Another Russian launch failure today
Mall Santa Musical
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
Underground exploring today
No posting today, as I am leaving home at 6:30 am with several cavers for a day trip to a cave in the Chiricahua Mountains in southeast Arizona. The drive one way is about three and a half hours, so doing this as a day trip will likely break what I like to call Zimmerman’s law: “The cave time must exceed the drive time.”
However, when I first visited Tucson last winter and mentioned I might move here, the local cavers asked if I’d be interested in being the cartographer of this particular cave and help them get a project started to survey it. Three previous attempts to survey it were never completed, so no good map exists. And since I have recently completed two significant cave maps of two important West Virginia caves (see monographs 3 and 4 on this page) and am without a map project at the moment, how could I say no? Tomorrow’s trip is my first visit to the cave in preparation for getting the survey project off the ground in January.
Anyway, I will be back late, and will return to the computer on Saturday. For everyone, have a Merry Christmas weekend!
Four New York Democrats plead guilty to voter fraud
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.
Andrea McArdle sings “Tomorrow” at an Annie Workshop
The view of Comet Lovejoy from ISS
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 career employee in the Voting Section of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has confessed to committing perjury.
A career employee in the Voting Section of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has confessed to committing perjury. The response of the Obama Justice Department? Nothing to see here, please move along.
Amazingly, despite Ms. Gyamfi’s admission of committing perjury not once, but three times, she so far has been neither terminated nor disciplined by the Justice Department. In fact, her boss, Voting Section Chief Chris Herren, continues to assign her to the most politically sensitive of matters, including the Department’s review of Texas’s congressional redistricting plan. More disturbing, according to my sources, is that Ms. Gyamfi is now being treated as a hero by some of her Voting Section colleagues. Many of them are gratified at her efforts — illegitimate or not — to make the Bush administration look bad in its preclearance of Texas’s earlier redistricting submission. [emphasis in originial]
A career employee in the Voting Section of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has confessed to committing perjury. The response of the Obama Justice Department? Nothing to see here, please move along.
Amazingly, despite Ms. Gyamfi’s admission of committing perjury not once, but three times, she so far has been neither terminated nor disciplined by the Justice Department. In fact, her boss, Voting Section Chief Chris Herren, continues to assign her to the most politically sensitive of matters, including the Department’s review of Texas’s congressional redistricting plan. More disturbing, according to my sources, is that Ms. Gyamfi is now being treated as a hero by some of her Voting Section colleagues. Many of them are gratified at her efforts — illegitimate or not — to make the Bush administration look bad in its preclearance of Texas’s earlier redistricting submission. [emphasis in originial]
More bad news for the anti-energy, green greed brigade
James Delingpole: More bad news for the anti-energy, green greed brigade.
I love the way Delingpole enthusiastically zings the trolls who comment on his writings. Makes for some juicy reading.
James Delingpole: More bad news for the anti-energy, green greed brigade.
I love the way Delingpole enthusiastically zings the trolls who comment on his writings. Makes for some juicy reading.
Mystery space ball drops on Namibia
The end of LightSquared
“No big plane will ever be taken that way again, because the passengers will fight back.”
Bringing an asteroid home in a bag.
The NASA shuttle simulator for training astronauts is going to at Texas A&M
The NASA shuttle simulator for training astronauts is going to Texas A&M.
Valasek said it won’t be a static display for viewing but a functional flight simulator. Visitors will be able to sit in the seats and cockpit and manually fly a simulated re-entry as the shuttle astronauts did. “When operational again, the SMS will be the centerpiece of many educational, outreach, and research activities for a long time to come,” Valasek said. “And it will be accessible. Until now, 355 astronauts have trained on the Shuttle Motion Simulator and flown on a space shuttle mission. Now the rest of us can experience at least a part of the excitement of space exploration, just the way the astronauts trained for it.”
The simulator will be used in aerospace engineering courses and accessible to all Texas A&M students, staff, and faculty. Spaceflight enthusiasts and fans of technology, whether affiliated with the university or not, will also be able to enjoy it.
