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The thorough investigation by the Apollo 204 Review Board of the Apollo accident determined that the test conditions at the time of the accident were "extremely hazardous." However, the test was not recognized as being hazardous by either NASA or the contractor prior to the accident. Consequently, adequate safety precautions were neither established nor observed for this test. The amount and location of combustibles in the command module were not closely restricted and controlled, and there was no way for the crew to egress rapidly from the command module during this type of emergency nor had procedures been established for ground support personnel outside the spacecraft to assist the crew. Proper emergency equipment was not located in the "white room" surrounding the Apollo command module nor were emergency fire and medical rescue teams in attendance.

There appears to be no adequate explanation for the failure to recognize the test being conducted at the time of the accident as hazardous. The only explanation offered the committee is that NASA officials believed they had eliminated all sources of ignition and since to have a fire requires an ignition source, combustible material, and oxygen, NASA believed that necessary and sufficient action had been taken to prevent a fire.

Of course, all ignition sources had not been eliminated.

The Apollo 204 Review Board reported that it took approximately 5 minutes to open all hatches and remove the two outer hatches after the fire was reported; that the first firemen arrived about 8 to 9 minutes after the fire was reported and that the first medical doctors did not arrive until about 12 minutes or more after the fire was reported. Thus there was not expert medical opinion available on opening the hatch to determine the condition of the three astronauts although medical opinion based on autopsy reports concluded that chances for resuscitation decresed rapidly once consciousness was lost and that resuscitation was impossible by the time the hatch was opened.

It is clear from the Board's report and the testimony before the committee that this kind of accident was completely unexpected; that both NASA and the contractor were completely unprepared for it despite the amount of documentation of fire hazards in pure oxygen environments. The committee can only conclude that NASA's long history of successes in testing and launching space vehicles with pure oxygen environments at 16.7 p.s.i. and lower pressures led to overconfidence and complacency.

Excerpts from The Apollo 204 Report: Summary

However, it is a common misconception that low-pressure pure oxygen does not increase the fire hazard. Not true. It doesn't increase it to nearly the horrible level of 14.7psi oxygen, but it does increase it quite a bit.

Apollo 1 Fire: Henry Spencer About Yarchieve.net [and Henry Spencer]

I have located an even more recent paper, written by a scientist working for NOAA (a reputable scientific body), using NASA's own data, that shows that the lower stratosphere is not in fact cooling as the greenhouse models call for. Rather, it is warming. Which in turn means the greenhouse warming models are fundamentally flawed...

Interesting paper. Of course, it doesn't say (or even imply) that "greenhouse warming models are fundamentally flawed." The stratosphere cools as CO2 increases because the "emitting layer" moves higher into the troposphere, so it emits less long wave radiation because temperature decreases with altitude in the troposphere. Because that radiation normally warms the stratosphere, the stratosphere cools. But other factors can warm the stratosphere, like anthropogenic methane and water vapor. Also, increased ozone warms the stratosphere, which is why the paper you cited actually suggests that "the reversing trend may relate to a possible recovery of stratospheric ozone concentration."

In reality, global circulation models (GCMs) are validated in a more robust fashion than examining a single variable in a single paper. After running an initial condition ensemble to average away the weather, and a multi-model ensemble to average away non-systematic errors, GCM output is compared to paleoclimate reconstructions and instrumental records (though the mean climate can't be independently verified because of model "tuning"). The GCM response to forcing events such as volcanic eruptions can be compared to reality. The CO2 sensitivity implied by the GCM can be compared to independent estimates from the last deglaciation. Chapter 8 here is a good source for background information concerning climate models and their evaluation.

I could go on about this for hours, pointing out reams of data and studies that do not support the idea of man-caused global warming... but I have already made my point: the plain FACT is, nowhere near "all" our evidence points to man-caused global warming. There is a great deal of counter-evidence, and much of the evidence on the "pro" side is now under suspicion because of some questionable practices used.

Maybe you understand the physics behind these arguments better than I do, but the overwhelming majority of the evidence I've seen says that abrupt climate change is happening because of anthropogenic greenhouse gases like CO2. Considering that this conclusion has been subjected to extensive independent verification, I also don't see any reason to be concerned about any questionable practices that have been floating around the tabloids. The few stories that weren't complete nonsense simply showed that scientists are human-- that countering the never-ending deluge of misinformation from nonscientists is stressful enough that they need to vent to each other privately via email.

