Slashdot Mirror

Here's one from Saturn:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060927.html

And my personal favourite, from the Epoxi comet chaser:
http://www.ccvalg.pt/astronomia/noticias/2009/06/3_agua_planetas_extrasolares.htm

However, this Martian sunset makes a very nice wallpaper.

If those coordinates are accurate that would mean the Air Comet flight was about 1400 miles away. If it was that bright shouldn't it also have been reported by closer observers?

You're in the middle of the Atlantic with big tropical storms about. What closer observers were you expecting? People on the ground in boats are going to be doing their best to stay inside (and afloat) and won't have a clear view of the sky. Who knows just how many flights there were nearby at the time where the pilots were looking in the right direction (forget the passengers; on an overnight flight they keep the blinds down), but it's not like the US/EU routes; there's just not that many planes going that way by comparison.

What would be interesting is if the flight was downed by a sprite. If they were flying over a big thunderstorm, that's altogether possible...

1. He claims that tempratures have been trending downwards for the past 11yrs - this can be debunked by a simple google search [google.com.au] and is laughable to anyone who has looked at the temprate records.

Did that, am I missing something? It looks like he is right - NASA's data shows a pretty clear leveling off after 2000. Now I do see headlines trumpeting '2008 was the 7-10th warmest year on record', but seeing as how that totally disregards any rate of change or relative comparison to the previous 5 years, it is an intellectually dishonest claim at best. But I'm no climate scientist either, so maybe I'm looking at it wrong.

My biggest issue is, and maybe you can clear this up for me, what is the level of certainty that higher CO2 levels cause higher global temperatures? Now I know CO2 is a greenhouse gas in laboratory experiments, atmospheric CO2 levels have been increasing exponentially, and global temperatures have been increasing over the past 100+ years, but I don't understand how one can claim, with a relatively high level of confidence that the three are related. I can definitely see the good hypothesis there, but I just don't see anything truly supporting the hypothesis, at least not to the 'sure thing' degree many seem to claim. Furthermore, say if the Earth is on a cooling trend over the past decade even though CO2 levels are at ever increasing record highs, wouldn't that bring the hypothesis into question? Not saying it turns it on its head by any means, but I'd think it would, as part of good process, beg for additional consideration. But again, I'm no climate scientist so maybe I'm missing something.

I guess I just don't buy the 'it's a shut case' when we're talking about such an incredibly complex system - such claims raise my bullshit meter and make me question what is being discussed. Given that thought, it seems a bit dubious that the US House would, uncharacteristically, pull legislation out of committee to rush it through a vote - especially when the bill could actually pass.

Of course he said they were liars. They are. Prime example: Carlin claims in this "report": "There may be in the future. But global temperatures are roughly where they were in the mid-20th century. They're not going up, and if anything they're going down."
The truth:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

I REALLY expect more from the /. crowd.

Yeah, it wasn't the Government that created the internet... oh wait, yes it was. If you can point to this great internet analogue that was squashed by the government, you might have SOME kind of credibility, otherwise it's yet more empty rhetoric. And never mind the transistor, mosfets, LSI, fiber optics, and cell phone technology invented by Bell labs with a majority of funding from the Government (what today's neocons would call 'pork'). The NIH (the major funding organization behind Bell Labs) is responsible for much of the medical breakthroughs in the last 60 years as well. And of course we don't need the CDC (heavy sarcasm). Oh, and of course I'd trust my family's clean drinking water and disease and chemical free food to the corporate sector as well, because you know they police themselves so well, as evidenced by Enron, Global Crossing, Haliburton, Qwest, Tyco, World Com, Bear-Sterns, Citigroup, etc., etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

And on Bush vs Obama on the subject of 'squashing dissent':

Bush:
1. Omitted DATA for 1000 years and mandated the insertion of qualifying words such as "potentially" and "may" that the result would have been to insert "uncertainty... where there is essentially none."
2. Demanded that data from a discredited study funded in part by the American Petroleum Institute be included in climate change reports.
3. Demanded that The elimination of the summary statementâ" noncontroversial within the science community that studies climate change-that "climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment."

