Christmas Eve in the Front Range, Russia has another Soyuz rocket failure, and there is a Santa and his name is Tom.

Sunset at Tom's place.

 It’s Christmas Eve here in the Denver Metro area, and the sun is shining on the remnants of the snowstorm we got on Monday-Tuesday. Snow has melted off the asphalt, but is mounded where it was pushed by plows, shovels, and the occasional dog or rabbit digging in or scurrying away, as the case may be. People are rushing around hither and thither in their cars, pickups, vans, etc, doing what people do on Christmas Eve day, and I expect they will keep it up till after the sun sets, and this time of year, that happens at 4:40 PM Mountain time, according to the Old Farmers Almanac.

  The Russians suffered another Soyuz rocket failure early Friday Mountain Time. A Soyuz 2.1b carrying a Meridian military communications satellite apparently tipped over during the burn of the third stage about seven minutes into powered ascent into orbit, and exploded. People in the Siberian town of Yarovouye saw the explosion and fireball in the sky near their town, and a local resident, Mr. Andrey Krivoruchkin, had his house hit by a pressurization tank from the upper stage of the Soyuz 2.1b rocket. Mr. Krivoruchkin had been outside gathering firewood for his stove, heard sonic booms and then the crash of debris onto the roof and chimney of his house. Emergency Response team and Russian Federal Security personnell rushed to the scene and offered medical assistance, but no one was hurt Thank God.  Mr. Krivoruchkin refused to speak to the media about the incident, but news spread throughout Russia and the entire world within hours of the incident. Images were taken of the fireball and debris during and after the incident, and here are some of those pictures.

 

Fireball approaching Vagistevo Village.



Soyuz 2.1b launch with Meridain Dec 24 2011

 


 



Location of upper stage impact.





Fireball hits Vagistevo Village.



Pressurization tank from upper stage.

   Lifenews of Russia reported this about debris falling on the town and hitting the Krivoruchkin house :

“ The debris fell 3 kilometers away from the district’s centre right on a residential house in Vagaistevo village. During impact a titanium piece measuring 1 meter in diameter. A family was in the living room. At present moment, teams from Army and Federal Security Service are working at the scene”, said a source in the territorial Emergency Command.

  “The heavy piece of metal accelerated to a great speed fell on the house’s roof like a meteorite. Now all people are evacuated, the scene is under examination. According to eyewitneswses, a huge fireball plummeted down from the sky, hitting on a roof of a small house. The home’s owner Andrey at that moment was out to take firewood for his oven, while his wife and kids stayed inside.

  Now servicemen from the local FSS have already extracted a piece of the satellite from the destroyed house. It looks like a metal ball with 50cm radius.”

Vladimir Popovkin, head of the Russian Federal Space Agency Roskosmos made this statement for the press :

“Yes, there are problems, and we need to modernize,” Popovkin said, saying Russia needs to upgrade facilities at its spaceports and tracking facilities.

Popovkin also highlighted the aging of the Russian space workforce as a systemic problem. Sounds similar to problems NASA has in transferring both documented and tacit skills that are non-documental, non quantifiable, to a younger generation of space workers in the space industry in NASA and the space industry in general. Retiring workers cannot transfer anything to young people if they have no contact, no chance to mentor and rapport, no sense of community and history and continuity in the space industry and community, and this bodes ill for the future of space in the US and western civilization both. I have spoken out about this problem over and over thru the years to the space community and the larger non-space society both, so far my warnings and admonitions and advice have fallen on deaf ears. So much for activism as a way to get things done.

  As for myself, I’m sitting at the kitchen table working on my blog, reading news about what’s been happening both here in the Front Range, around the world, and up in space too. Christmas eve, with only Tomas upstairs for company. I made supper for us, and fed him a bit ago.