I can sympathize. If every one of these climate skeptics put as much energy into getting a graduate physics education as they do into reading crackpot blogs and hurling insults at me online, maybe I'd have more time to work on my actual research...

Yes, if only there were a set of standards for the Aerospace industry to follow, or a list of approved parts for use in space missions.

My question is, since the Dream Chaser seems to be designed for that same niche, are they supporting both so they can have their pick of crew vehicles in case one doesn't pan out, or is there another reason?

These contracts were awarded as part of NASA's CCDev program. The purpose is to stimulate the market, and can be thought of more as research grant than being paid to deliver a product. The amounts awarded will give the companies enough money to fully flush out their design and begin prototyping. The idea is that as they get closer to completion NASA will pick the best one to fully fund for actual production and use.

• NASA doesn't want to be dependent on a single vendor, and would like two systems, from two vendors (a smart move, which will reduce the chances of long outages in the event of a design problem, as happened with the Shuttle, twice, but which cuts in half the number of flights you can expect to sell to NASA),
• NASA doesn't seem to have a budget sufficient to fund full development of those systems,
• NASA will only be buying a few flights per year to the ISS, for some time to come,
• the budget for purchasing those flights has already been announced ($6 billion over 5 years), and
• that budget is far lower than NASA's own estimate for building a single man-rated system (Orion + Ares I).

You can't just go to the marketplace and say, "I want to buy rides in nuclear powered DeLoreon, and I'm willing to pay standard cab fare rates in the D.C. Metro Area, oh, and by the way, half of them should be rides in nuclear powered Porche, which I'll buy from your competition, instead of from you, oh, and I only want three rides per year," and expect that to actually happen.

However, everybody involved might be banking on the notion that NASA has now backed themselves into a corner. They won't have an option other than to buy from the commercial market, once Ares I and Orion are shut down. NASA will be forced to pay "market rates" for these launch services. If NASA doesn't fund the launcher development, and only buys 1 or 2 flights per year from each vendor, the per-flight market rate is going to be about a billion bucks. Don't like the price? We'll give you a discount, if you buy 30 flights per year so we can achieve economies of scale.

The other potential up-side is that private launch firms probably have some market opportunity to sell to other countries which would like to have improved access to the ISS, or other crewed access to space, but which have a reluctance to fund their own system development. Japan (HOPE-X, and ESA (Hermes) are obvious candidates, having previously tried to build a crewed spacecraft, but potentially other nations such as India, which might elect to direct their R&D budgets toward in-space activities, rather than reproducing the ability to get there).

It also appears that NASA may be transferring the technology from Orion to a private company. This idea was apparently floated under the name Orion Lite, with the idea being a quicker access to the ISS by reducing the capsule's life support requirements to a few days (down from a few weeks).

There are parts of this plan that really sound fishy to me. But of course, we do not have yet the full information about it.
Charles Boden says they are taking the "flexible path" drafted in the Augustine Report and not by any stretch bailing out of human spaceflight. Yet, they are cancelling the whole Constellation Project, consisting in the launchers (Ares I and V) and the capsule (Orion), while the Augustine panel had specifically kept the Orion capsule in all the flexible path options. Actually, they thought any redesign of the capsule would cause an unwanted setback of more than a year.
So now, we are redesigning again a capsule from scratch. I do not see how this implementation of the "flexible path" approach is going to give us any time (or money) benefits regarding the capsule. Are we supposed to put the astronauts directly on the top of the rockets ?

It is kind of hard when you realize that you just saw seven people die in front of your eyes.

Just being pedantic, but there's pretty good evidence that some, if not all, survived until impact with the ocean. Vehicle breakup was somewhere around 12Gs, which was survivable. On board oxygen was used, and switches that required pulling out against a spring had been changed to positions indicating an attempt to restore electrical power. Impact with the ocean was estimated to be somewhere around 200Gs. More here: http://history.nasa.gov/kerwin.html and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster#Cause_and_time_of_death

So unless you witnessed the remains of the cabin hitting the water, you didn't see (all) seven people die.

I think the inflatables research that is being canceled is their contract with ILC Dover. See here.

Why NASA did not go with Bigelow to begin with? They already had hardware in orbit. But maybe that was the problem. There was nothing for NASA to do but buy the modules when they were ready to go back to the moon.