On the other hand:

Obama:
1. Despite the fact that Alan Carlin was no part of any group tasked with studying climate control, Obama allowed his unsolicited and unwarranted report to be analyzed and subjected to PEER REVIEW, and was subsequently REJECTED by his PEERS.

Yeah, that's the same exact thing.

The thing that should stand out to anyone is that Carlin claims in this "report": "There may be in the future. But global temperatures are roughly where they were in the mid-20th century. They're not going up, and if anything they're going down."

This is complete and utter HORSESHIT.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

I REALLY expect more from the /. crowd.

Agreed, as long as they do agree that determining costs should not fuzzy the actual root cause. Find root cause first and then determine possible actions taking costs into account.

The man states they aren't taking into account the global temperatures for the last 10 (11?) years. Any sensible person would tell you that 10 years doesn't even register on an earthly historical scale.

Of course even this scale is infinitesimal in the larger scale but we don't have solid data. That doesn't mean we can discount what we do have.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/

The trends are pretty clear. There are all sorts of small 'drops' in global temperature over 5-10 years, yet the actual trend is to spike sharply upwards, especially in the last 20-30 years. I'm not a scientist, but even I can see a trend here. You'd have to be blind to miss it.

There is a process called "man-rating" which means that you certify a particular launch vehicle to be able to carry a capsule containing people. The process is sort of like ISO9000 or whatever.

Aerospace engineer Rand Simberg's post on man-rating is worth a read. I don't think man-rating is what you (or most people) think it is.

Bottom line: you might have to replace or redesign parts of the rocket in order to make it man-rated. And what I was told is that it might actually be more expensive to man-rate a Delta IV heavy, than to simply design a man-rated rocket like Ares from the ground up.

The Ares I currently has a projected cost of $35 billion (and rising). There's absolutely no way it would cost that much to reliably transport humans on a Delta IV. On top of that, the Ares I has needed exemptions on many of the safety requirements which it wasn't able to meet.

According to this presentation made to the Augustine commission, building a new pad and upgrading the Delta IV Heavy to transport Orion would cost around $1.3 billion total with recurring costs of $300 million a launch. Transporting a manned capsule on a Atlas V or SpaceX Falcon 9 would have a fixed cost of around half a billion with recurring costs ~$130 million.

With numbers like that, there's absolutely no reason to go with the Ares I, especially considering how many safety concerns it has. Heck, you could fund -all- of the alternatives, launch several unmanned payloads, and pay for manned trips on whichever one performs most reliably, and it would -still- cost an order of magnitude less than the Ares I. If there's worries that the other launch vehicles might experience cost inflation, just use a fixed-price contract with milestone-based payments, like has been done with COTS.

Reminds me of the Helios project back in 2001. http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap010831.html

Same "debate", different forum.

- Don't confuse the scientists and the advocates (yes, the Venn diagram does overlap). Some advocates make insane claims. I stick with the science. Starting with the 1896 paper "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground", by Svante Arrhenius.

- The 1934 issue was for the US, not global data. The U.S. makes up what pct. of global land area (hint: it's much less than 100%). Sloppy on your part.

- No one argues that mankind is solely responsible for climate variability. That's the lamest strawman around, and represents either dishonest or incompetent thinking. The argument that is made is that human impact is now as large, and will become larger than, modern sources of climatic variability. Re: recent trends, see the flippin' original link- we're in a solar minimum, for starters. You keep talking about cooling. Where's your data?

- You play the "I'm a victim" card exquisitely. Honest debates on science and policy are welcome. Ad naseum repetition of debunked data points, without even the pretense of providing supporting data, is annoying.

I am shocked, shocked that the WSJ opinion page would not have kind words for cap and trade.

Nice linkage to Che. You might want to catch up on the climatology research a bit.

Yeah, 2008 was really cool, being hotter than any year before 2000 save (super-hot) 1998

Check out the solar irradiance graph in that article. Wanna bet what'll happen when that sucker turns the corner and heads back up?

I am shocked, shocked that the WSJ opinion page would not have kind words for cap and trade.

