Grasshopper flies again, but even higher.

2:52 pm

The competition heats up: Grasshopper flies again, but even higher.

SpaceX’s Grasshopper doubled its highest leap to date to rise 24 stories or 80.1 meters (262.8 feet) today, hovering for approximately 34 seconds and landing safely using closed loop thrust vector and throttle control. Grasshopper touched down with its most accurate precision thus far on the centermost part of the launch pad. At touchdown, the thrust to weight ratio of the vehicle was greater than one, proving a key landing algorithm for Falcon 9.

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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 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, 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

Some US communities are trying to make gun ownership mandatory.

9:26 am

This is wrong too: Some US communities are trying to make gun ownership mandatory.

As much as I think gun ownership and personal defense a good idea, forcing people to do it is just as bad as denying them that right. In each case it is an act of tyranny, using the power of government to impose the will of the majority on everyone, even those who disagree. Nor does it satisfy that some of these local laws allow for an exemption from gun ownership because of religious or personal beliefs. The use of the law to force people to do things is still wrong, no matter what the cause.

The frightening thing to me is the trend. Everyone, from both sides, seems eager to use the law to solve every problem, when the law is probably the worse tool for solving any problem you could possibly imagine. All it ends up doing is robbing everyone of freedom and their fundamental rights to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.

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The TSA issued security badges to at least eleven airport employees with criminal backgrounds.

12:02 am

Does this make you feel safer? The TSA issued security badges to at least eleven airport employees with criminal backgrounds.

According to a Feb. 22 report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), the TSA’s mishandling of the program caused a backlog of security badges that had yet to be issued. As a result, the TSA permitted airports to issue security badges to employees without conducting federally required background checks between April 20 and June 1 of 2012. The OIG concluded that there still may be individuals with criminal records who are working in secured areas of airports.

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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.

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

A federal appeals court has ruled that the Obama administration does not have the right to search or seize a person’s electronic devices when they cross the border.

6:01 pm

Good news: A federal appeals court has ruled that the Obama administration does not have the right to search or seize a person’s electronic devices when they cross the border.

The [Department of Homeland Security’s] civil rights watchdog, for example, last month reaffirmed the Obama administration’s position that travelers along the nation’s borders may have their electronics seized and the contents of those devices examined for any reason whatsoever — all in the name of national security.

The San Francisco-based appeals court, ruling 8-3, said that view was too extreme. Under the ruling, border agents may undertake a search of a gadget’s content on a whim, just like they could with a suitcase or a vehicle. However, a deeper forensic analysis using software to decrypt password protected files or to locate deleted files now requires “reasonable suspicion” that criminal activity is afoot. The court left rules intact that a “manual review of files on an electronic device” may be undertaken without justification. [emphasis mine]

Why is it that I sometimes get the feeling that this administration does not know how to read? They certainly seem all too often completely unfamiliar with the Constitution.

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South Dakota has passed a law to train teachers to wear guns and provide security.

5:05 pm

Here’s a good idea: South Dakota has passed a law to train teachers to wear guns and provide security.

In South Dakota, supporters of the “sentinel” plan argued that schools in rural areas were too isolated to expect immediate help from police in the event of an attack. They could not afford to pay full time security officers to protect them, so they want to arm teachers and volunteers.

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The TSA screeners at Newark Airport allowed a federal agent with a fake bomb to pass through security.

9:31 am

Does this make you feel safer? The TSA screeners at Newark Airport allowed a federal agent with a fake bomb to pass through security.

This covert test of security only proves once again how pointless the whole TSA charade is. Get rid of it. If we simply let the pilots and passengers be armed so they can defend themselves, which was the way we did things until the early 1960s, the chances of a repeat of 9/11 will be considerably less, and we would all have considerably more freedom.

Which is what this country is supposed to stand for, y’know.

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Rand Paul’s moment of glory.

9:09 am

Rand Paul’s moment of glory.

Then there’s this: Will the left finally get the Tea Party now?

As [the left] seethes in outrage and confusion that it took a Republican to question the constitutionality of drone attacks, it is important to remind our friends on the other side that it wasn’t just any Republican, but a–gasp!–Tea Party Republican who spoke “truth to power.” Not only that, but the Senators who were first to offer their assistance were also Tea Party Republicans–the so-called McCarthyist Ted Cruz of Texas, and Marco “Water Break” Rubio of Florida. All three of these Senators won their primary elections against candidates favored by the Republican establishment. All three have been attacked by the left and smeared as racist and extremist for belonging to the Tea Party. Yet without them, no one from either party would have questioned a policy that the left once saw as a dangerous abuse of executive power.

I personally am disappointed that the filibuster has ended. All told it was just a bit of sound and fury signifying nothing, as John Brennan’s nomination for CIA director will still get approved and our decline towards tyranny will continue.

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A sunstone, used by mariners to judge the position of the Sun when it is cloudy, has been found at a 16th century shipwreck.

8:46 am

A sunstone, used by mariners to judge the position of the Sun when it is cloudy, has been found at a 16th century shipwreck.

A previous study showed that calcite crystals reveal the patterns of polarized light around the sun and, therefore, could have been used to determine its position in the sky even on cloudy days. That led researchers to believe these crystals, which are commonly found in Iceland and other parts of Scandinavia, might have been the powerful “sunstones” referred to in Norse legends, but they had no archaeological evidence to support their hypothesis—until now.

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