Year: 2013

SpaceX has revised the schedule for its next three launches, pushing back two weeks so engineers can review issues with the Falcon 9 upper stage engine.

6:27 am

The competition heats up: SpaceX has revised the schedule for its next three launches, pushing back two weeks so engineers can review issues with the Falcon 9 upper stage engine.

The debut launch of the upgraded Falcon 9 successfully deployed Canada’s Cassiope spacecraft into orbit on September 29. However, after safely deploying its payloads, the upper stage was then set to restart its Merlin VacD engine for a second burn related to SpaceX’s ambitions to create a fully reusable launch system. An anomaly with the restart held no mission impact, but the company’s CEO and chief designer, Elon Musk, did note they expected to implement corrective actions ahead of the next launch. “In the case of the upper stage relight, we initiated relight and the system encountered an anomaly and did not complete the relight. We believe understand what that issue is and should have it addressed in time for the next flight of Falcon 9,” he noted. “We essentially saw the engine initiate ignition. get up to about 400 psi and then it encountered a condition that it didn’t like. We have all of the data from the restart, so I am confident that we will be able to sort it out and address it before the next flight. We just have to iron out some slight differences of it operating in vacuum.”

I find Musk’s vague terminology about the engine issue to be interesting. I wonder if the “condition” the engine “didn’t like” was when the engine exploded, as some have suggested. (I personally am skeptical the engine exploded, however, as such a failure would probably require a much longer delay to deal with.)

Either way, the next few months should be a busy time for commercial space. Not only does SpaceX have two major commercial launches and a Dragon mission to ISS, Orbital Sciences has its next Cygnus cargo mission and Virgin Galactic claims it will be ready to fly SpaceShipTwo with passengers.

Posted on the road heading into the empty wilds of west Texas.

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The Republican leadership folds.

7:56 pm

The Republican leadership folds on the government shutdown. Key quote:

In exchange for meeting, at least momentarily, all of Obama’s demands, the House GOP is seeking a “framework” for future negotiations.

They get a repeal of an Obamacare tax on medical equipment, but lose everything else, plus give up some of the sequester cuts that have actually produced the first real reduction in the size of government in decades.

And the Republican leadership wonders why they keep losing elections? With incompetent friends like this, who needs enemies.

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Jeff Bezos reveals some details about the goals of his space company, Blue Origin.

7:17 pm

The competition heats up: Jeff Bezos reveals some details about the goals of his space company, Blue Origin.

Blue Origin is now working on its third version of the New Shepard, which is designed to take everyday people on suborbital journeys. Bezos said that he’s hopeful that this will be the last iteration, and he wants to see the next vehicle ready for commercial operation. “I’m very optimistic about that,” he said. Bezos didn’t give any specific timetables. However, he did say that Blue Origin’s orbital vehicle, designed to send astronauts to the International Space Station and elsewhere, will be tested by 2018. Eventually, the goal is to let anyone fly up into space safely at reasonable prices.

Not a lot of details, but previously we knew practically nothing. That the present ship is being designed for suborbital tourist flights makes it a direct competitor of Virgin Galactic and XCOR. And considering the problems that Virgin Galactic has with SpaceShipTwo, and that XCOR doesn’t have the big bucks of Bezos, Blue Origin might actually be in the lead in the race to put the first tourists in space.

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A remotely operated Russian telescope, located in New Mexico, on Wednesday discovered a kilometer wide Near Earth asteroid.

7:09 pm

Boom! A remotely operated Russian telescope, located in New Mexico, on Wednesday discovered a kilometer wide Near Earth asteroid.

The asteroid, believed to be the 704th largest with an orbit that comes relatively near Earth, does not pose a danger of crashing into our planet, said the head of the observatory that made the discovery. “It’s a big asteroid, but it poses no danger for us,” Leonid Elenin, who lives in the Moscow Region, told RIA Novosti on Friday.

Finding a new asteroid like this illustrates that there might be other such large objects out there undiscovered. Also cool is how the Russians discovered it, using equipment in the United States!

Posted from Midland, Texas, the center of the world for the American oil industry.

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Chris Hatfield describes how a bureaucratic tangle with the space doctor bureaucracy almost grounded him before his ISS expedition.

10:55 am

Bureaucracy in space: In a new book, astronaut Chris Hatfield describes how a bureaucratic tangle with the space doctor bureaucracy almost grounded him before his ISS expedition.

“The secrecy and paternalism really bothered me. They trusted me at the helm of the world’s space ship, but had been making decisions about my body as though I were a lab rat who didn’t merit consultation.” The “they” Hadfield refers to are members of the Multilateral Space Medicine Board (MSMB), a body of representatives from the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan and Russia who judge the medical fitness of astronauts to go on missions. ….

The bureaucracy wanted Hatfield to undergo an emergency operation to make sure everything was okay. He refused,

triggering what Hadfield describes as a “Kafkaesque” journey through “a bureaucratic quagmire where logic and data simply didn’t count.” … “Internal politics and uninformed opinions were what mat­tered,” he says in the book. “Doctors who hadn’t ever performed a laparoscopic proce­dure were weighing in; people were making decisions about medical risks as though far greater risks to the space program itself were irrelevant.”

