Thursday, April 11, 2013

Weekly Rundown

     NASA GETTING A BREAK?
            Looks like it could happen in terms of budgeting.  NASA released a 17.7 billion spending plan for 2014.  It continues ongoing space exploration, and the funding to start the mission to capture a small asteroid and have astronauts on it exploring by 2025.
            What would make this nice is that it would be returning the budget, minus around 50 million, to what it was back in 2012. It’s only about 1 billion more than 2013, but it’s a start at getting them funded properly again.
            This budget also sets aside 78 million toward the asteroid capture and towing mission, as well as a few other pretty cool concepts they are working on. One of these is the technology for solar electric propulsion and laser communications. The funding will also cover the mars research, and the ISS, as well as increased support of the private space taxi operations.
            In my view, that budget needs to be higher. A lot higher.


A HUNGRY LITTLE HOLE
            Astronomers have found a first. A black hole has apparently been having lunch at the expense of a giant rogue planet. However, it didn't even eat its entire meal. Just stripped off about 10% of it, and left the rest floating along. For now. The denser core is still left. They figure it was a planet similar to Jupiter, or possibly a brown dwarf.
            This is happening 47 million LY’s away in galaxy NGC 4845. Now this galaxy has been quiet for at least the last 20 – 30 years.
            And later this year, our own black hole here in the Milky Way is scheduled to make contact with a massive gas cloud several times the size of earth. Just one more reason we need to get it in gear, and figure out warp drive, or something to go and see stuff when it is actually happening, and not seeing it thousands of years later. I would love to go and watch that cloud, but fact is, it is already over, and has been for quite some time.
            They also figure that events like this happen every few years in the galaxies around us. The site has a real cool video as well of this. Well worth watching and dreaming about being there in person to watch it. 


IO SEEMS TO BE CONFUSED
            Here is why. Jupiter’s moon IO, apparently doesn’t realize that volcanoes are supposed to follow along certain lines.
            The major volcanic activity is 30 to 60 degrees off of where they think it should be. So basically, our understanding of IO in particular, is way off. Which frankly I think is a very good thing. It means we have more to learn there as well, a lot more. As the author Christopher Hamilton says, “Our understanding of tidal heat production and its relationship to surface volcanism is incomplete."
            IO is the most volcanically active body in our solar system, at 25 times that of Earth. Some of the plumes of the volcanic activity there are 250 miles above the moon, and it’s surface is reformed around every million years or so.
            You would expect the volcanic activity to be above the hottest points, but instead they lay to the east of the hottest spots. This is a very interesting article, as it shows that no matter what we think, we still have so much to learn that it is frankly to me, an endless quest of learning. Which is basically how I view life in the first place.
            Why this is, is a mystery. It could be that IO is spinning faster than what was thought is one of the theories to this. As for the other theories, you’ll have to read the article. The study was first published in January, and just now showing up on space.com. It should have been there in January when it was first published in my opinion.




EARTH AT 100 PIXELS, AND PLANETS IN PLACE OF THE MOON.
            I am combining these two together as they are two different places, but both consist basically of pictures.
            The first one shows the distance of Earth to Mars in terms of pixels, and is really cool to see. Just click the downward arrow, and watch how far we really are from Mars.
            The second one shows what the planets would look like if they were in the place of the moon in orbit around Earth. However, they made one mistake there.
They didn’t include my little planet in this. Yes, the rebellion here will never end. Pluto is a bloody planet. If not by size, then by a tradition that is rooted so deep, it needs to be a planet regardless. Give me a ship so I can start to colonize the little girl, and I’ll make it a planet again.                                                                    Okay, off the rebellion now.  It is actually a pretty cool thing to see, what with the size of Jupiter as our moon. Frankly, that would be just terrifying in some ways. But the desert highway, with the planets as a moon is just too much to pass up. You owe it to yourself to take a look at these. I’ll include the Jupiter pic here, but the rest you have to go see for yourselves.  



First link is to the distance from Earth, and the second is to the planets as our moon.



NO KRYPTONITE?
            The new Superman movie, “Man Of Steel”, will not have any kryptonite in it. Apparently they figured that Zod was enough of a problem. There are also some other changes that are theorized to be happening as well. Now here I get lost as I wasn’t involved in comics at this time, but sounds slightly interesting to me even. Apparently they are going with a concept of Kal-el being special even on Krypton.
            Something about him being the first naturally born child of parents having sex in over a thousand years. So in other words, the Kryptonian’s are once again proven to be far more advanced than those of us here. But I am personally still not convinced that Russell Crow can be Jor-el in any way. But who knows, maybe. And I don’t care what anyone says, he still doesn’t look like Kal-el to me. If I just look at the face, maybe. But I’m already not happy with the uniform in any way. Supes is the one character, out of DC, or Marvel, that doesn’t need updated. And I’m Marvel all the way. But supes is to be the light for all others to follow. Just not happy with the darker superman. Yet. I will reserve my judgment until I see it. But not being a Nolan fan myself, in any way shape or form. which I am sure will get me hated out here, I don’t hold high hopes for this, at least in my eyes.
            Anyway, here’s the link to check it out for yourselves.


THE TERMINATORS HAVE ARRIVED, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES
            LOL. Okay folks, relax here. This time, once again, I have to turn on my own people. I’m a conspiracy nut from way back. But now we are getting silly beyond belief again. And believe it or not, this actually fits to this site.  So sit back, prepare to laugh, and enjoy.
            The government is building a robotic termination army, at least according to the first link i will give on this.
            The PETMAN. A robot designed by the DOD to test suits used for biological, chemical, and nuclear. In other words, a machine designed to test new suits for our military personnel. And it sweats as well. It had better, as I can tell you from personal experience, that what we were using in the 80’s, well, sucked. Hotter than the surface of mercury if the sun was shining and the temperature was over 35.
            And of course according to this site, they will become self-aware, and then take over the Earth and wipe out humanity. Yeah, okay.
            Look people, what better way to test a suit and measure how it responds to sweat, movement, etc than to use it on a robotic unit to test it for miles and miles on end of walking. Let me tell you, back in the 80’s, those bloody things were not only uncomfortable as hell, but once you started sweating, you suffered even more, believe it. Anyway, check out the two sites and make up your own mind. I’m a survivalist, and a conspiracy theorist, and even I can’t buy into this one. I just can’t. I’d love to, if even for just the fun of it, but they have us already having SKYNET based on drones, and terminators based on a testing unit for freaking clothing. So basically, using a set of drones, to carry a load in what is essentially a net, adds up to the sci-fi SKYNET. Sometimes, I am just seriously embarrassed by the conspiracy people, and this is really one of those times. To create an army of terminator units would take secrecy beyond belief, and someone would talk. Not a bad idea I admit, as it would keep our people out of harm’s way, but let’s get real here.  Anyway, here are the two links. The first one to the conspiracy out there site, and the second that tells what it really is.



             So I hope you all enjoy this week’s rundown, and sorry for missing last week. Lets just say I had a system failure and leave it at that, to avoid the cussing that would come along if I explained it. And yeah, it really was a stupid system failure. One I ordered the part for to update and improve, without knowing that mine was already bad. See you all next week folks. And who knows, maybe by then we’ll have the conspiracy proof of the lizards controlling us like we have proof this week of terminators coming. 
           Sometimes my people just embarrass the feck out of me.











2 comments:

Beam Me Up said...

Great rundown Kall, really covers so much stuff, that I just seem to pass over or haven't gotten to yet. Glad to have you back.

kallamis said...

Thanks. Glad to be back.