First feathered test flight of SpaceShipTwo
An evening pause: Video of the May 10 test flight of SpaceShipTwo. “Now we can come back from space.”
Endeavour has docked with ISS
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
Testing beer in zero gravity
Social Security deficits now “permanent”
More thrilling budgetary news: The Social Security deficit is now “permanent.”
Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund is now slated to run out of money in 2024, or five years earlier than last year’s projection, while Social Security’s trust fund will be exhausted by 2036, a year earlier than the prior projection.
More thrilling budgetary news: The Social Security deficit is now “permanent.”
Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund is now slated to run out of money in 2024, or five years earlier than last year’s projection, while Social Security’s trust fund will be exhausted by 2036, a year earlier than the prior projection.
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.
Netflix now uses 29.7 percent of the peak internet traffic in North America
White House shuts out Herald scribe
Obama transparency: The White House has shut out a reporter because it disliked the slant of the newspaper’s news coverage. In the administration’s own words:
“I tend to consider the degree to which papers have demonstrated to covering the White House regularly and fairly in determining local pool reporters,” White House spokesman Matt Lehrich wrote in response to a Herald request for full access to the presidential visit. “My point about the op-ed was not that you ran it but that it was the full front page, which excluded any coverage of the visit of a sitting US President to Boston. I think that raises a fair question about whether the paper is unbiased in its coverage of the President’s visits,” Lehrich wrote.
Obama transparency: The White House has shut out a reporter because it disliked the slant of the newspaper’s news coverage. In the administration’s own words:
“I tend to consider the degree to which papers have demonstrated to covering the White House regularly and fairly in determining local pool reporters,” White House spokesman Matt Lehrich wrote in response to a Herald request for full access to the presidential visit. “My point about the op-ed was not that you ran it but that it was the full front page, which excluded any coverage of the visit of a sitting US President to Boston. I think that raises a fair question about whether the paper is unbiased in its coverage of the President’s visits,” Lehrich wrote.
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
Eric Clapton – Tears in Heaven
An evening pause: “Written by Eric Clapton and Will Jennings about the pain Clapton felt following the death of his four-year-old son, Conor, who fell from a window of the 53rd-floor New York apartment of his mother’s friend, on March 20, 1991.”
Astronomers, Kepler, and SETI@home team up to find exoplanets
Napolitano: “Very, very, very few” people get TSA patdowns
Napolitano: “Very, very, very few” people get TSA patdowns. NOT!
PolitiFact Georgia therefore took the TSA figures and did some math. The TSA’s Allen told us that “on an average day, about 2 million people are screened at TSA checkpoints.” Three percent of 2 million is 60,000 people. That means that over the course of a month, roughly 1.8 million people receive a pat-down. That’s more than four times the population of Atlanta.
Napolitano: “Very, very, very few” people get TSA patdowns. NOT!
PolitiFact Georgia therefore took the TSA figures and did some math. The TSA’s Allen told us that “on an average day, about 2 million people are screened at TSA checkpoints.” Three percent of 2 million is 60,000 people. That means that over the course of a month, roughly 1.8 million people receive a pat-down. That’s more than four times the population of Atlanta.
Is Gliese 581d habitable? Maybe
Osama’s killing was not only legal, it was morally right
Osama’s killing was not only legal, it was morally right.
Under any sane construction of the laws of war, the killing of Bin Laden was lawful regardless of whether he “raised his hands in surrender” or whether the American soldiers were under orders to shoot without giving him a chance to surrender. By suggesting otherwise, human rights lawyers only make international law look out of step with basic morality and common sense.
The opportunity to surrender is a cherished, civilized and valuable part of warfare. But accepting an enemy’s white flag in the heat of battle is a life-endangering proposition: The flag could be a ruse; a bomb could be hidden; the captors could end up dead. We give enemy soldiers the benefit of this dangerous doubt for two reasons. First, because soldiers who have fought honorably, complying with the laws of war, have earned it. And second, because we want the enemy to treat our soldiers the same way.
Neither reason applies, however, to enemies who flagrantly violate the laws of war, targeting civilians for death, hiding bombs behind burkas, using children as shields or — yes — faking a Red Cross, upraised hands or other symbolic white flags to perpetrate lethal attacks. A white flag makes a statement. It says, I’m giving up; I’m unarmed and pose no threat; I respect the laws of war under which this flag must never be used as a ruse, and I am not using it as a ruse to attack you. Even if we imagine Bin Laden actually waving a little white sock on a stick in Abbottabad, there would have been no reason for our soldiers to credit these statements. No soldier had a duty to take the slightest risk to his own life because Osama bin Laden promised to be good from now on. [emphasis mine]
Private citizen commits $25 million for Giant Magellan Telescope
Private citizen has just donated $25 million for the construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope.
This is how it used to be done all the time: All the early giant telescopes built in the United States before World War II were financed by individuals or private foundations, with no or little government investment.
Private citizen has just donated $25 million for the construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope.
This is how it used to be done all the time: All the early giant telescopes built in the United States before World War II were financed by individuals or private foundations, with no or little government investment.
Replacements for 100 watt incandescent bulbs cost $50 each
How The Year 2000 Was Envisioned in 1910
Philly Police Harass, Threaten to Shoot Man Legally Carrying Gun
Government reaches debt limit, borrows against federal pension funds
Time is running out: Government reaches debt limit, borrows against federal pension funds to pay obligations.
Time is running out: Government reaches debt limit, borrows against federal pension funds to pay obligations.
AIDS cured?
Twenty percent of the new waivers to ObamaCare are in Pelosi’s district
I guess they finally found out what’s in it: Twenty percent of the new waivers to ObamaCare are in Nancy Pelosi’s district.
