Falcon 9 Development = Cost of Ares I Mobile Service Tower

Posted on by

SpaceX Achieves Orbital Bullseye With Inaugural Flight of Falcon 9 Rocket, SpaceX

"The NASA COTS program has demonstrated the power of what can be accomplished when you combine private sector responsiveness and ingenuity with the guidance, support and insight of the US government. For less than the cost of the Ares I mobile service tower, SpaceX has developed all the flight hardware for the Falcon 9 orbital rocket, Dragon spacecraft, as well as three launch sites. SpaceX has been profitable for three consecutive years (2007 through 2009) and expects to remain modestly profitable for the foreseeable future. The company has over 1000 employees in California, Texas and Florida, and has been approximately doubling in size every two years. A majority of the future growth is expected to occur in Texas and Florida."

The Smell of Election Year Politics

Posted on by

Playing politics: President's NASA policy could haunt his party at the polls in Harris County, Editorial, Houston Chronicle

"A parade of administration officials, starting with the president, has gone to Florida to promise federal assistance. In a speech at KSC, where some 20,000 NASA and contract workers are affected, Obama pledged an additional $40 million in job assistance. No such consideration has been shown toward other NASA facilities around the country, including the Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake. It stands to lose up to 7,000 NASA and contractor jobs. We smell the stench of political favoritism in the consideration lavished by the administration upon Florida, a presidential swing state, while facilities in Alabama and Texas, two reliable GOP strongholds, are ignored."

Building Orion

Posted on by

NASA's First Lunar Orion Test Capsule Built, Ken Kremer

"America's first Lunar Test capsule for people since Project Apollo has just been welded into shape. This work finishes the structural framework of the pioneer Orion crew cabin - known as the Ground Test Article - or GTA, by a Lockheed Martin contractor team toiling away at the historic NASA-owned Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) in New Orleans, damaged during Hurricane Katrina."

Collaborating Clouds

Posted on by

NASA and Japan Announce Cloud Computing Collaboration

"NASA and Japan's National Institute of Informatics (NII) have announced plans to explore interoperability opportunities between NASA's Nebula Cloud Computing Platform and Japan's NII Cloud Computing Platform. "The interoperability between an NII Cloud and the NASA Nebula Cloud is a combined effort toward the creation of an International academic-information infrastructure, which is essential in promoting the global cooperation of research and education," said Masao Sakauchi, NII's director general. "The interoperability of this cloud infrastructure will make it possible to create new academic activities by enabling the software and content to be shared amongst researchers, faculties, and students worldwide."

Rough Space Weather Ahead

Posted on by

Space Weather Enterprise Forum 2010: Building an Informed and Resilient Society - the Decade Ahead

"As we approach the next peak of solar activity expected in 2013, our nation faces multiplying uncertainties from increasing reliance on space weather-affected technologies for communication, navigation, security, and other activities, many of which underpin our national infrastructure and economy. We also face increasing exposure to space weather-driven human health risk as trans-polar flights and space activities, including space tourism, increase."

The Cape Week in Review by the Cape Insider (With Video)

Posted on by

Cape Canaveral was in the spotlight this week both domestically and internationally. At Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex a grant was unveiled designed to help space workers find work after the end of the shuttle program. An international team visited Kennedy Space Center and expressed their interest in joining the U.S. in future efforts to explore the solar system. To wrap up the week several veteran space flyers were inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame. Oh, and how about SpaceX, Falcon 9 lifts off on maiden voyage.

Secretary of Labor announces grant to aid transition of KSC workers

The U.S. Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis announced a grant to assist space workers transition into new jobs after the space shuttle is retired at the end of this year. She made the announcement at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex Thursday, June 3. The $15 million grant is being awarded to Brevard Workforce Development to provide services needed to help workers that have been laid off find new jobs.

There are expected to be some 3,200 workers that will lose their jobs at the end of this year when the space shuttle program is scheduled to end. There are currently only two more shuttle flights remaining on the flight manifest with a third potential flight being discussed. When the shuttles finally stop flying it is predicted that approximately some 8,000 workers will lose their jobs.