  I will have another welfare Christmas, with no family or friends around, and that’s just the way it is. I am glad I’m inside at Tom’s, and have a warm place to stay tonight, or I would be stuck outside somewhere else, probably freezing to death and probably found dead in the night or tomorrow at the latest by some0ne, and here comes the Police, Ambulance, coroner, etc. Thank God that’s not necessary tonight or tomorrow. I of course know I don’t have that many Christmases ahead of me, so I really don’t know if this will be my last Christmas or not. It is too bad I’m by myself, but I have always been alone, without a girlfriend/wife to be with me, nor a dog or cat either I’m sorry to say. That’s what happens when one is alone and “weird”, “Different”, whatever, so nothing new there. I do miss my mom and dad at this time of year, but since dad died in Feb 1989, I haven’t celebrated Christmas at all, not being with any people who could remotely be considered “family”, and Marci Duncan and her dysfunctional family and her too don’t count as “normal” people in my book.

  I do miss having mom and dad here for the Holidays, it truly is n0t the same without them. I remember mom cooking and baking in the kitchen, dad being in his lazy boy in the living room, watching TV and snacking, and the dog coming in the house for a visit and some treats, be the dog Happy in the late 60’s to 1980, or Hyper from Christmas 1985 till Christmas 1988, the last Christmas with dad and mom together till dad finally passed away in February 1989. I miss them both terribly, every day and especially at the Holidays. It just isn’t the same without them.

　

  I expected another welfare Christmas, with no family around, and that’s the way I expected it to be, when Tom and Deanna showed up with a new vacuum cleaner for Tom, and a present for me too. I didn’t expect this, and because of this, there may or may not be a Santa Claus, but there certainly is a Santa Tom !





Tuesday Happenings - New Planets, new crew for the International Space Station, same old crap down here on Earth, and Seasons Grettings despite it all.

  http://falkvinge.net/2011/12/16/do-we-really-have-to-prepare-for-the-fourth-box/

  I read on Claire Wolfe’s blog, available at Backwoods Home’s website, about a Swedish man that suggests the US is so far gone, that responsible civic minded citizens are trying the third box, and it isn’t working anymore, so the time to take up the fourth box is rapidly coming. Claire herself is merely a reader of different blogsites, as am I, and I leave the reader to follow this link and decide for yourself what box you reach for next.

 

  NASA announced that the Kepler terrestrial Planet Finder spacecraft has, from Earth orbit, discovered not one, but Two Earth mass planets orbiting a star. The two planets are inside the habitable zone where the temperature is just right, water can be liquid, and oxygen is a major component of the atmosphere. These two planets are too hot for that, but I predict that the discovery of an Earth like planet, at the right distance, with liquid water and oxygen a large percentage of it’s atmosphere is a matter of time, perhaps not much more time.

  The Souyz 2-U rocket carrying the Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft inside the payload shroud, has moved from it’s assembly building, backed to the launch pad by a locomotive and short consist of rolling stock including the flatcar and erector with booster cradled on top, and installed the stack on the pad in obviously winter weather conditions, typical for the Baikonur Cosmodrome in December. The Expedition 30 crew, all veteran space flyers, consists of American ISS Astronaut Don Pettit, Dutchman Andre Kuipers, and Russian Oleg Kononenko, are scheduled to launch Wednesday morning in the US at 6:16:15 a.m. MST, on the typical two day rendezvous chase, leading to a docking and hatch opening, and Expedition 30 will be fully staffed on orbit, and officially underway.

  My debit card finally arrived at my brother’s address, but I got a phone call from him this morning, and he was basically acting like a dick, telling me he was not going to be home, would be a bell ringer for the Salvation Army at Safeway in Golden at 3 PM, hence was too busy to bother with me. His attitude was basically that me needing the card and the money on it for basic necessities because of my lack of work, and not asking a dime from him, is such an imposition and on the good order of the world, that he sees fit to be angry with me, and act like it’s a horrible thing for me to disrupt his schedule and take up any of his precious time. Me needing to get that debit card so I need not ask him or anyone beside the State of Colorado for anything, is an imposition and just plain wrong.

  I don’t understand why Noriega’s always get angry with me when I need something, and take every effort to get whatever I need, without asking anything, not so much as a dime from a Noriega, and that is bad bad bad. Noriega’s are, in my experience and opinion, dysfunctional autocratic jerks, always have been and always will be. Levi was that way. Grampo Bernie was that way. Dad could and was frequently like that. It would be much easier to be indifferent, either cold or warm/amused indifference, than with barely concealed contempt and hostile indifference. But that’s just a Noriega for you. At least in my blood family.

