Posts by Dave

Astronauts are sober as judges, says NASA

bothersome

It's the beer cans left in orbit that bother me. How long will they take to come down?

China to map 'every inch' of the moon

the Chinese phases

Surely the Chinese have their lunar phases wrong – isn’t it New, Gibbous and Full? When the moon gets down really small they can push the American landing capsules off one of the pointy ends – something that might not occur to the ordinary mind, but I’m sure they’re on it.

NASA inks deal for Shuttle replacements

space shuttle - NEXT!

Certainly the space shuttle was a huge detour for NASA – all due to the concept it had to look like a plane. Risking men every time cargo had to be carried, having the space craft mounted where it could get hit by debris, carrying wings into space, the concept of not doing a “walk around” before flight (the one down into the atmosphere), and of course vertical take of with its huge fuel cost. Werner von B. must have been spinning when the committees chose that path.

Speaking of huge fuel cost, and other ways to launch – has anyone in an idle moment figured out what the fuel benefits would be if Mt Kilimanjaro was used as a launch site – first 3.7 miles altitude gained by truck, exactly on the equator so you get 1000 mph velocity free, lower initial air resistance at 19,000 feet, the oblateness of the earth makes the equator 20 Km further from the center than the poles, and it’s all nice and flat up there. Once the road's built could be a good little earner for Tanzania :+)

NASA weather error sparks global warming debate

really good models

Loved Arthur LeMay’s note about “Global Warming is not caused by man”. In the note he decries the climatologists’ models – too many variables he figures to get meaningful results. He then (oddly enough) produces a model of his own – “Man's contribution of CO2..is very small”, “The oceans act like giant buffers”, etc. – so, sounds like his home built model (with no actual numbers) proves for him that climate change is not happening and is not anthropogenic. A super-duper model apparently. Let's hear more, and get something we can work with from it!

The happy denier!

It's certainly good news that NASA has refined some numbers dealing with the frequency of warm years! Now, at last, the glaciers can stop retreating, the Arctic ice can come back, the pine beetle can stop its advance, the wildfires can stop, the heat waves can all just cool it, and Canada no longer has to lay out the cash for any Arctic naval bases. Terrific news indeed!