Nice linkage to Che. You might want to catch up on the climatology research a bit.

Yeah, 2008 was really cool, being hotter than any year before 2000 save (super-hot) 1998

Check out the solar irradiance graph in that article. Wanna bet what'll happen when that sucker turns the corner and heads back up?

Awwwww! But what a nice photo-op. Come on!

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/54428main_MM_image_feature_102_jwlarge.jpg

Sign me up for a space-pilgrim one-way ticket to Mars, stat! I have my camera ready!

          -dZ.

NASA disagrees: http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/spitzer/signs/sign_glossary.shtml#S

"solar system
        A system of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, dust, gas, and any other objects that orbit a star, tied to it by the star's gravitational force. "

...that's where I get all my planetary science news! not. also. also. Why do people do this? This is the internet, not your local morning paper. You can go wherever you want to get this information. WHY NOT GO DIRECTLY TO THE SOURCE!?

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Thanks for the link some of those pictures are amazing. Being a UKian I was quite interested in the picture of London at night (shame it's a little blurred). I downloaded the largest version of the image though (about 1.9mb) and noticed something strange. There are a surprisingly large number of green dots and a few blue dots. What I'm wondering is: are the green dots traffic lights and the blue emergency services?

I could maybe believe that the blue lights are emergency vehicles since they will typically have an uninterrupted path to the camera but traffic lights almost always have a cover which I would have thought would make them hard to spot from above. Perhaps they are just artefacts of low light photography. I'd be interested to know though.

The original NASA story is here with large desktop background sized images. If you don't visit the weekly top ten site, you really should. Some of those images are breathtaking. Check out the thunderstorm anvil over Africa.

The original NASA story is here with large desktop background sized images. If you don't visit the weekly top ten site, you really should. Some of those images are breathtaking. Check out the thunderstorm anvil over Africa.

The original NASA story is here with large desktop background sized images. If you don't visit the weekly top ten site, you really should. Some of those images are breathtaking. Check out the thunderstorm anvil over Africa.

The original NASA story is here with large desktop background sized images. If you don't visit the weekly top ten site, you really should. Some of those images are breathtaking. Check out the thunderstorm anvil over Africa.

We have had the technology for economical seasonal energy storage at over 50% efficiency for fifty years. That may not sound like much, but efficiency is meaningless when production costs are low enough. Your post is a bit hyperbolic.

In fact, soon other planets will have it too.

Leave it in gaseous form and...

Oxygen can be produced by passing CO2 through a zirconia electrolysis cell at 800 to 1000deg C. Twenty to thirty percent of the CO2 dissociates into oxygen and carbon monoxide. Separation is accomplished by electrochemical transport of oxide ion through a membrane. A prototype reactor using this chemistry has been run for over 1000 hours. Using such a scheme, we could bring a small unit to the surface of Mars which would then continuously make oxygen for life support, propellant use, or further processing. The only additional item we would need to supply is the power to run it: a 12kW unit would produce about one metric ton of oxygen per month.

This oxygen can be converted into water if we also bring a small supply of hydrogen. Since the molecular weight of hydrogen is 2 and the molecular weight of water is 18, we can leverage 2 kilograms of hydrogen into 18 kilograms of water. The mass savings would, at some manufacturing rate, pay back the mass of the oxygen production unit. After that, we would get water for only the price of getting the hydrogen to Mars.

2CO2 --> 2CO + O2
zirconia electrolysis

O2 + 2 H2 --> 2 H2O
combustion of hydrogen

If we choose to import hydrogen, there are other things we can do with it in addition to making water. A chemical reaction which converts CO2 into methane (CH4) was discovered in 1899. This is known as the Sabatier reaction. Along with the CO2, hydrogen is passed over a finely divided metal catalyst at an elevated temperature. Methane and water vapor are produced. By taking this water vapor and splitting it to obtain oxygen and hydrogen (which is recycled), we can completely convert the imported material into 4 times its mass of fuel. We also get the oxygen we need to burn this fuel in a rocket engine, fuel cell, or internal combustion engine. When combined with the production of additional oxygen via the zirconia process described above, only 4 kilograms of hydrogen can be converted into 72 kilograms of a rocket propellant mixture.