Approximately two-thirds of the grant's funds will go toward placing some 1,300 workers into new positions. Employers would hire laid-off workers; money from the grant would pay half an employee's salary for three months with the hope that the employee would be picked up after this time period.

Workers with a wide range of experience levels are expected to find themselves in need of assistance. A variety of NASA contractors such as United Space Alliance (USA) and Boeing are expecting high numbers of layoffs.

The grant will help those affected get access to much needed services that will allow them to find new jobs, be retrained toward new career fields and review the skills they currently have for job placement. The grant is also designed to help workers gain new training and education. These programs are not limited to just aerospace workers, other employees impacted by the shuttle's retirement are also being considered for a secondary group that might become eligible under the grant.

2010-3668-holis-ksc.jpgAt NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis talks to the media and community leaders about the $15 million Florida will receive from the Labor Department's National Emergency Grant Program to assist workers. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Japanese delegation sees potential for cooperation during KSC visit

A delegation from Japan expressed great interest in further cooperation between the U.S. and Japanese manned space programs during their visit to Kennedy Space Center. In fact they see far more potential under this new initiative than under the Constellation Program. The delegation visited Kennedy Space Center Tuesday, June 1.

The delegation saw great potential for Japanese involvement under the new direction to develop more commercial launch services for astronauts. Managers with the Mitsubishi Corporation were among the delegation and expressed the hope that their company could provide taxi services for astronauts. Mitsubishi currently manufactures the H-IIA and H-IIB rockets.

Japan has not yet launched astronauts into orbit but has made great strides in recent years and the representatives present Tuesday expressed an eagerness to take the next step. Recently Japan launched its first H-II Transfer Vehicle to the International Space Station. The H-II's first flight delivered supplies to the space station. Although the H-II is unmanned and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has only been able to send astronauts into orbit aboard American and Russian vehicles, the agency is working on developing manned spaceflight capabilities.

SpaceX Falcon 9 Soars to Orbit on First Flight

This past Friday SpaceX launched Falcon 9 on its maiden voyage. Hype surrounding the launch meant that many eyes were watching this launch. SpaceX had gone to great lengths to minimize expectations. However despite the difficulty in successfully launching new rockets on their first flight, the Falcon 9 performed near flawlessly. The data is being reviewed and some of it will no doubt make to the public and whatever issues that came up will no doubt be addressed before Falcon 9's next launch. Below are two separate views of the launch. One taken by NASA and the other from the SpaceX webcast feed.

Astronaut Hall of Fame inducts four new members

astronaut-halloffame-june2010.jpg

The Astronaut Hall of Fame inducted four new members into its ranks on Saturday, June 5, 2010. The new hall of fame members included the first African American astronaut Guy Bluford Jr., Ken Bowersox, and Kathy Thornton who flew on the rescue mission to the Hubble Space Telescope as well as Frank Culbertson Jr., a three-time shuttle veteran and former commander of the International Space Station.

Guests were treated to an autograph session with astronauts Loren Shriver, Bill Shepherd and Jeff Hoffman before the ceremony began. For this year's induction the co-star of the hit TV series Two and a Half Men, Jon Cryer, was master of ceremonies. He introduced each of the astronauts and provided guests with the astronaut's various backgrounds. This year's induction was also notable for the high-ranking astronauts in attendance.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, Kennedy Space Center Director Robert Cabana and Johnson Space Center Director Michael Coats, who are all former astronauts, were present and both Bolden and Coats spoke during the ceremony.

The induction ceremony is held every year to include new astronauts into the hall's ranks. The Astronaut Hall of Fame is managed by Delaware North Companies who also operate the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

--
The Cape Week in Review is compiled by Jason Rhian, the Cape Insider, and is a weekly
round-up of what's happening at Cape Canaveral. If you have information or suggestions for the Cape Week in Review please email us at capereview@spaceref.com.

NASA Rover Finds Clue to Mars’ Past and Environment for Life

Posted on by
Lengthy detective work with data NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit collected in late 2005 has confirmed that an outcrop called 'Comanche'
Lengthy detective work with data NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit collected in late 2005 has confirmed that an outcrop called "Comanche" contains a mineral indicating that a past environment was wet and non-acidic, possibly favorable to life.
› Full image and caption
Rocks examined by NASA's Spirit Mars Rover hold evidence of a wet, non-acidic ancient environment that may have been favorable for life. Confirming this mineral clue took four years of analysis by several scientists.