Pelosi’s district secured almost 20 percent of the latest issuance of waivers nationwide, and the companies that won them didn’t have much in common with companies throughout the rest of the country that have received Obamacare waivers. Other common waiver recipients were labor union chapters, large corporations, financial firms and local governments. But Pelosi’s district’s waivers are the first major examples of luxurious, gourmet restaurants and hotels getting a year-long pass from Obamacare.
Then there’s this new poll: By 17 percentage points, Americans support repeal.
Repeal is supported by men and women; by those in their 30s, 40s, 50s to mid-60s, and mid-60s on up; and by all income groups (ranging from under-$20,000 to over-$100,000 a year).
I guess they finally found out what’s in it: Twenty percent of the new waivers to ObamaCare are in Nancy Pelosi’s district.
Pelosi’s district secured almost 20 percent of the latest issuance of waivers nationwide, and the companies that won them didn’t have much in common with companies throughout the rest of the country that have received Obamacare waivers. Other common waiver recipients were labor union chapters, large corporations, financial firms and local governments. But Pelosi’s district’s waivers are the first major examples of luxurious, gourmet restaurants and hotels getting a year-long pass from Obamacare.
Then there’s this new poll: By 17 percentage points, Americans support repeal.
Repeal is supported by men and women; by those in their 30s, 40s, 50s to mid-60s, and mid-60s on up; and by all income groups (ranging from under-$20,000 to over-$100,000 a year).
The first space shuttle launch, April 12, 1981
If you schedule a launch they will come
We arrived at Space View Park in Titusville at around 9 pm, bringing with us camp chairs, a softside cooler with food, cameras, tripods, and light jackets. I also brought a light fleece sleeping bag for additional warmth. Even though it was still twelve hours before launch, the entire shoreline was occupied by a line of people either sitting or lying on blankets or pads. Back from the water and under the trees there were more than a dozen small tents set up.
We found a spot where the line was only one deep and set up our chairs. In front of us were a group of Floridians who had never seen a launch up close, though they told us how they had often watched shuttle launches from their front door. As one of them said, “There won’t be many more chances to see this, so we decided we better come down.”
Also set up in the park under a tarp was a electronic setup with television feeds and speakers linked to NASA TV, run by the Space Walk of Fame Foundation, a volunteer organization that maintains Space View Park and the monuments to space that are on display there.
Looking east out across the Indian River was Merritt Island, with the launchpad lit up like a Christmas tree eleven miles distant. To the right was the VAB.
» Read more
The launch
After fifty years of following space, I finally saw a big rocket launch today. Below is one of the pictures I took of Endeavour as it roared into the sky.
The experience was immensely satisfying, to put it mildly. Watching the shuttle rise up on a column of flame and smoke made me feel young again, my heart racing with excitement. Then Endeavour disappeared into the clouds, and we stood waiting for the roar of liftoff to travel the eleven miles to us. The long wait made this experience far different from what one sees on television. Then the rumble arrived, deep and low, but not as loud as I expected. One experienced launch-watcher explained that the low clouds and humidity might have muffled the sound. Bob Rose said that it was what he expected for this location, and that my expectations were based on those who experienced the launch from the press site at three miles. I think Bob is almost certainly right.
Later today I will put up a longer post, describing what it was like to stand among like-minded space nuts who had traveled from far and wide to see a crew of humans leave the Earth’s gravity and help trace a warm line of life across barren space.
At Space View Park
We have now set up at Space View Park in Titusville, Florida. The picture below shows what we found when we went by earlier today to scout out the location. As you can see, several people were already there. There were also people who had put up tents, as well as two food vendors.
The launchpad is the tiny spike visible on the horizon directly at the end of the pier. You can also see the VAB to the right.
Apollo 11 launch, July 16, 1969
An evening pause: If all goes well, I will be watching a variation of this live from Florida tomorrow morning. The action really begins at the five minute mark. Also, this particular video gives you the best flavor of what it was like to see the launch live, rather than on film or video.
Senate Democrats: Where is your budget?
Senate Democrats: Where is your budget?
With the statutory committee deadline having been missed by six weeks, and with 744 days gone by since the Democrat-led Senate passed a budget, it was reported that this week Senate Democrats would finally produce a budget and hold a markup. But no budget was produced and the markup was delayed yet again.
The Republicans might not be very serious about spending cuts, but the Democrats are a downright joke. At least the Republicans have made some effort to deal with the problem, tepid as that effort is. The Democrats not only oppose any suggestion, they can’t even do their job.
Senate Democrats: Where is your budget?
With the statutory committee deadline having been missed by six weeks, and with 744 days gone by since the Democrat-led Senate passed a budget, it was reported that this week Senate Democrats would finally produce a budget and hold a markup. But no budget was produced and the markup was delayed yet again.
The Republicans might not be very serious about spending cuts, but the Democrats are a downright joke. At least the Republicans have made some effort to deal with the problem, tepid as that effort is. The Democrats not only oppose any suggestion, they can’t even do their job.
Former “alarmist” scientist says human-caused global warming is based on false science
Taliban recruiting nine-year-old suicide bombers
The Islamic education system: Taliban mullahs are now recruiting nine-year-old suicide bombers. More here. Key quote:
“Our mullah told us that when we carried out our suicide attacks, all the people around us would die, but we would stay alive,”
But we’re told that today’s Islam is just another religion, morally equivalent to modern Christianity, Judaism, or Buddhism. How could this be?
The Islamic education system: Taliban mullahs are now recruiting nine-year-old suicide bombers. More here. Key quote:
“Our mullah told us that when we carried out our suicide attacks, all the people around us would die, but we would stay alive,”
But we’re told that today’s Islam is just another religion, morally equivalent to modern Christianity, Judaism, or Buddhism. How could this be?