CO2 + 4H2 --> CH4 + 2H20
Sabatier Reaction

2H20 --> 2H2 + O2
Electrolysis

CO2 + 2H2 --> CH4 + O2
Net Reaction

NASA commercialises about 150 technologies a year, they can be found here http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/

For those unfamiliar, the White House panel (the "Augustine Commission" on human spaceflight plans) was given the following objectives in their charter:

The Committee shall conduct an independent review of ongoing U.S. human space flight plans and programs, as well as alternatives, to ensure the Nation is pursuing the best trajectory for the future of human space flight â" one that is safe, innovative, affordable, and sustainable. The Committee should aim to identify and characterize a range of options that spans the reasonable possibilities for continuation of U.S. human space flight activities beyond retirement of the Space Shuttle. The identification and characterization of these options should address the following objectives:

a) expediting a new U.S. capability to support utilization of the International Space Station (ISS);

b) supporting missions to the Moon and other destinations beyond low-Earth orbit (LEO);

c) stimulating commercial space flight capability; and

d) fitting within the current budget profile for NASA exploration activities.

Unfortunately, as the "Restore the Vision" blog notes, while the presentations by SpaceX and ULA (maker of the EELVs) addressed these issues, NASA's Constellation presentation largely ignoring these objectives:

http://restorethevision.blogspot.com/2009/06/thoughts-on-june-17-human-space-flight.html

On "expediting a new U.S. capability to support utilization of the International Space Station (ISS)", the Constellation presentation was silent. It mentioned having ISS crew transport by 2015, the current goal, and how they'd made changes to improve confidence they'd meet that date (eg: reducing initial crew size to 4 on ISS missions). However, "expedite" doesn't mean "increase confidence you'll make the current late date". It means "accelerate the process or progress of : speed up". The presentation doesn't suggest any ways to have Ares/Orion ready for ISS transport by, say, 2013, nor does it suggest any ways to have any other U.S. system ready by that time.

Even former NASA Administrator Griffin always claimed that Ares/Orion was only meant as a backup for ISS support, and commercial transportation services were the intended route. Thus the natural inclination should be for NASA management to encourage commercial services to take on that role. The Constellation presentation could have suggested a COTS-D or similar competition for human transportation services, or some other means to get commercial vendors working on basic ISS transportation. Then Constellation could concentrate on the Moon and Beyond. Alternately, the presentation could have suggested ways to alter Ares/Orion to be ready by 2013. It did neither.

On "stimulating commercial space flight capability", again the Constellation presentation was silent. It has a line about "promoting international and commercial participation in exploration", but no details on what that participation is. Where is this participation in the plan? The original goal of the Vision for Space Exploration was for launch support to be done commercially, except perhaps for heavy lift, if needed. Where is that in the plan? The presentation didn't suggest that any of the components of the Constellation architecture be implemented commercially. There's a picture on "Future Exploration Capabilities" with an Ares V linked to some "Commercial and Civil LEO" spacecraft, but what commercial activity is going to be launched by Ares V? There's a slide on "Economic Impact: Contractor" and others on billions of dollars of prime contract value (as if high cost is a virtue), but that's not commercial, it's government contracts. If a contractor is going to sell commercial services enabled by its government contracts, I'm willing to call that commercial, but how much of

Herschel views in far infrared -- 70 to 160 um (micrometers) in TFA example. Here's a Hubble M51 shot in visible light which is sub-micron wavelength. The shorter wavelength permits greater resolution for a given mirror size.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080614.html

Here you go

Seriously, wouldn't it be neat if there was new evidence of water on Mars based on hi res pictures and someone would actually link to said pictures? That would be neat-o.

Don't get me wrong, Defrosting Spots Over Polygonal Ground sounds interesting and all, but...