Now, this is what an engineering school should be focused on, rather than the skin color of its students.
The NASA shuttle simulator for training astronauts is going to Texas A&M.
Valasek said it won’t be a static display for viewing but a functional flight simulator. Visitors will be able to sit in the seats and cockpit and manually fly a simulated re-entry as the shuttle astronauts did. “When operational again, the SMS will be the centerpiece of many educational, outreach, and research activities for a long time to come,” Valasek said. “And it will be accessible. Until now, 355 astronauts have trained on the Shuttle Motion Simulator and flown on a space shuttle mission. Now the rest of us can experience at least a part of the excitement of space exploration, just the way the astronauts trained for it.”
The simulator will be used in aerospace engineering courses and accessible to all Texas A&M students, staff, and faculty. Spaceflight enthusiasts and fans of technology, whether affiliated with the university or not, will also be able to enjoy it.
Now, this is what an engineering school should be focused on, rather than the skin color of its students.
Bigotry on campus
The newly named “associate dean for equity and inclusion” at the College of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, is promising “disruptive progress” in his effort to increase minorities at the school.
The plan [pdf] includes more money for staffing and facilities for the “equity and inclusion” department, plus more money and power for student organizations. Sadly, this is money and facilities that will no longer be available for actual education or research.
» Read more
Volcano boarding in Nicaragua
Putting the chill on global warming skeptics
At last, a close look at Vesta
Focusing in on the theft of customer funds at MF Global
Focusing in on the theft of customer funds at MF Global.
Not surprisingly, this article from the liberal New York Times plays the game of “Name that party!”, conveniently forgetting to mention anywhere that Jon Corzine and all his associates just happen to big-time Democratic Party players. To remind them, and everyone else, here’s a little video illustrating how closely linked the Democrats and Jon Corzine are:
Focusing in on the theft of customer funds at MF Global.
Not surprisingly, this article from the liberal New York Times plays the game of “Name that party!”, conveniently forgetting to mention anywhere that Jon Corzine and all his associates just happen to big-time Democratic Party players. To remind them, and everyone else, here’s a little video illustrating how closely linked the Democrats and Jon Corzine are:
Giant tsunami-shaped clouds in Alabama
Obamacare abominations
You would think a piece of legislation more than a thousand pages long would at least be clear about the specifics. But a lot of those pages say: “The secretary will determine …” That means the secretary of health and human services will announce the rules sometime in the future. How can a business make plans in such a fog?
Repeal this abomination already before it destroys the country.
You would think a piece of legislation more than a thousand pages long would at least be clear about the specifics. But a lot of those pages say: “The secretary will determine …” That means the secretary of health and human services will announce the rules sometime in the future. How can a business make plans in such a fog?
Repeal this abomination already before it destroys the country.
A Sun-like Star with Three Sub-Neptune Exoplanets and Two Earth-size Candidates
Want to read the actual paper, “A Sun-like star with three sub-Neptune exoplanets and two Earth-size candidates,” describing the discovery announced yesterday of two Earth-sized planet? You can download it here.
The paper’s closing paragraph sums the discovery up nicely:
A striking feature of the Kepler-20 planetary system is the presence of Earth-size rocky planet candidates interspersed between volatile-rich sub-Neptunes at smaller and larger orbital semi-major axes, as also seen in Kepler candidate multi-planet systems. Assuming that both [Kepler-20e] and [Kepler-20f] are planets, the distribution of the Kepler-20 planets in orbital order is as follows: Kepler-20b (3.7 days, 1.9 Earth radii), [Kepler-20e] (6.1 days, 0.9 Earth radii), Kepler-20c (10.9 days, 3.1 Earth radii), [Kepler-20f] (19.6 days, 1.0 Earth radii), and Kepler-20d (77.6 days, 2.8 Earth radii). Given the radii and irradiation fluxes of the two Earth-size planet candidates, they would not retain gas envelopes. The first, second, and fourth planets have high densities indicative of solid planets, while the other two planets have low densities requiring significant volatile content. The volatile-rich third planet, Kepler-20c dominates the inner part of the Kepler-20 system, by holding much more mass than the other three inner planets put together. In the Solar System, the terrestrial planets, gas-giants, and ice giants are neatly segregated in regions with increasing distance from the sun. Planet formation theories were developed to retrodict these Solar System composition trends. In the Kepler-20 system, the locations of the low-density sub-Neptunes that are rich in water and/or gas, and the Earth-size planet candidates does not exhibit a clean ordering with orbital period, challenging the conventional planet formation paradigm. In situ assembly may form multi-planet systems with close-in hot-Neptunes and super-Earths, provided the initial protoplanetary disk contained massive amounts of solids (∼ 50–100 Earth masses) within 1AU of the star.
