Blair House, “What we’ve said is that if you join one of these exchanges, you will have choice and you will have competition. You will have a menu of private insurance options that you’ll be able to purchase.”
Increasing the number of insurance options for individuals was one of the key ways in which Obama claimed the law would be able to drive down insurance costs. But with less than 70 days before the exchanges are set to open, large insurers are pulling out of states as a result of the health care law, resulting in less choice for consumers, not more.
This is exactly what happened in New York in 1992 when the state legislature passed a law with many of the same components as Obamacare. Insurance companies fled the state, and premiums went up.
If only all bills were this lacking in details: Congress fiercely divided over completely blank bill that says and does nothing.
A blank piece of legislation that says nothing, does nothing, and contains no text whatsoever has been the source of heated debate in Washington this week, and has sharply divided Congress along partisan lines, Beltway sources confirmed Thursday. Known as S.0000, the bill, which doesn’t have sponsors, co-sponsors, or an author, has reportedly drawn starkly contrasting opinions from legislators in both the Senate and House of Representatives, and has paved the way for a major legislative battle in coming months.
Read the whole thing. It accurately captures the reality of present day Washington, with the Democrats pounding the table for this bill and the Republicans pounding the table against it.
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.
"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
The box that built the modern world.
A really fascinating, detailed, and well-written article about something none of us thinks about but has made our lives infinitely better.
According to two industry sources, the federal government has demanded that major internet companies provide it the stored passwords of their customers.
“I’ve certainly seen them ask for passwords,” said one Internet industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We push back.” A second person who has worked at a large Silicon Valley company confirmed that it received legal requests from the federal government for stored passwords. Companies “really heavily scrutinize” these requests, the person said. “There’s a lot of ‘over my dead body.'”
So far at least, it appears that the companies are doing the right thing and telling the government to go to hell.
There are now only 3 copies left of the now out-of-print hardback of Leaving Earth. The price for an autographed copy of this rare collector's item is now $150 (plus $5 shipping).
To get your copy while the getting is good, please send a $155 check (which includes $5 shipping) payable to Robert Zimmerman to
Behind The Black, c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
Leaving Earth is also available as an inexpensive ebook!
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
Forty-three peer-reviewed papers by a Japanese researcher are tainted with falsified or fabricated data, according to a Japanese newspaper story today.
There really seems to be a lot of this going around, doesn’ t there?
Finding out what’s in it: A GAO report has found that heath insurance premiums will skyrocket next year when Obamacare takes effect.
Starting next year, a 30 year-old earning $35,000 per year would have to pay $2,739 annually for a cheap “bronze plan” on the new health insurance exchanges, even after receiving subsidies, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s subsidy calculator. That’s more expensive than any state in the current system, and seven times more expensive than in the cheapest state, Nebraska, where premiums are currently as low as $349 annually.
Even an otherwise comparable 30 year-old earning $25,000 next year, who would qualify for more generous Obamacare subsidies, would have to pay $1,142 annually for a “bronze plan.” That’s still more expensive than current cheap rates in 45 states, and double the current cost in 19 states.
The article has a fascinating table outlining the minimum cost for healthcare in all fifty states. Not surprisingly, in the states that have Obamacare-type regulations, such as Massachusetts and New York, the cost for heathcare is far higher.
Chicken Little report: Aerospace defense contractors Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon all show better than expected profits despite sequestration.
It seems that each of these companies, finding their profits from defense pork to be relatively flat or dropping slightly, worked harder to sell their other products to other customers, and were generally successful. What a concept!
The witch hunt continues: The Detroit City Council unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday calling for the further prosecution of George Zimmerman.
It not like these leaders in Detroit don’t have their own problems that they should be dealing with, eh?
As I said yesterday, they are thugs, jack-booted thugs. If they could arrange a kangaroo court to guarantee the conviction of those they dislike or disagree with, they would. And in fact, that is what they are trying to do right now.
Today’s parachute test of the Orion capsule successfully demonstrated that the capsule could safely land with only two of its three parachutes.
A Norwegian town, sunless for five months of the year, is building a giant array of mirrors to light up its town square.
