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

The whistleblower who leaked the NSA surveillance program to the press has gone public.

12:48 pm

The whistleblower who leaked the NSA surveillance program to the press has gone public and is talking. Key quote:

Q: Does your family know you are planning this?

A: “No. My family does not know what is happening … My primary fear is that they will come after my family, my friends, my partner. Anyone I have a relationship with …

I will have to live with that for the rest of my life. I am not going to be able to communicate with them. They [the authorities] will act aggressively against anyone who has known me. That keeps me up at night.” [emphasis mine]

It tells us how far the United States has fallen if this man fears our government so much he thinks that government will go after his family.

Read the whole interview. It is quite horrifying, especially now that we know there are federal agents willing to use their power to target specific people solely because of their politics.

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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.

The National Security Agency can secretly access user data provided by as many as fifty American companies, ranging from credit rating agencies to internet service providers.

6:15 pm

The National Security Agency can secretly access user data provided by as many as fifty American companies, ranging from credit rating agencies to internet service providers.

The furor this week over this NSA snoop scandal is fascinating to me. The snooping really isn’t news, as it has been known for years that the NSA delves into these kinds of records in its effort to identify terrorist activity.

So, why the sudden furor and outrage? Up until a few weeks ago, most Americans assumed the federal government restricted this kind of snooping to foreign sources and to specifically hunting for terrorists. Now, however, after the IRS scandal, the public realizes that this government, under Obama at least, is quite willing to abuse its power for partisan political reasons. Under Obama, the IRS was used to target innocent Americans, merely because they disagreed with Obama. The public now realizes that it is also likely that this administration will abuse its access to the private information gathered by NSA, and that sends chills up people’s spines.

Thus, the furor. This kind of snooping is suddenly perceived as a real threat to Americans.

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A Texas high school cut off the mike of a valedictorian during his speech when he deviated from his approved speech and began to talk about the Constitution.

8:53 am

The new freedom: A Texas high school cut off the mike of a valedictorian during his speech when he deviated from his approved speech and began to talk about the Constitution.

The school absolutely has the right in this context to cut off his microphone. I just find it a terrible approach to teaching.

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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

“The IRS scandal is much worse than anyone realizes.”

10:20 pm

“The IRS scandal is much worse than anyone realizes.”

How did I know this was a coordinated attack on conservative critics and donors? Because just in my small inner circle of friends, virtually every businessman that I met was getting hit with IRS audit notices only weeks after writing checks to the GOP and Mitt Romney. Strange coincidence, huh?

In one case, a friend of mine who is a hedge fund CEO attended the first major Wall Street fundraiser for Mitt Romney. Only a select few Wall Street big shots attended. After they went home, almost every one of them in the room that wrote a check to Romney later reported receiving IRS audit notices.

In another case, a friend of mine wrote a big check to Romney. He called me to report his suspicions when only weeks later he received an IRS notice. In another case, my next-door neighbor (who is a big GOP donor) reported being under vicious IRS attack. In another case, my accountant was suddenly audited only months after my first IRS attack. Even my publicist received an IRS audit notice.

The author of this article — a well known conservative critic of Obama — was himself audited twice, and exonerated twice. The second audit notice came five days after he had won in court the first time.

3 comments

Opportunity, now moving to another target 1.5 miles away, has found evidence of drinkable water on Mars.

3:05 pm

Opportunity, now moving to another target 1.5 miles away, has found evidence that some of the water on Mars was once drinkable.

Before trekking off last month, Opportunity used a grinder to scrape away the top layer of a light-colored rock for a peek inside. The rock was so lumpy and covered with crud that it took the rover several tries to crack open its secrets. Unlike other rocks that Opportunity inspected during the past nine years, the latest told a different story: It contained clay minerals, a sign that water coursed through it, and formed in an environment that might have been suitable for microbes. Previous rock studies by Opportunity pointed to a watery past on Mars, but scientists said the water was acidic.

“This is water you can drink,” said mission chief scientist Steve Squyres of Cornell University.

More details here, noting that this water comes from an earlier time on Mars, when the planet’s environment was more benign.

So the rover has now sampled both sides of the momentous planetary transition from a wet, benign environment more than 4 billion years ago to a colder, drier, harsher one since then

One comment

NASA has decided that the best use for two space mirrors donated to the space agency by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) would be to study either dark energy and extrasolar planets.

11:04 pm

NASA has decided that the best use for two space mirrors donated to the space agency by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) would be to study either dark energy and extrasolar planets.

There is no funding as yet for either mission, so for the moment the mirrors will remain on the ground, in storage.

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Sierra Nevada has begun the testing program of Dream Chaser’s engines.

1:35 pm

The competition heats up: Sierra Nevada has begun the testing program of Dream Chaser’s engines.

These tests were to verify that the engine test stand will function properly when they begin testing the engines themselves. Note also that Sierra Nevada provided the engines for SpaceShipTwo, and that Dream Chaser’s engines appear to be some variant of that hybrid engine design.

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Despite the failure of any climate model to predict the climate, the Obama administration is increasing the cost and strictness of regulation because of what it sees as the “social cost of carbon dioxide.”

