NASA Specialist Says He Was Fired for Belief in Intellignet Design of Universe

Source: CBC

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has landed robotic explorers on the surface of Mars, sent probes to outer planets and operates a worldwide network of antennas that communicates with interplanetary spacecraft.

Its latest mission is defending itself in a workplace lawsuit filed by a former computer specialist who claims he was demoted — and then let go — for promoting his views on intelligent design, the belief that a higher power must have had a hand in creation because life is too complex to have developed through evolution alone.

David Coppedge, who worked as a "team lead" on the Cassini mission exploring Saturn and its many moons, alleges that he was discriminated against because he engaged his co-workers in conversations about intelligent design and handed out DVDs on the idea while at work. Coppedge lost his team lead title in 2009 and was let go last year after 15 years on the mission.

Opening statements are expected to begin Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court after two years of legal wrangling in a case that has generated interest among supporters of intelligent design. The Alliance Defence Fund, a Christian civil rights group, and the Discovery Institute, a proponent of intelligent design, are both supporting Coppedge's case.

"It's part of a pattern. There is basically a war on anyone who dissents from Darwin and we've seen that for several years," said John West, associate director of the Centre for Science and Culture at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. "This is free speech, freedom of conscience 101."

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NASA Lost the Command Codes for the International Space Station

Source: RT

Four dozen high-tech computing devices disappeared from the offices of NASA over a two-year span, including one laptop that contained the code needed to command the International Space Station. 

No big deal, guys!

A laptop with the algorithm used to control the ISS was one of 48 gizmos and gadgets that NASA either reported lost or stolen between April 2009 and April 2011, the agency’s inspector general, Paul Martin, tells the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Although the incidents date back to nearly three years ago, Martin has only now informed Congress of the accidents. They are discussed in a written statement he authored and published this week under the title “NASA Cybersecurity: An Examination of the Agency’s Information Security.”

For the Cliff Notes version, we’ve got you covered. Information security at NASA: not so good. 

Over the course of ten pages, Martin makes mention of what he says are five issues that NASA believes, based on their “extensive audit and investigative work,” make up NASA’s “most serious challenges in the admittedly difficult task of protecting the agency’s information.”

For starters, we suggest putting a damn lock on the safe.

Martin goes on to list those challenges as including a “lack of full awareness of Agency-wide security posture,”“shortcomings in implementing a continuous monitoring approach to IT security” and the “slow pace of encryption.” Also, however, he adds that one “challenge” in particular, is the ability to handle a sophisticated cyber attack. 

Now, what separates a sophisticated cyber attack from a stupid, simple-minded one is something Martin would have to extrapolate on a bit more. But in regards to losing four dozen mobile computing devices — well, keeping a close eye on those things isn’t rocket science. And if it was, you’d expect NASA of all agencies to be able to handle it, wouldn’t you?

Unidentified Fallen Object Found In African Country of Namibia

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

A large metallic ball has fallen out of the sky on a remote grassland in Namibia, prompting baffled authorities to contact NASA and the European space agency.

The hollow ball with a circumference of 1.1 metres was found near a village in the north of the country some 750km from the capital, Windhoek, according to police forensics director Paul Ludik.

Locals had heard several small explosions a few days beforehand, he said.

With a diameter of 35cm, the ball has a rough surface and appears to consist of "two halves welded together".

It was made of a "metal alloy known to man" and weighed six kilograms, said Ludik.

It was found 18 metres from its landing spot, a hole 33 centimetres deep and 3.8 metres wide.

Several such balls have dropped in southern Africa, Australia and Latin America in the past 20 years, authorities found in an internet search.

The sphere was discovered mid-November, but authorities first did tests before announcing the find.

Police deputy inspector-general Vilho Hifindaka concluded the sphere did not pose any danger.

"It is not an explosive device, but rather hollow, but we had to investigate all this first," he said.

NASA To Annouce Alien Planet Discoveries

Source: The Daily Galaxy

Counting Kepler and the other ground- and space-based planet searches underway, scientists have discovered a total of more than 700 confirmed alien planets. They're still on the hunt for a Twin Earth in the habitable zone --roughly the right size and temperature to host life. Tuesday's press conference will begin at 1 p.m. EST and will be webcast on NASA's website. Speakers will include:

Nick Gautier, Kepler project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Francois Fressin, the lead scientist on the new discovery, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.

David Charbonneau, professor of astronomy at Harvard University, Linda Elkins-Tanton, director of the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington.

The public can listen in on the alien planet announcement using NASA's News Audio website.

The $600 million Kepler mission is slated to run until at least November 2012, though its science team is hoping for an extension of the mission until 2016 or so.

NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the "habitable zone," the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Kepler also has discovered more than 1,000 new planet candidates, nearly doubling its previously known count. Ten of these candidates are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their host star. Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets.

The newly confirmed planet, Kepler-22b, is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Scientists don't yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding Earth-like planets.

NASA Confirms It's First Planet In Habitable Zone of Sun-Like Star

Source: NASA

NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the "habitable zone," the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Kepler also has discovered more than 1,000 new planet candidates, nearly doubling its previously known count. Ten of these candidates are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their host star. Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets.

The newly confirmed planet, Kepler-22b, is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Scientists don't yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding Earth-like planets.

Previous research hinted at the existence of near-Earth-size planets in habitable zones, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Two other small planets orbiting stars smaller and cooler than our sun recently were confirmed on the very edges of the habitable zone, with orbits more closely resembling those of Venus and Mars.

