Monday, December 31, 2012
Saturday, December 29, 2012
‘Alien’-Like Skulls Found in Mexico
‘Alien’-Like Skulls Found in Mexico: Archaeologists in Mexico have uncovered 25 “alien”-looking human skulls with in a cemetery in the northwest state of Sonora, they said today. Some of the skulls showed “deformities,” said Cristina Garcia Moreno, who worked on the excavation project with Arizona State University, which analyzed the bones....
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Doug Ross @ Journal: Operation Starfish
Doug Ross @ Journal: Operation Starfish: On July 9, 1962, a high-altitude nuclear test named Starfish Prime was conducted by the United States military above Johnston Island in t...
Friday, December 21, 2012
Friday, December 7, 2012
Future War Stories: DECEMBER 7th, 1941
Future War Stories: DECEMBER 7th, 1941: WE SHALL ALWAYS REMEMBER THOSE THAT ANSWERED THE CALL, THOSE THAT SERVED, AND THOSE THAT NEVER CAME HOME.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
XCOR in Midland, Texas!
I came across this information quite by accident while working down at the Midland International Airport (MAF) for Enterprise Rent-A-Car. A co-worker told me that "some space" company was coming to Midland. But, since he wasn't "really into" that space stuff - he had no additional information for me.
Finally, once back home in Lubbock, Texas; I searched out that information and found the following...
There was a joint announcement by the Midland Development Corporation (MDC) and XCOR Aerospace for the establishment of XCOR's new Commercial Space Research and Development Center Headquarters to be completed in late 2013. It will be housed in a newly renovated 60,000 square-foot hangar that will house their office space and test facility.
Quote: “XCOR will be upgrading an existing hangar at Midland International Airport,” stated Marv Esterly, director of airports at MAF. “This new R&D facility has the potential to open the door to even more economic development at our airport and for our community.” end quote.
Andrew Nelson, chief operating officer of XCOR Aerospace said the following: “We are pleased to be establishing our R&D Center in Midland, Texas, where the weather, surrounding landscape, the airport, and the local & state government environment are ideally situated for the future growth and the ultimate realization of a fully reusable orbital system.
"With future suborbital operational sites on the East and West Coasts of the United States and around the world, plus a manufacturing and test facility geographically separate from our R&D facility, Midland will truly be at the heart of XCOR’s innovation engine” end quote.
Pam Welch, executive director of MDC stated in the press release the following: “The decision to establish XCOR’s Research and Development Center Headquarters in Midland came after intense competition from other locations." end quote. She also added this: once the technical and operational needs of XCOR were met, the final factors influencing the decision to locate R&D to Midland included the friendly business climate, a predictable regulatory environment, and the State of Texas tort reform initiatives. These factors allowed XCOR to see a long term future happening in Midland.” end quote.
With XCOR coming to Midland, the City of Midland is applying to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for a Commercial Space Launch Site designation for MAF. A process that is expected to take a year to 18 months to complete. Once that is done, the XCOR operations will increase.
Marv Esterly stated the following, “When our application is approved, the MAF will be the first “Primary Commercial Service Airport” to be granted this designation, and the combination of the two makes Midland attractive to other commercial space companies.” end quote.
Texas Governor Rick Perry was very happy with XCOR's decision to set up shop in Midland.
Midland, Texas, is expecting XCOR Aerospace will create 100 jobs for the area. That $12 million will be spent over the next five years in capital improvements and wages. And with MAF being designated as a spaceport - that will attract other commercial space companies who are developing horizontal takeoff and landing spacecraft.
The Lynx is a suborbital two-personal winged spacecraft designed to go up to 100 kilometers above the Earth's surface after taking off from a runway using a rocket engine. Then, once the mission is completed, it will return to land at the same runway like a normal aircraft.
The spaceport in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, is a bit worried about being passed over by XCOR and a few other commercial space companies.
Quote from the Foxnews article follows: Locally, officials blame the lack of new businesses on the legislature's refusal to pass laws that would exempt spacecraft suppliers from liability for passengers should the spacecraft crash or blow up. When New Mexico was developing Spaceport in partnership with Virgin Galactic, it passed a law to exempt the carrier through 2018, but not parts suppliers. Colorado, Florida, Texas and Virginia have adopted permanent liability exemption laws for both carriers and suppliers.
The laws, called informed consent, are much like those that exempt ski areas from lawsuits by skiers, who waive their rights for claims when they buy a ski pass. Spaceport officials emphasize the carriers and suppliers would not be exempt from damage on the ground, or in cases of gross negligence. end quote.
__
Ref.
1. XCOR Press Release. "XCOR AEROSPACE AND MIDLAND DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ANNOUNCE ESTABLISHMENT OF XCOR’S NEW COMMERCIAL SPACEFLIGHT R&D CENTER HEADQUARTERS" July 9, 2012. (http://www.xcor.com/press-releases/2012/12-07-09_XCOR_to_open_midland_resaerch_headquarters.html ).
2. news.yahoo.com. "XCOR Aerospace Announces Midland, Texas, R&D Headquarters" by Mark Whittington. July 9, 2012. (http://news.yahoo.com/xcor-aerospace-announces-midland-texas-r-d-headquarters-203100205.html).
3. Space.com. "" by Denise Chow. July 9, 2012. (http://www.space.com/16494-xcor-aerospace-texas-test-site.html).
4. Foxnews.com. "World's first spaceport nearly ready in New Mexico" by Patrick Manning. July 9, 2012. (http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/09/24/world-first-spaceport-nearly-ready-in-new-mexico/).
Friday, November 9, 2012
Friday, November 2, 2012
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
The Markey Mailer: The Air Force's UFO: My Interview with John Lear
The Markey Mailer: The Air Force's UFO: My Interview with John Lear: Is the truth really out there? In a recently declassified record from the Aeronautical Systems Division of the United states Air F...
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
UFO War: Chinese and US Navy off San Francisco
UFO War: Chinese and US Navy off San Francisco
You have GOT to read this article and make up your own mind about it. Meanwhile, I'll be waiting on SHADO HQ and SkyDiver 1 to save the planet yet again from the invading UFO menace.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Click on the link below to go to the actual article. I will quote a few statements from that article below as well.
Quote: "There is hope," Harold "Sonny" White of NASA's Johnson Space Center said Friday (Sept. 14) at the 100 Year Starship Symposium, a meeting to discuss the challenges of interstellar spaceflight.
Miguel Alcubierre proposed a football shape spacecraft with a flat ring of exotic matter that can create a space-time bubble aorund it. And that bubble would contract space-time ahead of the ship and expand it behind the vessel causing it to travel faster-than-light without breaking the laws of physics to do so. But the energy needed to create that space-time bubble was to great - until now. Such FTL travel would give the vessel the "effective speed of about 10 times the speed of light.