I find this interesting in that, of the astronauts I have interviewed over the years, I can’t remember any who had good words to say about the official government doctors they had to deal with, both in the U.S. and in Russia.

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Scientist right now think it is a toss-up whether Comet ISON will survive its dive past the sun on November 28.

10:43 am

Scientist right now think it is a toss-up whether Comet ISON will survive its dive past the sun on November 28.

Essentially, they have no idea what will happen. They know most of the factors effecting the comet, but cannot predict the result. If the comet breaks up, however, it will be very cool, as this will probably be the largest comet ever seen by astronomers to do this.

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Two days after its flyby of Earth, Jupiter probe Juno remains in safe mode.

10:38 am

Two days after its flyby of Earth, Jupiter probe Juno remains in safe mode.

The Juno spacecraft is in a healthy and stable state, with its tractor-trailer-size solar panels pointed toward the sun. The mission team is in communication with Juno and has seen no sign of any failures in the probe’s subsystems or components, said project manager Rick Nybakken of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. So Juno’s handlers plan to take their time and do a thorough investigation before attempting to bring all of the spacecraft’s systems back online.

In other words, there is no rush to take the spacecraft out of safe mode. It is far better to figure out exactly what is going on first.

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When surveyed, more than 70 percent of all doctors and practices say they will not participate in the Obamacare health exchange insurance plans.

10:11 am

Knowing what’s in it: When surveyed, more than 70 percent of all doctors and practices say they will not participate in the Obamacare health exchange insurance plans.

The doctors cite a fear of complex administrative and regulatory requirements as well as the exchanges’ low reimbursement rates.

Note how this wonderful government health insurance plan is providing doctors with less pay and more paperwork while charging patients more for fewer benefits. Doesn’t that combination warm the cockles of your heart?

But remember! The Democrats have your back! They are going to keep Obamacare the law no matter what!

Posted from Texas.

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One hundred days to wake-up for Europe’s Rosetta comet probe.

8:26 am

One hundred days to wake-up for Europe’s Rosetta comet probe.

Rosetta was launched on 2 March 2004, and through a complex series of flybys – three times past Earth and once past Mars – set course to its destination: comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. It also flew by and imaged two asteroids, Steins on 5 September 2008 and Lutetia on 10 July 2010. In July 2011 Rosetta was put into deep-space hibernation for the coldest, most distant leg of the journey as it travelled some 800 million kilometres from the Sun, close to the orbit of Jupiter. The spacecraft was oriented so that its solar wings faced the Sun to receive as much sunlight as possible, and it was placed into a slow spin to maintain stability.

Now, as both the comet and the spacecraft are on the return journey back into the inner Solar System, the Rosetta team is preparing for the spacecraft to wake up.
Rosetta mission milestones 2014-2015 Rosetta’s internal alarm clock is set for 10:00 GMT on 20 January 2014.

The first images are expected back in May 2014.

Posted as we approach the Arkansas-Texas border.

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Not only did Sarah Hall Ingram illegally share confidential taxpayer information with White House officials, she met with White House officials 165 times.

7:22 am

Working for the Democratic Party: Not only did Sarah Hall Ingram illegally share confidential taxpayer information with White House officials, she met with White House officials 165 times.

Of Ingram’s 165 White House meetings with White House staff, a staggering 155 of them were hosted by deputy assistant to the president for health policy Jeanne Lambrew, according to a June Watchdog.Org analysis of White House visitor records. Ingram exchanged confidential taxpayer information with Lambrew and White House health policy advisor Ellen Montz, according to 2012 emails obtained by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

I notice that Obama’s so-called outrage over the IRS scandal has not caused him to remove Hall as the person in charge of the IRS’s implementation of Obamacare.

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One man’s Obamacare nightmare.

6:48 am

Finding out what’s in it: One man’s Obamacare nightmare.

In sum: Obama lied. His health plan died. He can’t keep his doctors. He couldn’t sign up in 10 minutes for health care. He’s being steered toward a government plan he doesn’t qualify for or want. And he can’t get his personal information back from the online Obamawreck black hole.

And then there’s this: A disabled mother finds she is forced to chose between food or Obamacare premiums.

But don’t worry: The Democrats think Obamacare is so great that they have forced a government shutdown to make sure it goes into effect immediately!

Posted as we circle Little Rock, Arkansas.

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Sarah Hall Ingram, now in charge of administrating Obamacare for the IRS, not only advised the White House on how to harass conservative organizations, her emails appear to have illegally included confidential tax information.

6:22 am

Working for the Democratic Party: Sarah Hall Ingram, now in charge of administrating Obamacare for the IRS, not only advised the White House on how to harass conservative organizations, her emails appear to have illegally included confidential tax information.

And just remember: This woman is now in charge of managing the IRS department that will implement Obamacare, giving her access to everyone’s health and tax records. If you say something that she (or Obama) doesn’t like, don’t be surprised if those records end up in the hands of Obama, to use against you.

Gee, maybe this explains why the Democrats have been willing to even shut down the government to get Obamacare up and running.

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