High-quality English language analysis and editorial writing on the news.
The recent CNN coverage of The Malaysian Airline tragedy, has created a new Challenge for Avid Newswatchers, and those who view multiple media outlets. It was always a safe bet that regardless of Network bias or Newspaper political leanings, you could read between the lines with most stories, and figure out when something resembling “news” […]
Computers have become a taken for granted part of our everyday world. They are on our desks, they are in our phones, our cars and even our TV’s. But what works on our desk is not a good fit in space. It is a hostile environment, and it is pretty difficult to respond to a […]
I followed the Solar Eclipse with interest. You can find my article here. I loved the sheer guts and determination that one amateur astronomer was willing to put into sharing his passion with us mere mortals. Scotty Degenhardt is my kind of people, he has passion for his subject and loves to share that passion […]
It is at first a really silly question. The Earth owns the Moon by way of gravity. Without gravity and its wonderful relation to the moon we would not exist. Of course this does not stop enterprising companies from making claims on the Lunar landscape. For several years I taught a class about the internet. […]
I am not an avid astronomer, but I do like to watch strange phenomena. A solar eclipse is one that should not be missed. Sundays event alas was outside of my viewing area. But I knew that somewhere in the wild world of the internet there would be a live feed. As I had a […]
This afternoon the world will witness the last launch of NASA’s iconic flagship the Shuttle. For three decades the Shuttle has been NASA’s manned space exploration tool. t has built the International Space Station, placed countless satellites in orbit, performed rapair work on the Hubble Telescope, and performed thousands of research experiments. It has also […]
President Obama, who has overlooked various pork barrel spending projects placed into unrelated bills by the Congress, is reported to have decided to freeze the budget to NASA to prove he can cut the Federal Budget. To put it bluntly, this means there is no money for the proposed Moon landing under his watch. “This […]
In science, there are all sorts of gossip that tweak the infallibility of scientists. For example, the discovery of the “big bang” was postponed until they cleaned the antennae of Pigeon poop, and found it was the sky, not the poop, causing the hum of the big bang. And Penicillin may have been discovered because […]
So President Obama is scrapping the Bush “Missile Defense program” that was planned to protect Europe from Iran. Yes, I know. There is some question if the missile defense was any good against the actual threat, and all it seemed to do is irritate Russia. And it’s not like the program would merely be scrapped: […]
Well they will be in space soon! The business press is abuzz about Intel acquiring software company Wind River Systems. Wind River’s claim to fame is a Unix derivative embedded operating system VxWorks. Although it is widely used in all sorts of terrestrial applications its most famous use is by NASA. VxWorks is what runs […]
We all remember laying on the grass on a perfect summer night when we were kids, staring up at the starry night sky. That beautiful, star-riddled sky is quickly disappearing, however – right before our eyes. According to a recent Forbes.com article, the vast number of stars that were once visible have been concealed by […]
So, you are 93 million miles from home and you get the infamous ‘Blue Screen Of Death.’ Who are you going to call? Microsoft will put you on hold, ask for your credit card number, then tell you to hit the reset button. That is not an ideal solution, and certainly a solution that NASA […]
When NASA needs an operating system for a Mars lander does it go knocking on Bill Gates’ door? The answer is no. The newly arrived on the planet Phoenix Lander is powered by a variation of Linux running on a specially hardened CPU and motherboard produced by IBM. The CPU may not sound very exciting, […]
I am always amazed by NASA, these guys certainly have the ‘right stuff’. NASA is an organization that exudes class and style. They undertake missions that are hugely complex and also very long term. A great example is the latest journey to Mars. Mars may be our closest planetary neighbor but it is completely different […]
Just when you think NASA is finally getting back up on its feet again… Sheesh. Then some Klugscheißer (smart alec) 13-year-old German schoolboy comes along and double-checks their math (always a good idea, I think) and finds out that the Apophis asteroid does not in fact have a 1 in 45,000 chance of whacking our […]
