To explain the crash, "It just froze up".
Quick, somebody call Al Gore, the Global Warming Satellite just froze
up, more proof of the AL Gore hoax.
This should be the new definition of irony for Al and his followers.
Now this is funny!
http://news.yahoo.com/i/718 ;_ylt=Ap7BS6kPtyILsxoGIgS7Z8MUewgF
--
Michael Gailey
3D Laser Scanning, Digital Object Reproduction
Hi Michael,
I watched the NASA press conference this morning
on the loss of the satellite. This was more than a simple error,
as the telemetry indicated that the launch activities were
correctly sequenced (signals sent to pyro devices that should
have separated the nose fairing, allowing the next stage to boost
the (now much lighter) payload into the correct orbit.
It seems the fairing "froze up", and didn't split apart as it should.
It could have been an assembly failure (parts not aligned right),
a literal freezing (if moisture got into areas it shouldn't have),
or some other issue. I hope the investigating committee finds
the likely cause.
I was part of a previous launch team that lost a satellite in a
similar manner, the pryo's didn't activate an adapter cone
split event, leaving two small payloads in a useless orbit.
At least we got a chance to do a reflight some years later.
I can say with certainty that there's a major human cost
when these problems occur, many people put years of
work (and stake their careers or theses on) the success
of a mission, and when it goes TU it hurts.
BTW, I respect you enough (you're no "Gunner") that
it's disappointing that you think it's such a funny event,
and that its mission was of such little consequence.
Science is by definition the act of finding out and proving,
without instruments to do so, how will we know if GW is
real or not?
Toolpost
On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:27:11 -0800 (PST), Widefoot
Gallows humor.......it's the line, not the event that's funny.
Could become a classic, love it or hate it for a headline it IS funny:
"Global Warming Satellite Freezes"
Along the lines of:
"Headless Body Found in Topless Bar"
Tom
Tp,
The event itself wasn't funny, failures and huge expenditures are never
funny.
I simply saw humor in the wording, "the global warming satellite froze up".
I try to never leave my sense of humor at home, "especially these days".
I do find Al Gore quite funny, he's the new Chicken Little.
At the recent Global Warming seminar the temps were sub zero, more irony.
The irony in the wording was quite humorous, now if the economy were to
thaw out some, that would be a good thing.
Michael
--
Michael Gailey
3D Laser Scanning, Digital Object Reproduction
Micheal,
You have NO RIGHT to Diss Al Gore!
After all, he invented the internet! Without him, you'd be writing
letters back and forth.
Then, he invented global warming, think of the trillions of $ to be
made from that!
And now he invents carbon!
Untold trillons of $ to be scammed from the public. Some accounts,
quadrupling your energy bills.
How many people could accomlish all of that? Think of the revenue he
can create for his "associates".
Untold riches, who ever would have thought of taxing carbon?
What will be next? Taxing Hydrogen? One of the most abundant elements
in the universe?
It is better than using leaves as money.
I think you are a jealous, and petty. Dissing someone who has
accomplished so much, with so little.
Now, get out an envelope, and a pen, and write out a carerful
response, get a stamp...
Like you would have to do, without the Great Gore, having given us the
internet.
And the new information society, where we create untold wealth without
manufacturing anything, just by manipulating money! Let the third
world peasants do all the "dirty manufacturing"
We will create all wealth from the thin air, by manipulating
"information". ( Or did I mean to say "facts" ? )
<applause>
Mars is warming too, must be the effect of the landers.
GW is the new boogie man, kinda like PJ O'Rourke said;
"The principle feature of American liberalism is sanctimoniousness. By
loudly denouncing all bad things -- war and hunger and date rape -- liberals
testify to their own terrific goodness. More important, they promote
themselves to membership in a self-selecting elite of those who care deeply
about such things. It's a kind of natural aristocracy, and the wonderful
thing about this aristocracy is that you don't have to be brave, smart,
strong or even lucky to join it, you just have to be liberal."
In defense, although it is obviously junk science driven by emotion, it does
drive people to pull their heads out and try to better stewards of our
little blue marble.
We'd better aim a little higher on that stewardship thing.
Reality, not Gorebal Warming, is beginning to intrude.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/us/22mendota.html?_r=1
February 22, 2009
Drought Adds to Hardships in California
By JESSE McKINLEY
MENDOTA, Calif. - The country's biggest agricultural engine, California's
sprawling Central Valley, is being battered by the recession like farmland
most everywhere. But in an unlucky strike of nature, the downturn is being
deepened by a severe drought that threatens to drive up joblessness,
increase food prices and cripple farms and towns.
Across the valley, towns are already seeing some of the worst unemployment
in the country, with rates three and four times the national average, as
well as reported increases in all manner of social ills: drug use, excessive
drinking and rises in hunger and domestic violence.
With fewer checks to cash, even check-cashing businesses have failed, as
have thrift stores, ice cream parlors and hardware shops. The state has put
the 2008 drought losses at more than $300 million, and economists predict
that this year's losses could swell past $2 billion, with as many as 80,000
jobs lost.
