Giant Machine Tunnels Under Nation’s Capital

Lady Bird, a 400-foot-long, $30 million, 1,300-ton German-made tunnel boring machine, will soon be carving miles of 22-foot-wide tunnel 100 feet below the Potomac riverbed. It’s part of DC Water’s Clean Rivers Project, the second-largest civil engineering project in DC history (only Metrorail is bigger). When completed in 2025, the $2.6 billion EPA-funded dig will keep raw sewage from flowing into the Potomac and Anacostia when it rains hard. That’s what happens now (it’s called CSO, “Combined Sewer Overflow”).

Lady Bird will be underground and out of sight, but you can follow her on her own Twitter account.

Marco Rubio Takes to Drink

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) was stuck with the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address last night. His dry-mouthed dive for a drink was the highlight of his dismal desperation demo:

@AlbertBrooks: I didn’t see Marco Rubio’s speech but I just got a residual check.

“Marco Rubio’s ‘water bottle-gate’ moment,” Lucy Madison, CBS News

“Marco Rubio’s Nervous Sip of Water Is the Only Thing Anyone Will Remember About His State of the Union Response,” Leah Beckmann, Gawker

“Botella de agua de Marco Rubio inunda las redes (Marco Rubio’s bottle of water flooded the networks”), La Opinión

Sen. Marco Rubio’s swig of water during GOP rebuttal goes viral,” Marc Caputo, Miami Herald

“Water under the bridge? Rubio slips and sips; his GOP speech response goes viral,” Ken Thomas, AP via Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Everyone On Twitter Made The Exact Same Joke About Marco Rubio’s Water Break,” Andrew Kaczynski, BuzzFeed

“Marco Rubio’s Gulpgate,” Alex Rogers, TIME blog

“How Marco Rubio is trying to turn his sip slip into a political win,” Sean Sullivan and Aaron Blake, Washington Post

“Marco Rubio’s Water Break: Jokes Not Drying Up Online,” Alyssa Newcomb, ABC News blog

Senator Rubio made light of the episode, but a question remains: Awkward pause or product placement?

It’s Refreshing. It’s … Moon Water.

Moon water is back in the news:

“Evidence of Water Beneath Moon’s Stony Face,” Kenneth Chang, New York Times

“Moon Has More Water Than Previously Thought in Challenge to View of Origin,” Elizabeth Lopatto, Bloomberg News

“Another moon stunner: Its interior is wet, too,” Mike Wall, MSNBC

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Water on the Moon

Man’s thirst for knowledge led the scientists of the National Aeronautical and Space Administration to ask the question: If we smash a big, heavy object into the Moon, will we find water? The answer: Oh boy! Let’s try!

On October 9th, a bus-sized Centaur booster rocket smacked into a lunar crater at 6.000 miles per hour, sending up a mile-high plume of dust, vapor, and moon-dirt. Yeah! Then the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) analyzed the dirt and vapor, looking for ice cubes before it smacked down. Wow! Man! Worth every penny of the $79 million cost.

So where’s the water? NASA has the data, recorded by nine instruments; they’re working on it. There’s water on the Moon somewhere. India’s Chandrayaan lunar probe just confirmed that. There’s just no dramatic underground lake or anything.

Too bad. Our spy at NASA told us the agency hopes to recoup the mission cost by developing lunar water products (in mission-safe plastic bottles) for prestige retailers. Scientists even have a marketing campaign. Everything is ready.

Everything but the water.

 

Image by Mike Licht (who actually appreciates NASA’s unmanned programs). Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.