{"id":4956,"date":"2012-02-24T12:54:48","date_gmt":"2012-02-24T17:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=4956"},"modified":"2012-02-24T12:54:48","modified_gmt":"2012-02-24T17:54:48","slug":"links-for-friday-24-february-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=4956","title":{"rendered":"Links for Friday, 24 February 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.space.com\/14518-nasa-moon-deep-space-station-astronauts.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20spaceheadlines%20%28SPACE.com%20Headline%20Feed%29\" target=\"_blank\">NASA thinking about an Earth-Moon-Libration Point 2<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nWell it&#8217;s not quite Space 1999, but pretty cool nonetheless,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>NASA is pressing forward on assessing the value of a &#8220;human-tended waypoint&#8221; near the far side of the moon \u2014 one that would embrace international partnerships as well as commercial and academic participation, SPACE.com has learned.<\/p>\n<p>According to a Feb. 3 memo from William Gerstenmaier, NASA&#8217;s associate administrator for human exploration and operations, a team is being formed to develop a cohesive plan for exploring a spot in space known as the Earth-moon libration point 2 (EML-2).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">###<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.cnet.com\/8301-30685_3-57376406-264\/end-of-an-era-nasa-shuts-down-its-last-mainframe\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Do you know what a Mainframe is? Well, NASA just shut down their last one<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">###<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jpl.nasa.gov\/news\/news.cfm?release=2012-037&amp;cid=release_2012-037&amp;msource=12037&amp;tr=y&amp;auid=10267838\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Even more Geek News:\u00a0 Photos of Mars Landers from Mars orbit<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">###<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jpl.nasa.gov\/news\/news.cfm?release=2012-033&amp;cid=release_2012-033&amp;msource=12033&amp;tr=y&amp;auid=10259640\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Abe Lincoln (on a penny) to be used as a quick size comparison indicator on the next Mars Rover<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">###<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jpl.nasa.gov\/news\/news.cfm?release=2012-036&amp;cid=release_2012-036&amp;msource=12036&amp;tr=y&amp;auid=10266783#2\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>NASA taking stock of Eart&#8217;s melting land ice<\/strong><\/a><br \/>\nFrom the 2003-2010 observations,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The total global ice mass lost from Greenland, Antarctica and Earth&#8217;s glaciers and ice caps during the study period was about 4.3 trillion tons (1,000 cubic miles), adding about 0.5 inches (12 millimeters) to global sea level. That&#8217;s enough ice to cover the United States 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) deep.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yikes! That&#8217;s very unsettling news.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, another report headlines us to the news that <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.usnews.com\/news\/articles\/2012\/02\/08\/earths-polar-ice-melting-less-than-thought?google_editors_picks=true\" target=\"_blank\">Earth&#8217;s Polar Ice Melting Less Than Thought<\/a><\/em>. An excerpt (emphasis added),<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Nearly 230 billion tons of ice is melting into the ocean from glaciers, ice caps, and mountaintops annually\u2014<strong>which is actually less than previous estimates<\/strong>, according to new research by scientists at the University of Colorado, Boulder.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Further in the US News report researcher John Wahr states (wisely, in my opinion),<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Even with an eight-year estimate, it&#8217;s not clear how far into the future you can project,&#8221; he says. &#8220;A lot of people want to predict into the end of the century, but I think it&#8217;s too dangerous to do that \u2026 We don&#8217;t have enough info to know what&#8217;ll happen. There&#8217;s some ebb and flow to these things.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Indeed, if anyone ever wants to sell you something now based on a prediction of what will happen 100 years from now, you&#8217;d better grab hold of your wallet (I think Michael Crichton said that). From the NASA news release, after they&#8217;ve admitted the same as the US News report, it reads,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One unexpected study result from GRACE was that the estimated ice loss from high Asian mountain ranges like the Himalaya, the Pamir and the Tien Shan was only about 4 billion tons of ice annually. Some previous ground-based estimates of ice loss in these high Asian mountains have ranged up to 50 billion tons annually.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ouch!<\/p>\n<p>Imagine if you had some remodeling work done on your home and the contractor estimated it would cost $50,000 but the final bill came in at only $4,000? Well, of course you&#8217;d be ecstatic, but wouldn&#8217;t you also be wondering why the contractor was so inept? Or what if a stockbroker claimed an investment would return $50,000 but it only came back with $4,000?<\/p>\n<p>Yet we&#8217;re supposed to based governmental subsidies, regulations, etc., all on long-range &#8220;scientific&#8221; esitmates that, quite frankly, are &#8220;dangerous&#8221; to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NASA thinking about an Earth-Moon-Libration Point 2 Well it&#8217;s not quite Space 1999, but pretty cool nonetheless, NASA is pressing forward on assessing the value of a &#8220;human-tended waypoint&#8221; near the far side of the moon \u2014 one that would embrace international partnerships as well as commercial and academic participation, SPACE.com has learned. According to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,60,59,36,64],"tags":[379,846,847,848,1038,849,850,581,851,281,280],"class_list":["post-4956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global-warming","category-links","category-rusty","category-science","category-space","tag-climate-change","tag-eml-2","tag-glacier","tag-glacier-loss","tag-global-warming","tag-ice-melt","tag-mainframe","tag-mars","tag-mars-lander","tag-moon","tag-nasa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4956\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}