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Some of Darwin’s fossil samples have been rediscovered, hidden in plain sight at the British Geological Survey.
Bad news: The satellite communications company Intelsat has backed out of a deal to have a robot refuel some of its orbiting satellites.
Apparently Intelsat would rather rake in the cash by launching new satellites rather than take a risk at a new technology that could save its customers a lot of money.
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.
The ten most hated companies in America. All of which seem to have forgotten that the customer voluntarily gives them his or her money.
And to balance the sheet: The ten most admired companies in America.
That one company shows up on both lists, however, kind of tells us all how silly these lists are.
House Republicans are trying to rescind a $100 billion European bailout fund created by the Democrats and Obama in 2009.
Makes sense to me. How can you be loaning money to others when you are in debt yourself?
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
Looking for scapegoats: Russia is now investigating whether a U.S. military radar signal might have disabled Phobos-Grunt.
The state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Yury Koptev, former head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, as saying investigators will conduct tests to check if a U.S. radar emissions could have impacted the Phobos-Ground space probe, which became stuck in Earth’s obit for two months before crashing down. “The results of the experiment will allow us to prove or dismiss the possibility of the radar’s impact,” said Koptev, who is heading the government commission charged with investigating causes of the probe’s failure.
The current Roscosmos head, Vladimir Popovkin, previously said the craft’s malfunction could have been caused by foreign interference. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin acknowledged U.S. radar interference as a possible cause but said it was too early to make any conclusions. “This version has the right to exist,” Rogozin said Tuesday. “There is evidence indicating that frequent disruptions in the operation of our space technologies occur in that part of the flight path that is not visible to Roscosmos and is beyond its control.”
Though this might be technically possible, it is incredibly unlikely. For Russian politicians to focus on this issue indicates serious problems in both their space engineering community and their political culture.
Private-sector experience? Oh, no!
People have started to learn some disturbing facts about likely Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney: He once worked for Bain Capital — which is what’s known as a private-sector business. Harmless as the term sounds, it’s much scarier once you understand how such outfits operate.
A private-sector business doesn’t even pretend to make decisions based on how to best help people or what creates the most jobs or even on what will most equally distribute income. It makes decisions based only on what creates a profit.
Yes, it’s frightening to think that something so mercenary even exists — even worse that someone who worked for something like that could actually become president. Of course, the only people who should lead our country and manage our economy are those who remain unsullied by the private sector’s for-profit mentality: career politicians.
Read the whole thing. Once again, Frank Fleming hits the nail on the head.
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
Geothermal energy developers plan to pump 24 million gallons of water into a dormant volcano in Oregon this summer to demonstrate a new way to generate electricity.
The irony I glean from this article is this: Pumping water underground to produce energy from geothermal sources (a source liked by the environmental movement) is good. However, pumping water underground to produce energy from gas or oil (energy sources hated by the environmental movement) is bad. And yet, what difference really is there between either effort?
Thugs: Occupy Wall Street has stolen a man’s home.
The real property owner is livid because he could be raising his two little girls, Imani, 3, and Kwazha, 10, in the two-story home instead of in a meager, two-bedroom rental in Brownsville while he tries to sort out his mortgage nightmare. … “[OWS] told me not to talk to them [reporters] because they [OWS] had an offer for me,” he said.
At a second meeting after the press conference, however, organizers said they would not pay him for the house. At that point, he told them to leave. Inside the house the walls are knocked down and all of his belongings, including a stove, refrigerator and bedroom furniture, have been moved to the basement.
Good news! Congress has just ended its least-productive year in modern history, passing only 80 bills, less than any other session since these records began being kept in 1947.
Scientists have found that the structure of Titan’s atmosphere appears to change daily and seasonally, much like the Earth’s.
“The most interesting point is that their model shows the presence of two different boundaries, the lower one caused by the daily heating and cooling of the surface – and varying in height during the day – and the higher one caused by the seasonal change in global air circulation,” commented Paulo Penteado from the Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Science at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. According to [Benjamin Charnay from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris], this link between the lower atmosphere’s layers and the moon’s daily and seasonal cycle has never been seen on another moon or planet besides the Earth.
One caveat: the results are based upon a computer climate model. Though this model was tweaked based on actual data, that data remains slim and incomplete.
Updated and bumped. An updated prediction from Aerospace now calls for Phobos-Grunt to come down sometime between 9 and 3 pm (Eastern). This puts the U.S. now out of danger, though Europe, South America, Africa, Australia, and the southern half of Asia all remain in the spacecraft’s path.
Watch your heads! Phobos-Grunt is due to crash to Earth anytime in the next ten hours. And unfortunately, this new prediction has it flying over both North America and much of Europe and Africa during that time period.
It real does pay to learn math when you are in school: Six small math errors that caused huge disasters.
NASA to mothball two wind tunnels at Langley.
But NASA can spend millions to build Langley a new conference center and cafeteria. Am I crazy or is there something really wrong here?
NASA is soliciting private aerospace companies to bid on building their own designs for the rocket upper stage that will send the Orion capsule beyond Earth orbit.
This is good news: Rather than design the upper stage themselves, NASA is behaving like a customer and looking for someone else to provide them the product, much as the agency has been doing in buying from private companies crew and cargo services for ISS. Using this approach the agency is more likely to get its upper stage quickly and at less cost.
The court suits begin: A private organization is now taking the White House to court over the president’s decision to install three new members on the National Board Relations board without Senate approval.
Once again, President Obama’s decision to make these appointments in this unprecedented manner, when it was obvious the appointments would be challenged legally, was a terrible decision that will do no good and a great deal of harm. At minimum, it puts a cloud over anything these appointees do.
Above all, this action is further evidence that this President is an arrogant man with no interest in running the government in a manner that is reasonable or fair.
NASA has awarded a $42 million contract to build a new cafeteria and conference center at its Langley Research Center in Virginia.
They can’t build a rocket to put humans in space, but dammit, those NASA workers are going to have nice place to meet and eat!
The child suicide bombers of Islam.
Yeah, this religion and the culture it spawns is exactly the same as all the others. Yeah, right.
President Obama today asked Congress for additional power to consolidate six government agencies.
While this at first sounds like a very good idea, I must admit that it is difficult for me to trust this man with more power, at any time. In addition, how serious can we take his claim of desiring to save money when his administration is on a pace to increase the federal debt by more than $6 trillion, exceeding the debt accumulated by all Presidents from George Washington to Bill Clinton?
Not good: A totally drug-resistant tuberculosis strain has emerged in India.
The discovery makes India the third country in which a completely drug-resistant form of the disease has emerged, following cases documented in Italy in 2007 and Iran in 2009.
Engineers have gone to a back up radio system on Cassini after a primary unit did not respond as expected in late December.
The cause is still under investigation, but age may be a factor. The spacecraft launched in 1997 and has orbited Saturn since 2004. Cassini completed its prime mission in 2008 and has had two additional mission extensions. This is the first time its ultra-stable oscillator has had an issue.
