The competition heats up: Russia considers building a heavy-lift rocket, even as it completes the design and construction of its new Angara commercial rocket family.
The headline of the article focuses on the heavy-lift rocket, but the meat of the article is its details on Angara, which is expected to make its first launch in 2014.
Another look at this week’s hearings on space regulation: More red tape in space.
“As the prospects for a greater number of commercial-transportation vehicles in space increase, it is time to consider closing the current regulatory and safety gap between launch and re-entry,” said George Nield, the FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation, in remarks this week before Congress.
Yeah, that “gap” is an area where freedom exists, where federal regulators like Nield can’t get their grubby paws on what people do and tell them how to do it. Gotta close that gap, can’t have people doing what they want, can we?
Update: Here’s another report, indicating the same eagerness of the FAA to impose its will on private space.
Curiosity takes its first image of the Earth/Moon system from Mars.
“I will not retreat. I will not surrender. I will not be intimidated, and I will not ask for permission to exercise my constitutional rights.”
The words of one conservative who was harassed by the IRS and the Obama administration merely because she opposed them politically. Her most recent action? She is filing a formal complaint against Democrat Congressman Elijah Cummings for joining in on that harassment.
The unseriousness of the Republican leadership: Boehner suggests linking the debt-limit hike to a restoration of recent cuts to military benefits.
First of all, only a few weeks ago the Republican leadership was telling us these cuts were essential, which is why they went along with them in the last deal. Second and more important, we have far more significant issues — Obamacare and the federal debt — for which any serious conservative in office should be far more interested in pursuing than the relatively small cuts to military benefits.
If the Boehner and the Republican leadership were really serious about rolling back Obamacare as well as winning elections, they would link every negotiation with that issue. We all know they would eventually have to back down, but the goal would be force the Democrats to vote for Obamacare, again and again, even as that terrible law is devastating families nationwide. Not only would it put them in a bad light, it would emphasize the differences between the two parties.
“What if there was a terrorist attack but no one told us?”
It appears there was, and yes, no one told us. The details will send chills up your spine.
More global warming fraud: A close review of the sources cited in the studies that claimed a 97% scientific consensus supporting global warming has found that claim to be false.
Instead of a 97% consensus, the review found that only 1 to 3% supported global warming. Quite a difference, eh?
The review’s press release nicely summarizes the incompetence or downright dishonesty of three of these consensus studies:
The Oreskes (2004) study claimed 75% consensus and a “remarkable lack of disagreement” by the other 25% of the abstracts she reviewed. Peiser (2005) re-ran her survey and found major discrepancies. Only 1.2% or 13 scientists out of 1,117 agreed with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) view that human activity is the main cause of global warming since 1950. Peiser found that 34 scientists rejected or doubted the alleged ‘consensus’ position outright and 44 claimed natural factors as more influential. At least 470 papers expressed no position on Anthropogenic (human-caused) Global Warming (AGW) whatsoever.
Doran & Zimmerman (2009) only assessed 79 scientists out of 3,146 respondents. Many scientists sent them emails protesting the survey design.
The recent Cook et al (2013) began with the broadest possible ‘consensus’ definition – rendering the idea of ‘consensus’ meaningless. Only 0.54% (or 64 scientists) explicitly agreed. Though Cook’s graphics on The Consensus Project website focus on fossil fuels, his study used the 1996 Houghton declaration which includes other human factors like agriculture and land-use change. Some 7983 scientists or 67% of the ~12,000 papers in the Cook study had no position on climate change. Many scientists publicly denounced Cook for wrongly assessing their work as supporting AGW when it does not.
Based on my experience talking to climate scientists as well as reading innumerable papers, I have always thought that the 97% consensus claim was weak or fishy. Now we not only have proof, we have evidence that the claim was based on lies.
Data tampering to create the illusion of global warming by James Hansen and NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies.
The evidence shows that the data was adjusted to cool the past so that the present looks hotter. The question is: Why were these adjustments made? I can think of no justification, other than fraud and political manipulation.
It ain’t just the Obamacare website: NASA and one of its major IT contractors have both screwed up badly, according to a new inspector general report.
According to [the inspector general], NASA and HP Enterprise Services have encountered significant problems implementing the $2.5 billion Agency Consolidated End-User Services (ACES) contract, which provides desktops, laptops, computer equipment and end-user services such as help desk and data backup. Those problems include “a failed effort to replace most NASA employees’ computers within the first six months and low customer satisfaction.”
But don’t worry. NASA’s management, the same management that is building the James Webb Space Telescope and the Space Launch System, is right on the case.
For a variety of reasons, SpaceX and NASA have agreed to delay the next Dragon cargo mission a few weeks to no early than March 16.
It looks like it was a combination of minor issues that, when piled up, called for a delay.
Finding out what’s in it: A new survey of the nation’s top companies finds that large numbers plan to cut benefits, hours, and hiring to deal with the costs of Obamacare.
[The survey] of top companies found that 44 percent are considering reducing health benefits to current employees due to Obamacare, confirming the fears of millions of American workers. In its December survey of chief financial officers around the country, Duke also found that nearly half are “reluctant to hire full-time employers because of the Affordable Care Act.” And 40 percent are considering shifting to part-time workers and others will hire fewer workers or fire some to avoid the costs of the program. What’s more, they said in the study, “One in five firms indicates they are likely to hire fewer employees, and another one in 10 may lay off current employees in response to the law.”
Not surprisingly, the Democrats — who have defended Obamacare through thick and thin, even shutting down the government to facilitate its implementation — have called the loss of jobs a good thing.