NASA's budget is receiving an INCREASE of 6 billion dollars. See for yourself at http://www.nasa.gov/budget

It's only Constellation that's being cancelled. There are multiple new programs, and NASA is getting MORE money because of it, not less. Nothing is being scaled back light of the economy.

The history of the effort to develop a successor to the Shuttle is littered with cancelled projects, and test programs that were never part of a coherent technology development program. You appear to be referring to the DC-X, but in fact, the other finalist candidate for the X-33 test demonstrator program was not the DC-X, it was a winged-flyback rocket design from Rockwell, which hadn't been flown, either.

NASA's budget is being increased by 6 billion dollars. They're canceling the Constellation program because it wasn't originally funded enough to ever work. The schedule has slipped so much there wasn't going to be a replacement for the Space Shuttle until 2038 or beyond. The director's statement is here: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/420994main_2011_Budget_Administrator_Remarks.pdf

First, you shouldn't have (intentionally) crushed your daughter's dreams like that.

All I did was tell her the truth: "They're cancelling Ares". She broke down on just that because she's smart enough to understand the implications.

Second, if you'd bothered to have done some reading, you'd find Obama's administration appears to be choosing the Flexible Path to Mars plan, recommended by the Augustine Commission. They're just killing Constellation because the money required to complete the program does not exist.

I have done my reading ( http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/420994main_2011_Budget_Administrator_Remarks.pdf [PDF]) . In Charlie Bolden's speech today on the budget, they didn't announce any program to replace Constellation, flexible path or otherwise.

Yes, they're going to spend $3 billion over five years on heavy lift R&D, but there's no overall program to direct that research. All Bolden said was that funding was directed towards "the clear goal of taking us farther and faster into space". He didn't say where or when.

It is my belief that without a Kennedy-like mandate, that R&D funding will be spent all over the place and, once it's spent, we won't be any closer to human exploration beyond low Earth orbit.

They used the Augustine Commission to kill off Constellation, but they didn't pick one of the alternatives or suggest something new. If all they're doing is R&D, it'll be easy for Congress to go after that funding later to pay for some pet project.

The only good news is the extension of the ISS until 2020. But other than that, meh...

The bottom line is we have no long-term strategy for human exploration beyond LEO. Unless you call some paltry R&D and "hope" that commercial industry picks up the slack a strategy.

Technology transfer of NASA tech to private industry already happens. Google "NASA commercialization" and "NASA technology transfer" for more info. For example, here is the NASA spinoff homepage.

Why does it seem to me that if I were planning a trip to the moon, I wouldn't really have 'art people'?

Why don't you ask Mr. Von Braun and Mr. Disney?

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2007/07_06AR.html

Thanks to the Moon missions, Black & Decker was able to pair cordless electricity with elbow grease and make the job of building America easier than ever. While on the Moon, astronauts were tasked with gathering soil and rock samples for analysis back on Earth. To help them, NASA asked Black & Decker to build a special drill for boring into lunar rock. The drill had to be small, lightweight and, most importantly, battery powered. Black & Decker's new drill proved to be a fantastic success and spawned the development of cordless tools for the medical, manufacturing, building and home consumer industries.

from: http://www.nasa.gov/missions/science/f_apollo_11_spinoff.html

Guess you missed this, retard. Charles Boldin only has a job, because he is sufficiently diverse, and he lets Obama put his hand up his ass to make his mouth work.

Just to drive the point home, while I don't recall the actual statistics, but statistically speaking, even accounting for the accidents, NASA is ahead of what their own projections indicate. In other words, even with those accidents, NASA is still beating their own projected losses.

You mean the 1 in 100,000 projected failure rate that NASA management talked about prior to Challenger? Yea, they exceeded expectations all right.

From posting summary: "If true, this won't please the federal panel that recommended against just such privatization."

ASAP is not a 'federal panel' in that it is a panel of members of a federal agency. The members are primarily consultants for and members of commercial concerns in aerospace. When tasked with something like an accident investigation or other safety related issue, they do a fine, objective job. When they undertake to advise NASA on what do to when it comes to contracting and such, they invariably favor themselves and their clients, which so far have not been the start ups that the Obama administration is considering using for future human spaceflight.

