Night is falling - light many candles

See my blog on Bostontea.us

"Alongside Night is a whole new day. The civilisation which reached its peak in 1969, which put men on the Moon and sent passengers faster than the speed of sound to their destinations, no longer does those things. It is falling into decay, it has become corrupt, and the miserable little men and women who seek only power for themselves have screwed things up, badly."

China hits Moon

On Sunday, China's first lunar probe struck the surface of the Moon according to a story in Space.com.

The spacecraft, Chang'e 1, was crashed into a southern region on the lunar surface. No word yet whether it intersects the USA territory claimed in the series of landings on the lunar surface in the 1960s and early 1970s. (See map for details.)

Follow-up missions are planned for 2011 and 2013.

XCOR offers free flight to Tuskegee airman

According to Andy Pasztor of the Wall Street Journal the start-up space tourism and rocket industry company XCOR is offering a free rocketplane ride to Tuskegee airman Le Roy Gillead. The company announced the free flight recently as part of its bid to promote its private space tourism ventures. Early flights of the XCOR rocket plane Lynx are planned for 2012. The company is also looking to raise additional capital.

NASA buys $480K house, 2 cars

According to a Fox news story NASA has bought a $480,000 house in Gainesville, Florida and some other stuff for two low level scammers. Here's the low down:

Fox News reporter Mike Levine writes, "Authorities say Sousan Anghaie persuaded NASA to award her company 'several fully funded contracts,' including nearly $600,000 to develop and study a uranium-related technology. But, according to an affidavit unsealed today in federal court, the couple allegedly used most of that money to buy personal luxuries — including their $480,000 home in Gainesville, a 2007 BMW and a 2005 Toyota Sienna sports van."

Hurray! NASA and the FBI are cracking down hard on these low level scum. No word yet on any investigation of the billions of dollars stolen by NASA and defense contractor companies.

Americans can rest easy knowing, as Levine concludes, "The affidavit said there is
probable cause' to believe that Sousan and Samim Anghaie stole federal funds, laundered money, and conspired to commit money laundering, all in violation of federal laws." No word on the many other failed NASA contracts to explore the universe, research new technologies, or build expensive boondoggles.

On the plus side, maybe NASA's entire budget could be used to buy houses and restart the housing bubble. Whee!

NASA delenda est.

NASA drops satellite in ocean

Perhaps the difficulties maintaining the charade of global warming have finally gotten to them. Anyway, NASA dropped a satellite in the Antarctic Ocean today. Here's a link to Nationalist Geographic on the topic, but beware of popup windows and links to lies about globalist warming. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory is down, and unlikely to rise from the sea. Early indications are that the fairing covering the satellite failed to separate. NASA has had trouble in the past (e.g., Skylab launch) by failing to perform aerodynamic tests on fairings. Bit again, it seems.

NASA delenda est.

NASA Goddard Lies

Caught by Steve McIntyre and reported by Vin Suprynowicz in a recent editorial it appears that NASA Goddard has fudged its figures. It seems that they are determined to show global warming in spite of widespread evidence of global cooling. This time, the lying liars at NASA used September 2008 figures for every reporting station in Russia again in October 2008.

Mind you the lying liars at NASA have done this stuff before. McIntyre has also shown they added 0.15 degrees (Celsius scale) to every temperature reading in the USA from 2000 to at least 2007 for no reason at all. Subsequently, NASA Goddard pulled the data and blamed NOAA (the nationalist socialist oceanic and atmospheric administration) for the error. Then claimed an unusual hotspot in the Arctic, in spite of 30% heavier sea ice than last year.

Why lie? Because these scum get more money from government if you buy into their lies about global warming. NASA delenda est

Top Story: Space Crash!

Flash News! Space crash! An Iridium satellite has collided in orbit with a Russian satellite. This appears to be the first such collision in Earth orbit. Both the Russian Cosmos 2251 satellite and the Iridium satellite were destroyed. Debris may slightly increase risk to the space station, though NASA spokes-creature Beth Dickey says the increased risk is within whatever NASA deems acceptable limits. Iridium Satellite LLC is a publicly traded stock company. This event seems unlikely to be good for earnings, though the company has a spare satellite on orbit which can be put in service within 30 days. (Earnings for Iridium have not been at all impressive.) NASA delenda est

More water ice on Mars

More evidence of water and ice on Mars makes Mars direct enthusiasts eager. Planetary Science Institute scientists studied Mars Odyssey, Viking Orbiter, Mars Global Surveyor, and Mars Orbiter images to find the ice and evidence of water in the Arabia Terra region in the northern hemisphere, and the Hellas Basin in the southern hemisphere. NASA delenda est

Washington Post critiques Mars Lab

JPL wants to send nearly a ton of rover to Mars. The nuclear powered Mars Science Laboratory would be huge compared to all other roving platforms to date sent to Mars. Plus, NASA is using a whole new landing technology, and generally not building on the Spirittype rover technology. Sad.

