Tag: NASA

Daisy World, The Gaia Hypothesis and the real story of Creation. Part 9: Nature or nurture?

We were created by God in his image with an expanded brain, capable of lifelong learning. This included a spiritual connection directly with God through His Spirit. This is the connection that died when Adam sinned and people decided they could function quite well without constant communication with God. Yet there remained a god-shaped void in their brains, a longing that wanted to be satisfied.

The question for us now is: Are we the way we are as a result of nature or nurture? Up to now we have dealt with the physical universe, the creation of all forms of life, and finally the creation of mankind, where mankind is unique in that it is created to have a special functioning connection with God. This is the only physical difference between us and the animals. A dog has better sense of smell, a cat hears better, an eagle sees better a bat uses echolocation to see at night, a dolphin has a better sonar than what scientists has been able to duplicate, many animals can sense changes in magnetic disturbances and so on.

We can separate the nature-nurture question two ways: Spiritually and environmentally. We start to develop much sooner after conception than people think, and the brain as it develops starts to record sounds and begins feeling way before birth.These impressions become hardwired into the brain and some insists that listening to classical music is the best environment for the developing baby, but the voice of the mother, both language and accent start to get imprinted before birth. The baby can also sense mood changes, arguments, stress and unrest. Some of this is already imprinted in their brain before the baby is born! If the mother gets sick, takes drugs, eats or drinks improper things, this too affects the baby’s development. Then comes birth, and so many things have to come to pass in right time and order for the birth to succeed, and yet it normally does. This is a miracle. Granted, when you see a cow give birth, she licks the calf off, and one hour later the calf rises up and starts to follow the mare, while a baby is helpless for a long time. When a child grows up, all it senses, hears, sees smells, tastes and feels gets uploaded into the brain, but only a small part is forever stored into memory, and what is stored permanently is often in connection with a traumatic event, good or bad. The events as memorized can be seen as nurture, but how they are handled are more part of nature. Some learn and change for the better, others change for the worse.

For all of us that are over 45 we will never forget January 28 1986. The space shuttle was ready and loaded to send up “teacher in space”, every classroom that had access to a television had it loaded and President Regan was ready to give the State of the Union speech the same night. The sky was perfect, but there had been a short dip below freezing and the dew had condensed thick on the main tank and even formed icicles from the cold from the liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. The boosters were not certified to work safely below 50 F, but they had done successful cold liftoffs before. A friend Ph.D chemist was working in the next cubical and together we were terrified that they would not scrub the mission. They could not find one engineer to sign off on the mission, but they went ahead anyway. The State of the Union speech was more important than safety. We all know what happened.With nearly all school-age children watching online the shuttle blew up and all seven astronauts were instantly killed. Some took it very hard, especially most teachers that had looked forward to this special moment in history. Some children had nightmares for a long time, but for others it was just another video-game. I can still remember some children coming home from school laughing: We now know what NASA stands for: “Need Another Seven Astronauts”. – The only one punished for this disaster was the one refusing to approve the mission and not accepting the white-washing of management responsibility; another sign of the fallen human nature.

It is of great importance where you spent your childhood. If you are born and raised on a subsistence farm, your experience is quite different from being raised on a modern specialized farm. If you are raised in the asphalt jungle of a modern city where crime and rape is commonplace, drugs are everywhere and corruption is the dominant method of doing business, that will shape how you see the world. Every memory impression will shape the way you behave and react.

If you are born in the country you will observe nature, and see how weather and climate affect all aspects of life, and you will see how beautifully God controls the weather. You learn to read the clouds and be a part of nature. Not so in the big cities! All is covered up, the sky tells you nothing. There are of course cultural events, sports, shows and spectacles, and many are drawn to that.

All this will be important in how you deal with the big question: Why are we here in the first place?

Next installment: The spiritual search for truth.

With Obama gone, it’s time for NASA to return to science and space exploration, a Limerick.

Let NASA get back into space

forget all that Climate Change chase.

No more Muslims to praise

or true science debase.

Explore God’s creation – and grace!

In July 2010 NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in an interview that his “foremost” mission as the head of America’s space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.

Shown here is NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. (YouTube)

Shown here is NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. (YouTube)

 

Though international diplomacy would seem well outside NASA’s orbit, Bolden said in an interview with Al Jazeera that strengthening those ties was among the top tasks President Obama assigned him. He said better interaction with the Muslim world would ultimately advance space travel.