  I won’t mind having another welfare Christmas, as I haven’t celebrated Christmas since 1988, and haven’t been in a situation with the proper circumstances to be able to or care to celebrate Christmas. And I just don’t really care for what Christmas has morphed into, and I don’t expect to get anything for Christmas, and have no available money to buy anything for anyone for Christmas anyway, so it is a dead holiday to me, something other people celebrate, but not a holiday that applies to me.

  Nevertheless, I’m no Ebenezer Scrooge, so I say: Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday’s, Happy Chanukah, Happy Quanza, and Have a Cool Yule to one and all. God Bless us Every One !! We all need it, that’s for sure.

  No work again today, and with the weather being wintry the way it was this morning, I understand why no one wanted to work in the cold and snow this morning. If I had that debit card, that would help, but see above for why I don’t. So the year is closing on want and privation - still no Chevy Tahoe or Ford Ranger, no semi-automatic rifle for militia uses or self defense, hunting, etc, no food and no gear from my Ranger pickup, still at Medved in Castle Rock and still as far away from me and as useless as Ranger 4’s wreckage on the far side of the Moon.

  At least I fed Tom and I, and by a miracle he lets me stay here. That Man must have a heart because he knows I’m one step from living on the streets, and one step from death as a result of that eventuality, so I give thanks for Tom letting me stay here, as he has for months now, since June actually. It is very much to his credit to have helped me out as he has, and I hope and pray a Merciful and Almighty God sees fit to bless Tom and give him wisdom, patience, more money, peace of mind, and if it is his destiny, a woman who really loves him for him, and helps him out as he needs.

　

　　

Comet survives the sun, 4th Amendment shredded and Bill of Rights in tatters, new space lauch vehicle for the masses, no work again and waiting on debit card, England planning on chaos when the Euro collapses, NASA reverts to Space Act era language to keep CDEV on track due to Congressional budget cutting, and I told you so.



A lot has happened since I last posted, so here goes :