"People are saying, 'Are you a third world country?' " said Robert Silva,
the mayor of Mendota, which has a 35 percent unemployment rate, up from the
more typical seasonal average of about 20 percent. "My community is dying on
the vine."
Even as rains have washed across some of the state this month, greening some
arid rangeland, agriculture officials say the lack of rain and the prospect
of minimal state and federal water supplies have already led many farmers to
fallow fields and retreat into survival mode with low-maintenance and
low-labor crops.
Last year, during the second year of the drought, more than 100,000 acres of
the 4.7 million in the valley were left unplanted, and experts predict that
number could soar to nearly 850,000 acres this year.
All of which could mean shorter supplies and higher prices in produce
aisles - California is the nation's biggest producer of tomatoes, almonds,
avocados, grapes, artichokes, onions, lettuce, olives and dozens of other
crops - and increased desperation for people like Agustin Martinez, a
20-year veteran of the fields who generally makes $8 an hour picking fruit
and pruning.
"If I don't have work, I don't live," said Mr. Martinez, a 39-year-old
father of three who was waiting in a food line in Selma, southeast of
Fresno. "And all the work is gone."
In Mendota, the self-described cantaloupe center of the world, a walk
through town reveals young men in cowboy hats loitering, awaiting the vans
that take workers to the fields. None arrive.
The city's main drag has a few quiet businesses - a boxing gym, a liquor
store - and tellingly, two busy pool halls. The owner of one hall, Joseph R.
Riofrio, said that his family had also long owned a grocery and
check-cashing business in town, but that he had just converted to renting
movies, figuring that people would rather stay at home in hard times.
"We're not going to give up," Mr. Riofrio said. "But people are doing bad."
Just down the highway in Firebaugh, José A. Ramírez, the city manager, said
a half-dozen businesses in its commercial core had closed, decimating the
tax base and leaving him to "tell the Little League they'd have to paint
their own lines" on the local diamond.
The situation is particularly acute in towns along the valley's western
side, where farmers learned on Friday that federal officials anticipate a
"zero allocation" of water from the Central Valley Project, the huge New
Deal system of canals and reservoirs that irrigates three million acres of
farmland. If the estimate holds and springtime remains dry, it would be
first time ever that farmers faced a season-long cutoff from federal waters.
"Farmers are very resilient, we make things happen, but we've never had a
zero allocation," said Stephen Patricio, president of Westside Produce, a
melon handler and harvester. "And I might not be very good at math, but zero
means zero."
While California has suffered severe dry spells before, including a
three-year stint ending in 1977 and a five-year drought in the late '80s and
early '90s, the ill effects now are compounded by the recession and other
factors.
Federal, state and local officials paint a grim picture of a system taxed as
it has never been before by a growing population, environmental concerns and
a labyrinth of water supply contracts and agreements, some dating to the
early 20th century. In addition to the federal water supplies, farmers can
irrigate with water provided by the state authorities, drawn from wells and
bought or transferred from other farmers. Such water may not always be the
best quality, said Mark Borba, a fourth-generation farmer in Huron, Calif.
"But it's wet," he said.
Richard Howitt, the chairman of the agricultural and resource economics
department at the University of California, Davis, estimates that 60,000 to
80,000 jobs could be lost - including in ancillary businesses - and that as
much as $2.2 billion in crop and other losses could be caused by
restrictions on water and the drought, which he called "hydrologically as
bad as 1977 and economically as bad as 1991."
"You're talking about field workers, processing handlers, people packing
melons, trucking hay, sprayers, people selling tractors, people selling
lunches to people selling tractors," Mr. Howitt said. "And in some of these
small west-side towns, it's going to hit the people who are least able to
adapt to it."
One of the hardest hit areas is the farmland served by the Westlands Water
District, which receives water exclusively from the Central Valley Project
and distributes it to 600,000 acres in Fresno and Kings Counties. Sarah
Woolf, a spokeswoman for the district, said that her 700 members expected to
leave 300,000 to 400,000 acres fallow and that some might not come back to
farm at all.
"Everyone's trying to go down fighting," Ms. Woolf said. "But there will be
significant companies that will go out of business, as well as families that
have been farming for generations, if it doesn't get better."
The outlook for things getting better quickly is dim, despite forecasts of
rain this week. Last month, California officials estimated the snowpack in
the Sierra, a primary source of water for the state when it melts in the
spring, at 61 percent of normal. On Friday, the State Department of Water
Resources said it would deliver just 15 percent of its promised contracts, a
level it was able to maintain only because of the recent spate of rain. "It's
pathetic," said Lester A. Snow, the department's director.
Lynette Wirth, a spokeswoman for the United States Bureau of Reclamation,
said water levels in all federally managed reservoirs in California were
well below normal, with "abysmal" carryover from the previous year.
"There's been no meaningful precipitation since last March," Ms. Wirth said.
Farmers, of course, are also dealing with issues unrelated to rain,
including tight credit from banks and recent court decisions meant to
protect fish that have limited the transfer of water through the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which feeds snowmelt to farmbound canals. Many
farmers refer to a "man-made drought" caused by restrictions.