Three mirrors with a total surface area of about 538 square feet will sit at an angle to redirect winter sun down into the town, lighting up over 2150 square feet of concentrated space in the town square. A similar idea exists in the Italian village of Viganella, which has used brushed steel to reflect light since 2006.
Working for the Democratic Party: The records of the snooping into Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell’s confidential tax records have mysteriously been destroyed.
The competition heats up: NASA plans to test the parachutes for the Orion capsule today.
Wednesday’s test will see an Orion prototype dropped from a plane at an altitude of 35,000 feet (10,700 meters) over the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in southwestern Arizona. Engineers will simulate a series of failures and test the parachute system’s ability to adapt and land the capsule safely. Orion has three main parachutes, and the NASA team plans to simulate the failure of one of the trio to see if the landing sequence can proceed safely with only two.
The merry-go-round: Obama’s nominee to manage contracting and budget at the Energy Department had serious problems doing the same job while she was at NASA.
A Washington Times review of NASA inspector general reports finds the space agency struggled to achieve austerity under Ms. Robinson’s financial leadership, as cost overruns grew sixfold from $50 million in 2009 to $315 million in 2012. … Audits conducted during Ms. Robinson’s tenure as CFO uncovered that NASA spent an average of $66 per person per day for light refreshments at conferences, shelled out $1.5 million to develop a video game to replicate astronauts’ experiences and reimbursed employees $1.4 million for tuition dating to 2006 for degrees unrelated to their NASA jobs.
But no matter. Her resume lists all these important past jobs, so she must be qualified!
The developmental engineering successes of the new commercially-built private spaceships, Dragon, CST-100, and Dream Chaser, appears to be winning over Congress.
The article linked above is mostly about Boeing’s effort with its CST-100 spaceship, but within it was this significant paragraph:
Last week, the House Appropriations committees approved $500 million and Senate appropriators $775 million for commercial crew development as part of NASA’s 2014 budget. The first figure is well below the Obama administration’s $821 million request, a figure NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has characterized as essential to meet the 2017 objective. Nonetheless, agency and company managers believe legislators are losing their skepticism over a program that has so far committed $1.4 billion to competing vehicle designs from SpaceX, Sierra Nevada, Boeing and others. [emphasis mine]
Congress is still insisting that NASA spend far more for the Space Launch System (SLS), but they do appear to be increasingly less interested in cutting the new commercial crew program. Eventually, a light will go off in their dim brains and they will realize how much more cost effective this program is compared to SLS. I expect this to happen sometime in the next three years, It is then that SLS will die.
Note that I don’t have any problems at all with the above cuts to the commercial program. It is far better to keep these private efforts on a short leash, thereby forcing the companies to stay lean and mean, than to give them a blank check (as has been done in the past and with SLS) and thus allow them to become fat and lazy.
The competition heats up: India has set August 19 as the launch date for its home-built Geosycnchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV).
Their last attempt to launch this rocket three years ago ended in spectacular failure. A success here would allow India to become a serious player in the launch market, thereby increasing the competition and thus helping to lower prices and encourage innovation.
The competition heats up: SpaceX has begun assembly of the upgraded Falcon 9 rocket that will launch its first commercial payload in early September.
This launch has been significantly delayed because the company was testing the actual engines to be used in the rocket, and had a series of engine aborts during testing (as outlined in the article above). Once the engines completed a full duration burn last week, however, the way was cleared for launch.
The article is very detailed, and also outlines the other new features of the upgraded Falcon 9 rocket to be flown for the first time in September. I must admit that this list makes me nervous. A lot rides on the success of this launch, both for SpaceX and for the entire new commercial space industry.
The death of freedom: Ten things you could do in 1975 that you can’t do now.
Read the comments as well. I especially liked this: “It used to be that laws and regulations were put in place to prevent people from doing bad things to other people. Now laws and regulations are put in place to prevent good people from enjoying the fruits of their labor!”
Surprise, surprise! The defense industry has found that the cuts from sequestration have been far less painful than their lobbying had claimed.