An outcrop that Spirit examined in late 2005 revealed high concentrations of carbonate, which originates in wet, near-neutral conditions, but dissolves in acid. The ancient water indicated by this find was not acidic.

NASA's rovers have found other evidence of formerly wet Martian environments. However the data for those environments indicate conditions that may have been acidic. In other cases, the conditions were definitely acidic, and therefore less favorable as habitats for life.

Laboratory tests helped confirm the carbonate identification. The findings were published online Thursday, June 3 by the journal Science.

"This is one of the most significant findings by the rovers," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Squyres is principal investigator for the Mars twin rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, and a co-author of the new report. "A substantial carbonate deposit in a Mars outcrop tells us that conditions that could have been quite favorable for life were present at one time in that place. "

Spirit inspected rock outcrops, including one scientists called Comanche, along the rover's route from the top of Husband Hill to the vicinity of the Home Plate plateau which Spirit has studied since 2006. Magnesium iron carbonate makes up about one-fourth of the measured volume in Comanche. That is a tenfold higher concentration than any previously identified for carbonate in a Martian rock.

"We used detective work combining results from three spectrometers to lock this down," said Dick Morris, lead author of the report and a member of a rover science team at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston."The instruments gave us multiple, interlocking ways of confirming the magnesium iron carbonate, with a good handle on how much there is."

<!--JPLIMAGEMARKER __JPL_ALTTEXT_2__JPL_CAPTION_2
› Browse version of image
-->

Massive carbonate deposits on Mars have been sought for years without much success. Numerous channels apparently carved by flows of liquid water on ancient Mars suggest the planet was formerly warmer, thanks to greenhouse warming from a thicker atmosphere than exists now. The ancient, dense Martian atmosphere was probably rich in carbon dioxide, because that gas makes up nearly all the modern, very thin atmosphere.

It is important to determine where most of the carbon dioxide went. Some theorize it departed to space. Others hypothesize that it left the atmosphere by the mixing of carbon dioxide with water under conditions that led to forming carbonate minerals. That possibility, plus finding small amounts of carbonate in meteorites that originated from Mars, led to expectations in the 1990s that carbonate would be abundant on Mars. However, mineral-mapping spectrometers on orbiters since then have found evidence of localized carbonate deposits in only one area, plus small amounts distributed globally in Martian dust.

Morris suspected iron-bearing carbonate at Comanche years ago from inspection of the rock with Spirit's Moessbauerpectrometer, which provides information about iron-containing minerals. Confirming evidence from other instruments emerged slowly. The instrument with the best capability for detecting carbonates, the Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer, had its mirror contaminated with dust earlier in 2005, during a wind event that also cleaned Spirit's solar panels.

"It was like looking through dirty glasses," said Steve Ruff of Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., another co-author of the report. "We could tell there was something very different about Comanche compared with other outcrops we had seen, but we couldn't tell what it was until we developed a correction method to account for the dust on the mirror."

Spirit's Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer instrument detected a high concentration of light elements, a group including carbon and oxygen, that helped quantify the carbonate content.

The rovers landed on Mars in January 2004 for missions originally planned to last three months. Spirit has been out of communication since March 22 and is in a low-power hibernation status during Martian winter. Opportunity is making steady progress toward a large crater, Endeavour, which is about seven miles away.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rovers for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information about the rovers, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/rovers

View my blog's last three great articles...

As the Sun Awakens, NASA Keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather

Posted on by
Earth and space are about to come into contact in a way that's new to human history. To make preparations, authorities in Washington DC are holding a meeting: The Space Weather Enterprise Forum at the National Press Club on June 8th.

Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division, explains what it's all about:

"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we're getting together to discuss."

The National Academy of Sciences framed the problem two years ago in a landmark report entitled "Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts." It noted how people of the 21st-century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. Smart power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications can all be knocked out by intense solar activity. A century-class solar storm, the Academy warned, could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.