• Comet Lovejoy swung to within 180,000 miles of the Sun’s photosphere on Thursday evening December 15 Mountain Time, and it survived the passage thru the several million degree solar corona, but the comet’s tail detached during perihelion passage, and then redeveloped after the comet began its centuries long climb away from the sun. Several different spacecraft out in the solar system, along with one in Earth orbit imaged Comet Lovejoy during its close brush by the sun, and the dynamic nature of the comet’s tail in the corona has physicists baffled so far. To me, the view inbound showed the tail acting like a jet contrail, subject to winds at an angle to the path of the comet, and the tail detached and remained trapped in the corona for hours. Explain that ? After perihelion, Comet Lovejoy raced away from the sun and redeveloped both gas and dust tails, and definitely survived its death defying swoop to less than the moon’s distance from the earth from the 11,000 degree photosphere, and it’s bath in the million plus degrees of the corona. And spacecraft sensors saw it all. Amazing ! Comet Lovejoy gave everyone a pre-Christmas show of the awesome dynamic nature of our solar system, and that maybe comet nuclei aren’t the fragile dirty snowballs everyone thought.
• The U.S. House of Representatives passed their version of the completely Unconstitutional National Defense Authorization Act, specifically the section where the continental US becomes a “Battlefield”, and any US citizen could be detained, (whatever that can be construed to mean) and held till hell freezes over without charges, and with no hope of bonding out under Habeas Corpus, in short, the Fourth Amendment is history. How our House members could sell out the American people, shred the meaning and intent of the Bill of Rights limiting government power, and then claim they were just “doing the will of the American people”, is so far beyond my ability to comprehend, that I must conclude that Congress is either acting 0ut of overt stupidity, ignorance and apathy, or they are sinister actors in an ongoing plunge towards tyranny and slavery for the formerly free citizens of the US. There is still time to contact your US Senators and tell them to stop this overt cancellation of the 4^th Amendment, and basically a government takeover in it’s tracks, and restore power to the people, which is the point of having a limited, Constitutional republic, instead of mob rule or the tyranny of the majority. I can’t say it any plainer, or with more truth. It is time for a Housecleaning of monumental proportions in government at every level in the US- local, county, state, and federal. These two-faced, tyrannical so called representatives must be voted out en-masse come next November, or this nation is headed for a horrible fate- namely a fight for freedom and a Civil War. And to be frank with everyone, I don’t expect to survive such a war. I expect I will die in such a conflict. So be it. I WILL NOT LIVE AS A SLAVE UNDER TYRANTS !!!!! Time to live up to the standards our forefathers who gave their lives, fortunes and sacred honor did in the War of Independence, and those brave souls who fought for independence against a tyrannical federal government during the War Between the States. GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH !!!!!
• Burt Rutan and Paul Allen, amongst others, announced a new reusable launch system to put people and cargo into orbit by 2018, at much less cost than current systems. Their proposed Stratolaunch system would use the world’s largest aircraft to carry a Falcon 4 or 5 upper stage and crew/cargo compartment to altitude, then air drop the upper stage and crew/cargo module like the X-15 was so long ago, and the engine would fire up, and propel the spacecraft into earth orbit. Payload capacity is supposed to be equal to a Delta II, about 10,000t pounds to orbit, eventually including passengers to whatever destination they have bought and paid to get to. If this system works as Rutan and Allen and others intend, it could revolutionize flight to orbit, as well as craft a practical means of intercontinental travel in a few hours at most, as opposed to the ¾ of a day or more it now takes to get anywhere on Earth from anywhere else. Who knows, if I live long enough, I might even get a chance to fly into orbit at an affordable price-my lifelong dream, and one as yet unfulfilled for me. Maybe in a few years, if the coming collapse and war don‘t kill me first ……….
• Work has dried up for me, and with no vehicle yet in the offing to provide transport to or from a work assignment site, I await my loaded debit card from Chase Bank/the Colorado Division of Labor and Employment. I feel no shame at asking for unemployment-my steady work is anything but - and I have no work scheduled for tomorrow, so I take advantage of a state government program I am entitled to. The Great Depression of the 21^st Century has laid its heavy hand across my life, and it’s effects are felt by an ongoing want and a steady degradation of the quality of my life this entire decade. I can thank socialists, Republicans in Name Only, those who have successfully perpetrated a FRAUD on the American people by way of bank and insurance company bailouts, continued overregulation to the point of strangling commerce here in the homeland, bought and paid for co-conspirators-namely the US Senate and House of Representatives members who respond to lobby money rather than the needs of their constituents, the flood of illegal aliens that have bid down wages and taken work from US citizens, all to pad the pockets of employers who have been clever enough to lobby for a privatizing of benefits and socializing of costs, that people like me must pay, whether or not it’s moral, ethical, or just plain wrong. And it is most assuredly wrong.
• The British Government has advised the Home Office to prepare for Civil Unrest when the Euro collapses and the financial house of cards collapses under it’s ill advised crudely constructed flimsy structure. They are planning on rescuing British Nationals from European countries like Italy, Greece, Ireland, etc, where their countrymen and women could be in mortal danger from rioters and chaos in those countries where the Euro was once dominant, and now on the wane, with a final collapse to come in the next calendar year or so. And if you think the collapse and social unrest will be confined to Europe, think again. FEMA has solicited bids to construct camps on the fly, as soon as possible, to “relocate” people for whatever reason the national command authority, FEMA, the President, or his designee down the chain of command deem necessary and proper. Dark news indeed, for preppers and lovers of Liberty and a limited government.
• Congress passed a spending bill for Fiscal Year 2012, which includes only a $ 444 million cut to NASA, and causing NASA to return to the Space Act of 1958 in dealing out less money than planned to the participants like Space X and Sierra Nevada, amongst others, to create new rockets and spacecraft to supply the International Space Station with crew and supplies in as short a time as possible. NASA went back to the National Aeronautics and Space Act to find a rationale to fund CCDEV, because of a budget cut caused by, who else, Congress as a whole, who still “don’t get it”, as far as space policy and programs are concerned. $406 million instead of the requested $850 million, is better than nothing, but this action by NASA, whose hand is forced by Congress, has again reneged on an agreement with private industry to keep American astronauts flying to and from a Space Station we started with much fanfare and expectations, and cut back on, reduced it’s uses while escalating it’s costs, delaying it’s construction for years while scoping back it’s capabilities. Typical for the US Government as a whole, the new dysfunctional NASA, begging for money like a homeless person while making do with less, so typical of NASA vis a vis the Congress and the Administration, no matter who they are or what letter they have behind their names.