The panel members are listed, along with their relationships to the areospace community, in attachment 5 of the 2009 ASAP/NASA report at http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/oer/asap/documents/2009_ASAP_Annual_Report.pdf For those listed as consultants and giving the name of some consultancy concern, go to the web site of that agency and see who they consult to. The answers aren't very surprising given the recommendations that suggest NASA stick with the BigAero companies.

What you fail to realize is that private industry already builds the spacecraft in use by NASA.

Source: http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/stsover.html

-In the case of the orbiter, the prime contractor is Rockwell International

-The Space Shuttle main engines are produced by the Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell International

-The Shuttle's huge external tank is built at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans, La., by Martin Marietta Corp., Michoud Aerospace

-Several aerospace firms components for the Shuttle's solid rocket boosters (SRB). The solid propellant motors are built by the Wasatch Division of the Morton Thiokol Chemical Corp.

-All other SRB components are produced by United Space Boosters, Inc.

-assembly of the entire solid rocket booster -- is performed by the Lockheed Space Operations Co.

NASA really only project manages, provides the astronauts, and pushes the buttons.

But I'd submit that the lions share of the work is done by private companies already.

The constant lament of the guys pushing unmanned missions is that the manned stuff eats up 90% of NASA's budget

The manned program doesn't consume 90% of NASA's budget. Here's NASA's budget request for 2010. Out of $17.4 billion, $4.7 billion is used for unmanned activities. About $5.4 billion is used for existing manned programs while $2.6-$3.2 billion is used to develop new manned systems (the Constellation work and possibly the "advanced capabilities"). There's also something like $3.2 billion used for "cross-agency support". That could be anything.

At the least, a quarter of NASA's current budget goes to unmanned missions. If you ignore the "cross-agency support" funds, that fraction increases to a third of available funds.

Almost all the effort and expense in such a mission would be spent on simply carrying out the mission--getting them there, keeping them there, and bringing them home. And at the end of two years, I highly doubt they'd have done better science than if that money were spent on Mars probes like Spirit.

And that's exactly where the effort and expense needs to be directed. Do you know where the effort and expense of an unmanned mission is directed? Development of the mission not execution of the mission. For example, the MERs had costs of roughly $850 million through the first 90 days. Roughly, $100 million of that was launch costs and $75 million the operations costs. The rest was spent prior to launch. I think they've been spending roughly $20 million a year since, though I don't have a link for that. That means that roughly 30% of the MERs' mission cost was the mission.

It's also worth noting that Opportunity has traveled something like 12 miles and Spirit somewhat less. This is over the course of six years. All three of the Apollo missions that had lunar rover vehicles traveled more than one of the MERs in 2 days. The two astronauts involved also collected hundreds of samples in that time period and returned those to Earth. Last I heard, Opportunity took its 38th sample using its grinder. My view is that it is completely laughable to claim that unmanned missions are competitive with manned missions on the surface of Mars when it comes to stuff like geology, running experiments, etc. That in terms of work done, a single manned mission to Mars using a team of 4-6 people over a two year period probably would do as much work as hundreds, if not thousands of MER-style rovers. They'd also be able to teleoperate any probes on or near Mars too meaning they could greatly leverage any unmanned presence on Mars as well.

But they're unusual. Most stuff is like the Hubble telescope. You could have several functioning space telescopes for the price of one Hubble telescope and its repair missions.

I think you're making my point for me here :)

I'm making my point for me. NASA needed one space telescope and one manned repair demonstration for appearances. They didn't need a fleet of space telescopes generating considerably more science than Hubble alone did.

I think that you severely overestimate the amount of science that can be done by an astronaut. They operate in such a severely constrained environment that the only experiments they can carry out are set-piece experiments arranged on the ground before launch. The sort of free-form science that you seem to be imagining, where scientists live on Mars for two years in a relatively useful lab environment, is a very expensive pipe dream that's simply out of our reach right now. The way to bring it into reach is to advance the art of space exploration through unmanned technology. IMHO.

That's your opinion. Unmanned technology doesn't advance manned technology. That's the fundamental problem with your proposal. In addition, we know that so-called "f

Did someone argue that we went to the moon with the intention of developing some easy and reusable method of sticking one thing to another? I certainly didn't.

Your argument is disingenuous at best.

My statement was meant to point out that because of the space program there are many advances in science that we enjoy today that quite possibly wouldn't have been reality if not for the unique challenges of spaceflight. Why develop a pen that can write in space if no one is going to write in space? Do you have any idea how many residual things have been advanced because of that one simple requirement of manned space travel?