“When I became the NASA administrator — or before I became the NASA administrator — he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science … and math and engineering,” Bolden said in the interview.

NASA has not been the same since. Let us turn back to the original mission for NASA, to forward science and understanding of God’s universe through space exploration!

 

This August was the warmest on record, so says NASA. Or was it the 9th warmest?

On September 15 a news release was issued by NASA and confirmed by NOAA that August was the warmest August on record.

I tried to look into the data  and found the source was a preliminary result of sea surface temperatures for August, which looked ominous indeed

On Sep 9  NOAA issued the following report:

http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news-stories/article/noaa-august-2014-was-the-warmest-august-on-record.htm

It showed how the data was taken that led to the sudden rise in global temperatures.

We can clearly see the warmer and colder areas, with the read areas (warmer) totally dominating  the blue (colder) areas.

However, in this data set, the temperatures in the polar regions are not included, hence conclusions are drawn from incomplete data.

When these areas are included August 2014 was not the warmest August on record, It wad the ninth warmest August and the 89th warmest month on record.

These ate the tabulated data from NASA.

 GLOBAL Temperature Anomalies in 0.01 degrees Celsius    base period: 1951-1980

                  sources: GHCN-v3 1981-08/2014 (meteorological stations only)
                    using elimination of outliers and homogeneity adjustment
                    Notes: 1941 DJF = Dec 1940 - Feb 1941 ;  ***** = missing

                                                                     AnnMean


Year   Jan  Feb  Mar  Apr  May  Jun  Jul  Aug  Sep  Oct  Nov  Dec    J-D D-N    DJF  MAM  JJA  SON  Year
1981    61   58   68   50   32   39   51   52   28   10   22   48     43  41     46   50   47   20  1981
1982    12   25   -2    3   25    5   20    9    9    2   11   40     13  14     28    9   11    8  1982
1983    51   40   46   40   48   28   21   49   57   31   32   17     38  40     44   45   33   40  1983
1984    25   16   38   17   48    5   19   27   26   22   10    4     21  22     19   34   17   20  1984
1985    32    6   26   18   23   28    7   36   26   16    9   16     20  19     14   22   24   17  1985
1986    39   50   38   41   31   16   15   21    2   12   12   20     25  24     35   37   17    9  1986
1987    43   54   24   39   30   55   59   25   35   35   31   57     41  37     39   31   46   34  1987
1988    67   49   57   50   63   60   45   56   56   53   15   36     51  52     58   57   54   41  1988
1989    27   44   47   42   22   18   47   50   53   43   21   36     38  38     36   37   38   39  1989
1990    51   42   86   62   52   46   64   43   30   53   52   47     52  51     43   67   51   45  1990
1991    49   61   48   72   42   70   63   57   61   33   31   33     52  53     52   54   63   42  1991
1992    50   40   53   26   27   30    8   13   -6    7    1   24     23  24     41   35   17    1  1992
1993    39   41   34   30   28   26   39   22   10   22    8   21     27  27     35   31   29   13  1993
1994    40    8   27   53   27   57   38   24   45   41   49   43     38  36     23   36   40   45  1994
1995    56   89   51   58   38   50   64   58   45   67   52   40     56  56     63   49   57   54  1995
1996    42   60   46   48   35   35   53   77   40   32   49   52     47  46     47   43   55   40  1996
1997    49   55   66   39   44   66   34   44   49   60   69   68     54  52     52   50   48   59  1997
1998    71  118   84   83   95  104   91   86   61   66   65   81     84  83     86   87   93   64  1998
1999    69   86   48   43   51   63   64   54   63   62   57   53     59  62     79   47   60   61  1999
2000    32   79   70   76   56   67   63   60   58   34   49   47     58  58     55   67   63   47  2000