Much of the damage can be mitigated if managers know a storm is coming. Putting satellites in 'safe mode' and disconnecting transformers can protect these assets from damaging electrical surges. Preventative action, however, requires accurate forecasting—a job that has been assigned to NOAA.

"Space weather forecasting is still in its infancy, but we're making rapid progress," says Thomas Bogdan, director of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

Bogdan sees the collaboration between NASA and NOAA as key. "NASA's fleet of heliophysics research spacecraft provides us with up-to-the-minute information about what's happening on the sun. They are an important complement to our own GOES and POES satellites, which focus more on the near-Earth environment."

Among dozens of NASA spacecraft, he notes three of special significance: STEREO, SDO and ACE.

STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) is a pair of spacecraft stationed on opposite sides of the sun with a combined view of 90% of the stellar surface. In the past, active sunspots could hide out on the sun's farside, invisible from Earth, and then suddenly emerge over the limb spitting flares and CMEs. STEREO makes such surprise attacks impossible.

SDO (the Solar Dynamics Observatory) is the newest addition to NASA's fleet. Just launched in February, it is able to photograph solar active regions with unprecedented spectral, temporal and spatial resolution. Researchers can now study eruptions in exquisite detail, raising hopes that they will learn how flares work and how to predict them. SDO also monitors the sun's extreme UV output, which controls the response of Earth's atmosphere to solar variability.

Bogdan's favorite NASA satellite, however, is an old one: the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) launched in 1997. "Where would we be without it?" he wonders. ACE is a solar wind monitor. It sits upstream between the sun and Earth, detecting solar wind gusts, billion-ton CMEs, and radiation storms as much as 30 minutes before they hit our planet.

"ACE is our best early warning system," says Bogdan. "It allows us to notify utility and satellite operators when a storm is about to hit.”

NASA spacecraft were not originally intended for operational forecasting—"but it turns out that our data have practical economic and civil uses," notes Fisher. "This is a good example of space science supporting modern society."

2010 marks the 4th year in a row that policymakers, researchers, legislators and reporters have gathered in Washington DC to share ideas about space weather. This year, forum organizers plan to sharpen the focus on critical infrastructure protection. The ultimate goal is to improve the nation’s ability to prepare, mitigate, and respond to potentially devastating space weather events.

"I believe we're on the threshold of a new era in which space weather can be as influential in our daily lives as ordinary terrestrial weather." Fisher concludes. "We take this very seriously indeed."

For more information about the meeting, please visit the Space Weather Enterprise Forum home page at http://www.nswp.gov/swef/swef_2010.html.

View my blog's last three great articles...

Models in Messerschmitts

Posted on by

After the streamlined cars, the alt-power GM cars, the photos from the GM Proving Ground and several others that we've yet to show, we're not quite sure what to expect from David Greenlees, save for the fact that it's all good stuff. Most recently, he sent us these couple of photos of a model

Black Death off the Florida Coast

Posted on by

Laughing Bird Caye, Belize, south of the Gulf of Mexico

Today is World Oceans Day. See more here on it.   It should be a day of mourning for the Gulf of Mexico too. People are ruining the oceans off the coast of the United States with oil and natural gas and contaminants like “dispersants”. Dispersants are toxic, deadly chemicals that are designed in part to hide the amount of oil on the surface of the ocean after a big spill. They do that by breaking it into small bits so that it becomes suspended in the water column under the surface. The Gulf of Mexico is now filled with these chemicals. And in a sad report I heard on the Thom Hartmann radio show today, a caller said that tar balls are being reeled in on the fishing lines by fisherman off Key Largo in Florida today. Florida, you are next. It’s already there.

“What a thing we have created. What an extraordinary horror our rapacious need for cheap, endless energy hath unleashed; it’s a monster of a scale and proportion we can barely even fathom.

Because if you’re honest, no matter where you stand, no matter your politics, religion, income or mode of transport, you see this beast of creeping death and you understand: That is us. The spill may be many things, but more than anything else it is a giant, horrifying mirror.”

Read more at: sfgate.com

Stay horrified.  As of June 7th, some scientists believe that 100,000 barrels of oil per day may be still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.  This is from McClatchy, a highly respected news organization.