Want to read the actual paper, “A Sun-like star with three sub-Neptune exoplanets and two Earth-size candidates,” describing the discovery announced yesterday of two Earth-sized planet? You can download it here.
The paper’s closing paragraph sums the discovery up nicely:
A striking feature of the Kepler-20 planetary system is the presence of Earth-size rocky planet candidates interspersed between volatile-rich sub-Neptunes at smaller and larger orbital semi-major axes, as also seen in Kepler candidate multi-planet systems. Assuming that both [Kepler-20e] and [Kepler-20f] are planets, the distribution of the Kepler-20 planets in orbital order is as follows: Kepler-20b (3.7 days, 1.9 Earth radii), [Kepler-20e] (6.1 days, 0.9 Earth radii), Kepler-20c (10.9 days, 3.1 Earth radii), [Kepler-20f] (19.6 days, 1.0 Earth radii), and Kepler-20d (77.6 days, 2.8 Earth radii). Given the radii and irradiation fluxes of the two Earth-size planet candidates, they would not retain gas envelopes. The first, second, and fourth planets have high densities indicative of solid planets, while the other two planets have low densities requiring significant volatile content. The volatile-rich third planet, Kepler-20c dominates the inner part of the Kepler-20 system, by holding much more mass than the other three inner planets put together. In the Solar System, the terrestrial planets, gas-giants, and ice giants are neatly segregated in regions with increasing distance from the sun. Planet formation theories were developed to retrodict these Solar System composition trends. In the Kepler-20 system, the locations of the low-density sub-Neptunes that are rich in water and/or gas, and the Earth-size planet candidates does not exhibit a clean ordering with orbital period, challenging the conventional planet formation paradigm. In situ assembly may form multi-planet systems with close-in hot-Neptunes and super-Earths, provided the initial protoplanetary disk contained massive amounts of solids (∼ 50–100 Earth masses) within 1AU of the star.
Russia launches three astronauts to ISS
Global warming is good for you!
Here are two stories that illustrate why we shouldn’t be in a panic over climate change. Though it is important to study the climate and to learn as much as we can about it, it is at this time inappropriate to impose draconian regulations on the world’s populations so that whole economies are destroyed out of fear of climate change. We just don’t know enough about the consequences of climate change. Global warming might even be beneficial!
First, from Nature this story: Global warming wilts malaria. It appears that the assumption that warmer climates would increase malaria epidemics is completely wrong. Instead, warmer temperatures act to hinder the survival of the malaria parasite in mosquitoes.
» Read more
Obamacare: 2011 in review
The disaster of Obamacare: 2011 in review.
The Daily Caller does an excellent job reviewing the key events during 2011 relating to Obamacare. In toto what this history tells me is that this law continues to be serious political problem for Democrats: the law isn’t doing what it was touted to do while doing serious harm to both the economy and the healthcare industry, the public hates it and wants it repealed, and everyone knows that it was the Democrats who forced it on us.
The disaster of Obamacare: 2011 in review.
The Daily Caller does an excellent job reviewing the key events during 2011 relating to Obamacare. In toto what this history tells me is that this law continues to be serious political problem for Democrats: the law isn’t doing what it was touted to do while doing serious harm to both the economy and the healthcare industry, the public hates it and wants it repealed, and everyone knows that it was the Democrats who forced it on us.