Just as an aside: Here's a link to an article at NASA.gov about a project to incubate breast cancer cells in the zero-gravity of space to better understand how they grow. http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/msad01oct98_1.htm

From the article "It has long been established that cells and tissue growing in microgravity - the weightless conditions obtained in space - can grow and mutate in ways different than on Earth."

Holy crap, I wonder how they figured that out....

Disclaimer: I'm an Indian.

Obviously, you would process the rock on the moon, and just send back He3.

And you don't need a human there to do it. Yes, having a human on the moon would make the process much easier, but the cost of getting the human there is so outrageous that it doesn't make sense if you can do it unmanned. It makes a lot more sense to spend billions of dollars in robot research and automation, and send that to the moon. What do you think one of the reasons for doing the Regolith Excavation Challenge is?

How much did Spirit and Opportunity cost? See: $820 million. Earlier in this thread someone claimed that a human on Mars could have done all the work that they have done in a couple of hours? While that might be true, that's irrelevant because the cost of getting humans to Mars is mind-numbing. It would be at least $500 billion, and with cost overruns, etc, probably a trillion or two. The ISS (in LEO, of course) cost something between $35 to $100 billion depending on how you count it.

I really, really want to go to space myself, and I want us to have a manned space program. I think that, all things considered, it makes sense to spend the money to do it. But, going to the Moon or Mars is a job for robots.

We choose to not go to the moon. We choose to not go to the moon in this decade nor to do the other things, because this is easy, but because this is not hard, because this goal will serve to disorganize and mess up the best of our energies and skills, because this challenge is one that we are not willing to accept, one we are willing to postpone, and one which we intend to lose, and the others, too.

For every dollar spent in NASA we get back seven in the economy from the advanced technologies based on things NASA had to invent.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/hqlibrary/ppm/ppm68.htm

Actually I just watched the video and I think you have the pause in the wrong place.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

        We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon [PAUSE] We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, [small pause] not because they are easy, but because they are hard

Just like airplanes are always falling from the sky because they are owned by private, cost sensitive companies...

Just because its private sector doesn't mean it won't be safer than the atrociously bad safety record of NASA-run manned space flight (which is about a one-in-fifty chance of killing everyone onboard).

But they've also had help from R&D performed by non-profit and often publicly funded organizations, even NASA has a major role in improving air travel safety! Take a look at those links (especially the first and third), do you think Boeing or American Airlines is going to do research like this by themselves?

Just like airplanes are always falling from the sky because they are owned by private, cost sensitive companies...

Just because its private sector doesn't mean it won't be safer than the atrociously bad safety record of NASA-run manned space flight (which is about a one-in-fifty chance of killing everyone onboard).

But they've also had help from R&D performed by non-profit and often publicly funded organizations, even NASA has a major role in improving air travel safety! Take a look at those links (especially the first and third), do you think Boeing or American Airlines is going to do research like this by themselves?

Just like airplanes are always falling from the sky because they are owned by private, cost sensitive companies...

Just because its private sector doesn't mean it won't be safer than the atrociously bad safety record of NASA-run manned space flight (which is about a one-in-fifty chance of killing everyone onboard).

But they've also had help from R&D performed by non-profit and often publicly funded organizations, even NASA has a major role in improving air travel safety! Take a look at those links (especially the first and third), do you think Boeing or American Airlines is going to do research like this by themselves?

Huh? Dr. Weiler is the director of Goddard, and I spent some time trying to find his peer-reviewed papers, but didn't see any of the nonsense that you're attributing to him.

But that's not surprising, since the urban legend that "scientists predicted an ice age in the 1970s" is false, and only true of sensationalist articles in non-peer-reviewed publications like Newsweek. Most genuinely peer-reviewed scientific journal articles were predicting global warming even in the 1970s. There was a genuine effect called global dimming due to aerosols increasing the albedo of the Earth, but regulation reduced aerosol emissions, and their short lifetime in the atmosphere did the rest.

It's not suddenly their job; the Goddard Institute for Space Studies has been doing it for quite a while: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/about/

Nevertheless, we're still doing science-- there's a lot of stuff that we can do even without driving around.