Year   Jan  Feb  Mar  Apr  May  Jun  Jul  Aug  Sep  Oct  Nov  Dec    J-D D-N    DJF  MAM  JJA  SON  Year
2001    59   63   70   62   74   66   71   64   70   60   85   72     68  66     57   69   67   72  2001
2002    96   91  113   81   85   65   82   67   82   64   69   53     79  80     86   93   71   71  2002
2003    90   74   71   69   87   64   64   87   81   88   65   85     77  74     72   76   72   78  2003
2004    71   92   87   76   49   64   24   59   60   80   87   66     68  69     83   70   49   76  2004
2005    96   88   93   85   76   82   80   75   98  101   90   90     88  86     84   84   79   96  2005
2006    77   92   81   68   52   77   67   82   73   84   86   92     78  77     86   67   75   81  2006
2007   124   93   92   95   94   67   79   87   84   81   70   71     86  88    103   94   78   78  2007
2008    49   46   90   66   58   53   71   41   82   75   81   76     66  65     56   71   55   79  2008
2009    76   77   67   76   80   83   86   86   92   73   85   76     80  80     76   74   85   83  2009
2010    95  106  114  101   97   88   75   84   88   96  103   72     93  94     92  104   82   96  2010
2011    73   67   78   84   65   72   91   96   79   83   75   78     78  78     70   75   87   79  2011
2012    60   56   70   80   95   70   57   85   88   95   94   70     77  77     65   81   71   92  2012
2013    97   76   86   65   70   89   67   80  101   86   87   84     82  81     81   74   79   91  2013
2014    95   63   75   90  103   78   74   80 **** **** **** ****   **** ***     80   89   78 ****  2014
Year   Jan  Feb  Mar  Apr  May  Jun  Jul  Aug  Sep  Oct  Nov  Dec    J-D D-N    DJF  MAM  JJA  SON  Year
       
Divide by 100 to get changes in degrees Celsius (deg-C).
Multiply that result by 1.8(=9/5) to get changes in degrees Fahrenheit (deg-F).

Best estimate for absolute global mean for 1951-1980 is  14.0 deg-C or 57.2 deg-F,
so add that to the temperature change if you want to use an absolute scale
(this note applies to global annual means only, J-D and D-N !)

Example      --      Table Value :      40
                          change :    0.40 deg-C  or  0.72 deg-F
abs. scale if global annual mean :   14.40 deg-C  or 57.92 deg-F


The September 15 release was done by the political arm of NASA, and was timed for maximum impact on the United Nations Climate Summit one week later. 
The final Aug Data was never taken into consideration even though it was available. 
They did not want to release it was the ninth warmest August ever.
For good measure NOAA released it was the warmest summer ever. In reality it was maybe the seventh warmest summer ever.

Do NASA and NOAA lie wilfully? No, they just want to release selected data in such a way as to safeguard future funding.

On September 23 or so President Obama will address the United Nations' Climate Summit and proclaim "This August was the warmest August ever" or words to that effect, pointing to the NOAA and NASA press releases.

Eighth day in a row for absolute ice records in Antarctica!!

Eighth day in a row for absolute ice records in Antarctica!!

The Antarctic sea ice now covers an area that is larger than United States and Canada combined, or more than twice the size of Europe..S_bm_extent_hires (2)

Another way to look at the ice cover size is, if the landmass of Antarctica is included, the ice cover is larger than Asia.

The amount of ice over last years absolute record is larger in area than the country of Spain.

Notice the ice extent goes all the way up to the 55th latitude, where a change in the albedo from the ice has a substantial cooling effect since a large portion of the sunlight gets reflected rather than absorbed. At the 55th latitude the sun is now 35 degrees above the horizon. The sun in the Arctic by contrast is now only 10 degrees above the horizon at the 80th latitude, so the effect of the Arctic ice is much less important.

This will probably not be mentioned at the United Nations’ Summit on Climate Change September 23 in N.Y. Instead President Obama will say something like “warmest August on record”, referencing a press release from NASA, confirmed by NOAA. These were preliminary figures excluding the polar regions, but when they are included, according to NASA’s own data http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts.txt  it was the eighth warmest August, and the 89th warmest month overall.

This highlights the importance of the polar regions to be included when calculating the earth’s temperature and energy balance.

Here are the 30 highest values in square kilometers since satellite records begun.

