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Friday, October 14, 2005
ACME MISSILE BOMB Spotted Blocks from U.S. Capitol
On a recent trip to Washington D.C. I was snapping a picture of the U.S. Capitol building from in front of the National Museum of the American Indian when I spotted a "roach coach" parked on Independence Avenue vending a variety of refreshments including the ACME MISSILE BOMB, complete with pictures of Wile E. and the Road Runner. I was tempted, but decided the risk of being surrounded by black helicopters full of body-armored Homeland Security WMD hunters was too great.
Posted at
13:00
Flash! Earth's gravity affects Chinese spacecraft
Whatever your opinion of the BBC's politics, the science reporting used to be quite good. Yesterday's story about the Chinese Shenzhou VI mission wasn't one of their better days, however. The second and third paragraphs read:Gravity has drawn Shenzhou VI too close to Earth, the agency said. Shenzhou VI, which has two astronauts on board, is in a low enough orbit to be affected by the Earth's gravitational pull.Hello! Everything in orbit around the Earth, and for that matter everything in the universe is "affected by the Earth's gravitational pull"; gravitation is a long range force--it gets weaker with the square of the distance, but never goes to zero. What the BBC was trying to say is the orbit is sufficiently low (around 335 km according to the latest orbital elements downloaded by Earth and Moon Viewer) that atmospheric drag is causing its orbit to slowly decay.
Posted at
12:33