Rocket power

The launch of NASA's Orion Spacecraft has had idiots saying how this was launched by the most powerful ever rocket. 

Hmmmm.......

This Delta IV is configured with three massive liquid-fuel rocket engines in a row.  Each of the three rocket engines produces 702,000 pounds of thrust, which means this vehicle has 51 million horsepower to get the craft into space.

The first stage of the Saturn 5 that powered the Apollo Spacecraft had five bell-shaped F-1 engines which each weighed over nine tons and generated 1.5 million pounds of thrust.

So each Delta IV engine produces less than half the power of each Saturn 5 engine. Also there are just three engines per Delta IV, but there were five engines per Saturn 5.

I make that a total of just over 2.1 million pounds of thrust from a Delta IV but around 7.5 million pounds of thrust from a Saturn 5.

If you want to watch the lunar eclipse, you can here...

http://m.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc

Courtesy of NASA and Ustream... Quite magnificent.

Space related news

Scott Carpenter, one of the original seven NASA astronauts and the second American to orbit Earth, has died, according to NASA. He was 88.


If you want to see a good basic programme about the history of space flight, particularly strong on events leading to Apollo 11 moon landing, then the BBC's Horizon programme presented by Dr. Brian Cox was rather good last night.

Man Made Climate Change - a discrepancy in presentation of the facts

Whilst it is reported that 'NASA Targets Children with ‘Climate Kids’ Website', a website that states as fact that 'The planet is warming up fast--faster than at any time scientists know about from their studies of Earth's entire history.' - something that is demostrably untrue - but also that 'Scientists have discovered that humans are causing this warming', really? Is this proven? ClimateQuotes has some more analysis of the NASA site and some facscinating comments that deserve wide readership.

Meanwhile Climate Realists report verbatim from a report by Dr. Don Easterbrook from SPPI that:

'Temperature changes recorded in the GISP2 ice core from the Greenland Ice Sheet show that the global warming experienced during the past century pales into insignificance when compared to the magnitude of profound climate reversals over the past 25,000 years.

SIGNIFICANCE OF PREVIOUS GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGES

If CO2 is indeed the cause of global warming, then global temperatures should mirror the rise in CO2. For the past 1000 years, atmospheric CO2 levels remained fairly constant at about 280 ppm (parts per million). Atmospheric CO2 concentrations began to rise during the industrial revolution early in the 20th century but did not exceed about 300 ppm. The climatic warming that occurred between about 1915 and 1945 was not accompanied by significant rise in CO2. In 1945, CO2 emission began to rise sharply and by 1980 atmospheric CO2 had risen to just under 340 ppm. During this time, however, global temperatures fell about 0.9°F (0.5° C) in the Northern Hemisphere and about 0.4°F (0.2° C) globally. Global temperatures suddenly reversed during the Great Climate Shift of 1977 when the Pacific Ocean switched from its cool mode to its warm mode with no change in the rate of CO2 increase. The 1977–1998 warm cycle ended in 1999 and a new cool cycle began. If CO2 is the cause of global warming, why did temperatures rise for 30 years (1915-1945) with no significant increase in CO2? Why did temperatures fall for 30 years (1945-1977) while CO2 was sharply accelerating? Logic dictates that this anomalous cooling cycle during accelerating CO2 levels must mean either (1) rising CO2 is not the cause of global warming or (2) some process other than rising CO2 is capable of strongly overriding its effect on global atmospheric warming.'

I look forward to NASA's apology for producing such misleading information, but I fear I will wait in vain.

What happens to a Space Shuttle booster rocket when it detaches from the Space Shuttle

An incredible piece of NASA film. The booster separates at 1:50, you can see the other booster as well, the fall to earth, the parachute deployment and landing in the ocean... what a ride!


Thanks to Boing Boing for the spot.

Priorities?

I read that:

'NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent interview that his "foremost" mission as the head of America's space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.

Though international diplomacy would seem well outside NASA's orbit, Bolden said in an interview with Al Jazeera that strengthening those ties was among the top tasks President Obama assigned him. He said better interaction with the Muslim world would ultimately advance space travel.

"When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering," Bolden said in the interview.'

I am not sure how improving relations with the Muslim world will help NASA fulfil its mission statement to "pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research." maybe Charles Bolden or someone else at NASA could explain.could explain

The International Space Station

That's the Japanese Kibo complex of the International Space Station pictured.

For more take a read of The Mail or NASA.

Is there life on Mars?

No there isn't but there is a piece of human technology, watch and listen here at NASA's website that has so much of interest to read and watch. For some Apollo 11 images take a look here, the real story of Apollo 13 here and the story of the first American in space, Alan Shepard here and here.