“BP’s runaway Deepwater Horizon well may be spewing what the company once  called its worst case scenario — 100,000 barrels a day, a member of the government panel told McClatchy Monday. “In the data I’ve seen, there’s nothing inconsistent with BP’s worst case scenario,” Ira Leifer, an associate researcher at the Marine Science Institute of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a member of the government’s Flow Rate Technical Group, told McClatchy.”   Read more here.

We have created this monster, so how do we stop it?  There may be no way to stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. (The next post will be about that.)

How do we stop oil from being our master in the future? By not allowing our government to get away with telling us we need fossil fuels.  We know that’s a lie. The people who need fossil fuels are the millionaires and billionaires, the corporations, Wall Street, and the capitalists.  T. Boone Pickens needs fossil fuels; I don’t.  The rest of us could, in a few years, do without it.  We could, if we tried, transition off of fossil fuels in a few years;  but the above-mentioned people won’t let us, and no one is trying.  It [...]

Volts Disappearing

Posted on by

I'm losing volts somewhere between plug end and motor winding on a radial arm saw. Doesn't sound complicated but its a Craftsman digital saw and disassembly promises to be a 3 hour nightmare in re-mounting and recalibrating all those digital position sensors. Spare parts no longer available. I have

Israel keeping Gaza aid seized – Press TV

Posted on by

Telegraph.co.uk
Israel keeping Gaza aid seized
Press TV
The seizure took place during Israeli commando's confrontation with the multinational relief mission, Freedom Flotilla, in international waters on May 31. ...
It's time to expel Israel from the UNArab News
Israel Doctored the Evidence: The Gaza Freedom Flotilla and Al QaedaCenter for Research on Globalization
Valley Views: Flotilla's true intentions called into questionPoughkeepsie Journal
Link TV -The Cutting Edge -Palestine Note (blog)
all 6,284 news articles »

Pie Are Square; Oil Spills Are Round | Cosmic Variance

Posted on by

Ah, not this one again. The folks at Iglu Cruises have put together a helpful infographic to explain various features of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill (via Deep Sea News). Here’s the bit where they compare the recent spill (which, by the way, is still ongoing at a fantastic rate) to previous oil spills. Click for full resolution.

Oil spills: diameter vs. area

Doesn’t make the current fiasco seem so bad, does it? That little blob on the left looks a lot smaller than the blob right next to it, representing Saddam Hussein’s dump of oil into the Persian Gulf during the first Gulf War. In fact, when you think about it, it looks a lot smaller. Which is weird, when you look at the numbers and see that the current spill is 38 million gallons (as of May 27), while the Iraqi spill was 520 million gallons, a factor of about 14 times bigger. The blob representing Iraq’s spill seems a lot more than 14 times the size of the blob for the current spill. You don’t think — no, they couldn’t have done that. Could they?

Yes, they did. When measure the diameter of the circle representing the Iraqi spill, I get about 360 pixels (in the high-res version), while the smaller spill is about 26 pixels — a factor of about 14 larger. But that’s the diameter, not the area. The area of a circle, as many of us learned when we were little, is proportional to the square of its radius: A = π r2. The radius is just half the diameter, so the area is proportional to the diameter squared, not to the diameter. In other words, that big blob is about (14)2 = 196 times the area of the little one, when it should be only 14 times bigger.

I remember reading on some other blog about this same mistake being made in a completely different context, but I have no recollection of where. (Update: it was at Good Math, Bad Math, sensibly enough.) Probably won’t be the last time.


Female birds breed better in captivity if they see sexy males | Not Exactly Rocket Science

Posted on by

Houbara_bustard

For some endangered birds, captive breeding programmes are the only way to boost fading wild populations. But such programmes have a problem – they often rely on artificial insemination, which gets much poorer results than expected. Adeline Loyau and Frederic Lacroix from Morocco’s Emirates Center for Wildlife Propagation (ECWP) have found a way to help, by priming the females with pictures of sexy males strutting their stuff.

