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Its not NASA and the Kennedy Space Centre, but Kiwi aerospace company ROCKET LAB...
You may have read it on Twitter - now you can read it here:
Its not Nasa and the Kennedy Space Centre, but the Kiwi aerospace company Rocket Lab. They are counting down for their historic launch of a spacebound rocket from Great Barrier island in Auckland's Hauraki Gulf.
The launch from a private island off the Coromandel Peninsula in about two weeks time, will be the first time a private company in the southern hemisphere has launched a space rocket.
The 'Rocket Lab' company CEO, Peter Beck, said the rocket, named Atea-1, had a 2 kg payload capacity, and expected interest from commercial interests keen to send products or services into space, or even people wanting to send personal mementoes. This project will give the scientific community its first practical alternative to conventional rockets at a significant saving in costs as it will carry minature scientific equipment.
This coming launch will be the first in a series where the primary payload will be instrumentation measuring the machine's performance.
But the highlight of this small rocket will be its use of a new low-emission hybrid fuel technology; conventional rockets use solid fuel technology. The small rocket will travel at Mach 5 to an altitude of 120 kilometers.
Perhaps the big boys will have more competition from smaller ventures in the future, as minaturised equipment becomes more popular.
Rocket Lab will be holding online auctions both for premium viewing spots on the island and for payload space on the rocket.
Really Long Link
The world's craziest horse laws - even NZ gets a mention...
Want to keep horses under control? It's easy. Just pass a law. Neil Clarkson looks at some of the world's silliest horse laws.
Horses tend to be law-abiding creatures. Very few end up in jail or being fined.
The same, however, cannot be said for their human counterparts. Humans, in fact, do some monumentally stupid things - and just occasionally they involve horses.
In fact, one unfortunate American woman even made the finals of the 2000 Darwin Awards for her dealings with a horse. The famous awards are given posthumously to people whose passing might, uncharitably, be considered to be improving the world's gene pool.
The woman in question struck on the less than bright idea of using her body as a hitching post while trying to bridle a green horse. Suffice to say, she won't be making the same mistake twice.
However, a little bit of research reveals that people don't just do dumb things with horses, they also make dumb laws to cover them.
Yes, while horses are quietly grazing their paddocks, there are politicians and district administrators busily coming up with ever more ingenious ways to keep law and order in the horse world.
New Zealand has not been immune from this legislative barnstorming.
The nation's Parliament passed the Police Offences Act in 1928. It remained in force until a new Act was passed in 1981.
The old Police Offences Act covered a raft of misdemeanours. It was, for example, an offence to allow a mare to be mated within site of a public road. Why it was all right for cattle and sheep and do the wild thing beside the road, and not horses, is now lost in the sands of time.
Mind you, the same Act also made it illegal to fly a kite, beat a rug in public, and wear slippers in a public place by night.
It was also an offence to "ride furiously". This beautifully crafted phrase was obviously to cover the old-fashioned equivalent of reckless driving.
Make no mistake. Plenty of people died on the roads under the hooves of horses or the wheels of carriages.
Speed, as we all know, can be dangerous, whether it involves a horse or a car.
Hence, the ingenious lawmakers in Indianapolis, Indiana, hit on the brilliant idea of imposing a speed limit on horses. If you're wondering where the speedometer is on a horse, it's right next to the fuel gauge, just above the light switch.
Any rider doing more than 10mph was in big trouble.
Imagine the court cases:
Policeman: "I reckon he was doing 14mph."
Defendant: "Well I reckon I wasn't."
Judge: "I don't know what to reckon."
Speed is also an issue in Rhode Island. It's illegal to race horses on a public road, or even to "try the speed of a horse". Expect a fine of up to $US20 or 10 days in the slammer
Horses in some parts of the world are clearly nothing but trouble. Marshalltown, Iowa, forbids horses from eating fire hydrants. I thought they were made of steel, but perhaps in Marshalltown they build them from lucerne hay.
Utah decreed that it was unlawful to fish from horseback. That's inconvenient.
Pennsylvania outlawed singing in the bathtub. Fair enough - there's some pretty bad singers out there. But when it came to horses, they afforded them the full protection of the law. Many years ago, farmers were none too pleased by those new fangled automobiles, so they used a bit of political pressure to enact some entirely reasonable laws.
