SpaceX has delayed the launch of its Dragon test mission to ISS, with the launch now scheduled sometime between May 3 and May 7.

9:09 pm

SpaceX has delayed the launch of its Dragon test mission to ISS, with the launch now scheduled sometime between May 3 and May 7.

“After reviewing our recent progress, it was clear that we needed more time to finish hardware-in-the-loop testing and properly review and follow up on all data,” SpaceX spokeswoman Kirstin Brost Grantham wrote in an email. “While it is still possible that we could launch on May 3rd, it would be wise to add a few more days of margin in case things take longer than expected. As a result, our launch is likely to be pushed back by one week, pending coordination with NASA.”

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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, 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 Space Launch System is a threat to JSC, Texas jobs

9:23 am

An op-ed in Houston: “The Space Launch System is a threat to JSC, Texas jobs.”

It appears that even some NASA employees are beginning to see the madness of spending billions on a launch system that will likely only fly one mission almost a decade from now. And it will seem even more mad to more people should Dragon and Cygnus prove successful in the coming year.

To put it bluntly, the long term politics are very much hostile to SLS. It is going to die, if only because the federal government is bankrupt and can’t afford it. I just wish our elected officials had the brains to realize this now rather than three years down the road.

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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 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 Piano Guys – Cello Wars

6:01 pm

An evening pause: In honor of the 35th anniversary today of the premiere of Star Wars in 1977, a beautiful and silly rendition by the Piano Guys.

For those who were not alive in the 1960s and 1970s, it is hard to explain the impact of Star Wars. For more than twenty years, science fiction fans had dreamed of seeing a really good space opera science fiction film on the big screen. Sadly, we saw disappointment after disappointment instead. Except for Forbidden Planet (1956) and television’s Star Trek in the 1960s, practically every science fiction film about space exploration told childish stories that made no sense.

And then came Star Wars.

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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

Data now suggests that the bats are showing signs of recovery in the first caves hit by white nose syndrome in New York.

5:39 pm

Good news: Data now suggests that the bats are showing signs of recovery in the first caves hit by white nose syndrome in New York. More here. Plus here’s a link describing some of the research being done on this subject.

Note that the death toll listed in these stories is nothing more than an arbitrary exaggeration by government officials. The National Speleological Society estimates that the numbers are probably far less, and based on my own caving experience, I agree.

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It’s not just a good idea, it’s the law!

8:59 am

Mexico has passed its own very strict climate change law.

The new law contains many sweeping provisions to mitigate climate change, including a mandate to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 30% below business-as-usual levels by 2020, and by 50% below 2000 levels by 2050. Furthermore, it stipulates that 35% of the country’s energy should come from renewable sources by 2024, and requires mandatory emissions reporting by the country’s largest polluters.

Some predictions:
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New data from a neutrino telescope in Antarctica had found that cosmic rays don’t come from gamma ray bursts, as had been believed by astronomers.

9:43 pm

The uncertainty of science: New data from a neutrino telescope in Antarctica has found that cosmic rays don’t come from gamma ray bursts, as had been believed by astronomers. You can read the paper here. [pdf]

Which means that astronomers at this moment have no idea what produces these high energy cosmic rays.

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House panel proposes giving commercial space $500 million.

3:27 pm

NASA budget battles: House panel proposes giving commercial space $500 million.

The Obama administration proposed giving commercial space $830 million, the Senate appropriations subpanel earlier this week proposed $525 million. All in all, this looks good for commercial space.

One other thing: that the House did not propose taking from NOAA the job of launching weather satellites and giving it to NASA is more proof to me that the proposal was merely an attempt by Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland) to shift federal dollars to the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

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Senate Democrats don’t even bother to show up for a budget meeting called by their own leader.

8:20 pm

Senate Democrats don’t even bother to show up for a budget meeting called by their own leader.

Since the year 2009, not one single Democrat or Democrat-aligned member of the United States Senate has voted “yes” on any budget. They’ve refused to present their own ideas, of course, but they’ve also unanimously voted down every last alternative, from both Republicans and their own party’s president. Think about that.

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Dark matter disappears

9:15 am

The uncertainty of science: A new study has found no evidence of dark matter within 13,000 light years of the Sun, something that had not been expected.

According to widely accepted theories, the solar neighborhood was expected to be filled with dark matter, a mysterious invisible substance that can only be detected indirectly by the gravitational force it exerts. But a new study by a team of astronomers in Chile has found that these theories just do not fit the observational facts. This may mean that attempts to directly detect dark matter particles on Earth are unlikely to be successful.

These findings will be as controversial as the now abandoned faster-than-light neutrino results last fall. Here, however, the new data is likely going to be more robust, which will cause the entire astrophysical community some real conniptions.
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