The competition heats up: Better buy your tickets now because in a week the price for a flight on SpaceShipTwo is going up 25%.
The meteoric rise in Texas oil production since 2010.
Amazingly, oil production in the Lone Star State has more than doubled in less than three years, from 1.142 million bpd in July 2010 to 2.295 million bpd in February 2013, which has to be one of the most significant increases in oil output ever recorded in the history of the US over such a short period of time. A million bpd increase in oil output in less than three years in one state is remarkable, and would have never been possible without the revolutionary drilling techniques that just recently started accessing vast oceans of Texas shale oil.
The article does not going into any detail about why this boom suddenly started in 2010. They indicate that it is linked to the development of new drilling techniques, but I’d like to know more.
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.
"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
Smithsonian researchers have recovered a short recording of Alexander Graham Bell’s voice, made in 1885.
Opportunity went into safe mode during the communications pause in April when the Sun was between Mars and the Earth.
Mission controllers for Opportunity, which landed on Mars in January 2004, first learned of the issue on Saturday (April 27). On that day, the rover got back in touch after a nearly three-week communication moratorium caused by an unfavorable planetary alignment called a Mars solar conjunction, in which Mars and Earth are on opposite sides of the sun. The Opportunity rover apparently put itself into standby on April 22 after sensing a problem during a routine camera check, mission managers said.
It sounds like this is a recoverable problem and the rover will be back in operation momentarily. Stay tuned.
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.
Is there nothing global warming can’t do? A dozen Democrats are calling for action on global warming because it might cause women to become hookers.
I shouldn’t be surprised by this idiocy. These are the same politicians that voted for Obamacare without even reading the bill.
Tonight is radio night here at Behind the Black. I will be on two different syndicated radio shows, one in the United Kingdom, The Moore Show, followed by two hours live beginning at 10 pm (Pacific) on Coast to Coast with George Noory.
Both interviews should be a lot of fun. I intend to talk a bit about today’s SpaceShipTwo flight and how that lays the groundwork for the future of space travel. The subject of climate will also be a topic on both shows.
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
The Herschel Space Telescope has closed its eye on the universe.
After four years of operation, the telescope’s supply of helium coolant has run out, leaving the infrared telescope blind to the sky.
SpaceShipTwo broke the sound barrier on its first powered flight.
Below the fold is video of the flight.
» Read more
The competition heats up: SpaceShipTwo has successfully completed its first powered flight. Some images here.
The excitement builds in Mojave for SpaceShipTwo’s first powered flight, expected on Monday..
The flight window appears to stretch from 6 pm (Pacific) Sunday to noon Tuesday.
An evening pause: Jacqueline Abbott and Iris Dement sing a song by Iris Dement, “You’ve done nothing wrong.”
More Democratic senators discover that Obamacare is a train wreck about to happen.
They wrote it. They rammed it through Congress. It is their baby, lock, stock, and barrel.
It appears the Progress freighter has successfully docked with ISS.
The story is not entirely clear on whether this was a successful hard dock, or only a soft dock. However, I’ve done a search on the web and it sounds like the docking was good. This story says the astronauts on ISS will conducting leak tests (a normal procedure) and then begin unloading, which suggests that all is well.
A hard docking is confirmed.
Now Congress has found out what’s in it: Lawmakers are considering exempting themselves and their staffers from Obamacare.
If they think the law is too onerous for themselves, then maybe they might finally realize that it is too onerous for everyone, and repeal the damn thing. Unfortunately, such common sense is not likely to appear in Washington.
Update: The story above suggested the exemption was being pushed by both parties. This apparently is not entirely true. There does appear to be some common sense in Washington, at least among some on the Republican side, as indicated by Republican statements from both the House and Senate. As noted by Speaker John Boehner’s office,
» Read more
A new report from Russia suggests that the undeployed antenna on the Progess freighter will interfere with ISS’s docking port and prevent a docking.