Contractors seem pleasantly surprised that the automatic spending cuts are not hurting nearly as much as the industry’s lobbying arm warned they would in the months leading up to the sequester that took effect in March. [For example,] Lockheed Martin had predicted that sequestration would wipe out $825 million in revenue this year, but it no longer expects such a big hit. In fact, the company said, profit will be higher than initially projected. [emphasis mine]
The article specifically mentions the doomsday lobbying effort of the Aerospace Industries Association, As I noted back in December 2012, that lobbying was a lie. There is so much fat in the government that sequestration could have been three times bigger and it wouldn’t have done these contractors any serious harm. The inconsequential nature of those cuts now is illustrating the reality of this truth.
NASA has initiated a second investigation board looking into last week’s spacesuit incident on ISS.
The investigations will run concurrently, with the second having a broader purpose, looking into “maintenance, quality assurance, and any operations that could have had a role.”
Leftwing civility works its magic: The family that George Zimmerman rescued from a car crash this week is terrified they will become targets of hate mobs if they say anything positive about him.
Thugs. The left and its minions are no different than jack-booted thugs, and the aftermath of the George Zimmerman trial has proven this quite clearly. Say or do something they don’t like, no matter whether it is legal, and they will come after you with threats of violence. And their leaders in the political world, led by President Obama, will just look the other way.
Call Al Gore! Observations of Comet ISON have detected strong carbon dioxide emissions escaping from the comet.
Images captured June 13 with Spitzer’s Infrared Array Camera indicate carbon dioxide is slowly and steadily “fizzing” away from the so-called “soda-pop comet,” along with dust, in a tail about 186,400 miles (300,000 kilometers) long. “We estimate ISON is emitting about 2.2 million pounds (1 million kilograms) of what is most likely carbon dioxide gas and about 120 million pounds (54.4 million kilograms) of dust every day,” said Carey Lisse, leader of NASA’s Comet ISON Observation Campaign and a senior research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. “Previous observations made by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission and Deep Impact spacecraft gave us only upper limits for any gas emission from ISON. Thanks to Spitzer, we now know for sure the comet’s distant activity has been powered by gas.”
Scientists have found evidence that at least some of the carved river valleys on Mars were partly the result of snowfall.
The competition heats up: Bigelow Aerospace announces prices for visiting or renting their space station modules.
For countries, companies, or even visiting individuals that wish to utilize SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule, Bigelow Aerospace will be able to transport an astronaut to the Alpha Station for only $26.25 million. Using Boeing’s CST-100 capsule and the Atlas V rocket, astronauts can be launched to the Alpha Station for $36.75 million per seat. In stark contrast to the short stays of a week or so aboard the ISS that we have seen wealthy individuals pay as much as $40 million for, astronauts visiting the Bigelow station will enjoy 10 – 60 days in orbit. During this time, visiting astronauts will be granted access to the Alpha Station’s shared research facilities. Examples of available equipment include a centrifuge, glove-box, microscope, furnace, and freezer. Also, potential clients should note that as opposed to the ISS, where astronauts dedicate the lion’s share of their time to supporting station operations and maintenance, astronauts aboard the Alpha Station will be able to focus exclusively on their own experiments and activities, ensuring that both nations and companies can gain full value from their investment in a human spaceflight program. [emphasis in original]
The release also describes price plans whereby the customer can rent part of a module for a period of time, as well as the prices for the naming rights to a module.
I hadn’t heard about it elsewhere and do not remember if this is old news or not. The announcement on the website is undated. Nonetheless, as the release notes, these prices undercut the fees charged by the Russians and provide far more opportunities for the customer.
Finding out what’s in it: According to a new poll, only 11% of doctors believe that the Obamacare health exchanges will be open for business on October 1, as mandated by the law.
I found this tidbit from the article, however, far more disturbing, as it describes a detail of the Obamacare exchanges that will surely cause doctors incredible financial pain, and will likely cause them to demand all payments up front:
Jackson said that doctors who don’t have an understanding of those coverage terms could be in for a nasty surprise once the new plans go into effect. That’s because under the rules of the exchange, a patient can go up to three months without paying premiums and still not get their coverage formally dropped by an insurers—but the insurer isn’t obligated to pay claims incurred during the second and third month if that person isn’t paying their premiums for that time, Jackson said. Those rules could mean that doctors end up eating the cost of the care they have already provided, or have their receivables stay unpaid for longer stretches of time. [emphasis mine]
In other words, the law is tilted to allow patients to stiff both their doctors and their insurance companies. How precious.