At the same time, environmental groups say they also fear a range of
potential problems, including depletion of the valley aquifer from well
pumping, possible dust-bowl conditions in areas of large patches of fallow
ground and concern about salmon and other species. "It's a tough year for
the environment, and people," said Doug Obegi, a lawyer with the Natural
Resources Defense Council.
JC
California, a state that breeds 'enviromentalists', like maggots on rotting meat
is
absurd. Explain how So. Cal can bring water from 250 miles away while in many
parts of
the US new construction requires an 'Enviromental Impact Study'?
So Cal has impacted a lot of enviroments. Close it down.
Wes
The largest aquifer in North America is under southern California Wes and we
bought the water rights all the way north to Canada in the 20's.
Growing food in the desert is stupid unless you charge realistic prices for
the water. The water and farm lobbies have prevented that.
JC
On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:13:39 -0800, "John R. Carroll"
We have citrus growers here that let the fruit fall to the ground. Too
expensive to pick and they can't even give it away to food banks. They
had volunteers to pick the fruit and donate it to food banks/needy
families but insurance company put a stop to it, seems the law doesn't
allow (or recognize) a signed waver stating they won't sue should they
be hurt while on the property. So this fresh tree ripened "Organic"
fruit goes to waste.
I took photos of an orange grove two days ago showing the fruit
falling to the ground just in case someone thinks it's B.S.
Tom
I'd heard that.
The coastal basin surrounding Los Angeles really is paradise.
Once you cross the mountains going north you are in the desert the instant
you turn east.
That doesn't change until you are north almost as far north as Stockton.
The "little fishie" issue is someting of a red herring. The coastal plain
between Stockton and the SF Bay area is at risk and the end result of
allowing it to become water poor would be surge flooding that would be
pretty devastating. I think they are experiencing some of this in the
Benecia (?) and Fairfield belt along I-80 already.
Stockton is a huge port city, believe it or not, and they need a stable
right of way to the Pacific.
That is the real water rights issue involved.
JC
So tell that stupid f.....g ins company to go get f....d and
get on with it. Ins
companies are thieves, imo. They should be ashamed of
themselves but
of course they don't see it that way. F...'em.....they're
fired....bastards.....
phil
So kill the bearer of bad news? It's the law not the insurance
company. They offered to donate the fruit, volunteers can pick and
transport the fruit but they have to carry insurance to protect grower
from a lawsuit should someone get hurt while on the property, no
takers.
Tom
Orange County, and it's properly maintained.
http://ca.water.usgs.gov/groundwater/gwatlas/coastal/aquifers5.html
http://www.dpla2.water.ca.gov/publications/groundwater/bulletin118/basins/pdfs_desc/8-1.pdf
On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:22:46 -0500, snipped-for-privacy@lycos.com wrote:
This is a sample of the nuts around here
SACRAMENTO - The order by a federal judge to reduce pumping by 30% in
the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta leaves water suppliers who rely
on the California Aqueduct, including those in the Antelope Valley, in
a bind. Just last week U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger issued
his final word regarding the slowdown in pumping operations at the
Harvey O. Banks, the starting point of the 444-mile California
Aqueduct, core to the State Water Project that furnishes drinking and
agricultural water to much of Southern California. Wanger mandated the
pumping reduction in order to protect an endangered fish species, the
Delta smelt, that are indigenous to the area, AV water purveyors said.
Environmental groups had pushed to shut off the pumps, blaming the
equipment for a decline in the smelt population, which were being
sucked into the pumps and killed.
Dave B
Here ya go.
Before spending another $270 mil on another sattelite,
try a couple of grand for a good telescope ---
Environment & Climate News > November 2005
Environment
Environment > Climate: Science
Email a Friend
Written By: James M. Taylor
Published In: Environment & Climate News > November 2005
Publication date: 11/01/2005
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The planet Mars is undergoing significant global warming, new data from the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) show, lending support
to many climatologists' claims that the Earth's modest warming during the
past century is due primarily to a recent upsurge in solar energy.
Martian Ice Shrinking Dramatically
According to a September 20 NASA news release, "for three Mars summers in a
row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk
from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress."
Because a Martian year is approximately twice as long as an Earth year, the
shrinking of the Martian polar ice cap has been ongoing for at least six
Earth years.
The shrinking is substantial. According to Michael Malin, principal
investigator for the Mars Orbiter Camera, the polar ice cap is shrinking at
"a prodigious rate."
"The images, documenting changes from 1999 to 2005, suggest the climate on
Mars is presently warmer, and perhaps getting warmer still, than it was
several decades or centuries ago," reported Yahoo News on September 20.
Solar Link Possible
Scientists are not sure whether the Martian warming is entirely due to
Mars-specific forces or may be the result of other forces, such as
increasing solar output, which would explain much of the recent asserted
warming of the Earth as well.
Far as I know, we haven't been putting up any coal burning power plants on
Mars.
JMHO
Jim
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