But Harold White calculated that if the flat ring was instead more of a donut shape ring around said spacecraft, the energy requirements drop. Plus, the intensity of the space warps could be oscillated over time - and that reduces the energy requirements even more.
Quote: "The findings I presented today change it from impractical to plausible and worth further investigation," White told SPACE.com. "The additional energy reduction realized by oscillating the bubble intensity is an interesting conjecture that we will enjoy looking at in the lab."
White and his team have begun experimenting with a mini version of their warp drive system theory.
Calling it the "White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer", the lab is located at the Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas.
And the final quote from this article: "We're trying to see if we can generate a very tiny instance of this in a tabletop experiment, to try to perturb space-time by one part in 10 million," White said.
The White-Juday Warp Field (henseforth referred to as WJWF) generator could be about the size of the old Voyager 1 space probe that was launched by NASA in 1977.
___
Ref.
1. Discovery.com. "THE WARP DRIVE COULD BECOME SCIENCE FACT" by Clara Moskowitz. September 17, 2012. (http://news.discovery.com/space/warp-drive-possible-nasa-tests-100yss-120917.html).
2. Vulcan space ship images off the internet. Hallmark Christmas ornament.(http://images.replacements.com/images/images5/china/C/hallmark_star_trek_enterprise_no_box_P0000446232S0001T2.jpg). And from this website (http://star-trek.fl-ink.com/st-album1.htm).
Thursday, September 13, 2012
China Defense Blog: Liaoning it is
China Defense Blog: Liaoning it is: China to name its first aircraft carrier 'Liaoning' By Pang Li 0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, September 10, 2012 http://www....
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Thursday, September 6, 2012
It Didn’t Really Happen… But?
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Picture is of a Hangar 9 .60 size P-51D Mustang that has been recovered and a new paint scheme painted on the model.
Airships are on the way up again | Business | Dallas Business, Texas Business, Fort Wort...
Airships are on the way up again | Business | Dallas Business, Texas Business, Fort Wort...
Anyone who follows my blog will get the impression that I like the idea of airships (and they would be correct), and will support their re-introduction back into our commercial/military aviation arenas.
___
Ref.
1. Star-Telegram.com. "Airships are on the way up again" by W.J. Hennigan. (http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/09/05/4233842/airships-are-on-the-way-up-again.html). Image from same article.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Neil Armstrong Died Today At Age 82
First Man to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong has passed away today at the age of 85.
Commander of the famous Apollo Eleven mission in July 1969, he and fellow astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin spent three hours out on the lunar surface. Most famous for his quote "one giant leap for mankind."
I for one wish him Godspeed.
___
Ref.
1. comiclog.nbcnews.com.com. "Astronaut Neil Armstrong, first man to walk on moon, dies at age 82" by NBC News. August 25, 2012. (http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/25/13478643-astronaut-neil-armstrong-first-man-to-walk-on-moon-dies-at-age-82?chromedomain=usnews).
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Scottish Sailor Claims To Have Best Picture Yet Of Loch Ness Monster
Scottish Sailor Claims To Have Best Picture Yet Of Loch Ness Monster: Legend has it that the Loch Ness Monster was first sighted in the sixth century by an Irish monk while preaching by the lake. Now, a Scottish sailor who has spent the last 26 years of his life searching for the elusive creature, says he...
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Eric Palmer blog: Kopp paper is a warning to U.S. leadership
Eric Palmer blog: Kopp paper is a warning to U.S. leadership: "If the United States wishes to retain its primacy in modern nation-state conflicts, technological strategy must be restored to the promin...
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Monday, July 9, 2012
Friday, July 6, 2012
Silver Screen Saucers: Senior CIA Officer Claims Knowledge of Roswell-Ali...
Silver Screen Saucers: Senior CIA Officer Claims Knowledge of Roswell-Ali...: By Robbie Graham and Matthew Alford, PhD On 23 June, 2012, in an interview for the popular American radio show, Coast to Coast AM, ...
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Monday, June 18, 2012
China's Shenzhou-9 Docks successfully
China Defense Blog: Docks successfully: China's Shenzhou-9 spacecraft successfully docked with the orbiting Tiangong-1 space laboratory on Monday, completing the next step in the c...
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
SpaceX Dragon Has Done IT!
Quoting astronaut Don Pettit who operated the robotic arm: “Looks like we’ve got a Dragon by the tail.”
Pettit's successful capture of the Dragon cause SpaceX Hawthorne headquarters and NASA's Houston Mission Control to errupt in cheers.
It was not a smooth approach according to the article in Wired.com (see link below in Ref Section). Problem with Dragon's thermal camera kept the spacecraft holding at the 250 meter point away from the ISS. Then there was the interaction between the thermal camera and the on-board LIDAR (light detection and ranging) sensors.
Eventually, Dragon was finally brought in to the 30 meter point and then the 10 meter point where it could be caputured by the station's robotic arm.
Now the ISS crew will be unloading the 1,014 pounds(460 kilogram) cargo from the capsule and the station in turn will load up nearly 1,367 pounds (620 kilograms) of return to earth cargo.
Dragon is expected to splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on May 31st if all goes to plan.
___
Ref.
1. Wired. "ISS Welcomes SpaceX Dragon — First Private Spacecraft at Station" by Jason Paur. May 25, 2012. ( http://www.wired.com/autopia/2012/05/spacex-docking/ ). images from same article.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
A REAL starship USS ENTERPRISE in 20 Years?
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The ship has to be functional and still looks like the famous spaceship. And while it would not be equiped with a real Warp Drive, this mobile starbase would be powered by a 1.5 GW nuclear reactor that can supply power to the ion drive engines to give a constant acceleration to any point in our solar system. Three additional nuclear reactors would supply all the electric needs of the ship.
The saucer section of the ship would be 536 meters (.3 mile) diameter. Within this section would be a ratating, magnetically-suspend gravity wheel that could create 1G of gravity for a crew that could go as high as 1000 people.
The key to anything getting done in outer space is funding. And if Congress doesn't give out the bucks, then there is "No Buck Rogers!" (Sorry, could not resist that quote from the movie "The Right Stuff.")
BTE Dan has worked out a spending plan that uses tax increases and spreading out budget cuts to defense, health and human services, housing and urban development, education and energy. These are cuts to areas of discretionary spending and are not large, and the tax increases could be small. A personal note here. I don't see the current crop of congressmen and women having the gonads to do this. Including the tax increase proposed here. Even if the next administration and congress are successful in getting rid of the so-called "Obamacare" plan, this nation will still be trillons in debt for the near future.
