Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Environment

Hauling Ass – er – Asteroid, that is

From SPACE.com — Gravity-Powered Asteroid Tractor Proposed to Thwart Impact:

A concept spacecraft could use gravity to tow asteroids away from a collision course with earth. Credit: Dan Durda – FIAAA / B612 Foundation.

An asteroid the size of two football fields could wipe out a large city or set off a series of tsunamis across the world. The threat of such an Earth-smashing asteroid has lead scientists to dream up several methods of defending the planet against such a catastrophe.

Solutions have ranged from pushing the asteroid with a spacecraft to mounting a thruster on its surface. But pushing it would require too much fuel and could break up the asteroid. Also, asteroids rotate, which could complicate the firing of a surface thruster.

Now, two NASA astronauts have presented a plan for an “asteroid tractor”—an unmanned, 20-ton spacecraft that uses the invisible bond of gravity to gently pull an asteroid into a new, non-threatening orbit.

Read more.

Related item: check out my Space Rocks animation.

UPDATE: The Space Tractor is featured on today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day.

10 Nov 2005 by Aerospace Environment Rocket Science Space Rocks

The Sky is Falling!

You may have noticed some fireballs overhead the last few nights. It’s the annual Taurids meteor shower, seen as the Earth passes through the orbit of Comet Encke. This from SpaceWeather.com:

FIREBALL SIGHTINGS: In recent nights, sky watchers have seen some spectacular fireballs. Experts suspect it’s the Taurid meteor shower, a display caused by debris from Comet Encke.
Photo: a Taurid fireball photographed by Hiroyuki Iida of Toyama, Japan on Oct. 28th.

Most years the Taurid shower is weak, producing few meteors, mostly dim. 2005 appears to be different. Earth may be passing through a “swarm” of pebbles and rocks within the larger cloud of Taurid space dust. The pebbles are responsible for the fireballs.

The 2005 Taurid meteor shower is not over. Indeed, it’s just beginning. Forecasters expect the complex shower to peak during the first two weeks of November. So keep an eye on the sky!

Read the full story from Science @ NASA.

03 Nov 2005 by Astronomy Environment Science Space Rocks

Another Record Rainfall for Southern California?

Since July 1 of this year, Southwestern Los Angeles County has received about 0.90 inches of precipitation. Last year, a record-setting wettest season since they started measuring rainfall, we had only 0.68 inches. What does this mean? Another record-setting season?

Not according to Ken Clark, meteorologist for AccuWeather.com. Clark, in an article in the
Daily Breeze, said he forecasts heavy, moisture-laden storms this winter:

“I wouldn’t say we’d get as much rain as last year, which was one for the record books and the chances of equaling that are pretty small,” he said. Last “rain year” — July 2004 through June 2005 — saw about 37.25 inches of rain, making it the second wettest in history.

“But it sure looks like there is going to be more rainfall than we normally get in Southern California.”

Meanwhile, our local mainstream media outlets maintain that due to the fires and this rainfall, we will have mudslides and land erosion – we’re dooooomed. (Yawn)

Photo credit: Sean Hiller / Daily Breeze

18 Oct 2005 by California Environment

Alligators in the Sewers – Still!

A 6-foot long alligator loose in an urban lake in Southern California, a hurricane-displaced ‘gator wrangler named T-Bone Quinn, a dysfunctional swamp buggy and impending cooler temperatures force a stalemate in a strange game of chess.

This almost sounds like fiction or comedy, but it’s true. After a resident of nearby San Pedro, CA, released an alligator he couldn’t keep into a city lake, three potential reptile trappers have been thwarted in their attempts to capture the elusive ‘gator.

The amusing story is in the Daily Breeze: T-Bone Quinn throws in the towel in Reggie search

I’m rooting for Reggie, the ‘gator in this one . . . hope he gets safely caught and sent to an alligator retirement community.

Update 10/18/2005: The Daily Breeze offers an archive of alligator articles.

15 Oct 2005 by California Environment

Flat Earth, Hurricanes and Global Warming

Damsel knows why the earth is flat – at least around the Gulf and Southeastern U.S. “The hurricanes have kept it mowed flat for thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years!” she exclaims, “And ‘Global Warming’ hasn’t got anything to do with hurricanes! It’s obvious to me, and I’m not a science person.”

Image: St. Andrew Bay Entrance Channel to Perdido Pass, Florida Gulf Coast (USGS)

I agree with her; and I am a science person. When I was supporting a project in Florida, I learned that the highest elevation in the state was only 300 feet above sea level – the entire state. Similarly, low-elevation terrain is characteristic throughout the Caribbean, the Southeastern U.S. and the Gulf of Mexico – the precise area where hurricanes strike after they develop.

Some misguided scientists claim they can model global warming trends using tree ring evidence combined with only 20th century atmospheric evidence; this produces the leftist-touted ‘hockey-stick’ curve that seemingly proves the guilt of mankind in his reckless production of carbon dioxide. However, the errors of this analysis method are proven by David Legates in his article ‘Global warming smear targets’ in the Washington Times.

So if the ‘hockey stick’ hypothesis is incorrect, it must be discarded. Then, what actually caused global warming in the last few hundred years? The increase in so-called ‘greenhouse gasses’ in the atmosphere? No, apparently not; it seems to be our own SUN. And that makes sense too – the sun is the main driver for all Earth weather patterns. Arthur and Zachary Robinson prove this with real data in their article ‘Science Has Spoken: Global Warming Is a Myth‘ originally published in 1997 in the Wall Street Journal. They even go on to make a case that increased carbon dioxide is having a beneficial effect on the environment!

Unfortunately, moonbat celebridiots such as Barbra Streisand, and politically-driven, uninformed politicians like John McCain and Hillary Clinton continue to perpetuate the lies by vacuously making public statements about things they are obviously not qualified to evaluate. See GOP Bloggers article ‘John & Hill Show Take Global Warming Myth on the Road‘ for more about them.

Additional reading: ‘The Myth of Catastrophic Global Warming‘ by Steven Brockerman.

28 Sep 2005 by Environment Global Warming Science Whacko Politics

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