Kepler is dead

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Moonage

The Kepler mission has been epic.

Kepler pioneered the search for exo-planets. WIth a few years, thousands of planets had been discovered. Several hundred potentials for life.

Now, it has died. There is enough data to stretch the discoveries out another couple of years. But, Kepler is essentially non-functional. Now, in days gone past, read pre-Obama, we could have sent a shuttle up there, grabbed ahold of it ala repairing the Hubble telescope, and fixed it. Now, due to the complete lack of vision and direction from Obama, we are completely incapable of doing so. Even if we wanted to retrofit some rocket and send guys up there, stabilizing something that big is impossible. It is just as dead as NASA’s vision under Obama.

And, I’m going to bet, none of the liberal arts trained astronomers, and you guys know who you are, will complain out loud about the fact that you have PROFOUNDLY less assets to work with now as they did under Bush, who they DID complain about. The Republican war on science is penny ante stuff compared to what Obama is doing to you guys. That wonderful telescope that was supposed to replace Kepler that you guys say renders my gripe moot, was mothballed so that NASA could spend more time touting global warming.

To Infinity and Beyond!

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Moonage

NASA apparently is rolling out their new spacesuits:

This seriously isn’t a joke. Not sure how much they’re paying Pixar in royalties.

Another green car bites the dust

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Moonage

After all kinds of hope and hype, the change is in the air. GM stopped production of their Chevy Volts. Some of that hope and hype was here, until I saw the price tag. It’s just too expensive. While Obama was handing out cash to big donors at the DNC, the average guy was trying to figure how to survive paying nearly $4.00 a gallon. The hope Obama promised was in green technology. When Chevrolet launched the Volt, people like me jumped all over it. Then we saw the price. Rather than stimulating car sales ( private sector ), Obama took the usual socialist path and stimulated production. That’s all fine and good if there is a market. But, as with Solyndra and other failed green ventures, the market’s not there because the price is not feasible. For $20,000 less the average person can buy an awful lot of gas. Given the price of replacing batteries at nearly $10,000 a pop, a person has NO incentive to go green. Until Obama understands the very basic principal of supply and DEMAND, this story will keep happening. In order for this to work, the price of these vehicles has GOT to down!

Public Opinion Poll Results

Windmills causing localized global warming

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Moonage

This has got to be another blow to the enlightened global warming alarmists:

New research published in the journal Nature Climate Change suggests that large wind farms might have a warming effect on the local climate.

Now, before go too far into this, although both articles are quick to point out that it’s a localized effect only, the problem with the global warming global impact is a whole bunch of localized warming effects. So, to sort of dismiss this as not really sorta being a real problem isn’t fair. Either it’s causing global warming or not. In this case, it is. And since they are spreading fast all over the planet, it’s a rapidly growing problem.

Toss in:

“The cumulative impacts are huge,” said Shawn Smallwood, one of the few recognized experts studying the impact of wind farms on migratory birds. “It is not inconceivable to me that we could reduce golden eagle populations by a great deal, if not wipe them out.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/16/energy-in-america-dead-birds-unintended-consequence-wind-power-development/#ixzz1tpKjGtAj

That’s right, they’re killing endangered species. That’s not indirectly, that’s the blades beating them to death.

Which makes me ponder the obvious:

Public Opinion Poll Results

Here comes ROSAT!

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Moonage

Remember everyone freaking out over UARS? It wasn’t that long ago. In fact, it was about a month ago. Well guess what?

This guy’s coming home next week. The difference between ROSAT and UARS is ROSAT’s a LOT sturdier than UARS was. When this one comes down, that entire dish is supposedly going to be intact. It’s made out of gold and some stuff that doesn’t melt until about 1100 degrees. It just won’t get that hot coming down. There’s another big difference between the two as well. UARS’s path was mostly over the Pacific and some pretty remote and isolated areas of the planet such as Siberia and Africa. It spent very brief periods of time over some populated areas. The path for ROSAT is a little different:

ROSAT will be flying over the US, South America, Indonesia, and some pretty crowded places.

One thing that will be the same as UARS tho, they won’t have a clue when it’s coming down until about one day in advance. That of course tells you where it’s coming down.

As with that last one, just keep your head up next week!

We really, really, need to figure what to do with all this space junk.