Quoting BTE Dan, "These changes to spending and taxes will not sink the republic," says the website. "In fact, these will barely be noticed. It's amazing that a program as fantastic as the building a fleet of USS Enterprise spaceships can be done with so little impact." end quote.
BTE Dan also added this bit of news, quote: "The only obstacles to us doing it are the limitations we place on our collective imagination," BTE Dan adds, and his proposal says that NASA will still receive funding for the science, astronomy and robotic missions it currently undertakes.
But he proposes not just one Enterprise-class ship, but multiple ships, one of which can be built every 33 years –- once per generation –- giving three new ships per century. "Each will be more advanced than the prior one. Older ships can be continually upgraded over several generations until they are eventually decommissioned." end quote.
As for who BTE Dan is, lists himself as a systems engineer and electrical engineer who has worked for a Fortune 500 company for the past 30 years.
___
Ref.
1. io9.com. "Engineer thinks we could build a real Starship Enterprise in 20 years" by Nancy Atkinson. May 12, 2012. ( http://io9.com/5909774/engineer-thinks-we-could-build-a-real-starship-enterprise-in-20-years?tag=startrek ). images from same article.
2. Build The Enterprise.org website. ( http://www.buildtheenterprise.org/ ).
Monday, May 14, 2012
Saturday, April 28, 2012
20 Spitfires Discovered in Burma!
The British Prime Minister David Cameron secured the historic deal that will see the iconic aircraft returned to Great Britain.
The aircraft, in crates, where shipped to Burma and since jet aircraft had taken over, they (the Spitfires) were abandoned in place. They were just buried, wrapped in greased paper, and the joints tarred.
Quoting Mr. Cundall, ”Spitfires are beautiful aeroplanes and should not be rotting away in a foreign land. They saved our neck in the Battle of Britain and they should be preserved.”
He said the Spitfires, of which there are only around 35 flying left in the world, were shipped to Burma and then transported by rail to the British RAF base during the war. end quote.
Now to uncover some Me-109s.
___
Ref.
1. Patches of PRide. "20 WW2 BRITISH SPITFIRES DISCOVERED IN BURMA" April 23, 2012. (http://patchesofpride.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/20-ww2-british-spitfires-discovered-in-burma/).
2. The Telegraph. "Spitfires buried in Burma during war to be returned to UK" by Victoria Ward and Rowena Mason. APril 14, 2012.(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9203822/Spitfires-buried-in-Burma-during-war-to-be-returned-to-UK.html). image of Spitfire by Corbis.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
New Company Called Planetary Resources To Launch Next Week
Google founders Eric Schmidt and Larry Page and teamed up with "Avatar" movie director James Cameron for an ambitious project that will be launched on April 24, 2012.
The new company, to be called Planetary Resources, will have its unveiling at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington this next week.
The purpose of this venture is to combine "space exploration and natural resources" together to earn "trillions of dollars for the global GDP." The Wall Street Journal reprots that this new company will be exploring the feasibility of mining natural resources from asteroids. Which is an idea that has been around the space colonization effort community for decades.
Former NASA Mars mission manager Eric Anderson, is co-founder for Planetary Resource. Peter Diamandia is the commercial space entrepreneur who was behind the X-Prize, a competition that offered $10 million to a group that launched a reusable manned spacecraft.
___
Ref.
1. Reuters/yahoo.com. "Google execs, director Cameron in space venture" by Gerry Shih, editing by Bernard Orr. April 21, 2012. (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/google-execs-director-cameron-space-venture-005212432--sector.html).
Monday, April 2, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Billions of Habitable Planets in the Milky Way
Scientists have discovered that at least 100 so-called "Super Earths" orbiting Red Dwarf stars in the "habitable zone" may have life.And where there is water that can exist on the surface of a world, then there is the chance for life there.
Dr. Xavier Bonfils, from Grenoble University in France, who lead the international team researching the red dwarfs/super Earths said the following: "Because red dwarfs are so common - there are about 160 billion of them in the Milky Way - this leads us to the astonishing result that there are tens of billions of these planets in our galaxy alone." end quote.
The international team looked at 102 red dwarfs using the European Southern Observatory's 3.6 meter telescope located at La Silla, Chile.
Quoting the article: A total of nine super-Earths - planets with masses between one and 10 times that of Earth - were found. Two were located within the habitable zones of the stars Gliese 581 and Gliese 667 C. end quote.
THe team also discovered that giant planets like Jupiter or Saturn were rare around red dwarfs. Less than 12 percent were expected to have such "gas giants."
ANd now for the most important bit of news from this news article. The science team estimates there are about 100 habitable zone planets within 30 ligh years of Earth.
Check out the link below to view the entire article.
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1. Telegraph.co.uk. "New 'life in space' hope after billions of 'habitable planets' found in Milky Way" by Telegraph writers(unnamed). March 28, 2012. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/9170683/New-life-in-space-hope-after-billions-of-habitable-planets-found-in-Milky-Way.html).
Friday, March 16, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
ICE-T's wife Coco Austin and her horny ghost!
She was molested by a ghost. Ms. Nicole Natalie Marrow (now Austin), born March 17, 1979;is a actress, dancer, glamour model and web personality. She appeared in a March 2008 Playboy layout. She married rapper-actor Tracy "Ice-T" Marrow in Las Vegas in December 2001.The news come from a interview she had on the set of HDNet talk show known as "Naughty But Nice."
Whats more, it was a daytime event, not at night as one would assume such things to happen.
Quote: "I was watching TV, I was sitting on the couch at 11:00 AM and I was wearing a nightie and I felt my dress move up my leg," Coco recalls. "I looked down and got freaked out. I pushed it down, watched TV, felt it again and I could see it being pulled up. And then I felt a guy breathing in my ear." end quote.
This wasn't the only paranormal molestion she suffered. She was visited in the tube and seen them (i.e. ghosts) through her windows.
She is of the opionon that her husband frightened them off, according to the Huffington Post report of this event. The ghostly assaults took place in Albuquerque (New Mexico) to Arizona, but not to New York she told the Huffington Post reporter.
___
Ref.
1. Phantoms and Monsters blog. "Coco says she was molested by a horny ghost" March 11, 2012. (http://naturalplane.blogspot.com/2012/03/esoterica-irish-ghost-train-molested-by.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PhantomsAndMonstersAPersonalJourney+%28Phantoms+and+Monsters%29).
2. Wikipedia-Coco Austin. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_Austin), images came from this website and from this one (http://www.vh1.com/sitewide/flipbooks/img/movies/people/c/coco/75596878_10.jpg).
3. Huffington Post. "Coco Austin Recalls Encounter With Perverted Ghost" by Rob Shuter. March 3, 2012. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/01/coco-austin-perverted-ghost_n_1313423.html).