Here you go, on the NASA site since 2003:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2003/nov/HQ_03364_MGS_delta.html

the ocean is a sort of buffer solution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_solution

what is major component of this buffer? us. living critters and how they react to an increase in CO2

http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/SeaWiFS/TEACHERS/CHEMISTRY/

which means the oceans will maintain their pH over a wide range of abuse and this notion of ocean acidification is hysteria

You're probably right. I'm sure what you remember from high school is a good reason to dismiss the Carnegie Melon research team's results.

the ocean is a sort of buffer solution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_solution

what is major component of this buffer? us. living critters and how they react to an increase in CO2

http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/SeaWiFS/TEACHERS/CHEMISTRY/

which means the oceans will maintain their pH over a wide range of abuse and this notion of ocean acidification is hysteria

NASA knows about the 11 year solar cycle, and attributes 2008 being the coolest year since 2000 to this and the La Nina cycle:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=36699

2008 was still the 10th warmest year on record, 2007 the second warmest. Even discounting the varying solar activity, there is still a strong underlying warming trend, and it's a big worry that the temperatures around the poles have increased so much.

Here is a neat article explaining more about sunspots http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm?list56376/ It talks about the cycle in sunspots.

NASA has even been criticized for not capitalizing on commercial space launch opportunities as Russia and China have done. I, however, applaud them for staying out of the way. NASA's goal is "to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research." No part of that statement involves commercial interests.

You should check out the 1958 charter which created NASA:

http://www.nasa.gov/offices/ogc/about/space_act1.html#NASA

Sec. 203. (a) The Administration [NASA], in order to carry out the purpose of this Act, shall-- ...
(4) seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space; and
(5) encourage and provide for Federal Government use of commercially provided space services and hardware, consistent with the requirements of the Federal Government.

Why do they make Hubble and Herschel sensitive to infrared light? I would think it most important to pick a spectrum that will provide the best information...

Exactly. What spectrum you pick depends on what information you want to get.

Infrared is good for a lot of things. Dust clouds are mostly transparent to infrared, for example, so the infrared is good if you want to look, say, at the nuclei of galaxies (such as our own galaxy) which are surrounded by dust. And if you want to look at galaxies at high redshifts, which is to say, far away (and hence far back in time), infrared is good because the light is shifted into the infrared. Infrared is good at looking for planets, since they emit in the thermal infrared. And many other things.

But if you want to look at gamma-ray bursts from supernovae, no, probably infrared isn't the right way to look. You might want to try the Fermi telescope instead.

Man, that canadian astronaut is a MILF :

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/payette.html

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/portraits/payette.jpg

Or should we say AILF?

I mean, her bio reads like every slashdotter's wet dream...

Man, that canadian astronaut is a MILF :

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/payette.html

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/portraits/payette.jpg

Or should we say AILF?

I mean, her bio reads like every slashdotter's wet dream...

already delayed becuase of a hydrogen leak.

a Canadian astronaut was also inconvenienced.

It apparently can; if its low enough * & loud enough:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/09sep_blackholesounds.htm

I think they're going to have to add a whole new logical fallacy; argumentum ad Wikipedia.

At any rate, NASA themselves claim some credit for this:

"...In one respect the all-up decision was like the previous decisions discussed: It evolved from earlier decisions and, in turn, presupposed subsequent decisions to implement it. The all-up decision presupposed the July 1962 decision to use lunar orbit rendezvous as the mission mode for Apollo, and it required an ever stricter control of quality and monitoring of contractors, the budgeting of weight within the launch vehicle and spacecraft (itself requiring major advances in electronics and miniaturization)..."
- http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4102/ch1.htm

they decided to move to a cheaper state.

It will only be cheaper in Arizona until the water runs out. AZ gets a lot of it's water from the Colorado River. However the water levels in the reservoirs created by the damming of the river such as Lake Powell and Lake Mead are dropping. Of course because southern CA also gets water from the Colorado River when water prices rise in AZ they will in Southern CA too. All of the water being withdrawn from the river by all 8 states making up the Colorado River Compact is unsustainable.

Falcon

We still have Armstrong's suit, but his lunar overshoes with the iconic ribbed treads remain on the Moon. The EVA boots were jettisoned before liftoff and, therefore, were not returned to Earth.