The duo worked with the Houbara bustard, a large bird that has been hunted extensively because its meat is prized as an aphrodisiac. It’s classified as a vulnerable species and the ECWP has set up a captive breeding programme to restore its numbers. Females are kept apart from the males and many never actually see one before being artificially fertilised. This is the only method that successfully breeds these birds in captivity, but it’s also associated with a 15% fall in hatching success. Loyau and Lacroix thought that the females themselves might be responsible for this deficit.

In the past, many researchers have shown that female birds can control the amount of energy they invest in the next generation. The female makes her decision after weighing up many factors such as the quality of her mate and the conditions of her environment. If she thinks she’s onto a genetic winner, and her chicks will be born into a world of riches, she would do well to give them a head-start. If her mate is a dud and food is scarce, it might be best to conserve energy and try again next season. Clearly, these decisions can dramatically affect the chicks’ chances of hatching and surviving.

To manipulate their decisions, Loyau and Lacroix placed the females in spectator aviaries that gave them a bird’s eye view of a displaying male. When a male Houbara bustard wants to woo a female, he runs around while erecting the feathers on his head and neck. It’s an honest sign of his quality, for weaker males simply can’t keep up the vigorous showmanship for long.

Houbara_bustard_display

Loyau and Lacroix found that when females saw males that displayed more frequently, they were more likely to be successfully artificially fertilised and their eggs were more likely to hatch even though they laid the same number. When the females saw the seductive dance of a Casanova bustard, they added more testosterone into the yolk of their eggs, to the same extent that they would do in the wild. The dance of a dud male triggered no such investment. This hormonal trust fund gave the chicks a headstart in life. They produced more testosterone themselves, and they grew faster as a result.

By studying the birds that provided the sperm samples, Loyau and Lacroix found that the actual quality of the chicks’ fathers had no bearing on their odds of hatching or their growth rate. Those were purely down to mum’s influence, and she was in turn influenced by the quality of the male whose courtship she witnessed. In the wild, he would probably have been the one she eventually mated with but captivity allowed the researchers to tease apart her influence from that of her chicks’ biological father.

Loyau and Lacroix’s study has important implications for captive breeding programmes. These rely heavily on artificial insemination so that females can be mated with males who are specially selected to boost the genetic diversity of the next generation. This work shows that there’s more to doing this well than simply mixing sperm and eggs in a tube. Female animals often have a big say on the fate of their young and conservationists are need to understand their preferences and work with them in order to get the most out of their breeding programmes.

It’s possible that different versions of the same trick would work on other species. In Houbara bustards, courtship is a visual affair, but other birds woo each other with calls and songs – perhaps for them, a recording of a virtuoso singer would have the same effect on their breeding success.

Reference: Proc Roy Soc B http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2010.0473

Images from ECWP website

More on animal sex lives:

Twitter.jpg Facebook.jpg Feed.jpg Book.jpg

NCBI ROFL: She might not be having what you think she’s having… | Discoblog

Posted on by

100761143_226e540b49Evidence to Suggest that Copulatory Vocalizations in Women Are Not a Reflexive Consequence of Orgasm.

“The current studies were conducted in order to investigate the phenomenon of copulatory vocalizations and their relationship to orgasm in women. Data were collected from 71 sexually active heterosexual women (M age = 21.68 years +/- .52) recruited from the local community through opportunity sampling. The studies revealed that orgasm was most frequently reported by women following self-manipulation of the clitoris, manipulation by the partner, oral sex delivered to the woman by a man, and least frequently during vaginal penetration. More detailed examination of responses during intercourse revealed that, while female orgasms were most commonly experienced during foreplay, copulatory vocalizations were reported to be made most often before and simultaneously with male ejaculation. These data together clearly demonstrate a dissociation of the timing of women experiencing orgasm and making copulatory vocalizations and indicate that there is at least an element of these responses that are under conscious control, providing women with an opportunity to manipulate male behavior to their advantage.”

orgasm_vocalization

Image: flikr/oddsock

Related content:
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: The G-Spot: nature vs. nurture.
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Weak with sex: sexual intercourse as a trigger for cataplexy.
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: What kind of erotic film clips should we use in female sex research? An exploratory study.

WTF is NCBI ROFL? Read our FAQ!