More and more the Atlas V appears to be “the vehicle of choice for manned missions.” Key quote:
NASA could have gone down this path last decade and possibly shaved years — and billions of dollars — off the development time of a capability to carry astronauts to the space station.
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
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.
Updated and bumped: Six days now, and no word.
Fact meets science fiction: For the last five days there has been no contact with the Russian scientists drilling down more than two miles to Lake Vostok in Antarctica.
The team from Russia’s Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) have been drilling for weeks in an effort to reach isolated Lake Vostok, a vast, dark body of water hidden 13,000 ft. below the ice sheet’s surface. The lake hasn’t been exposed to air in more than 20 million years.
Priscu said there was no way to get in touch with the team — and the already cold weather is set to plunge, as Antarctica’s summer season ends and winter sets in. “Temps are dropping below -40 Celsius [-40 degrees Fahrenheit] and they have only a week or so left before they have to winterize the station,” he said. “I can only imagine what things must be like at Vostok Station this week.”
R.I.P: Roger Boisjoly, 73, has died.
Boisjoly was the engineer who in 1985 warned NASA about the danger of launching the shuttle in cold weather, that the solid rocket booster’s joints might not seal correctly under those conditions, thereby causing a catastrophic failure. Sadly, he was ignored, even ostracized, and on January 28, 1986, Challenger broke apart 74 seconds after launch, killing seven astronauts.
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
Modern academic debate: Arizona State University (ASU) has blocked access to a petition-hosting site right after university officials discovered the site includes a petition calling for lower ASU tuitions.
We don’t need no stinkin’ First Amendment: On Sunday the Army acted to silence its chaplains from reading the Catholic letter condemning the Obama administration’s requirement that churches pay for abortions and contraception in violation of their religious principles.
Iran’s state media today announced that the country had used its own rocket to put into orbit a small weather/Earth observation microsat.
Getting close: Virgin Galactic hopes to begin the first powered flight tests of SpaceShipTwo this coming summer.
“Over the next few months we’re integrating parts and pieces of the hybrid rocket motor into the SpaceShipTwo airframe, completing ground testing of the rocket motor, and then [will] try and start powered flight over the summer,” [chief executive officer and president George] Whitesides told SPACE.com. Those rocket-powered flights, he said, will continue for some period of time. Whitesides said it looks possible “to get up to space altitude by the end of the year, if all goes well.”
The company is also building a second WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo,
An evening pause: As poet Robert Service once wrote,
It isn’t the gold that I’m wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
More than 40 non-Catholic religious organizations, including both Jews and Protestants, have declared their “solidarity” with the Catholics against the Obama administration’s new health regulations under Obamacare.
New dates, March 20 and May 15 respectively, have been set for the ISS launches of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and the next manned Soyuz capsule.
The launch date for Dragon, however, is far more tentative.
Another superEarth has been found orbiting a star in the habitable zone.
An M-class dwarf star called GJ 667C, which is 22 light-years away from Earth, had previously been observed to have a super-Earth (called GJ 667Cb) that orbited the star in only 7.2 days, making it too close to the star, and thus too hot, to support life.
The study started with the aim of learning more about the orbit of GJ 667Cb. But the research team found a clear signal of a new planet (GJ 667Cc) with an orbital period of 28.15 days and a minimum mass of 4.5 times that of Earth.
Though the planet is much closer to its star than the Earth, the star itself is much smaller and dimmer, so overall the planet gets about the same amount of energy as the Earth.
Jeff Foust reports today that the long delayed final FAA reauthorization bill also includes language that will extend until 2015 the restrictions on the FAA’s ability to regulate commercial space.
How nice of them.
When the Commercial Space Law Amendments Act (CSLAA) passed in 2004 I wrote in my UPI column Space Watch that I thought it was a bad idea and would cause great harm to the commercial space industry. All the law accomplished was hand power to the FAA and Congress to restrict commercial activities in space, without providing the industry any real benefit. Even with this extension space commercial companies remain at the mercy of Congressional action or FAA regulation, neither of which is really interested in helping this new industry.
The bad elements of the bill are finally beginning to come to light.
» Read more
The following stories are all the result of statements made by Vladimir Popovkin, the head of Roscosmos, the Russian Federal space agency, during a radio interview yesterday.
This is the same guy that only a few weeks ago was throwing accusations at the U.S. for the failure of Phobos-Grunt.
What should we make of these statements? First, everything Popovkin says is aimed at fund-raising. Whatever his background, he is a political appointee whose job is to generate interest and funding for Russia’s space program. Everything he says in public must be weighed against this reality. That he first tried to shift the blame to the U.S. for Phobos-Grunt’s loss was an effort to absolve his program from any blame and thus reduce the possibility that the Russian government might cut his funding. Now that his agency has gotten approval of its insurance payment for the failure, however, he is free to say otherwise.
Second, these announcements give us a clear indication of where the Russia space effort is heading, and that effort looks both thoughtful and intelligent.
» Read more
Land for peace: On Wednesday the Palestinians in Gaza fired seven rockets into Israel.
Remember how the Israelis were promised peace if they would only leave Gaza? They did, and have gotten nothing but rocket attacks since.
Oh my, how much worse can it get? A report tonight at the Daily Caller says that at least two Justice Department prosecutors accepted cash bribes from allegedly corrupt finance executives who were indicted but never arrested or prosecuted. Worse,
The sitting governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, his attorney general and an unspecified number of Virgin Islands legislators also accepted bribes, the source said, adding that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is aware prosecutors and elected officials were bribed and otherwise compromised, but has not held anyone accountable.
I must point out that a certain skepticism is called for: This story is very vague about who, what, when, and where, and its sources are anonymous. Nonetheless, if true this might very well be the bombshell story that ends Eric Holder’s career. What it does to the Obama administration remains to be seen.
More House action: By a significant majority the House has voted to repeal part of Obamacare.
Once again, that a significant number of Democrats joined the Republicans in this vote illustrates where the political power lies. The Democratic leadership and President Obama are fighting a losing battle trying to support this turkey, especially since this section of Obamacare has already been abandoned as unworkable by the White House.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius effectively suspended the program last fall, conceding she couldn’t find a way to make it pay for itself. And the Congressional Budget Office took the program off the books, releasing lawmakers from budget rules that would have otherwise required them to replace the lost savings.
Since the rest of Obamacare is unworkable as well, expect more action to repeal it after the November election. And I expect that effort to succeed.
The House has voted to freeze all congressional and federal pay for another year, through 2013.
On a vote of 309 to 117, GOP supporters scored the two-thirds majority needed to approve the measure under a suspension of normal procedural roles. The bill, introduced by Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.), would extend the current two-year freeze on federal cost-of-living raises for an additional year starting next January. Lawmakers haven’t raised congressional pay in four of the last six years.
The bill would need to be approved by the Senate before becoming law.
The yay votes above included a significant number of Democrats, once again indicating where the political winds are blowing. Even as their leadership poo-poos this vote, their membership knows what the voters want.
The last sentence in the quote above illustrates again which party in Congress is really doing nothing, as it is the Senate where this bill might die, and it is the Senate that the Democrats control.
You think Americans aren’t interested in space travel? Get this: The Orion test capsule arrived in Alabama for tests, covered in fan signatures.
Orion and NASA’s space launch system might not get us there, but that doesn’t matter in this case. The public is expressing its desire for space travel quite clearly. All they need is someone to provide it to them at a reasonable cost.
Space Adventures has set the date, sometime before February 2017, for its circumlunar tourist flight.
SpaceX successfully test fired today an upgraded engine to be used in the Dragon capsule in case of a launch abort.
