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Showing posts with the label Boeing Starliner

THE WEEK TO COME

The future of Democracy for the USA got a boost from former Congresswoman Liz Cheney and her father, former  Congressman, Vice President under George W. Bush and White House Chief of Staff for President Gerald Ford.  Like JD Vance, Dick Cheney graduated from Yale.  Liz is a law school graduate from the University of Chicago. Better yet, it appears that Liz will campaign with Harris as needed and the  Harris-Walz team raised $361 million August, triple that of Trump-Vance .  Plus all those  additional campaign volunteers  to boost their ground game. The highlight of this coming week is the Donald Trump vs Kamala Harris debate. Finally, some good news for Boeing and NASA.  The  Starliner spacecraft returned to Earth, but without the two astronauts.   When are they returning, and how?   A lot of unknowns remain .  Looks like February of 2025, with SpaceX looming to be the carrier.  But the USA might need to ask Russia for help. Last week I had a sidelight coverage of Rupert Murdoch and hi

MEANDERING IN SPACE

  The largest meteor shower of this year is occurring now.  Above is an extraordinary  photo of the Perseid meteor shower on 12August2021 by Josh Drur y ( right ) over Stonehenge.  You also see our Milky Way.  The Perseids, associated with the Swift-Tuttle comet, started Monday morning and will continue for up to five nights.  The best time to watch is near dawn before there is any kind of sunlight.   However, the best night was the first one, partly because of Moon conditions.  From all indications, not worth a bother watching the Perseids anymore this year. These flaming particles burn up by the time they get as close as 50 miles from the Earth's surface. Note that this comet has a 133-year orbit, and what you see is the leftover particles from previous visits. John Denver's song  Rocky Mountain High  makes reference to this shower. Almost all meteor showers are associated with a passing comet or asteroid, and some are named after them.   However, the identification of the ev