I noticed that Kristen found a story about a space hotel projectdeveloping in Europe called Galactic Suite. Great find Kristen! It sounds great and competition is sure to drive innovation and efficiency however, I tend to think their time frame of 2012 is rather aggressive. They have yet to build a space port (launch pad) and as far as I am aware they have no hotel (pod) in space, and no spaceship. They plan to use Russian rockets to launch their spaceships into orbit, which is a good starting point since Russia seems much more friendly toward space tourism than NASA. As far as space hotels go, it seems Bigelow Aerospace is much farther ahead in the game as they already have 2 small inflatable “space hotels” in orbit that are undergoing tests. No word yet on how Bigelow customers will get to the hotels. Virgin Galactic should be launching people to the edge of space by 2011. So there are some optimistic trends, but Galactic Suite seems to have an unrealistic time frame.
While thinking about some of the odd weather occurring this year – hardly any severe weather, record dry September, nearly record cool and dry July – I happened across some old records that I had forgotten about. One particular stretch of extreme weather occurred in early November of 1951. During the first week of November in Wausau during that year we recorded 6 days in a row with record low temperatures and 5 days in a row with record cold high temperatures. It is not the coldest weather we have ever recorded but it is the longest stretch of consecutive cold temperature records in Wausau history. Here are the days and the temps (also one record snowfall):
- November 1st, Record Low: 10, Record cold high: 30
- November 2nd, Record Low: 0, Record cold high: 15
- November 3rd, Record Low: -1, Record cold high: 16, Record snow: 1.8 inches
- November 4th, Record Low: 5, Record cold high: 17
- November 5th, Record Low: 2, Record cold high: 23
- November 6th, Record Low: -3,
Earlier in the year (1951), on January 29th there was a record cold high temperature of -17 and the following morning, on January 30th, a record low temperature of -40 occurred and this tied the all time coldest reading in Wausau that was originally set on February 10th, 1899. I can’t even begin to imagine the complaints from people if we suffered such extreme cold in the present day.
Lastly, a follow-up on a controversial issue regarding electric vehicles and loans available for manufacturing said vehicles. There was quite a bit of concern that the Aptera car would be classified as a motorcycle and thus not qualify for the government loans. Now the Department of Energy has extended the loan program to energy efficient 2 and 3-wheeled vehicles. Hopefully this will help keep Aptera in business and in line to win the Automotive X-prize.
Have a good Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.
Posted under Alternative Energy, Records, Space
This post was written by jloew on November 4, 2009
The winter of 95/96. We had snow like the last two years. Three consecutive record lows here in February of -31,-32 and -26. I can’t remember or find records, but it was nearly several weeks we never climbed above zero, maybe save a day or two at a few degrees above that broke that streak. February of 1996 also holds the coldest temp ever recorded in Wisconsin of 55 below two nights in a row. I know that is getting to be 14 years ago, but it was so horrible it is etched in my mind. I still consider that present day but it didn’t make the last two winters any easier. Just this march we have several days at or below zero for lows! It is just not November but March we get froze to death lately( and everything in between). So now you can imagine the complaints about those conditions in the present day =).