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
Friendship 7's Flight 50 Years Ago
I would have been 2-3 years old when that happened and this memory just came up while thinking about the true meaning of this post... 50 years ago, one John Glenn Jr. in his capsule, the Friendship 7; soared into history.
Glenn's flight also marked the first time that NASA used the Atlas rocket to launch a manned Mercury capsule.
Only three orbits were made. A decision was made to end the flight sooner rather than later due to the heat shield issue. Glenn survived the successful re-entry by keeping the thruster pack in place - thus hold the heat shield in place. He became a hero at that point and there was no turning back. Politics kept him on the ground after that flight.
Fifty years is a long time. We still have the USAF B-52s and C-130s still flying (aircraft can always be upgraded). As for space, the Atlas has grown into the Atlas V and it too (in a sense, is still flying).
United Launch Alliance is prepping the Atlas V to be able to take three different types of spacecraft up to the International Space Station. Boeing has the CST-100 spacecraft that they are building. Then there is Sierra Nevada Corp's Dream Chaser mini-shuttle that can be stuck on top of a Atlas V.
But, getting back to John Glenn now. He denies it, but the movie and book title "The Right Stuff" is firmly attached to his name for the rest of eternity.
Quoting the NSS blog post: “A true American hero, Glenn ushered in American orbital spaceflight 50 years ago and brought the U.S. into the space age in earnest,” said NSS Executive Director Paul E. Damphousse. “His service to this nation reminds us of the bravery, determination, and excitement needed to achieve these ambitious goals – we hope his example will serve to further motivate our progress in space.” end quote.
Let's also not forget that SENATOR John Glenn also has the record for being the oldest person (so far) to have travel in space. He flew on STS-95 (shuttle Discovery) at the ripe old age of 77 for a nine-day mission.
John Glenn Jr. is a member of the NSS Board of Governors and NSS Executive Director Paul E. Damphousse added this quote: “We expect to build upon his legacy as we advance our goals in space over the next 50 years.” end quote.
___
Ref.
1. SpaceFrontier.org."Friendship 7’s legacy is safe with Commercial Crew" by Space Fontier Foundation. February 20, 2012. ( http://spacefrontier.org/2012/02/20/friendship-7s-legacy/ ).
2. NSS Blog. "NSS Salutes John Glenn on 50th Anniversary of Friendship 7 Space Flight" February 20, 2012. (http://blog.nss.org/?p=3300).
3. image from nasa files of Atlas/Frendship 7 launch. (http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/SMALL/GPN-2000-000686.jpg).
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Orion First Flight to Take Place in Late 2013
Current planning is to launch Orion in late 2013 from KSC (Kennedy Space Center).
Lockheed Martin also planning on increasing its work force from the current 150 to 400 by the end of 2013.
___
Ref.
1. Florida Today. "Lockheed Martin targets 2013 for first Orion test flight" by Todd Halvorsan. February 18, 2012. ( http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20120217/SPACE/120217017/Lockheed-Martin-targets-2013-first-Orion-test-flight?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Home ).
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Susan Katz Keating: Year of the Keel-Haul, Extended-V: Is the Cowpens ...
Susan Katz Keating: Year of the Keel-Haul, Extended-V: Is the Cowpens ...: Holly? I thought you were.... gone! What is going on with the USS Cowpens ? Is the ship jinxed, or what?
Monday, February 13, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
Turn ANY RC model Airplane into a Drone!
You want to have your own fully-autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for under $500 bucks?
Check out this blog posting on diydrones.com entitled "Arduplane" that was posted by Chris Anderson back in 2010.
You basically add the ArduPilot Mega autopilot module (looks like another receiver to me) and hook it up with your radio control model airplane (or car, helicopter, boat, tank, etc) and you now have a fully-programmable robot with ground station and Mission Planner.
You can have unlimited 3d GPS waypoints, built-in camera control. One-click software load and point-and-click Mission Planner software. You have to do NO programming on your own to operate this.
Record your "missions" for future playback back at headquaters. Controlling the drone you have two options: fly with your transmitter's joystick or gamepad through your PC for no RC control at all!
Best feature of all is a built-in failsafe that will bring your aircraft back home in case of radio loss.
ArduPilot Mega (APM) is all Open Source.
The one thing you do need to get started is a minium of a 5-channel RC transmitter and airplane. A mini USB cable. And be willing to do your own soldering with your soldering iron.
The blog posting that I got this information has the particulars and nuts-and-bolts information for the system. You can order and also download the manuals from that webpage.
Now, FPV (First Person View) is something real neet. Its like your in the cockpit of full scale airplane. It is technically a UAV. But you must still be within range of the model to be able to uplink/downlink with the model. The really BASIC version of FPV is just sticking a video camera on the airplane and flying it around. Then watch the results when you get home that night.
But this thing, the ArduPilot Mega (APM) appears to be a game changer. Especially if some of my flying buddies can get their mitts on some for themselves.
The biggest concern is someone (i.e. a Terrorist) will use this for a small scale terror attacks. And with recent developments with mini-drones that can fly as 'one,' that threat will keep on growing. Be it from Terrorists or a Oppressive government tyring to control its citizens on the cheap.
The Gee-Wizz factor on the other hand is nice. When I got into this hobby (RC model airplanes), I overheard some of the older club members talk about flying their models "cross-country." That sounded really neet to me. Sitting in the back of a pickup truck as you go down the backroads flying your model and then coming in for a landing to refill your fuel tank to go on the next leg of your cross-country flight.
With this thing (ArduPilot Mega), you could program a cross-country flight and have the video downlink to your ground station as your model airplane flies over the "checkpoints." I would love to see a scale model or warbird event done this way!
I don't think we'll see it however due to the badguys out there wanting to harm us. Too bad. I was wanting to do this with either my PC-9 from Seagull models or my original P-51D from Hangar 9 (Horizon Hobbies).
___
Ref.
1. diydrones.com. "Arduplane" by Chris Anderson. May 1, 2010. ( http://www.diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/ardupilot-mega-home-page ).
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Possible UFO Escorted by Military Helicopters
On the night on January 27, 2012; a flight of five or six military helicopters flew right over my property with their formation lights on. I live on the northwest side of Lubbock, Texas. Just outside the city limits.
Between the last two ships in the formation was a tiny red ball of light. If the helicopters were 2000 feet AGL, I am guessing that the light was smaller than a basketball.
The MOST likely answer is a helicopter had a forward formation light that was no longer working. Second most likely answer was this helicopter flight was excorting a drone from one base to another base.
Then the third option is a UFO that was being escorted. Now, whether that UFO was a alien spacecraft or some new high tech gimzo that the US military has cooked up, I don't know.