10:57 am

Despite the failure of any climate model to predict the climate, the Obama administration is increasing the cost and strictness of regulation because of what it sees as the “social cost of carbon dioxide.”

[E]ssentially, the government is now incorporating newer climate models that capture the future damage from sea-level rise more explicitly. Those models also project that agriculture will suffer more heavily in a hotter world. So, in its central estimate, the federal government now assumes a ton of carbon-dioxide emitted in 2013 does roughly $36 in damage, rather than its previous estimate of $22, with the value rising each year.

Meanwhile, new data also suggests increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere might actually be beneficial, not damaging.

Shouldn’t the EPA and the Obama administration get their heads out of the sand?

4 comments

Two IRS employees in Cincinnati have told congressional investigators that officials in Washington directed and established the policy of harassing conservative groups that began in 2010.

10:18 am

Two IRS employees in Cincinnati have told congressional investigators that officials in Washington directed and established the policy of harassing conservative groups that began in 2010.

I especially like this quote:

Hofacre said she was outraged last month when IRS higher-ups, including Lois Lerner, then the head of the IRS tax-exempt division, blamed the problem on employees in Cincinnati. “I was furious,” Ms. Hofacre told interviewers. “It looked like Lois Lerner was putting it on us.”

Yup, that is exactly what Lerner was doing — looking for a fall guy.

One comment

The repairs to the cracks in the first Orion capsule have withstood static stress tests.

9:54 am

I’m so glad: The repairs to the cracks in the first Orion capsule have withstood static stress tests.

In addition to the various loads it sustained, the Orion crew module also was pressurized to simulate the effect of the vacuum in space. This simulation allowed engineers to confirm it would hold its pressurization in a vacuum and verify repairs made to superficial cracks in the vehicle’s rear bulkhead caused by previous pressure testing in November.

The November test revealed insufficient margin in an area of the bulkhead that was unable to withstand the stress of pressurization. Armed with data from that test, engineers were able to reinforce the design to ensure structural integrity and validate the fix during this week’s test. [emphasis mine]

I love how this NASA press release describes the cracking of the capsule bulkhead during the November testing, indicated in bold. “Insufficient margin”, eh?

Normally I am very forgiving when things fail during engineering tests, but for the bulkhead of this capsule to crack during these tests was actually pretty shameful, considering the decades of engineering work previously done in the building of space capsules and submarines. Things can certainly go wrong when you build something new, but I don’t see anything particularly revolutionary about Orion’s design. Lots of things might fail, but making sure the bulkhead could withstand the normal and well known stresses of spaceflight should not have been one of those things. The bulkhead failure suggests to me some sloppy engineering work took place in Orion’s initial design.

3 comments

The predictions of seventy-three climate models are compared to real data and not one comes even close to reality.

4:21 pm

The predictions of seventy-three climate models are compared to real data and not one comes even close to reality.

Remember: computer modeling is not science research. It does not tell us anything about the actual climate. It is instead theoretical work useful for trying to understand what the data actual is telling us.

Computer modeling, however, is totally useless if it doesn’t successfully mimic that actual data. Since all of these climate models fail to do this, they very clearly show that they do not understand the climate itself, and are not valid theories to explain its processes. If the scientists who created them were honest about these results, they would immediately go back to the drawing board and rewrite these models.

I unfortunately have serious doubts they will do this.

9 comments

The first annual College Stupidity Awards.

9:11 am

The first annual College Stupidity Awards.

I especially like this one:

A Hispanic student group at Northwestern University instructed members of the campus community to forgo eating tacos and drinking tequila on Cinco de Mayo, so as not to offend Mexican culture. But Mexican students, who indeed wanted to spend their holiday eating tacos and drinking tequila, took offense at the assumed offense. The Hispanic student group ended up with huevo on its face.

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The EPA has acknowledged that it illegally released personal information of farmers to several leftwing environmental organizations.

8:53 am

The EPA has acknowledged that it illegally released personal information of farmers to several leftwing environmental organizations.

Mistakes do happen, but like the IRS scandal, this mistake was all one way, helpful to the left and harmful to their opponents. And like the IRS scandal, this one way harm suggests this was not a mistake, but quite intentional.

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A message to moderate Muslims.

8:45 pm

A message to moderate Muslims.

What we need is a Muslim backlash, and we need it now. You may be a moderate, peaceful Muslim, but there’s nothing moderate or peaceful about your religion, and you know it.

The bigots who preach in your mosques, who take sustenance from your religion, are hiding behind you. And your silence is helping them to do it. If your mosque is letting anyone preach hatred and violence on its premises, you have a duty to call the police. And the police have a duty to take off their politically correct-tinted glasses to go into that mosque, without removing their shoes, and arrest that person. Anything less than this, and you’re on the wrong side.

As always, Pat Condell puts it bluntly but honestly. If Islam is being hijacked by radicals, as so many politically correct people claim, than the religion can easily be saved if the reasonable people within stand up to them. If they don’t, however, they tell us that the religion isn’t being hijacked. It is radical, and violent, and should be shunned and opposed by all reasonable people worldwide.

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