Republican space socialism update.
Simberg summarizes well the foolishness coming from Congress when it comes to budgeting NASA and commercial space.
The competition heats up: Sierra Nevada outlines its test flight plans for Dream Chaser, its reusable manned mini-shuttle.
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 or any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
The ten scariest DMV horror stories.
Just remember: the Democrats and President Obama have given the management of everyone’s healthcare to this kind of bureaucracy.
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.
Set your calendar: The first solar eclipse to cross the continental United States in two decades will occur on May 20.
An annular solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the earth and sun, but the lunar disk does not completely block out the sun and instead leaves a “ring of fire” visible around the moon at the point of maximum eclipse. Most anyone west of the Mississippi will see a partial eclipse, but the real treat will be for those located in the 200-mile wide path of the eclipse which will trek east from the California / Oregon border through Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and finally set below the horizon in west Texas.
Remember, you will need good eye protection if you choose to look.
A University of Arizona law student has won a trip into space in the Seattle Space Needle’s “Space Race,” beating out 50,000 other contestants.
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
The competition continues to heat up: ATK today announced that it is building its own manned capsule for its Liberty launch system.
The capsule’s first two flights are scheduled in 2014, both abort tests, followed in 2015 by an orbital flight and, finally, a crewed orbital flight. The spacecraft is designed for ten flights each, and ATK plans to build a minimum of four capsules. All flights will be launched by the Liberty launcher, and ATK is not actively exploring adapting the capsule for other [launch vehicles].
Liberty is based on the upgraded shuttle solid rocket boosters that were developed for the Ares rocket, now cancelled.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found that some dunes on Mars move and change as much as those on Earth.
Israel’s new coalition government: Why this new political deal happened and how it will change Israel.
The sad state of academic freedom: The Chronicle of Higher Education has fired a blogger merely for criticizing black studies programs.
What is worse is the number of the Chronicle’s readers who could not tolerate reading this point of view, and demanded the blogger’s writing be squelched.
Update: The blogger has responded.
A bad day for Obama and the Democrats.
As I’ve said repeatedly, the 2010 elections were not a fluke, but a trend. The public intends to fire this President and those in Congress — from both parties — who have put the U.S. on verge of bankruptcy.
Fighting over bones: An Indian tribe has sued and three researchers have counter-sued over possession of two 10,000-year-old skeletons unearthed during construction in San Diego.
Not surprisingly, the problem here stems from a poorly written federal law amended by a bureaucratic rule in 2010 that gives any Indian tribe control over any ancient human bones found in the U.S., even if those bones come from a human that lived long before the tribe even existed.
Photos of East Berlin, taken in 1990 and today.
What is interesting to me is how delapidated East Berlin was in 1990 after forty years of communist dictatorship, and how completely those same spots have become revitalized by freedom and capitalism.
A trend, not a fluke: Indiana Republicans have dumped incumbent Senator Richard Lugar for a tea party favorite.
In related news, a prison inmate has gotten the highest percentage of votes, 40 percent, of any candidate in any previous state primary against Barack Obama.
Washington politicians had better stop ignoring the fiscal concerns of the tea party. The federal budget has got to be brought under control.
It just keeps going and going: Air Force officials declare the on-going X-37B mission, now over 400 days long, “a spectacular success.”
The twenty-five coolest garages in the world.
Any society that can still afford this is not yet completely doomed.
One astronomer has found that the inner edge of the habitable zone around some dwarf stars is smaller than first calculated because tidal forces overheat planets close to the star.
Then again, this heating might expand the habitable zone in other directions. Stars might overheat when close to the star, but get a boost of needed heat when they would normally be too far away.
The commercial space industry continues to heat up: A space tug to bring secondary commercial payloads to different orbits.
An evening pause: From The Sound of Music (1965). The context: The Nazis have taken over Austria, and plan to arrest Captain Georg Ludwig von Trapp and his family at the end of this concert. This lovely song, Edelweiss, is initially sung by von Trapp as a farewell to his nation. As the song unfolds, however, it becomes instead a song of defiance against the Nazis, by the von Trapps and the audience.
Always, always, we must stand for freedom.
NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center today posted its monthly update of the ongoing sunspot cycle of the Sun. I have posted the new graph for April below the fold.
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The uncertainty of science: Astronomers now believe that Type 1a supernovae — used to discover dark energy — can be produced in two different ways.
Type Ia supernovae are known to originate from white dwarfs – the dense cores of dead stars. White dwarfs are also called degenerate stars because they’re supported by quantum degeneracy pressure. In the single-degenerate model for a supernova, a white dwarf gathers material from a companion star until it reaches a tipping point where a runaway nuclear reaction begins and the star explodes. In the double-degenerate model, two white dwarfs merge and explode. Single-degenerate systems should have gas from the companion star around the supernova, while the double-degenerate systems will lack that gas.
For astronomers, this possibility raises several conflicting questions. If two different causes produce Type 1a supernovae, could their measurement of dark energy be suspect? And if not, why is it that these two different causes produce supernovae explosions that look so much alike?
We’re here to help you: Massachusetts state officials are restricting the kinds of foods that can be sold at bake sales.
Bake sales, the calorie-laden standby cash-strapped classrooms, PTAs and booster clubs rely on, will be outlawed from public schools as of Aug. 1 as part of new no-nonsense nutrition standards, forcing fundraisers back to the blackboard to cook up alternative ways to raise money for kids.