Exactly. Now they can do things like measure the change of Mars' tilt to plane of orbit, something that could only be done with a stationary radio station on the planet. These experiments were deliberately put off so long as the vehicle was still mobile.

Full story from the real source here:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/mer20100126.html

Especially when Conrad was involved.

[Conrad - "Between Sharp and Halo, on the long run. We were loping across there and, all of a sudden you said, 'Something funny happened to my suit'."]

[Bean - "Sure did. I remember that."]

[Conrad - "Or pressure. You said something. And, you know, I'm looking. I didn't want to see you disappear like a balloon."]

[Bean - "(Laughing) You wanted to say good-bye."]

Actually, several of the rover drivers are female.

I know at one point they were considering digging in one side of the rover to get a better angle? does anyone know if they have done this and if not are they planning to

It appears that's the next step and possibly why they called off exit tests now. Here's some related info right from the horse's mouth:

http://marsrover.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20100126a.html

I've read elsewhere that a recent attempt at driving backward out showed a hint of promise, unlike earlier frontward drive attempts. However, it appears that because winter is getting close, they decided to call off the exit experiments, otherwise they wouldn't have time for the solar-tilt digging work before winter hits.

The backward attempt would then be all-or-nothing if they kept at it, whereas preparing for winter via tilting at least gives them a good shot at a working stationary probe beyond the winter. Maybe if they had another month or two they'd be able to get backward exit driving to finally work. Bummer. The Martian clock was not kind this time.

I don't know about everyone else, but the image that shows up in the Layer 8 blog has the crew module squashed down so that it appears shorter than it is wide. This is the result of image distortion. The actual NASA press release has the original image with its correct aspect ratio, along with a short video about the testing that shows some of the static rig and test equipment.

Contrary to what you might think, hydrocarbons actually provide better shielding against cosmic rays than aluminum, which produces secondary radiation even more dangerous than cosmic rays. Here is an article from NASA that explains this in more detail.

Offtopic: OMFG T_T.... I just wrote a full 2 page well researched and cited response to you. And was going back to the /. tab to hit send... I fail clicked the x button and closed the tab. That suuuuuuuuuucks. So... here I go again in a shorter version since I have to sleep. (I was probably being a windbag in anycase)

"So the guy I cited is probably reachable by email and I will see."
Only on /. does this happen. You get a retort and in response you try to investigate further rather than degenerating into name calling or, at best looking for info to support your side. Thank you.

I'm sorry about me misunderstanding the idea raw data. I perhaps am too used to mass media where you generally get opinions, and a scientist talking about trends is called data. Actual numbers and graphs with error bars using a variety of methods in a variety of places on the globe and so on seemed quite raw to me. I suppose you want to go to the ice cores and measure yourself or some such, I'm not certain what raw data would entail.

In anycase each graph has a link to the source which links to the methods and sources here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
Given what is available there I have no idea what more you could ask for. (methods, sources, people that worked on it, how they analyzed the data, lots more). Highly suggest reading/skimming it. And they even have reports written and available for you to look at going back to 2001, showing no links to CRU.
As well if you go here (link from the gistemp): http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/
You get direct access to meteorological data! Hell they even have a handy clickable map interface~ nice. (Since this is station data, without a time machine you can't CAN'T get any rawer data, unless you think NASA failed at reading their handwriting..)

About the CRU thing, they were stupid, it was regrettable. But do you think with how public the mass media got about this the scientists in the field don't know about it. I'm sure there are some things that have slipped through but after such a public debacle scientists are going to distance themselves from it. And they will make sure that CRU data doesn't fuck up any of their theories or conclusions. Unfortunately the public generally will get wind of a scandal and claim things like: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/ which is pretty horrifying for science. Imagine if this happened in other fields. Newton getting proven wrong does not show that apples fall upwards. Hell chemistry in its entirety would have been discredited repeatedly. I'm sure you can think of other examples of your own too.

Offtopic: OMFG T_T.... I just wrote a full 2 page well researched and cited response to you. And was going back to the /. tab to hit send... I fail clicked the x button and closed the tab. That suuuuuuuuuucks. So... here I go again in a shorter version since I have to sleep. (I was probably being a windbag in anycase)

"So the guy I cited is probably reachable by email and I will see."
Only on /. does this happen. You get a retort and in response you try to investigate further rather than degenerating into name calling or, at best looking for info to support your side. Thank you.

