Space
OVERNIGHT LINKS (and don’t go waiting for any updates, either) ITEM: Headline of the week: “Spacetime May Have Fractal Properties on a Quantum Scale.” ITEM: Economic common sense from … Germany? ITEM: There is some justice in the world, after all: “Vindictive people make less money.” ITEM: On the other hand, this explains a lot: [...]
This morning the grand daddy of web news, the Drudge Report, carried the story of a possibility of Japan using it’s ballistic missile defense (BMD) weapons to intercept and destroy the upcoming North Korean launch of a Taepodong-2 rocket. This story is published by the UK Guardian and quotes Takeo Kawamura, the chief cabinet secretary [...]
Continue reading about Taepodong-2 Update: The Possible Japanese Intercept
Headlines on multiple news sites point to a possible Taepodong-2 missile launch in the next day or two. As documented earlier, this will be another in a line of tests of intermediate range North Korean rockets. While the North has described this as a satellite launch, it is actually the means to test the missile, [...]
Word has been circulating around national security focused sites that North Korea is preparing to test their home grown long range missile. According to reports, recent reconnaissance has shown components that look like parts of a Taepodong-2 missile being moved via rail to the North Korean rocket test site on the east coast. This facility [...]
Great rocket-scientist photo of the day: The launch abort system being fitted to a dummy CEV housing in preparation of February testing at White Sands, NM. Note the “spares” in the top left.
[Thanks to Ace of Spades for the link!] Over the past decade or so, astronomers have discovered over 300 extra-solar planets, that is, planets orbiting stars other than our Sun. However, these discoveries have largely been indirect, due to the planet transiting the star it orbits, or variations in the radial velocity of the star. [...]
Earlier this year I outlined a DARPA project to produce a hypersonic UAV under the project name “Falcon Blackswift” According to the few details available on Blackswift, Lockheed Martin’s famed Skunk Works shop is the main contractor for the vehicle. DARPA, in fact, still isn’t talking about Blackswift; it’s using the HTV-3X designation. But HTV-3X [...]
Friday the blog world was examining this curious press release from NASA: NASA To Discuss Conditions On And Surrounding The Sun WASHINGTON — NASA will hold a media teleconference Tuesday, Sept. 23, at 12:30 p.m. EDT, to discuss data from the joint NASA and European Space Agency Ulysses mission that reveals the sun’s solar wind [...]
Continue reading about Don’t Panic – NASA’s Tuesday Solar Press Conference
…the sun is blank — no sunspots: This is how the sun has been for the last six weeks or so. ..bruce w..
Get your snowboards waxed… the next ice age may be here soon! I have been talking about how quiet sunspot cycle 24 has been, and how it’s possible that may foretell a cooler period in the Earth’s climate for the next set of years. I have also pointed out that I am a computer engineer, [...]
Continue reading about Real Scientists Speak Up On… Global Cooling?