Washington Post staff writer Joel Achenbach describes the new landing sequence as a spacecraft dropped by parachute followed by: "At 65 feet above the surface -- the descent slowed almost to a hover by retrorockets -- the spacecraft will lower the rover from its belly using cables. When the rover touches down, explosive charges will cut the cables, and the spacecraft will fly off and crash about 200 meters away. And the rover will send a signal to Earth saying it has landed safely. If history repeats itself, the JPL engineers will have turned purple by that point. Adam Steltzner, one of the inventors of the sky crane system, remembers being unable to breathe during one of the earlier rover landings." NASA delenda est

Magellan telescope project

Big telescope project with lots of internationalist socialist partners. The telescope, to be built in Chile, will be composed of seven large mirrors. Six of these will be positioned around the edges of a seventh mirror using technology developed at University of Arizona. The effective size of the structure would be 80 feet (25 meters) across. Arguably, from its site in Chile the new scope would provide images ten times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope does from orbit. Now that NASA has gotten some astronomical observing mileage out of the Keyhole spy satellite technology, some actual innovation might be needed for a future scope. Perhaps the same techniques developed for the Magellan scope (to be complete 2019) might be used on the far side of the Moon at some future date. Of course, that would require an economically sustainable (that is, profitable) lunar exploration and settlement activity. Clearly not something NASA is ever going to be competent to provide. NASA delenda est

Space station re-supply "Progress" of a sort

Russians re-supply the internationalist socialist space station. Meanwhile NASA has opted not to kill another batch of seven astronauts by delaying the launch of the space shuttle at least until 20 February, possibly as late as 22 February based on current info. Assuming they ever get it to fly all the way to orbit, NASA's next shuttle mission would "complete" the space station which Reagan announced in 1984 and asked for within a decade. Hmmm. So, a 2009 completion date minus a 1994 requested completion gives 15 years late. And as I recall the original $8 billion budget (in 1994 dollars) for a 12-crew station has become $150 billion plus (I really have to review the methodology, probably very low) in 2009 dollars for a six-person station. Whee! And NASA stands to eat $1.3 billion more from the "stimuli" package. NASA delenda est

NASA: To massacre or not to massacre?

The bums at NASA are trying to decide when to launch the shuttle, with or without massacring another batch of astronauts. According to Robert Block of the Orlando Sentinel, cited above, work on flow control valves may force a longer delay in the shuttle launch anticipated for later this month. Our view? Delay the flight, or cancel the shuttle program entirely. NASA delenda est.

Foust on Virgin Galactic

Jeff Foust of the Space Review says that Virgin Galactic has presented information on its strategic business plans. Feedback from customers paying up to $200K per flight indicated that a larger spaceship would be needed to meet market expectations of a fun suborbital space trip. As a result, Virgin Galactic is looking at the suborbital scientific market as well. They have also evaluated a booster which could deploy from the White Knight 2 and launch small satellites into orbit. Possible per satellite launch cost? $2 million. NASA delenda est.

NASA joins choir of global warming alarmists

NASA is planning to launch its Orbiting Carbon Observatory presumably to lie more about climate change than ever before. Contractor Orbital Sciences got the money to build the thing. Curiously, they also got the money to launch the thing, from Vandenburg AFB, so, presumably into a Sun-synchronous orbit. Assuming their solid-fuel Taurus rocket works, the satellite's single point of failure instrument is to measure global atmospheric carbon dioxide. We're reminded that it was NASA data which had a Y2K bug exaggerating global warming. (So 1934 was the warmest on record.) NASA delenda est.

Mars axial tilt changed

Scientists at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona say that their studies of water on Mars indicate a higher axial tilt within the last few million years, possibly as much as 60 degrees from its current tilt. NASA delenda est.

JPL drives Mars lander Spirit 12 inches

Jet Propulsion Lab scientists got Mars rover Spirit rolling again last week. Science Daily reports, from a JPL press release, "Spirit drove about 1 foot Saturday, during the 1,806th Martian day, or sol, of what was originally planned as a 90-day mission." NASA delenda est.

NASA budgets return to Moon

Stewart Powell over at Chron.com says NASA has a budget of $17.3 billion per year, which reminds us to ask what do we get for our money? Also, NASA plans to continue wasting money on another "men to the Moon" project to pretend they can get there by 2020 until the new president offers further direction. NASA delenda est.

Alan Bean do the Moon for Mars

Alan Bean, one of the astronauts who had the privilege to visit the Moon about 40 years ago, says going back to the Moon should be about going on to Mars. Which does make one wonder, why not just go to Mars Direct? NASA delenda est.

Conceptual lunar lander

Meanwhile, NASA has issued a request for proposals for a conceptual lunar lander. Maybe it can fly to a conceptual Moon. NASA delenda est.

Russia's own space station

In a move sure to inspire myocardial infarction in Baker Institute jerk George Abbey, Russia has announced plans to build a separate orbital station for its future lunar and Mars exploration projects. NASA delenda est.