It appears that the antenna would allow a soft docking but prevent the hard docking necessary to allow for the opening of the hatch. Something similar to this had happened on the Russian Mir station in the 1987. Two astronauts did a space walk to clear the hatch of a piece of debris. Now the Russians are suggesting again that if a hard dock becomes impossible a spacewalk be performed to get the antenna out of the way.
The day of reckoning looms: America the fallen: Twenty-four signs that our once proud cities are turning into poverty-stricken hellholes.
It is important to note that every single one of the cities cited in this article has been under Democratic Party rule for decades. While the decline is not entirely their fault, their tax-and-spend policies combined with a passion for heavy regulation certainly share much of the blame.
An antenna used to orient a Progress freighter during docking, launched today to ISS, has failed to deploy.
Though astronauts can manually dock the spacecraft, they still need proper radar data to gauge its location, spin, orientation, speed, and distance. If the remaining four antennas cannot provide all this information, it will be very dangerous to try a docking.
A problem like this has not happened on a Progress freighter in literally decades. When I consider the spate of other recent failures experienced by the Russian space industry, I can’t help wondering whether they have developed an overall quality control problem.
Update: Russian mission control said today that even if they cannot solve the deployment failure and get the antenna working it will not prevent a docking with ISS on Friday.
I tend to believe them. With four other antennas plus additional radar equipment on ISS it does seems reasonable that there is sufficient redundancy to allow the docking to proceed. Also, considering the Russians past problems with collisions on Mir, I would expect them to be very careful about proceeding if they had any doubts.
In honor of Shakespeare’s birthday yesterday: Insults by Shakespeare you can use in everyday life.
I especially like #4: “I do desire that we may be better strangers.”
An evening pause: The original song, by Blondie, had nothing to do with Shakespeare, but I like this celebration of Shakespeare based on the song, produced by Historyteachers. And it is his birthday today!
The competition heats up: In a web interview today, Richard Branson said that the first supersonic powered flight of SpaceShipTwo is now set for this coming Monday.
We’re hoping to break the sound barrier. That’s planned Monday. It will be a historic day. This is going to be Virgin Galactic’s year. We’ll break the sound barrier Monday and from there, we build up through the rest of the year, finally going into space near the end of the year. I’ll be on the first official flight, which we look to have in the first quarter of next year. We’re doing a number of test flights into space first.
Three years of Solar Dynamics Observatory images of the Sun — in three minutes.
I’ve posted the video below the fold. It’s quite cool.
Note that these images cover the period when the Sun was ramping up to what was hoped to be a strong solar maximum, when SDO was being designed and built. And though the Sun does appear to be active in these images, it is actually far less active than it has been for solar maximums going back at least a century.
This year’s Great Moonbuggy Race, the 20th, has attracted 600 international competitors.
The race itself will be held this coming weekend.
The competition heats up: SpaceX’s test vertical-landing rocket Grasshopper successfully climbed to 250 meters in its most recent test flight.
Video below the fold.
» Read more
Chicken Little report: The dismal predictions of the future from the first Earth Day in 1970.
I especially like the last two predictions, since I expect them to sooner or later become popular again.
Yesterday, Orbital Sciences successfully completed the first test launch of its Antares rocket, developed, designed, and built in less than five years under a commercial contract with NASA to provide cargo to the International Space Station. The launch went like clockwork, perfectly, with no hitches at all, something that is quite remarkable for a new rocket on its first launch. Kudos to the engineers at Orbital Sciences for a job well done!
Besides demonstrating the skill of Orbital Science’s engineers, however, this successful launch illustrated in stark reality a fundamental fact about the culture of the United States that continues to allow it to stand out from the rest of the world, even as a large percentage of the present generation of Americans are doing their darndest to try to destroy that culture. Moreover, that fundamental cultural fact is basic to human nature, not just the United States, and if we recognize it, it will provide us all the right framework for what to do and not to do in trying to maintain human societies, both here on Earth as well as in the future in space.
In order to understand the true significance of Orbital Sciences’s success yesterday with Antares, however, we must first review the capabilities of the world’s launch industry. I am not going to list all the rockets capable of putting payloads into orbit, only those that are successfully competing for business in the open commercial market.
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