Things To Do In SW Florida

The four passengers on the Polaris Dawn mission that launched from Kennedy Space Center early Tuesday reached their goal of flying farther away from Earth than anyone since the last Apollo mission.

SpaceX early Wednesday posted video taken from Crew Dragon Resilience of the event that included the audio exchange from its mission control and Polaris Dawn commander Jared Isaacman, who is making his second trip to space as part of a five-day orbital mission in partnership with SpaceX to test out innovations for Elon Musk’s company.

That included a plan to take Dragon to a much higher orbit, and breaking the low-Earth altitude orbital record set by NASA astronauts Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon when they flew on the Gemini 11 mission at an orbital that reached 853 miles altitude. Apollo missions to the moon traveled farther from Earth, but on lunar trajectories and not part of a low-Earth orbit mission.

Polaris Dawn and Dragon at 1,400 km above Earth – the farthest humans have traveled since the Apollo program over 50 years ago pic.twitter.com/rRDeD1dY1e read more

After months of controversy, Osceola County Commissioners enacted the state’s highest fees on new development to pay for transportation improvements.

The hefty “mobility fees” will provide a critically needed source of funding for road and rail improvements in a rapidly growing county where traffic has grown increasingly oppressive. But in a bow to opposition to the fee levels from the business community, the county will give developers a little over nine months before they take effect.

“The biggest complaint I receive in my community is our transportation network,” Commissioner Brandon Arrington said, after noting that previous boards had waived the fees to encourage new development, which has led to sprawl and gridlock. “We should have done this three years ago.”

The 4-1 vote Monday came after more than a dozen speakers, mostly from the development and real estate industry, objected.

The fee for new single-family homes would more than double from the current rate of $10,000 to $21,710. The rate for new apartments would go from $7,754 per unit to $14,040, representing an 81% increase. The fees would be levied on development in Osceola County that occurs outside of city limits. read more