Miniatur Wunderland – largest model railway in the world
Government spending at its stupidest.
Government spending at its stupidest: the top ten projects.
I like #6 the best, $484,000 to help finance a pizza restaurant in Arlington, Texas, because every business should get its own free pile of cash from the government!
Government spending at its stupidest: the top ten projects.
I like #6 the best, $484,000 to help finance a pizza restaurant in Arlington, Texas, because every business should get its own free pile of cash from the government!
For as yet unexplained reasons, scientists have been finding isolated colonies of little brown bats — once the most common bat species in the region and the hardest hit by white nose syndrome — surviving and healthy.
Hope for North America’s bats: For as yet unexplained reasons, scientists have been finding isolated colonies of little brown bats — once the most common bat species in the region and the hardest hit by white nose syndrome — surviving and healthy.
In Vermont, biologists have identified 15 colonies in the western part of the state where the numbers of little brown bats, while still far fewer than before white nose appeared, are surviving, said Vermont Fish and Wildlife Biologist Scott Darling. “We visited each and every one of those colonies and to some degree, much to our surprise, they seem to be healthy,” Darling said. “It begged the question, ‘Why are you the lucky ones?'”
Hope for North America’s bats: For as yet unexplained reasons, scientists have been finding isolated colonies of little brown bats — once the most common bat species in the region and the hardest hit by white nose syndrome — surviving and healthy.
In Vermont, biologists have identified 15 colonies in the western part of the state where the numbers of little brown bats, while still far fewer than before white nose appeared, are surviving, said Vermont Fish and Wildlife Biologist Scott Darling. “We visited each and every one of those colonies and to some degree, much to our surprise, they seem to be healthy,” Darling said. “It begged the question, ‘Why are you the lucky ones?'”
First Earth-sized planets found
Big news: The first Earth-sized planets have been found by Kepler.
The two planets, dubbed Kepler-20e and 20f, are the smallest planets found to date. They have diameters of 6,900 miles and 8,200 miles – equivalent to 0.87 times Earth (slightly smaller than Venus) and 1.03 times Earth. These worlds are expected to have rocky compositions, so their masses should be less than 1.7 and 3 times Earth’s.
Both worlds circle Kepler-20: a G-type star slightly cooler than the Sun and located 950 light-years from Earth. (It would take the space shuttle 36 million years to travel to Kepler-20.) Kepler-20e orbits every 6.1 days at a distance of 4.7 million miles. Kepler-20f orbits every 19.6 days at a distance of 10.3 million miles. Due to their tight orbits, they are heated to temperatures of 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit and 800 degrees F.
Once again, this is only the beginning. The announcement of an Earth in the habitable zone is only a matter of months away.
Big news: The first Earth-sized planets have been found by Kepler.
The two planets, dubbed Kepler-20e and 20f, are the smallest planets found to date. They have diameters of 6,900 miles and 8,200 miles – equivalent to 0.87 times Earth (slightly smaller than Venus) and 1.03 times Earth. These worlds are expected to have rocky compositions, so their masses should be less than 1.7 and 3 times Earth’s.
Both worlds circle Kepler-20: a G-type star slightly cooler than the Sun and located 950 light-years from Earth. (It would take the space shuttle 36 million years to travel to Kepler-20.) Kepler-20e orbits every 6.1 days at a distance of 4.7 million miles. Kepler-20f orbits every 19.6 days at a distance of 10.3 million miles. Due to their tight orbits, they are heated to temperatures of 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit and 800 degrees F.
Once again, this is only the beginning. The announcement of an Earth in the habitable zone is only a matter of months away.
The spread of anti-semitism and censorship at European universities.
Using Hubble astronomers have found evidence that complex molecules lie on the surface of Pluto.
Using Hubble, astronomers have found new evidence that complex molecules, such as hydrocarbons, lie on the surface of Pluto.
Using Hubble, astronomers have found new evidence that complex molecules, such as hydrocarbons, lie on the surface of Pluto.