Good morning.
It’s a rainy Thursday for Whitewater, with a high temperature of fifty-four.
Whitewater’s Police Commission meets tonight at 6:00 PM.
The Wisconsin Historical Society writes that this day in 1899 was the start for an enduring Bible-distribution program:
1899 – Gideons Get Going
On this night two salesmen, John H. Nicholson and Samuel E. Hill, crossed paths a second time, in Beaver Dam. The pair had first met eight months before in the Central Hotel in Boscobel and discussed the need for some way to provide Christian support to traveling businessmen. During this second meeting in Beaver Dam the two decided to “get right at it. Start the ball rolling and follow it up.” They invited their professional contacts to an organizational meeting to be held in Janesville on July 1, 1899, at which the organization was formally named and chartered. By 1948, The Gideons had distributed over 15 million bibles world-wide. View more information about the founding of the Gideons elsewhere at wisconsinhistory.org [Source: Wisconsin Local History & Biography Articles]
Two private space ventures, SpaceX and SpaceDev, are both progressing well, as Falcon Heavy rocket, Dream Chaser vehicle move forward:
SpaceX announced yesterday that it had signed its first launch contract for the Falcon Heavy, a vehicle that’s still under development. The company plans to test the new heavy-lift rocket later this year.
The Falcon Heavy is essentially three Falcon 9 rockets ganged together to create the most powerful production rocket since the Saturn V. The launcher’s secret is that it cross-feeds fuel and oxidizer from the two side boosters to the center rocket as they ascend. When the two side boosters separate, the center rocket, now basically a single Falcon 9, continues with a full load of fuel and oxidizer.
Meanwhile –
Sierra Nevada Corporation’s air tests of its Dream Chaser crew vehicle would normally have received top billing this week had they not been slightly overshadowed by all the (admittedly historic) Dragon hoopla. According to an article at Parabolic Arc (with great video), residents of Jefferson County near Denver were treated to the sight of a Sikorsky Sky Crane flying the Dream Chaser test hardware above the Broomfield airport on Tuesday. The tests were being done in anticipation of Dream Chaser’s Free Flight Tests later this year.
Encouraging, all round.
Google’s daily puzzle asks, “What do zip codes 34488, 63637, and 92264 have in common?”