You also don't have cars flying five miles up in the air

Look, air does not help much :)

Quote: "The Peekskill meteor of 1992 was captured on 16 independent videos and then struck a car. Documented as brighter than the full Moon, the spectacular fireball crossed parts of several US states during its 40 seconds of glory before landing in Peekskill, New York. The resulting meteorite, pictured here, is composed of dense rock and has the size and mass of an extremely heavy bowling ball. If you are lucky enough to find a meteorite just after impact, do not pick it up -- parts of it are likely to be either very hot or very cold. In tonight's possibly spectacular Leonid meteor shower, few meteors, if any, are expected to hit the ground. "

CC.

Meteor hits house (2003): http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news139.html

Meteor hits car (1992): http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19921012&id=evMNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6HoDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6664,1878615

As aircraft fly at >30000 feet, the number of meteorites will be greater than the number that hit the ground. Atmospheric density is many times greater at sea level than at 30k+ feet, so more will penetrate the atmosphere to that height. It would only take a small rock, travelling at the speeds meteors do, to severely compromise a wing or even the cabin.

As has already been mentioned, the very first footprint has likely been damaged/destroyed already since it was (obviously) positioned right in the path Neil and Buzz would have to traverse to get into and out of the LEM.

Furthermore, people are talking about a photo of the first footprint, but I'm guessing they are thinking of the famous photo that Buzz took of his own boot impression (as part of analyzing the soil characteristics):

http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5877HR.jpg
http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5878HR.jpg

This was taken quite some time after Neil first stepped onto the lunar surface.

The first footprint might be hiding somewhere in thid photo that Neil took of Buzz coming down the ladder:

http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5869HR.jpg

Not so easy to tell which one it would be though, and it's in shadow...

As has already been mentioned, the very first footprint has likely been damaged/destroyed already since it was (obviously) positioned right in the path Neil and Buzz would have to traverse to get into and out of the LEM.

Furthermore, people are talking about a photo of the first footprint, but I'm guessing they are thinking of the famous photo that Buzz took of his own boot impression (as part of analyzing the soil characteristics):

http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5877HR.jpg
http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5878HR.jpg

This was taken quite some time after Neil first stepped onto the lunar surface.

The first footprint might be hiding somewhere in thid photo that Neil took of Buzz coming down the ladder:

http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5869HR.jpg

Not so easy to tell which one it would be though, and it's in shadow...

As has already been mentioned, the very first footprint has likely been damaged/destroyed already since it was (obviously) positioned right in the path Neil and Buzz would have to traverse to get into and out of the LEM.

Furthermore, people are talking about a photo of the first footprint, but I'm guessing they are thinking of the famous photo that Buzz took of his own boot impression (as part of analyzing the soil characteristics):

http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5877HR.jpg
http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5878HR.jpg

This was taken quite some time after Neil first stepped onto the lunar surface.

The first footprint might be hiding somewhere in thid photo that Neil took of Buzz coming down the ladder:

http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5869HR.jpg

Not so easy to tell which one it would be though, and it's in shadow...

What is often forgotten is that NASA has already made a start on this. The Apollo 12 mission was targetted to land right next to the Surveyor 3 lander. The astronauts removed bits of the probe and brought them back to Earth for analysis. The picture of this is one of my favourite pictures from the Apollo program. NASA didn't worry too much about preserving history back then. They were too busy making it.

Do you believe that, or are you just being a troll? If you believe that, and you're open to being persuaded by facts, take a look at the graph at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif and tell me if you see anything in the period from 1998-present that looks inconsistent with the trend over the past 40 years or so.

Then again, if they ripped the dvds, the MPAA would probably sue nasa or some shit.

Actually, they'd be more likely to get sued through "re-distribution" and "broadcasting" due to the over-the-shoulder camera views on NASA TV.

rofl.

Please stop peddling that nonsense. The decline since 1998 was a seasonal variation. You have to recognize that there is a fundamental difference between climate and temperature, and that climate changes over decades and centuries, while temperature changes from day to day.

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/2005_warmest.html
http://www.grist.org/article/global-warming-stopped-in-1998