Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black., You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
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The competition heats up: China’s Shenzhou 9 spacecraft has landed safely, and all three astronauts have exited the capsule in good health. More details here.
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
Running away: Astronomers think they have found the fastest moving pulsar yet found, flying through space at between 5 to 6 million miles per hour.
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.
Data of the tidal fluxes on Titan by the Cassini spacecraft now suggest that there is a liquid ocean below Titan’s icy crust.
The team’s analyses suggest that the surface of the moon can rise and fall by up to 10 metres during each orbit, says Iess. That degree of warpage suggests that Titan’s interior is relatively deformable, the team reports today in Science1. Several models of the moon’s internal structure suggest such flexibility — including a model in which the moon is solid but soft and squishy throughout. But the researchers contend that the most likely model of Titan is one in which an icy shell dozens of kilometres thick floats atop a global ocean. The team’s findings, together with the results of previous studies, hint that Titan’s ocean may lie no more than 100 km below the moon’s surface.
A private organization focused on preventing asteroids from impacting the Earth today announced its plans to build and launch an infrared space telescope by 2017.
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
Solar scientists think they have found out what heats the Sun’s atmosphere: Giant solar tornadoes thousands of miles high.
Scientists have found a previously unknown mineral embedded in a meteorite that crashed to Earth in 1969.
Dubbed panguite, the new titanium oxide is named after Pan Gu, the giant from ancient Chinese mythology who established the world by separating yin from yang to create the earth and the sky. … “Panguite is an especially exciting discovery since it is not only a new mineral, but also a material previously unknown to science,” says Chi Ma, a senior scientist and director of the Geological and Planetary Sciences division’s Analytical Facility at Caltech and corresponding author on the paper.
What could go wrong? Both Russia and the United States have developed a “pain ray gun” for dispersing protestors.
The beam has a much shorter wavelength than a microwave oven and very different effects. The waves penetrate only about 1/64 of an inch, and anyone caught in the beam experiences painful but harmless heating of their skin. It causes what developers call a repel effect; nobody can stand it more than a few seconds before having to get out of the beam.
That’s the American system, not yet used. The Russian system is similar, and the Russians seem ready and willing to put it into operation.
The bloody and corrupt scandal of Obama’s Fast-and-Furious gun-smuggling operation: a summary.
Imagine a government agency designed for the specific purpose of investigating and preventing the unlawful use, manufacture, and possession of firearms. Now imagine this agency engaging in an operation that not only goes against that purpose, but actually seeks to accomplish the opposite, by actively encouraging the sale of firearms to people whose ties to organized crime and gun violence are well known – and that this operation involves sending firearms across an international border into a country that this agency, and the government of which it is a part, purposely failed to warn, inform, or request permission from.
Brookhaven Labs has achieved the hottest man-made temperature ever, 4 trillion degrees Celsius.
In the process, the scientists have found that matter at these temperatures acts more like a liquid than a gas, something they did not expect.
The scientific stupidity of the TSA’s security rules.
Here’s one example from the article:
Take the Transportation Security Administration’s rules about carry-on electronics, for example. Laptops have to come out of their bags and lie flat in a plastic tub—but not tablets, phones, Kindles, cameras or portable game consoles. Why the distinction? The TSA says that it’s not just about detecting explosives: removing bigger gadgets also unclutters your bag for better x-ray examination. Even so, on close inspection the rules get arbitrary very quickly. For example, according to the TSA, the 11-inch model of the MacBook Air is fine to leave in your bag, but the 13-inch model must be removed.
We’ve only just begun: Stockton, California, has filed for bankruptcy, making it the largest bankruptcy of any U.S. city in history.
The competition heats up: Boeing has successfully tested the maneuvering thruster it plans to use on its CST-100 crew/cargo capsule.
Astronomers watch as the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way begins to eat a giant gas cloud.
The real fireworks will occur next year, when the cloud passes only 25 billion miles from the black hole.
A TSA agent in Florida spilled the cremated remains of a man’s grandfather on the floor after illegally opening the jar to finger the ashes.
[John] Gross says about a quarter to a third of the contents spilled on the floor, leaving him frantically trying to gather up as much as he could while anxious passengers waited behind him. “She didn’t apologize. She started laughing. I was on my hands and knees picking up bone fragments. I couldn’t pick up all, everything that was lost. I mean, there was a long line behind me.” [emphasis mine]
Freedom dies, one security checkpoint at a time.
Leftwing civility: The full story about last night’s swatting of a blogger critical of leftwing activist and convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin.
Even though Dearborn, Michigan lost a $100,000 court suit for falsely arresting and denying Christians their freedom of religion during the annual Dearborn Arab Festival, it appears the police in Dearborn have not learned their lesson. Not only do they do nothing to prevent the throwing by Muslim children of rocks, bottles, garbage, eggs, and concrete at a group of Christians who are merely standing on the sidewalk holding signs, the police eventually force the Christians to leave. As one man tells the police, “You’re rewarding riotous behavior. You’re teaching that crowd that if they riot, they’re rewarded by that rioting by kicking out the people they don’t want.”
Watch the video below the fold. It is very important to note again that these Christians were doing nothing but standing there with their signs on a public street. The response of the Muslim crowd is hardly in accordance with American principles of tolerance, and reveals a savagery and hate that is horrifying. And the willingness of the police to allow the violence is despicable.
» Read more
More details on both SpaceX’s Merlin engine test yesterday as well as Orbital Sciences’ test firing of its Antares AJ-26 rocket engine on Monday.
It appears the Easter Island statues did walk the eleven miles from the quarry where they were carved — as believed by natives. With video.
Leftwing civility: Shortly after the peace order against him was stayed — restoring his right to criticize leftwing activist and convicted bomber Brett Kimberlin — blogger Aaron Walker and his family were SWAT-ted, whereby a crank call triggered a SWAT team attack on his home.