I know some of my friends posted online their experience and I am asking them to go ahead and post their observations in the comments field below.
UPDATE. January 30, 2012: Received permission from Phillip Johnson to use his full name below. I have corrected some misspell words that were in the messages.
First email sent out to USS Lonestar shiplist was by Phillip Johnston. (Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 9:16 PM. With subject line: "Interest thing i saw").
At about 8:30 pm Jan 27 I was in my back yard and could hear a helicopter like sound.
After a few minutes i seem to be able to detect which way it was coming from.
It was coming from the west . It first traveled to the south then it began to go east.
It went right over Levelland. What I could see was three lights the one in the rear and lower was flashing. The two in the front were just red lights . There was no white light or directional colored lights on the ships. As they came closer I could tell that the ones in front were towing or leading the one in back. The one in the rear seemed to stay behind but in between at the same distanced the whole time I was able to observe them. as they passed my position.
The two in front now seemed to display a single white light to the rear , not blinking. Using binoculars I could not get a better ID of the object in the back. It just blinked with a very bright red light which was visible the entire time I viewed it. I really wish it were day light. I think they didn't want anyone to identify what was being pulled across the sky. -- Phillip Johnston. January 27, 2012.
Next witness to reply to Phillip Johnston post was Alice C. (Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 9:16 AM).
Interesting! Last night Darrell and I were at the drive-in. During the first show, we observed a very bright elongated light in the northern sky. After a little speculation, we decided that it must be a very close satellite. We went to the bathroom after the first show.
When we returned the moon was a sliver in the exact spot where the light had been. It was not as bright as the original light which we never saw again. Maybe it was the moon from the start, but we really couldn't see how that was so. Possibly the moon light was obscuring it? When the moon disappeared behind clouds, the light was not there either.
About an hour later we saw what appeared to be five helicopters flying in formation that changed to an almost straight line flying from the southwest to the northeast. They flew directly over us. They had very bright front white lights and red rear lights. The last one seemed to be towing something because it had a second red light was too far behind it to be its tail. Curious, We both thought that it was a rather odd evening in the sky.
Next was my initial response. (Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 10:32 AM).
Hey guys
I too have a IFO/UFO report to put forward here. I saw the same 5-6 helicopters flying one behind the other. between the last two helios was a tiny red light, no other formation lights on it like the other helicopters. In other words, it appeared to be the size of a basketball (at the most-more likely as small as a baseball). I thought that it might be a drone that they were escorting in flight. There was no way I could ignore the sound of those heavy helicopters as they flew right over my property at about 1000 to 2000 feet altitude (I'm guessing at that).
Then my follow-up posting at (Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 10:45 AM).
OK folks-
Since we have three individual groups that spotted this, I have put up a quick posting on my blog ( http://aerospacedreams.blogspot.com/2012/01/possible-ufo-escorted-by-military.html ). I am requesting that everyone copy and paste their ship list posting to the comments section for this blog posting. If you want to block your name out and just post anonymous, go ahead and do so. Maybe just type your first initial only of your given name in the body of your message.
End of update.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Newt Gingrich's January 25, 2012 Space Policy Speech transcript.
The National Space Society posted on their blog the entire transcript of Newt Gingrich January 25 Space Policy Speech in Cocoa, Florida.
On my other blog (the Shanks Dimension), I focus mostly on Newt Gingrich's actions of saying he was a supporter of President Ronald Reagan. But now, too many people are coming out of the woodwork that he was not THAT big a supporter of President Ronald Reagan after all. The link to that article is in the Ref section below.
Transcript of Newt Gingrich January 25 Space Policy Speech
Newt Gingrich Town Hall Meeting on Space Policy, January 25, 2012, Cocoa, Florida. Video of speech at http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/SpacePolic
What I’d like to do is a little different than most of the gatherings like this that we’ve done, and I’d like to use this as an opportunity to talk in a serious way about space and about how we reorganize what we’re doing and what we think about what we’re doing.
Now, I have a deep passion about this because I’m old enough that I used to read Missiles and Rockets magazine back in the – a couple of you are old enough to know what I’m talking about here – I’m talking about late 1950s, right? – before it merged with Aviation Week. And I was right at the right point as a youngster to be totally fascinated with Sputnik and I had been reading science fiction and Isaac Asimov in particular and it helped shape my life, so I come at space from the standpoint of romantic belief that it really is part of our destiny, and it has been tragic to see what has happened to our space program over the last 30 years [applause].
I actually wrote a section of a book called Windows of Opportunity in 1984 talking about what we could have done. We’ve had Bob Walker, who was chairman of the Science and Technology Committee and later on headed up the Walker Commission on Aerospace – he was with me in the early 1980s and we interviewed young NASA scientists and so I wrote a chapter in Windows of Opportunity about what would have happened if we had sustained the momentum of Apollo, and by the 1980s we would have had a permanent base on the Moon and we would have been on Mars. Just go back and look at the extraordinary trajectory.
I want to start, and because I used to be a history teacher, I want to put this in context, and what I want to talk to you about today is going to be very, very bold, and it’s going to be very different, and it’s going to make, frankly, some of the NASA bureaucracy uncomfortable, and there are going to be people in Washington who are going to say “Oh, my gosh – what if we are going to be flying rather than studying?” What if you were actually just getting things done instead of just having planning meetings? It will be a frightening change in the current pattern.
But let me put it in context, and I want to use three examples, the third of which is obvious and that’s John F. Kennedy. The first, though, is Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln in 1859 stands on the banks of the Missouri River at Council Bluffs, Iowa, and says we should build a Transcontinental Railroad. Now at the time that he says this we do not have the steel-making capacity to build the rails to get to California, and we do not have an engine powerful enough to get across the Sierra Nevadas.
In 1869 the railroad is completed.
Lincoln, however, is a fascinating study in the American passion for technology and progress. In 1832, as a very young man of 23, he runs for the state legislature for the first time. Part of his platform is to build a railroad in Illinois. Now, what makes this amazing is that the first railroad, the Rocket, built by Stephenson in Great Britain, was in 1829. The first railroad engine to reach the United States was in 1831. Lincoln has never seen a train. But he has read about it and he has imagination and he knows the prairie is long and he knows that a train would be better than walking. And he is campaigning in 1832 on an idea, the idea of progress, and I want to give you a few Lincolnian visions on space in here.
Second, the Wright Brothers. This is my core critique of NASA, and frankly of all government science in its current form, with the possible exception of DARPA. In the late 19th Century people were sort of right at the edge of flight. They kind of almost knew how to do it, they almost had the right engines, they were all looking at birds, and there were two parallel American projects that are fascinating.