For example, if a driver came across a team of horses they had to pull to the side of the road and cover their car with a blanket that blended into the surroundings to encourage the horses to pass.
If that failed to persuade them, the car owner had to dismantle the "machine" and hide it in the bushes. I bet a lot of car owners simply turned around and drove home again.
Things got even tougher for drivers in Pennsylvania at night. They were required to send up a rocket every mile on country roads, before waiting for 10 minutes for the road ahead to be cleared of stock. In Wilbur, Washington, it's an offence to ride an ugly horse, while in Calgary, Canada, they're far less concerned about ugly horses, but still have a bylaw requiring businesses to provide hitching rails.
New Orleans may have had its problem in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but they're certainly not standing for any nonsense from horse owners. It's illegal there to tie a horse to a tree alongside a public highway.
Oklahoma will deal with you sternly if you engage in bear wrestling. They've also banned "horse tripping events". This sounds tame enough but it isn't. Horse tripping is used in training (such as a 'Running W' [running wire]) or in filming motion-pictures wherein the horse is pulled down or a trip-wire is set up, rather than trained to fall. If one reviews old films, it's easy to see where tripping is used, as the horses crash onto their faces, as opposed to trained falling horses which learn to fall when their heads are turned sideways. There's more on this here.
In Alberta, when they say they want to get crooks out of town, they mean it. There is a law that requires any person being released from jail be given a handgun, bullets, and a horse so that they can head off into the sunset.
Yeehah!
Acknowledgements: Neil Clarkson
The Guardian article attack on New Zealand's green image totally unfair...
The article in the British newspaper, The Guardian, claiming that New Zealand's clean, green image is not up to its emission and environmental image has been attacked as being unfair and wrong because it failed to mention other important factors.
Writer Fred Pearce claimed NZ and othe countries "greenwashed" their images. When you make such extravagant statements as Mr Pearce, you need to do your homework carefully. While condemning other countries, Fred Pearce saved his vitriol for New Zealand. Quote: "My prize for the most shameless two fingers to the global community goes to New Zealand, a country that sells itself round the world as clean and green".
New Zealand's Environmental Minister, Nick Smith, said he hoped online information would be updated once the full picture of his country's emission targets were made available. He said New Zealand had no desire to be a leader in addressing climate change, but it would get its own house in order and hope critics from abroad did the same.
New Zealand was called a hypocrite because it allegedly preferred triumph of style over substance. Well, thats Fred Pearce's opinion. It is true a lot of forests have been felled in recent years, but sustantial replanting had also occurred. But Pearce's personal attacks of New Zealand society completely undermined whatever case he may thought he had against New Zealand.
65% of New Zealand's electricity is produced from renewable sources, which is the highest in the OCED countries bar Iceland. 600,000 hectares of additional trees were grown in the 1990's, which absorb carbon and offset new Zealand's emissions. If these are taken into account the country is projected to meet its Kyoto pledge not to increase emissions from 1990 levels. Under current estimates it could actually exceed its target by 8 million tonnes.
Half of New Zealand's emissions came from methane (produced by grazing animals) which does not stay in the atmosphere for as long as carbon dioxide, and is less harmful.
While its emissions have grown by 22%, its population has grown by 24% during the same period. The British population has been relatively static.
As for the reality of claims about New Zealand's damaged environment, 65% of overseas tourists interviewed said New Zealand's environment had exceeded their expectations and the other 35% said their expectations had been met.
&2% of international visitors to NZ in 2008 thought the environment was managed sustainably.
One would have to wonder where Fred Pearce got his information from? From a fiction book perhaps?
Weird one this - involves a baby doll...
A woman who faked a pregnancy prompted a police enquiry when she feigned the baby's death
[ Click here to read more ]
Two Christchurch, NZ, men have been ordered to pay $150,000 between them after sending two million spam emails
Two Christchurch men must pay substantial fines after admitting being part of a major international spamming operation
[ Click here to read more ]
Moving closer to our Aussie cousins...
Scientists said recently that the biggest earthquake to hit New Zealand in seventy eight years had brought New Zealand closer to Australia... by 30cm
[ Click here to read more ]
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on Nz e-cigarette research to help world programs...
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