Year: 2014

Second SpaceShipTwo almost ready for flight

8:32 am

The heat of competition: Virgin Galactic today released hanger photos of the almost finished second SpaceShipTwo.

Even as the investigation into the fatal breakup of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane continues in Mojave, California, the next SpaceShipTwo is more than halfway complete in a Mojave hangar — and is expected to start going through tests on the ground and in the air next year.

Virgin Galactic’s manufacturing subsidiary, The Spaceship Company, has been working on the plane for two and a half years. It’s variously known as SpaceShipTwo Tail No. 2 or N202VG, and it’s part of Virgin Galactic plan to have a fleet of five SpaceShipTwo rocket planes and two WhiteKnightTwo carrier planes.

This story is a great example of the public relations genius of Richard Branson. Even with the pieces of SpaceShipTwo still being picked up on the ground he finds a way to sell his company positively to the world. They not only intend to continue their effort, they have the ship to prove it!

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Taking a broad look at Tuesday’s Republican sweep

6:33 pm

I don’t have much to add to the numerous reports about yesterday’s election by political pundits far more qualified than I. The Republicans won a big landslide victory yesterday, not only gaining control of the Senate, but winning more seats than expected. They also won more seats in the House than expected, widening their majority there to numbers not seen since the 1920s. In addition, they made it a grand slam by winning a plethora of governorships — many in Democratic stronghold states such as Massachusetts, Illinois, and Maryland — as well as taking control of more state legislatures than ever before.

What matters to me, however, is not the election but what this new Republican majority does with its majority. In the past, 1994 and 2000, they more or less squandered the opportunity to rein in government. In 1994, they allowed the government to grow but at a rate below the rate of inflation so that in a few years this resulted in a balanced budget and surpluses. But the government still grew in power and size. In 2000 they did not even do this, allowing government spending and yearly deficits to balloon, even though they had a Republican president who would have supported them if they had wanted to cut the size of government.

Thus, while I am hopeful, I also remain very skeptical about what will happen in the next few years. In order to prove to me and the conservative base that elected them that these Republicans mean what they say when they say they want to shrink the size of government, they are going to have to prove it with real action. They are going to have show us that they really do want to repeal Obamacare. They are going to have to show us that they really do want to gain some control over the border. And they are going to have to show us that they really do want to cut the budget and get it balanced.

I understand that the Democrats in the Senate and Obama can still block many of these initiatives, but too often Republicans have used this fact as an excuse to not try at all. This must stop! They must apply strong pressure on these left wing ideologues, make them reveal their politics for all to see by forcing them to veto or block these initiatives. Only by demonstrating a resolve to rein in government will anyone believe the Republicans when they claim that’s what they want to do. And by doing so they will also simultaneously expose the Democrats as the left wing ideologues that they are.

Making these points can only be for the good, politically.

Two more points, often unstated but fundamental to what elections in the United States represent.
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Signs of a sunspot ramp down

1:39 pm

The monthly update by NOAA of the solar cycle is out, showing the sunspot activity for the Sun in October, As I do every month, I am posting it here, with annotations to give it context.

Despite the appearance last month of the largest sunspot in almost a quarter century, the number of sunspots in October dropped significantly, bringing overall activity back to levels seen in 2012, prior to the second peak in the solar maximum. If things go as expected (not something I would bet much money on), the overall ramp down of sunspot activity should now continue over the next few years. There will obviously be jumps periodically, but the general output of sunspots should steadily decline.

I also want to reiterate what I noted last month, that the 2009 prediction of the solar scientist community is looking better and better with time. Other than over-estimating the total activity somewhat while missing the dip between the two peaks, their overall curve, indicated by the red line, is reasonably close to what has actually happened.

October 2014 Solar Cycle graph

The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community. The green curves show the community’s two original predictions from April 2007, with half the scientists predicting a very strong maximum and half predicting a weak one. The red curve is their revised May 2009 prediction.

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Turbopump failure in first stage engine eyed for the Antares launch failure

8:14 am

The investigation into the launch failure of the Antares rocket one week ago is now focusing on the turbopump in one of the rocket’s first stage engines.