The Smithsonian, arguably at that time the greatest scientific institution in the country, had a $50,000 grant from Congress to learn how to fly. And the Smithsonian had very smart scientists and they had connections to the best scientists in Germany and the best technicians and the best metallurgists, so they could order a really cool engine.
Meanwhile, in Dayton, Ohio, there were two brothers who ran a bicycle shop. Now, bicycles in the 1890s were a high-end technology. They actually merited a discussion in the census report of 1890 on the fact that bicycles were widespread and were allowing teenagers to escape from their parents and there were many sociological side effects from this new revolution.
So the Wright Brothers are here and in their spare time they are fascinated with flight. They actually build a wind tunnel. These are not unsophisticated people. They build a wind tunnel, they study birds, they go to the U.S. Government for important weather information. Where is the most continuous updraft in the United States? Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. It comes off the ocean, comes up the hill.
So the Wright Brothers for several years go down to Kitty Hawk every summer, and they take a lot of wood. Now, the reason they take a lot of wood is they know something very profound: They don’t know how to fly! It may seem obvious, but trust me, most government planners don’t get this [laughter and applause].
So what do the Wright Brothers do? They get up in the morning, they have built a very light plane with a very weak engine, and it’s going to start at the top of the hill and it’s going to go downhill, it’s going to have an updraft, and it crashes. They average six or seven crashes a day. And they stop and they fix it and they think about it and they talk about it, have some more coffee, and they try it again. This would go on for several years.
Finally in December of 1903, they have the first powered flight in history. One brother runs alongside the plane to make sure it doesn’t flip over; it doesn’t fly fast enough to get ahead of him. The entire first flight is shorter than the wingspan of a Boeing 747, and it never gets high enough to get over the fuselage of a 747. Small article in AP, December 7, 1903.
In 1907, they made enough progress that they fly around the island of Manhattan and a million and a half people see an airplane for the first time. Four years. Because they figured out the core thing, which is how to fly.
Now, by contrast, the Smithsonian, being a large government establishment of great prestige, with too much money, orders from Germany a really cool engine. Now, there is a problem with a really cool engine. It’s heavy. And if you have a heavy engine you have to build a heavy plane. And if you have a heavy engine and a heavy plane and you’re a Washington bureaucrat, you don’t want to go to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, which was nowhere. Kitty Hawk was so isolated that these guys were living in a tent.
And so, you say, “How am I going to get wind?” and you invest in something that we still use today – a catapult, on a boat – the precursor of the modern aircraft carrier. And you put it in the Potomac. You’re going to launch it off a boat because you’re smart and you have a theoretical study. And you invite the news media to come and watch your very first test [laughter] – you all probably know where this is going, right? – so, they get out there in the morning, the mist comes off the river, they launch the plane, and it goes straight into the water. Now, here’s the problem: When you have a plane land on ground it’s fairly easy to recover. When you have a plane that is heavier than water land in the Potomac River, it goes down, the current tears it up, and you have no idea what was wrong. It’s a one-time perfection problem.
Now the Smithsonian is deeply embarrassed because they look like fools, and then they get this Associated Press report that two bicycle mechanics have flown. The Smithsonian hostility to the Wright Brothers was so great that the Wright Brothers would not give them the original airplane for 37 years, because bureaucracies hate things that aren’t invented in the bureaucracy. There may be a lesson here for people in NASA and the Air Force.
Okay, I’m coming around here, bear with me. Third example. May 1961. And this is the model for what I am about to talk to you about.
May 1961. John F. Kennedy, representing a new generation, having taken power from Dwight David Eisenhower, launching a new sense of a new frontier, announces to the Congress we will go to the Moon before the end of the decade.
We did a movie called A City upon a Hill and we had Buzz Aldrin in the movie, and he is so convincing, and he said you have to realize the only person who had gone around the Earth at that point was Yuri Gagarin, a Russian, and the only American who had been in space had been on a suborbital flight. And here’s the President saying we will get to the Moon inside this decade. And you had to invent everything. Yeah, we had all the precursors and we had the V-2 and we had this and we had that, but the truth was if you listed every problem they solved by July of 1969, its one of the great periods of development in human history. And they just did it.
I’m giving this background for our friends in the news media because twice recently Governor Romney has made fun of me for having bold ideas in space and has suggested that the idea of having a permanent lunar colony – he actually didn’t catch the weirdest thing I’ve ever done and I’m going to tell you all because sooner or later his researchers will find it – at one point early in my career I introduced the Northwest Ordinance for Space, and I said when we get – I think the number was 13,000 – when we have 13,000 Americans living on the Moon they can petition to become a state [laughter and applause].
And here’s the difference between romantics and so-called practical people. I wanted every young American to say to themselves: I could be one of those 13,000. I could be a pioneer. I need to study science and math and engineering. I need to learn how to be a technician. I can be part of building a bigger, better future. I can actually go out and live the future looking at the solar system and being part of a generation of courageous people who do something big and bold and heroic.
And I will as President encourage the introduction for the Northwest Ordinance for Space to put a marker down that we want Americans to think boldly about the future and we want Americans to go out and study hard and work hard, and together we are going to unleash the American people to rebuild the country we love [applause].
So, I’m going to give you a set of goals and then I’m going to make a set of observations about how to achieve those goals.
By the end of my second term we will have the first permanent base on the Moon, and it will be American [applause].
[A time frame is all well and good. But we have been given many different "time frames" before by the current administration and previous one. If Newt does get into office, we are going to have to see how he can meet this goal and will Congress (and more importantly, the American people) back him up on it.]
We will have commercial near-Earth activities that include science, tourism, and manufacturing, and are designed to create a robust industry precisely on the model that was developed by the airlines in the 1930s, because it is in our interest to acquire so much experience in space that we clearly have a capacity that the Chinese and the Russians will never come anywhere close to matching [applause].
And by the end of 2020 we will have the first continuous propulsion system in space capable of getting to Mars in a remarkably short time, because I am sick of being told we have to be timid, and I’m sick of being told we have to be limited to technologies that are 50 years old [applause].
Candidly, if we truly inspire the entrepreneurial spirits of America, we may get some of this stuff a lot faster. Now, I’m going to make some modest observations and some big observations.
Modest Observation Number 1: We should be practical about using equipment. That is, for example, the Atlas 5 ought to be interchangeable and ought to be as usable for NASA projects as it is for Air Force projects. We should get in the habit of absorbing small units of space. You know, it’s very difficult right now to get the bureaucracy to think about the fact that somebody is about to launch a commercial launch and it actually has a little extra space for 40 pounds, but that doesn’t fit either the NASA or the military model. When we fly troops around we normally fly them on commercial airliners with other people. So we’re used to the idea that you can share space. You can send things that don’t have to be a military-only aircraft, or a NASA-only aircraft. I just suspect that even the NASA administrators actually fly on commercial planes with other people. So I want to know if we break down all the bureaucratic barriers and we go to what I want to call a common sense model: If it’s cheaper, faster, and it works – do it! [applause].
