Free Republic

Monday's edition of the Federal Register contains new rules for government-sponsored school meal programs, disclosing the compensation of senior executives at certain banks, and acquisitions regulations for government agencies. Here's what is happening: Global warming: The Obama administration is proposing new acquisitions regulations for the Department of Defense, General Services Administration and National Aeronautics and Space Administration. These federal agencies will try to procure materials that do not contain high global warming potential hydrofluorocarbons. "This will allow agencies to better meet the greenhouse gas emission reduction goals and reporting requirements," the agencies wrote. The public has 60 days to comment....

The Hollywood Reporter revealed Tuesday that Reese Witherspoon has been cast into the leading role of a new drama called “The Pale Blue Dot” in which she plays a female astronaut whose life spirals out of control after returning from a space mission. She begins an affair with a fellow astronaut and soon finds herself in a love triangle. The story seems to be not so loosely based on the incident in which real life astronaut Lisa Nowak who drove nonstop between Houston and Orlando wearing an adult diaper and disguised in a trench coat and sunglasses to confront a...

If you are intent on convincing people there is no climate change, then the last thing you want is NASA — with all its heroism and accuracy — telling folks climate change is real. So, faced with this dilemma, climate denialist's have come up with a clever solution: Get NASA out of climate change science. The House Science, Space and Technology Committee recently approved a bill that would cut at least $300 million from NASA's earth-science budget. This comes after the head of the Senate committee overseeing NASA claimed the agency should stop doing earth-science and focus only on space...

In her final days as Commander of the International Space Station, Sunita Williams of NASA recorded an extensive tour of the orbital laboratory and downlinked the video on Nov. 18, just hours before she, cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Flight Engineer Aki Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency departed in their Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft for a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan. The tour includes scenes of each of the station's modules and research facilities with a running narrative by Williams of the work that has taken place and which is ongoing aboard the orbital outpost.

It’s about a life-altering discovery that Disbrow made – 77 years after she was raped. It’s not the type of thing you talk about, so Disbrow never did. But the crime – committed by a stranger during a school picnic – resulted in a child whom Disbrow was forced to give up. And that child, well, Disbrow never stopped thinking about her. Disbrow wrote her letters, prayed for her. And, for decades, every May 22, Disbrow would pull out a small photograph and silently wish her daughter a happy birthday. Disbrow married and had other children. By 2006, she had...

For almost a century, Minka Disbrow tried to find out what became of the baby girl she gave up for adoption after being raped as a teenager. She hoped, but never imagined, that she would see her daughter Betty Jane again. Her only connection to the child was a black and white photograph of the baby bundled up in blankets shortly after she was born. Then in 2006, Mrs Disbrow, who turned 100 years old at the end of last month, received a call from Brian Lee who turned out to be her grandson. He then asked if she'd like...

In 1928, 16-year-old Minka Disbrow was on a picnic in the woods when she was assaulted and raped. Suddenly, this innocent farm girl was pregnant and terrified. The baby was secretly born, named Betty Jane, and placed for adoption. For decades, Minka wrote letters trying to receive updates on her daughter. She kept loving and praying for Betty Jane, even though she never thought they’d meet again. Nearly 80 years later, Minka whispered a prayer: “Lord, I’d like to see Betty Jane before I die. I promise I won’t bother her or interrupt her life. I just want to lay...

The "Journey to Mars Challenge" will give a $5,000 award to each of the three winning participants who describe an original idea that could assist the human exploration of Mars. The proposal must be "technically achievable, economically sustainable, and minimize reliance on support from Earth," NASA wrote in a statement about the challenge. "This could include shelter, food, water, breathable air, communication, exercise, social interactions and medicine, but participants are encouraged to consider innovative and creative elements beyond these examples," NASA added.Because launch costs are considered one of the key barriers to space exploration generally — and Mars exploration, especially...