I'm sorry about me misunderstanding the idea raw data. I perhaps am too used to mass media where you generally get opinions, and a scientist talking about trends is called data. Actual numbers and graphs with error bars using a variety of methods in a variety of places on the globe and so on seemed quite raw to me. I suppose you want to go to the ice cores and measure yourself or some such, I'm not certain what raw data would entail.

In anycase each graph has a link to the source which links to the methods and sources here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
Given what is available there I have no idea what more you could ask for. (methods, sources, people that worked on it, how they analyzed the data, lots more). Highly suggest reading/skimming it. And they even have reports written and available for you to look at going back to 2001, showing no links to CRU.
As well if you go here (link from the gistemp): http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/
You get direct access to meteorological data! Hell they even have a handy clickable map interface~ nice. (Since this is station data, without a time machine you can't CAN'T get any rawer data, unless you think NASA failed at reading their handwriting..)

About the CRU thing, they were stupid, it was regrettable. But do you think with how public the mass media got about this the scientists in the field don't know about it. I'm sure there are some things that have slipped through but after such a public debacle scientists are going to distance themselves from it. And they will make sure that CRU data doesn't fuck up any of their theories or conclusions. Unfortunately the public generally will get wind of a scandal and claim things like: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/ which is pretty horrifying for science. Imagine if this happened in other fields. Newton getting proven wrong does not show that apples fall upwards. Hell chemistry in its entirety would have been discredited repeatedly. I'm sure you can think of other examples of your own too.

2) Hard to reach buttons. Unfortunately, Knight Rider is the only example that comes to my mind right now, but it's true for far too many movies. Buttons located overhead, out of reach, sometimes requiring the user/pilot to stop doing whatever he is doing right now, move his hands and punch a minuscle button somewhere awkward. Yes, it looks cool, but it's about as sensible as putting the gear stick behind the driver's seat.

You should go into airplane cockpit design:

http://www.aviationsystemsdivision.arc.nasa.gov/multimedia/cvsrf/images/747_cockpit_hi.jpg

I count 6 rows of 26 dials and buttons above the heads of the pilots in just one bank. I'm sure you have a better idea for how to handle it? How about a modern air-liner instead?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/787-flight-deck.jpg

The 787 Dreamliner has certainly moved/removed a LOT of the dials and switches compared to the 747, but there's still an awful lot of dials and switches that require you to move your focus and reach. But again, I'm sure those are completely crappy interface examples.

I do not agree that this was more than a dyslexic typo that went unchallenged for far too long.

It's a good thing the correlation between global warming and extreme weather disasters like hurricanes and floods in the same report is still on a sound foundation then. Oh, wait...

When the paper was eventually published, in 2008, it had a new caveat. It said: "We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses."

Ouch.

The climate is warming. The climate has been warming from 10,000-15,000 years, and we should be glad of that. It's hard to grow crops on a glacier. 15,000 years ago much of the US was under immense glaciers, as was much of Europe. Now they are not in our current Holocene epoch, which is why this is called an "inter-glacial period." There's are various natural cycles going on here, with spans of twenty and eighty thousand years roughly. My minivan's emissions did not cause the end of the Wisconsin Glacial epoch. After a few more thousand years the cycle will once again reverse - and the glaciers will return. When they do we're all going to have to try to fit into North Africa, Eastern China, and equatorial South America. I suspect the locals will have a problem with that when the time comes. And yeah, I know you know all this.

I am also aware that nobody has a good understanding of the dynamics of large chunks of melting ice, this is obvious if you look at how woefully the 2007 IPCC reports underestimated the loss of Artic sea ice .

I'm pretty sure that the dynamics of melting ice in large chunks and small are that if the ice gets too warm, it melts. The loss of arctic ice is attributed by NASA not to warming but to winds pushing the ice onto currents that conveyed it out of the arctic.

Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. "Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic," he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters.

Quit scaring people with your pseudo-scientific dendro-science. We're on to your game. The sky is not falling. Well, the sky is falling, but it's falling far more slowly than you say it is, and in the opposite direction. Let us sit under the magic warm-monger tree and contemplate understanding natural cycles a bit more thoroughly before we deliberately attempt to manipulate them.

Oooh, cherry picking? I love that sport. Let me zoom in a little for you. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.C.lrg.gif

Err... its only been 10 years, hockey stick graph covered 420,000 years... The stick is still growing w/e but the graph just doesn't look much different than it did 10 years ago. (The stick part is like 150 years old)... http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/ trends are generally continuing, unless you think the last 4ish years are particularly damning to a 150year trend.