Second: We need to learn how to do five or eight launches a day, not one. We need to get in the habit of saying: You know, this is going to be like an airport. We are going to be so busy – you know, if we are going to be getting to the Moon permanently and be starting to get to Mars and build this near-Earth capability, and do it all within eight years, we better start thinking more like airports than like space systems.
And we better start figuring out – so how are we going to manage this many things? It’s not that we can’t do it, it’s just that we just don’t push ourselves, we don’t think about it, we don’t design the systems for it. But I want constant activity. There’s a reason. The World War II generation built tons of airplanes, so the designers that came out of World War II made lots of mistakes. And they learned from them. If you are a military aircraft designer today, you are lucky if you work on more than one airplane in your lifetime. That’s how slow and cumbersome and bureaucratic we’ve become. You don’t have any learning curve.
[This part is very important I think. There is no risk, but no inspiration either with current defense aerospace projects that take decades to produce a fighter jet that is out of date by the time the prototype takes flight. i.e. the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter project. Maybe an even better illustration is the USAF tanker replacement boondoggle.]
I want us to have so much constant energetic, excited activities that people are learning again. And that we’re drawing the best talent in the country back to the Space Coast because it’s exciting and it’s dynamic and who knows what next week is going to be like. And does that mean I’m a visionary? You betcha! [applause].
You know, I was attacked the other night for being grandiose. I just want you to know: Lincoln standing at Council Bluffs was grandiose. The Wright Brothers going down to Kitty Hawk was grandiose. John F. Kennedy standing there saying we’ll get to the Moon in eight years was grandiose. I accept the charge that I am an American and Americans are instinctively grandiose because they believe in a bigger future [applause].
Now just a couple more core observations. I want you to understand where I’m coming from. I very much believe in a project you can Google called Strong America Now, which is an effort to develop “Lean Six Sigma” for the Federal Government. I believe we’ve got to become agile, lean, competent, constantly evolving, and that means replacing the civil service laws that are 130 years old with a totally new practical management system that comes much closer to the way Boeing is doing the Dreamliner. Callista and I went down to Boeing outside of Charleston and they were walking us through – I don’t know how many of you know this, but this is just an example – The Dreamliner is built in Italy, Wichita, Japan, and Korea, and it’s flown in in units that are then brought together at Charleston. And they are walking around and they said this particular work area currently takes sixteen days – our goal is to get it down to six with the same number of people.
And I looked at that and I thought to myself – Department of Housing and Urban Development [laughter]. But let’s be honest, I could have said Air Force Space Command, I could have said NASA. I mean we want to become lean and aggressive, and here’s my bias: They told me in the Corps of Engineers that in order to improve the Port of Charleston so they could receive ships that are starting to come through the Panama Canal in 2014 when they finish widening it, that to do the study of the project takes eight years. Not the project – the study! And I said to them: you know we fought the 2nd World War in three years and eight months, so we beat Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan, in 44 months.
[This kinda goes inline with what I said above as far as the F-35/USAF tanker project goes. We can fight a world war in four plus years, but to dredge a harbor for bigger ships, the study alone takes EIGHT YEARS? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot to that I say!]
Now I want to imprint this on you because if I become your President…you will have a 365 day a year relentless pressure to be faster, quicker, leaner, more innovative, more thoughtful, more daring, more visionary.
So let’s go back to how to do it. I would want 10% of the NASA budget set aside for prize money. Lindberg flies to Paris for $25,000. You set up prizes – for example, I forget what the Bush administration estimate was, but it was something like $450 billion to get to Mars with a manned mission. So let’s put up $10 billion. And if somebody figures it out, we save $440 billion. If they don’t figure it out, it didn’t cost us anything.
But you’ll have for $10 billion – and I’d make it tax free because Americans love things tax free so much. It’s not the monetary value, it’s the psychic thrill that Uncle doesn’t get any of it. And this is why you are going to have to learn to have a lot more launches every day because if we put up the right prizes – and Bob Walker and I, shortly before I left Congress, actually hosted a two-day National Academy of Engineering Workshop on prizes, which is online, as it was published, and we were talking about the historic use of prizes going back to the 17th Century. You put up a bunch of interesting prizes, you are going to have so many people showing up who want to fly, it’s going to be unbelievable.
So the model I want us to build is largely the model of the 20s and 30s, when the government was actively encouraging development, but the government wasn’t doing it. The government was paying a reward, it was subsidizing the airmail, it was doing a variety of things. There were prizes – you know, Jimmy Doolittle got famous winning prize money before World War II, then he got famous for bombing Tokyo; I mean, he had a life that was very interesting.
We had enormous breakthroughs in aviation in the 20s and 30s at very little cost to the government because lots of smart people did it. This is my closing bias – I just want to share it with you. I want people cutting metal, or nowadays I guess you would say creating various synthetics; I mean the Dreamliner is a composite aircraft, so I want people pouring composite. Is that a more accurate way to think of it now? Actually, they wrap it. It comes in a – it’s very strange – for a guy my age, I’m going to fly in it? – although it is apparently stronger than aluminum, and more durable.
But here’s the point: We’d be better off to do 1% of the current studies and ten times the number of experiments just flying. If it doesn’t work we’ll walk off saying, well, that was kind of interesting. There is a great story of Bernie Shriver, who had been the great leader of Air Force ICBM development, calling his successor, and his said: “You know, you’ve had 17 successful launches,” and the guy said – he was very proud – “You’re right.” And he [Bernie] said: “You’re not trying, because if you had been trying you would have inevitably made mistakes. You’re only doing stuff that’s safe, what you already know how to do.”
So I came here today to ask you, because you’re here, and you know people all over the country who believe in space, you know how exciting it can be at its best, you know what a total mess, what an embarrassment our current situation is. How can we build a bureaucracy this big and get into a period when we rely on the Russians, while we watch the Chinese plan to surpass us, and we sit around bureaucratically twiddling our thumbs with no real reform? [applause].
I want you to help me both in Florida and across the country so that you can someday say you were here the day it was announced that of course we’d have commercial space in near-space, that of course we’d have a manned colony on the Moon that flew an American flag, and of course we’d be moving towards Mars by the end of the next decade. After all, we are Americans and you were there at the beginning of the second great launch of the adventure that John F. Kennedy started.
Thank you. end transcript of Newt Gingrich.
For the most part, this blogger likes what he has seen in this transcript. Getting funding for "5 to 8" rocket launches a day I just don't see happening in our current finicial hard times. Prize money to get civilian/commercial operators to go in stages until eventually, there is a functional moon base on the moon is what alot of true believers have been thinking about for the past several years.