“The Investigation Board (AIB) is making good progress in determining the primary cause of last week’s failure. A preliminary review of telemetry and video data has been conducted and substantial debris from the Antares rocket and its Cygnus payload has been collected and examined,” noted Orbital on Wednesday. “While the work of the AIB continues, preliminary evidence and analysis conducted to date points to a probable turbopump-related failure in one of the two Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ26 stage one main engines. As a result, the use of these engines for the Antares vehicle likely will be discontinued.”

It was later noted that the AJ-26 could still be used if they were proven to be completely flight-worthy.

If Orbital Sciences decides to completely cease using the Russian engines, it could mean a very significant delay before they can launch again, maybe several years. If they do that, I expect them to face contract penalties from NASA for the failure to deliver cargo to ISS on a reasonable schedule. It will also mean that their chances of winning a second contract will go down significantly.

They need to replace the engine, but they also need to keep launching. The article as well as a company press release today describes how they are exploring other launch vehicles, including the Falcon 9, to launch Cygnus, but I see no reason for them to completely abandon the Russian engines immediately. What they need to do is find what failed, fix it in the remaining engines, and keep flying while they scramble hard to replace the engine entirely.

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A geological score for Curiosity!

10:25 pm

Spectroscopy from Curiosity’s most recent drilling has been found to match and thus confirm the spectroscopy of the same spot taken years ago from orbit.

In observations reported in 2010, before selection of Curiosity’s landing site, a mineral-mapping instrument on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provided evidence of hematite in the geological unit that includes the Pahrump Hills outcrop. The landing site is inside Gale Crater, an impact basin about 96 miles (154 kilometers) in diameter with the layered Mount Sharp rising about three miles (five kilometers) high in the center.

“We’ve reached the part of the crater where we have the mineralogical information that was important in selection of Gale Crater as the landing site,” said Ralph Milliken of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. He is a member of Curiosity’s science team and was lead author of that 2010 report in Geophysical Research Letters identifying minerals based on observations of lower Mount Sharp by the orbiter’s Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM). “We’re now on a path where the orbital data can help us predict what minerals we’ll find and make good choices about where to drill. Analyses like these will help us place rover-scale observations into the broader geologic history of Gale that we see from orbital data.”

This is a significant finding. Not only does this data now prove that the orbital data is correct, it demonstrates that scientists can now use that orbital data to direct Curiosity to even more interesting geological surface features. In fact, this ground-based data will help them calibrate all their orbital data more precisely, thus making our geological knowledge of Mars more accurate and reliable.

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Mathematical models badly overstate ebola numbers

8:33 am

The uncertainty of science: New evidence suggests that the on-going ebola epidemic in Africa is beginning to ease, contrary to the predictions made by computer models.

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has infected at least 13,567 people and killed 4,951, according to figures released on 31 October by the World Health Organization (WHO). Now, in a rare encouraging sign, the number of new cases in Liberia seems to be flattening after months of exponential growth. Scientists say it is too soon to declare that the disease is in retreat: case data are often unreliable, and Ebola can be quick to resurge. But it is clear that mathematical models have failed to accurately project the outbreak’s course. [emphasis mine]

The creators of these mathematical models should switch fields and go into climate change modeling. At least in that field the journal Nature would never trumpet the failure of their models to work. In climate science, the major journals do whatever they can, for political reasons, to hide these failures.

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Update on SpaceShipTwo investigation

8:20 am

Additional details about the investigation into the crash of SpaceShipTwo have now been released.

The investigators are focusing on the telemetry that the pilots were receiving, as well as the system for activating the ship’s braking feathering system.

As I have noted in the comments, we must try not to speculate on this subject, especially because this issue could do harm to innocent people. For example, some reports have incorrectly attributed the crash to pilot error. To say this now is false. All the investigation has noted is that the co-pilot took the first step to activating the feathering system, as he was supposed to do, though slightly early. The feathering system then deployed on its own, without the second command being given.

We do not yet know the finer details that make his action significant, or not. This is why the investigation is checking into the telemetry the pilots were getting, which might have affected when they did what they did.

We need to wait for more data.

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