 

2014,    09,  19,   20.12703,   Absolute record since satellite monitoring begun

2014,    09,  18,   20.11297,   Record 2 days ago

2014,    09,  17,   20.05201,  Record 3 days ago   

2014,    09,  16,   19.91462,   Record 4 days ago

2014,    09,  15,   19.81305,   Record 5 days ago

2014,    09,  14,   19.75260,  Record 6 days ago

2014,    09,  13,   19.73444,  Record 7 days ago

2014,    09,  12,   19.62641,   Record 8 days ago

2013,    09,  30,   19.57892,        2013 final absolute record

2013,    09,  28,   19.57295,         2013 record

2013,    10,  01,   19.57088,

2013,    09,  21,   19.56010,        2013 record

2013,    09,  14,   19.55145,         2013 record

2014,    09,  11,   19.54671,

2013,    09,  20,   19.53172,

2013,    09,  27,   19.51465,

2013,    09,  13,   19.50511,         2013 record

2013,    09,  22,   19.50450,

2013,    09,  29,   19.50390,

2013,    09,  18,   19.50078,

2013,    09,  17,   19.49298,

2014,    09,  10,   19.48881,

2013,    09,  19,   19.48110,

2012,    09,  22,   19.47713,       2012 new absolute record

2012,    09,  25,   19.47159,

2013,    09,  16,   19.47074,

2013,    10,  02,   19.46862,

2012,    09,  26,   19.47649,

2013,    09,  26,   19.46622,

Source: ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/south/daily/data/

antarctic_sea_ice_extent_zoomed_2014_day_262_1981-20101

Peregruzka? Russia triples the fee to ferry astronauts.

A trip down memory lane from Geneva March 2009.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opened her first extended talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov by giving himperegruzka a present meant to symbolize the Obama administration’s vow to “press the reset button” on U.S.-Russia relations.

She handed a palm-sized box wrapped with a bow. Lavrov opened it and pulled out the gift: a red button on a black base with a Russian word peregruzka printed on top.

“We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?” Clinton asked.

“You got it wrong,” Lavrov said.

Instead of “reset,” Lavrov said the word on the box meant “overcharge.”peregruzkareset

Clinton and Lavrov laughed.

“We won’t let you do that to us,” she said.

It doesn’t say ПЕРЕГРУЗКА on the button, it says PEREGRUZKA. The mistranslation is bad enough, but using Roman letters instead of Cyrillic? What was going on? Didn’t anyone realize they use a different alphabet over there? There are two possible explanations: Ignorance, or arrogance on the part of the Hillary Clinton State Department. I know  Hillary Clinton has demonstrated plenty of both in statements such as: “What difference does it make?”

How has this reset worked out for us? Besides Iran, Syria, Turkey, Hezbollah, Libya, Pakistan, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and many other countries where U.S. and Russia have opposing interests, and Poland where we plainly sold out the missile defense, we are in a pickle on another front:

Space exploration.

Since Obama made it NASA’s highest priority to promote the contributions of Islam to science and the scrapping of the space shuttle program with no replacements in sight we are totally dependent on Russia to ferry our astronaut scientists to and from the space station.

Russia is doing the rational thing: Tripling the fees from $22 million to  $71 million to transport just one American astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard its Soyuz spacecraft in 2016. –

Maybe Hillary really meant “Overcharge” instead of reset? Obama seems to love to give money to our adversaries instead of caring about our economy at home.

We can no longer go to the Moon. China will! A Limerick.

It was the 20th of July 1969 and my wife and I had been in the U.S. for a little over a year. We were sitting in the living room watching the moon landing and saw real live feed from the moon. President Nixon said in for him an unusally excited voice “This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation.” Well, those were the days:

And here is the limerick:

Forty-two years ago was “a small step for man”

Too bad as a nation we no longer can.

As NASA deserts us

And “science” perverts us

We are in retreat with no sensible plan.

A Chinese official kicked off an international robotics conference in Shanghai by confirming China plans to send a robot to the moon within two years and aims to bring a lunar sample home by 2017.

 

NASA’s Glory Satellite failed a second time. A Climate challenge.

The Satellite Glory has failed us once more

No measuring aerosols forming offshore.

Is NASA unable

to say GAIA is stable?

The jury’s still out for the swindler Al Gore.

A rocket carrying NASA’s newest climate satellite failed to reach orbit March 4 2011, and likely crashed into the southern Pacific Ocean after its nose cone failed to separate on time, space agency officials said. The rocket, a four-stage Taurus XL booster, launched from a seaside pad at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base at 2:09 a.m. PST (1009 GMT) carrying NASA’s $424 million Glory satellite to study Earth’s climate. “We failed to make orbit,” NASA launch director Omar Baez told reporters in a somber briefing following the launch failure. “All indications are, the satellite and rocket are in the southern Pacific Ocean somewhere.”