Personally, I think the number of people living in a lunar colony before it becomes a "state" should be higher than 13,000 people. I'm thinking maybe 30 to 40,000 people before it can happen. Plus, Newt didn't cover this in his speech, but eventually we should look at huge O'Neill class space colonies. Could each one of those with populations of 100-200,000 eventually become individual states themselves?
Letting the civilian sector come up with the technology to get us to the moon and Mars quicker than what we could do back in "Apollo" times is a great idea.
My concern is what the other politicians (namely Governor Mitt Romney) have for their space policy. I for one think that they will fall short of Newt Gingrich's version.
___
Ref.
1. National space Society Blog. "Transcript of Newt Gingrich January 25 Space Policy Speech Newt Gingrich Town Hall Meeting on Space Policy, January 25, 2012, Cocoa, Florida" January 26, 2012. ( http://blog.nss.org/?p=3242 ). Transcript of 25-minute speech, courtesy of National Space Society [PDF version].
2. The Shanks Dimension blog. "Reagan and Gingrich – Newt Not The Supporter He Claims to be of Reagan!" by Don W. Shanks. January 25, 2012. (http://www.theshanksdimension.com/2012/01/reagan-and-gingrich-newt-not-the-supporter-he-claims-to-be-of-reagan/).
Monday, January 23, 2012
Life on Venus?
There was a recent review of photographs from the Russian Venus-13 probe that landed on the planet Venus in 1982.
One scientist, Leonid Ksanfomaliti, of the Space Research Institute of Russia's Academy of Sciences; published an article in the Solar System Research magazine recently.
In this article that the Times of India posted online, Ksanfomaliti states that there were several objects that quote, "emerge, fluctuate and disappear." Those objects being such things which resembled a "disk", a "black flap", and a "scorpion".
There have been no data proving the existence of life on the planet Venus. Ground temperatures reach up to 464 degrees Celsius.
Quoting Ksanfomaliti, "What if we forget about the current theories about the non-existence of life on Venus, let's boldly suggest that the objects' morphological features would allow us to say that they are living." end quote.
Is this a precusor for Russia to send more probes back to Venus? To this blogger, Russia seems to have better luck sending probes to Venus than they do to Mars.
___
Ref.
1. Times of India. "Life spotted on Venus: Russian scientist" by . January 21, 2012. ( http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-01-21/science/30650231_1_venus-mission-russian-scientist-landing ).
2. ( http://en.ria.ru/science/20120120/170865269.html ).
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Shag Harbour, Pan Am UFO Connection
There was a recent article by Alexandra Holzer in the Huffington Post that connected the supposed UFO crash in Shag Harbour and a Pan Am Boeing 707 cargo jet flying out of New York to London.
Pan American World Airways pilot Captain Ralph Loewinger and his flight crew: co-pilot Captain Curt Olsen and flight engineer Mike Littlepage; plus there was another pilot and navigator that was with them on this trip. The Pan Am flight crew did not file a UFO report of the incident that took place on October 3, 1967. They were in contact with the Boston air traffic control center at the time of the encounter. Boston Center confirmed that there was no other traffic near the Beoing 707 at that time.
The Boeing 707 cargo aircraft was approaching Yarmouth, Nova Scotia at 33,000 feet when they spotted the UFO. Ralph Loewinger stated that the evening was quote: "clear, moonless and the lights of the south coast were plainly in view" end quote. The unknown "Lights" was at their eleven o'clock high position relative to their aircraft.
Both pilots kept their hands on the control yokes in case there was a chance to avoid a collision if need to.
On his return flight, Ralph Loewinger was listening to a Canadian radio station while the news announcer reproted that quote, "the RCMP had discontinued search operations for 'strange light formations reproted falling into the sea near Yarmouth." end quote.
This would appear to connect the Shag Harbour UFO with another group of witnesses. On the ground, the UFO that was seen by about 70 people from different vantage points disappeared underwater in Shag Harbour.
The seabed there has been checked over several times for unusual depressions. But it looks like that someone swept up the sea flood neatly leaving behind no clues. There was a History Channel program that focus on the Shag Harbour incident entitled "Deep Sea UFOs" that was aired on January 23, 2006. Ms. Holzer asked Captain Ralph Loewinger if he had seen this program and he confirmed that he did watch that show.
___
Ref.
1. Huffington Post. "UFO Dances With Airplane" by Alexandra Holzer. January 20, 2012. ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alexandra-holzer/ufo-dances-with-airplane-_b_1213784.html ).
2. image of Pan Am 707 comes from following website ( http://www.aviationexplorer.com/Various_Aircraft/Pan_Am_Boeing_707.jpg ).
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Monday, January 9, 2012
SPACE POLICY AND THE CONSTITUTION #6
SPACE POLICY AND THE CONSTITUTION
America’s eroding geopolitical stature, highlighted by the July 21, 2011, end to flights of the United States Space Shuttle, has reached crisis proportions. Obama Administration officials now spin the nebulous thought of Astronauts flying many months to an undetermined asteroid in 2025 as an actual “National Space Policy”. On the other hand, Republican candidates for President have not yet recognized the importance of international civil space competition in the federal government’s constitutional function to provide for the nation’s “common defence”. Candidates appear to be uninterested in having the United States lead deep space exploration, including the establishment of American settlements on the Moon; or may actually consider Obama’s unfocused proposals as being credible rather than realizing that those proposals would transfer geopolitical dominance to China and control of American space transport to Russia.
Although the Bush Administration and Congress did not follow through with adequate funding, at least the 2004 Vision for Space Exploration put forth by President Bush and approved by Congress was a legitimate formulation of a National Space Policy. It implicitly recognized that America’s best security interests would not be served by being dependent on Russia for access to space or by ceding to China both deep space exploration and access to space resources. Unfortunately, with the acquiescence of Congress in 2010, President Obama cancelled what had become known as NASA’s Constellation Program – a program designed to maintain and expand America’s hard-won position as the world’s leading space-faring nation. Meanwhile, China is building a major new deep space launch facility in Hainan and developing new rockets and spacecraft to take over the exploration of the Moon from the United States and the free world.
A properly funded Constellation Program, would have returned Americans and their partners to the Moon, begun creation of the infrastructure and operational capabilities to settle there and go to Mars and beyond, and provided a timely replacement for the aging Space Shuttle. Assuming that the Obama Administration actually requests authorization and budget authority to implement a human mission to a near-Earth asteroid (NEO), including the required heavy lift rockets, specialized spacecraft, operational infrastructure, and hiring authority, how would such a mission stack up relative to returning to the Moon?
For the rest of the article, click on the blue link above.
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