New climate change records have come along to remind us that Earth's thermostat is steadily pushing upward. March 2015 was the warmest March since record-keeping began in 1880, says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And the first quarter of 2015 was the warmest first quarter on record in those same 136 years. That gives 2015 a stab at trumping the hottest year on record -- which was 2014. The uninterrupted continuation of the warming trend is no surprise. The 10 warmest years on record have occurred in the past 17 years. And though the rise in the last 10...

The last known surviving member of the German engineering team that designed the rocket that took US astronauts to the Moon has died in Alabama. Oscar Holderer, who was 95, suffered a stroke last week and did not recover, his son Michael said. Mr Holderer was one of about 120 engineers who moved to the US after World War Two, bringing technology used in the German V2 rocket. They played a key role in the Saturn V rocket used in the 1969 Moon landing. The team, led by Wernher von Braun, was part of a project called Operation Paperclip that...

Round and round it goes, but exactly where a failed Russian space cargo ship will fall to Earth on this week is a guessing game. On April 28, Russia's uncrewed Progress 59 supply ship streaked into orbit atop a Soyuz launcher, intended to dock with the International Space Station. But shortly after liftoff ... Russian mission control team could not command the cargo vessel packed with nearly 3 tons of supplies. Current forecasts predict that the Progress should fall to Earth in an uncontrolled, destructive nose-dive on Thursday (May 8) between 3:11 a.m. and 5:26 a.m. EDT (0711-0826 GMT). Some...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) The current issue surrounding personal aircraft is the cost factor. Not only do private jets that seat under a dozen people cost millions to buy, but fuel for a flight will set you back a few thousand pounds each ride. NASA is working on a way to fix that, by creating a four man battery-powered airplane capable of working as a pseudo-drone and a short flight carrier. The electric plane features 10 engines and is capable of taking off vertically, similar to a rocket. The current prototype is focused on crop overview and personal surveillance. Instead of having a...

NASA developing faster-than-light space travel technology Concept could revolutionize travel [Video]

Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti fired up the first espresso machine in space over the weekend. She posted a selfie on Twitter from the International Space Station on Sunday, sipping from a cup designed for use in zero-gravity. ... Cristoforetti, who returns to Earth next week after a six-month mission, almost did not get any space coffee. The experimental espresso maker, nicknamed ISSpresso after the space station’s initials, was scheduled to arrive in January but did not get to orbit until April because of a shipment backlog. Lavazza, the Italian coffee manufacturer, and the engineering firm Argotec, which teamed up on the...

Is Russia Planning to Disassemble the International Space Station? Goodbye, International Space Station. We hardly knew ye. For nearly two decades, since the launch of its first "module" in 1998, the International Space Station has been a symbol of global cooperation, and the site of actual cooperation among scientists from many nations. Comprised of 15 separate modules, and inhabited continuously since 2000, the International Space Station has hosted upward of 200 astronauts and cosmonauts from 15 different nations over 17 years in service. But in just a few more years, all this will come to an end. Like disassembling an...

Electronic music pioneer Moby (real name Richard Melville Hall) went on quite the Twitter tirade on Saturday, railing against “racist, xenophobic, ignorant” Republicans who “support war” and “hate immigrants.” The musician, who has campaigned for and written open letters to President Obama, began his rant in standard fashion, calling Republicans “loathsome” and linking to a Los Angeles Times article about NASA funding:

Living down to our worst expectations, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology voted Thursday to cut deeply into NASA's budget for Earth science, in a clear swipe at our agency's manipulation of climate data. The committee's markup of the NASA authorization bill followed what appears to be a deliberate attempt to keep (us) Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), the committee's rank Democrat, and her caucus in caucus "we understood why.", Rep. Eddie B whined.

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An out-of-control Russian Progress capsule, loaded with more than 3 tons of cargo for the International Space Station, may burn up in the atmosphere as early as next week, NASA said on Friday. Ground controllers lost contact with the ship shortly after its launch on Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Engineers tried for more than a day to rescue the craft, to no avail ... An investigation in the botched mission is underway. Preliminary findings indicate a problem with the capsule’s separation from its Soyuz launcher. Among the evidence: debris orbiting near the tumbling Progress capsule, the Air...