"This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth's twin," said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Kepler's results continue to demonstrate the importance of NASA's science missions, which aim to answer some of the biggest questions about our place in the universe."

NASA Sting Targets Grandma for Moonrock

Source: Politico
MJ Lee

A 74-year-old grandmother who was the target of a NASA sting operation to uncover a piece of lunar dust said the incident was so frightening that she lost control of her bladder and was left with bruises from rough handling by federal agents.

In an Associated Press exclusive, Joanna Davis said the moon rock – which the wire says is smaller than a grain of rice – was given to her husband by Neil Armstrong in the 1970s, and she was trying to sell the item to take care of her sick son.

NASA Attempts to Decipher Mystery Organic Molecules in Distant Galaxies

Source: The Daily Galaxy

A team of NASA and European scientists recorded the "fingerprints" of mystery molecules this summer in two distant galaxies, Andromeda and the Triangulum. Astronomers can count on one hand the number of galaxies examined so far for such fingerprints, which are thought to belong to large organic molecules (molecules that have at least 20 atoms or more), says the team's leader, Martin Cordiner of NASA's Goddard Center for Astrobiology. This is quite small compared to, say, a protein, but huge compared to a molecule of carbon monoxide, a very common molecule in space.

Figuring out exactly which molecules are leaving these clues, known as "diffuse interstellar bands" (DIBs), is a puzzle that initially seemed straightforward but has gone unsolved for nearly a hundred years. The answer is expected to help explain how stars, planets and life form, so settling the matter is as important to astronomers who specialize in chemistry and biology as determining the nature of dark matter is to the specialists in physics.

Is The U.S. Government Stockpiling Food In Anticipation Of A Major Economic Crisis?

From: The Economic Collapse

 

Is the U.S. government stockpiling huge amounts of food and supplies in anticipation that something bad is about to happen?  Is something about to cause a major economic crisis that will require large quantities of emergency food?  For a while, I have been hearing things about the government storing food through the grapevine and I have not been sure what to think about those rumors.  Well, today I received a phone call that blew me away.  I debated for quite a while before I decided whether or not to share this information with you all.  Normally I do not like to talk about anything unless I am able to prove it by pointing to an article in the mainstream media.  But the source of the information that I am about to share with you is rock solid.  I cannot reveal his name, so you will just have to trust me on that.  Hopefully the following information will be one more "dot" as we all try to connect the dots about what is really going on out there.

This morning I received a call from a very prominent person in the storable food industry.  He has asked me not to reveal his name.  I have been dealing with him for an extended period of time and I consider him to be a rock-solid source.  When I talked to him today, he had just received a huge order for storable food from a U.S. government source.  He told me that the dollar amount of the order was in the "five figures". When he asked about why so much food was being ordered, the government source told him essentially that "you know what is coming".  When pushed further, the government official did not elaborate.It was unclear whether this was part of a larger food stockpiling program by the government.  Perhaps this order was just part of the normal preparations that government agencies make for potential emergencies. Nobody could blame the government for storing up some emergency food.  That is something that we all should be doing.

The truth is that the government is taking emergency preparedness very seriously these days.  For example, you can see video of a high-level NASA official urging NASA employees to develop preparedness plans for their own families right here. But what if this is a sign of something bigger? Remember, this is not some rumor I just pulled off the Internet.  This is not something that someone got from "an aunt" somewhere. I got this information over the telephone from the person who took the order. I promised that I would not reveal any more specific details, so I won't. But this does seem to fit with a pattern that we are beginning to see emerge. Earlier this year, FEMA issued an RFI (Request For Information) that inquired about the availability of 140 million meals of emergency food.  Apparently the food was meant to be stored up in case there was a "catastrophic disaster event" along the New Madrid Fault.

You can view this FEMA RFI right here.  The following is an excerpt....

Largest Ever Terrorism Drill: 'Operation Mountain Guardian' - Obama in Denver During Elenin Alignment

                                                                          Picture From: Red Ice Creations

Operation Mountain Guardian - the largest terrorism drill ever takes place in Denver as Obama visits on the 27th and the majority of world leaders are on recess. This visit also coincides with an Elenin-Earth-Sun-Merucry alignment, worth keeping an eye on.

No-Fly Zones on the Moon?!

The Promethean Post

Michael Anthony

From a recent article in The Hindu Moon to have no-fly zones by month end, NASA announces no-fly zones on the Moon! By the end of the month NASA will be declaring a long list of landing sites and artifacts from the Apollo missions as “historical sites” and “property of the US government”. These locations will be considered off limits. “Apollo 11 and 17 sites [will] remain off-limits, with ground-travel buffers of 75 meters and 225 meters from each respective lunar lander,” states the July 20 guidelines of NASA, obtained by the Science journal.

According to Science, by the end of the month NASA is expected to provide a set of “recommendations” for spacecraft and astronauts visiting the “U.S. government property on the moon.” However, these recommendations will not be legally binding due to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which clearly states that the lunar surface has no owner.

The Week in Alternative News 10

Just a quick, weekly news update provided by Set You Free News, Activist Post, The Intel Hub and Greenewave TV. Feel free to check out these alternative media sites. You can find their news feeds along with many other innovative, anti-censorship, open source, independent media sites right here at The Promethean Post. We will continue to support all alternative media that provides a venue for articles, editorials, videos and analyses on issues, events and information largely censored or blacked out by the mainstream media. The majority of the sites we link to and support are completely independent and have achieved this with reader support and no agenda-driven corporate funding, advertising or political party affiliation. Think for yourself and stay informed.