Also Its called global warming not american warming... But there is a graph for that towards the bottom. It shows a big drop the last 2 years, we'll see if that holds up... Again I think we need a few more years (not that AGW is affected if any particular country cools...)

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/ some of these have been updated within the past week. The 5year average shows increases.... So maybe you mean the trend for the last 5 years? But you know what, when it comes to meteorological data a 5 year trend means fuck all, like saying we've been having a cooling trend the last 5months (in north america anyways).

Also the arctic sea ice is melting faster than ANY of the 18! (not a factorial, just emphasis) models the IPCC used. The arctic is losing 3% per decade, the south is gaining .8%. Antarctic ice is also more prone to fluctuation anyways, each year it gains then looses a greater % of its ice than the arctic does which is generally stable. This is akin to saying you are doing ok this term in school because your gym mark went up as you fail all your other courses.

now the thermometers have been showing a distinct north american cooling.

So?

so nobody talks about the thermometers anymore.

Yes they do.

This graph uses the following data:

A global temperature index, as described by Hansen et al. (1996), is obtained by combining the meteorological station measurements with sea surface temperatures based in early years on ship measurements and in recent decades on satellite measurements.

Note that tree rings are not mentioned.

This graph uses the following data:

A global temperature index, as described by Hansen et al. (1996), is obtained by combining the meteorological station measurements with sea surface temperatures based in early years on ship measurements and in recent decades on satellite measurements.

Note that tree rings are not mentioned.

NASA says it's not C02 causing the Himalayan glaciers to melt:

Stolen from a comment at real climate:

"In fact, the new research, by NASA's William Lau and collaborators, reinforces with detailed numerical analysis what earlier studies suggest: that soot and dust contribute as much (or more) to atmospheric warming in the Himalayas as greenhouse gases."
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/himalayan-warming.html

"Based on the differences it's not difficult to conclude that greenhouse gases are not the sole agents of change in this region. There's a localized phenomenon at play."
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/himalayan-soot.html

"But some scientists claim that glaciers in the Himalayas are not retreating as fast as was believed. Others who have observed nearby mountain ranges even found that glaciers there were advancing."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8355837.stm

"The report, by senior glaciologist Vijay Kumar Raina, formerly of the Geological Survey of India, seeks to correct a widely held misimpression based on measurements of a handful of glaciers: that India's 10,000 or so Himalayan glaciers are shrinking rapidly in response to climate change. That's not so, Raina says."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/326/5955/924

"The most recent studies by researchers at ETH Zurich show that in the 1940s Swiss glaciers were melting at an even-faster pace than at present."
http://www.ethlife.ethz.ch/archive_articles/091214_gletscherschwund_su/index_EN

NASA says it's not C02 causing the Himalayan glaciers to melt:

Stolen from a comment at real climate:

"In fact, the new research, by NASA's William Lau and collaborators, reinforces with detailed numerical analysis what earlier studies suggest: that soot and dust contribute as much (or more) to atmospheric warming in the Himalayas as greenhouse gases."
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/himalayan-warming.html

"Based on the differences it's not difficult to conclude that greenhouse gases are not the sole agents of change in this region. There's a localized phenomenon at play."
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/himalayan-soot.html

"But some scientists claim that glaciers in the Himalayas are not retreating as fast as was believed. Others who have observed nearby mountain ranges even found that glaciers there were advancing."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8355837.stm

"The report, by senior glaciologist Vijay Kumar Raina, formerly of the Geological Survey of India, seeks to correct a widely held misimpression based on measurements of a handful of glaciers: that India's 10,000 or so Himalayan glaciers are shrinking rapidly in response to climate change. That's not so, Raina says."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/326/5955/924

"The most recent studies by researchers at ETH Zurich show that in the 1940s Swiss glaciers were melting at an even-faster pace than at present."
http://www.ethlife.ethz.ch/archive_articles/091214_gletscherschwund_su/index_EN

I went off looking for charts of global temperature and I found this but along the way I discovered a meteorologist called Randy Mann.

So if you trust NASA there has been a steady increase in global temperature from 1900 accelerating in 1920 and about 1965. Must be my fault. I was born in 1965.