If you really want to watch ROSAT in motion, this is a really cool page that has a “real-time” map of ROSAT’s orbit.

Public Opinion View Results

Voyager 1′s Great Escape

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Moonage

A fantastic article on one of my all time favorite NASA missions:

Launched two weeks after its sister spacecraft, Voyager 1 lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s SLC-41 at 08:56.00 EDT on 5 September 1977 on a Titan III-E Centaur rocket.

Three months and five days later, on December 10, 1977, Voyager 1 entered the Asteroid belt beyond the orbit of Mars.

And lasting till:

However, in an effort to gain more information on this phenomenon, Voyager 1 conducted a test roll on March 8, 2011 to change its orientation in order to better detect the current direction of the solar wind.

For this maneuver, Voyager 1 rotated 70 degrees counterclockwise with respect to Earth. This was the first maneuver of the spacecraft since it took the family portrait in 1990.

What most people don’t think about is the fact that Voyager 1 is STILL a mission, thirty-four years after its launch. It’s mission, to boldly go where no man has gone before, is expected to last until sometime between 2025 to 2030, or whenever its power runs out.

And, according to one source, 2030 might not even be the end.

DARPA Falcon

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Moonage

Imagine riding this:

The red glow in the artist rendition of the DARPA Falcon makes it look cool. What makes it really cool is Mach 20.

Yeah. Mach 20.

That is 13,000 mph

That is getting from Los Angeles to New York in 12 minutes.

It may not ever happen tho. The first test took a nose dive into the ocean and there is only one left. If it fails they are done. The second problem to taking a ride is this is just a missile. But, one can hope………

Questions View Results

Security Relearn

Posted on June 20, 2011 by Moonage

Recently had some car trouble with my Rendezvous ( okay, quit laughing ). Well, actually, am still having trouble. But, I supposedly have the secret fix. Short background, effectively, my alternator went paws up. While in the process of trying to get it charged enough to get it to the garage, I started seeing a strange display I’d never seen before. It was the security system light. No clue why they ever bothered to put something like that in a Buick, but they did. Even when I got it started the strange never-before-seen light kept coming on. Now that we’ve got a brand spanking new alternator in the car, it still won’t start and the weird light keeps coming on. Which, according the “help” I found, is exactly what it’s supposed to do when it forgets its passcode. Duh. So, this is what we gotta do:

Let the vehicle sit for more than 10 minutes with the key off.
Attempt to start the engine, leave the key in the run position monitoring the security system indicator.
After 10 minutes, the security indicator will change state (turns off or stops flashing).
Turn the key off and wait 10 seconds.
Attempt to start the engine. If the engine stalls, wait another 10 minutes with the key on.
After the second 10 minute timer has expired, turn the key off for 10 seconds.
Attempt to start the engine. If the engine stalls, wait another 10 minutes with the key on.
After the 3rd 10 minute timer has expired, shut the key off for 10 seconds.
The security system will relearn on the 4th starting attempt and the engine should start and run.

I hope that fixes the problem. Plan B apparently costs about $350 more than $250 I’ve spent getting to this point.

Which leads me to ask, what in hell is this stuff supposed to have accomplished in the first place? The auto industry has already reached a point where too much technology is a bad thing.

Android

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Moonage

Totally gave up on my Iphone. Every upgrade made it run even slower to the point I spent most of my time watching it spin. Apple didn’t seem too concerned with my plight. Their answer was to buy another Iphone. My solution was to buy another phone. However, its not Apple again. I’ve gone Android. It doesn’t have the luster of an Iphone. But it does something Apple hadn’t been able to do for a year now. This post was created totally on my droid.

The China UFO

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Moonage

A friend showed me this the other day:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnszlJC8iGs]

Gotta admit, I was stumped. My first thought was Long March V:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=836xtLHRhcs]

Longmarch V is the new planned Chinese heavy lefter. It’s about the same as the US Atlas 5:

Not terribly pretty, but real damned powerful. Makes a lot of smoke too.

The first people to “debunk” it on youtube claim it was the Russian Glonass-K1 on a Soyuz 2. I’d buy that but we’re talking China, not Russia. My gut reaction is this a video of the CZ-5 and the Chinese are either in, or close to being in, the heavy lifter business.