My fellow conservative spacer Mark Whittington added this on the Space Politics website about the financial cutting and its deeper meaning : “The irony here cannot be more delicious. NASA has been forced not to go to the FAR approach solely because Congress was stingy with funding. I suppose that the supporters of Obama’s commercial crew will now thank the appropriators for keeping the space agency on a tight fiscal leash. Mind, commercial crew is still flawed with its subsidies and lack of private markets. But thankfully it is now less so.”

Well put.

For everyone who ever thought I was “weird” , “out there”, etc, this week’s events have vindicated me, and I was RIGHT, and all of you ill informed so called “critics”, were WRONG.

Vox Populi, Vox Humbug !

　

Cops gone bad, space programs gone awry, and work gone too. What's a man to do ?

There’s so much that’s happened in the last few weeks that it’s hard to choose where to start.

  First off, Pat Sullivan, the local law enforcement goon who made such outrageous anti-gun statements back in 1990 or so, was arrested for methamphetamine use, using younger men for sex in exchange for methamphetamine use, and in general being a law enforcement goon without peer in the Front Range. The man was crooked as a dog’s hind leg, and was this way for who knows how many years- I knew he was a bad guy Authoritarian Bureaucratic Hierarchicalist goon way back when he said in the media that civilians had no reason to own semi automatic firearms, and utilized the media misinformation machine to forward the mistaken ideas that citizens need governments permission to exercise a Constitutional Right. Bad from the Get Go ! Shame on you Sullivan - SHAME ON YOU !!!!!!! I’m glad you got found out and arrested. I hope justice is served and you spend the rest of your fallen life behind bars, and away from true innocent Patriots, gun owners/users, innocent civilians, drug addicts who reformed, and good people in general. The rest of you Crooked Cops and Goons, your next !

  Not much happening in space activity. NASA has revisited the L-1 space hub infrastructure build up/cislunar space station concept that was all the vogue about the year 2000. This time they would use the experience in building and operating the International Space Station and node hardware, along with Bigelow inflatable habitat technology along with an Orion/MPCV spacecraft for access to and from LEO/ISS and Earth’s surface. Also needed is the basic version of the SLS booster, along with the evolved version for heavier infrastructure elements later in the 2030’s. If any of this actually gets funded in the new era where everyone and every organization is broke and a new form of money that isn’t fiat/funny money that multiplies in quantity and decreases in value at a politician’s whim, a banker’s computer or an economist’s calculated gamble, comes to pass.

  Thanks to the Depression, the continued infighting in the dysfunctional Space Community, and the incompetence of NASA management, Congressional Members who supposedly “care” about space policy and programs, and the apathy and indifference of the American People, NASA might, MIGHT, be going to a point in space to a habitat/deep space station that might, MIGHT, be there in the late 2020’s. I’ll likely be dead by then, so I’ll never get to see Astronauts go beyond low earth orbit and go anywhere else in what’s left of my life.

  Work has dried up, so I have no money coming for week after next, hence I was relieved to the point of being overjoyed at successfully completing and submitting my application for unemployment with the State of Colorado. Now I hope Warning Lites sees fit to not interfere with me at least treading water financially, since working for Warning Lites, or any other company in Colorado whom I might choose to try and work for and whom might deem it desirable and necessary to hire me and put me to work, hasn’t happened. Work Attached, Baby- Work Attached.

  I take the attitude of the Incomparable Claire Wolfe, who advises when a man or woman has tried everything in their power to make a go of it in the system extant, and the system itself pulls the rug out from underneath you, the time comes when a man or woman should take advantage of every available government program, and have no shame about it. I certainly have no shame, and expect government, dysfunctional and increasingly schizophrenic in it’s way of doing things and choosing priorities, does the right thing and simply gives me my money, nothing more and nothing less, and nothing else either.