Attention Conspiracy theorists. They caught two of the ships that caused part of that Middle East Cable outage, and it turns out it was not done by the CIA, or Mossad, or Iran, or Alqaeda. Just some careless sailors. There were four cable cuts at the time; this story refers to the FLAG cable between […]
On April 12, 1961, one of mankind’s greatest achievements occurred. Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to travel into space, carried there on a Vostok rocket. In those days, it was an embarrassment for the United states, and led to Kennedy’s aim for the US to be first on the moon. The ultimate […]
Unconfirmed reports are coming in that a group of mad and moderately drunken German scientists working at a place called the Innovationszentrum Wiesenbusch Gladbeck have not only succeeded in developing a refrigerator which has harnessed the sun’s energy to cool the little beer they seem to have left, the ammoniac-water absorption process they devised also suddenly […]
1. Neil Armstrong takes “one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind†on the moon, in 1969 when Michelle Obama was 5 years old. 2. That same year, Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) becomes the first black woman elected to Congress. 3. Mark Spitz wins seven gold medals at the 1972 Summer Olympics Games […]
Almost seven years to the day Russian space station Mir was de-orbited and fell to Earth over the South Pacific Ocean in March 2001, the U.S. Navy will fire a missile at a failing spy satellite in an attempt to break it apart while it is still high above the atmosphere. Â Known as USA […]
Becoming the only astronaut ever in the 27 years of space shuttle history to be given a second chance to go on a spacewalk after being replaced for his first, now-veteran German spacewalker Hans Schlegel proudly confirms that “It’s great to be part of an international team.†He and fellow spacewalker American Rex J. Walheim […]
I once worked in Winslow Arizona, where the main tourist attraction is a nearby meteor crater that they tout as the “best preserved meteor crater in the world”. the photo is from their website, and if you ever get out there, consider a trip to the site. It’s not as much fun as the Roswell […]
Like the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek, the Cassini is on a mission to map and explore space. It’s sending back pictures–and now audio–of Saturn. Wired has a good story on the Cassini mission, which is flying around Saturn–that’s the planet, not the car–and gathering data for NASA. Moogs in outer space! Well, almost. NASA […]
Well now is your big chance. NASA announced today that it is pulling the financing from Rocketplane Kistler of Oklahoma City who were designing a new low orbit transport system, the technical jargon was the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Project, or COTS. Apparently Rocketplane Kistler has repeatedly missed milestones in their design project and of […]
The image at the right is one of the notes Buzz Aldrin made for a broadcast from the moon during Apollo 11. The image and the text are found at Heritage Auction Galleries, Ha.com (link below.) Apollo 11 crewman Buzz Aldrin copied a Bible verse and intended to read it during a planned broadcast from […]
Sounds like a hit song: There’s a hole in the center of the universe A hole in the center of the universe A hole in the center of the universe, And it chills the microwaves But the news today is that scientists at the University of Minnesota discovered a huge area in the center of […]
In the near future, the world’s elite will be taking their vacations in space. The first hotel in space is set to open in 2012, and reservations will be taken as early as next year. The hotel, named “Galactic Suite,†will come with a price tag that only about 40,000 people on earth can afford […]
This week, a 55-year-old teacher will embark on a mission to the international space station on the shuttle Endeavour in an attempt to successfully send the first teacher into space. Barbara Morgan has been waiting for Tuesday’s mission her entire life. Back in 1985, she was chosen to be the back-up to teacher-in-space Christa McAuliffe […]
News Item: NASA to probe alchohol use There is a policy within the Space Agency that prohibits drinking alchohol within a 12 hour time frame before a flight. Officials are now investigating reports that on a couple of occassions some astronauts may have bent that rule by bending their elbows a bit more than they […]
NASA has been studying the presence of a unique type of cloud called “night shining†or “noctilucent†clouds. Since their discovery 120 years ago, these formations have been moving toward the equator from the polar regions for some unknown reason. Researchers believe they are a result of global warming. NASA’s “Aeronomy of Ice in the […]
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