Space, Technology and Society

A Successful Test Jump

22 Comments

From over seventy-thousand feet:

Baumgartner is gearing up for an even bigger leap — his so-called “space jump” — from 120,000 feet (36,576 m) this summer. The current record for highest-altitude skydive is 102,800 feet (31,333 m), set in 1960 by U.S. Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger.

Baumgartner hopes his attempt will also set several other marks. He is chasing the record for longest freefall (estimated to be about 5 minutes and 30 seconds from 120,000 feet), and he hopes to become the first person to break the speed of sound during freefall.

At some point, this raises the question: at what point does a space suit become a very small, tight-fitting supersonic aircraft?

Another question. If someone wanted to try this from (say) an Armadillo vehicle, would the expectations of safety during ascent be the same as (again, say) someone doing a research experiment? Or someone who just wanted to enjoy the view?

Business, Economics, History, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Don’t Know Much About History

37 Comments

In attacking his critics as “flat earthers,” Obama screws up.

Yes, people who, unlike him, actually understand the math and physics (and business prospects) of alternative and conventional energy are “flat earthers.”  Once again, the man is impervious to irony.  And how insufferable this kind of thing is.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Heh: “Obama in Tucson & today: “Make sure we talk with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds, you Flat-earthers.”

[Update a few minutes later]

Where Obama gets his history.

Doesn’t explain the Rutherford B. Hayes slander though. And against a man who was wounded four times freeing Obama’s ancestors. Wait, what?

[Update a while later]

Don’t know much about energy, either. The US has sixty times as much oil as Obama claims.

It’s almost as though he just makes stuff up.

[Update mid afternoon]

#BarackObamasPresidentialFacts:

“Purple Hayes” was the first Jim Hendrix song about a president.

They’re hilarious. I think I’ll steal MfK’s from comments and add it to the mix.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Un-Manned

1 Comment

The Journal takes on the Jerry Sandusky of climate science:

…for all his caviling about “smear campaigns,” “conspiracy theorists” and “character assassination,” Mr. Mann is happy to employ similar tactics against his opponents. Patrick Michaels, former president of the American Association of State Climatologists and a past program chair of the American Meteorological Society’s Committee on Applied Climatology, is introduced as “a prominent climate change contrarian at the University of Virginia primarily known for his advocacy for the fossil fuel industry.” (Nowhere does Mr. Mann explain why a scientist might be more easily corrupted by a check from, say, a coal company than by one from a politically controlled institution.)

Instead of molesting children, though, he molests the data and his critics.  But unlike Sandusky, Penn State continues to whitewash it.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!