Year: 2017

Cassini makes last fly-by of Titan

11:38 am

Cassini on April 21 made its last fly-by of Titan as the spacecraft is prepared for its final 22 orbits of Saturn.

The flyby also put Cassini on course for its dramatic last act, known as the Grand Finale. As the spacecraft passed over Titan, the moon’s gravity bent its path, reshaping the robotic probe’s orbit slightly so that instead of passing just outside Saturn’s main rings, Cassini will begin a series of 22 dives between the rings and the planet on April 26. The mission will conclude with a science-rich plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere on Sept. 15. “With this flyby we’re committed to the Grand Finale,” said Earl Maize, Cassini project manager at JPL. “The spacecraft is now on a ballistic path, so that even if we were to forgo future small course adjustments using thrusters, we would still enter Saturn’s atmosphere on Sept. 15 no matter what.”

The flyby zipped past Titan only a little more than 600 miles above its surface.

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Former Obama official confirms climate data manipulation by bureaucrats

10:18 am

A former Obama official has confirmed that during the Obama administrations bureaucrats in the federal government routinely misused or tampered with climate data in order to promote the theory that humans are causing global warming.

Former Energy Department Undersecretary Steven Koonin told The Wall Street Journal Monday that bureaucrats within former President Barack Obama’s administration spun scientific data to manipulate public opinion. “What you saw coming out of the press releases about climate data, climate analysis, was, I’d say, misleading, sometimes just wrong,” Koonin said, referring to elements within the Obama administration he said were responsible for manipulating climate data.

He pointed to a National Climate Assessment in 2014 showing hurricane activity has increased from 1980 as an illustration of how federal agencies fudged climate data. Koonin said the NCA’s assessment was technically incorrect. “What they forgot to tell you, and you don’t know until you read all the way into the fine print is that it actually decreased in the decades before that,” he said. The U.N. published reports in 2014 essentially mirroring Koonin’s argument.

This story does not prove that human-caused global warming is not happening. What it does tell us, as have many other stories previously, is that we can no longer trust the data issued by federal government sources, and that a major housecleaning is necessary in order to make that trust possible again.

Whether Donald Trump is the president capable of doing that housecleaning remains an open question. Some of his actions suggest he is. Some suggest he is not. Overall, he appears a transitional figure who will begin that housecleaning in a relatively superficial way, but lay the groundwork for someone in the future who will push it through with much more success.

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Refueling tests begin on Chinese test space station

8:04 am

China has begun the refueling tests between its first unmanned freighter, Tianzhou-1, docked to its test space station, Tiangong-2.

Refuelling tests began at 07:26 Beijing time on Sunday (23:26 UTC Saturday), monitored from the Beijing Aerospace Control Centre (BACC). The refuelling process involves 29 steps and will take five days to complete.

To allow refuelling to take place, the propellant tube and coupling components needed to be perfectly matched after docking, with a margin error of less than 1 millimetre, according to Tianzhou-1 deputy chief designer Chen Qizhong.

The mission involving the Tianzhou and Tiangong spacecraft was designed to prove on-orbit resupply and refuelling technologies and techniques necessary for safe, long-term operation of the Chinese Space Station, which will be permanently crewed by at least three astronauts.

“After refuelling is completed, the residual propellant needs to be drained off. In order to identify security issues during the draining process, it needs to go through a number of tests and verification,” Bai Mingsheng, chief designer of Tianzhou-1, told CCTV+

The article also provides a great deal of information on the station and the freighter.

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19 federal agencies eliminated in proposed Trump budget

12:44 am

This article provides a clear and detailed list of the nineteen federal agencies that the Trump administration proposes to eliminate in the budget blueprint it issued last month.

The total budget for all these agencies is only $3 billion, so the cuts are only a mere drop in the bucket in the federal deficit. Still, it is a start, though I have doubts the Republicans in Congress will have the spine to follow through on these cuts, especially with the elimination of National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. All three have essentially become propaganda operatives for the left and the Democratic Party, so there is good reason for Republicans to cut their funding. The problem is that the left will squeal like pigs if these cuts go through, and the ability of the Republican leadership to withstand that squealing has generally been nil.

Nonetheless, it is definitely worthwhile to read this list of agencies that are on the chopping block. Almost all of them have accomplished little with their funds, other than pay the salaries of the bureaucrats who run them. In the private sector they would be gone in a nanosecond.

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Vector suborbital rocket test scrubbed

7:43 am

A suborbital test flight of Vector’s orbital rocket was scrubbed on April 6 when a sensor aborted the launch.

The next test flight is scheduled for May 3, after a test April 6 at the company’s test site near the Mohave Desert was scrubbed when a sensor caused an automatic abort, Cantrell said.

Engineers quickly determined the rocket was functional but the company decided not to launch after high winds kicked up. But the rocket is fine, he said, adding that failures are part of the testing process. “We blew a lot of stuff up, trust me,” he said.

The article is more focused on describing in detail the company’s overall status, its fund-raising effort, its future plans, its present operation. This tidbit about the test launch was buried in it. That the flight didn’t fly is not a bad mark on the company, at this point. However, they are under pressure to fly as soon as possible in order to demonstrate success, and delays work against them.

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Donors and students fleeing Drexel University, home of genocidal professor

10:41 pm

Drexel University, faced now with loss of donations and students because the university took no action against a professor that called for the white genocide, the murder of police officers, and the squelching of the free speech rights of a conservative speaker, has finally opened “a special committee of inquiry” into the professor’s conduct.

It seems the public has decided that enough is enough.

“Numerous prospective students whom the university has admitted have written to the university stating that they will not attend,” [Drexel Provost Brian] Blake wrote, adding that “at least two potential significant donors to the university have withheld previously promised donations.” Indeed, Blake asserted that “the nearly unmanageable volume of venomous calls” that the administration received in the wake of the professor’s latest tweets even forced the school to “consider turning off its phones” for several days.

It appears from the story that Drexel, which initially poo-pooed Professor George Ciccariello-Maher’s comments, is now going to take a hard line. Whether they fire him or merely slap him on the wrist remains as yet unknown.

Normally, I oppose the firing or punishment of anyone for the things they say. At the same time, we are all personally responsible for what we say, and if you say things that are downright evil, you have to accept the consequences of those statements. Calling for genocide against whites and the murder of police officers to me fits very well the definition of evil. Ciccariello-Maher might have the freedom to say these things, but his university has no obligation to support him for doing so.

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Berkeley mayor belongs to group that organized riots against Milo Yiannopoulos

9:33 am

Fascist: It now appears that the mayor of Berkeley, Jesse Arreguin, belongs to the group that organized the riots that shut down the lecture of Milo Yiannopoulos.

Berkley Mayor Jesse Arreguin was revealed to be a member of the anti-fascist group, By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), on Facebook. BAMN orchestrated the violence that shut down a scheduled lecture at UC Berkeley featuring Milo Yiannopoulos in early 2017. Arreguin is allegedly also friends with BAMN leader, Yvette Felarca, on Facebook.

They were also involved in the violent clashes earlier this month.

This might explain why the Berkeley police did so little during the first riots as well as during the violence that occurred on April 15 between pro-Trump and leftist demonstrators. In fact, there is even some evidence, not conclusive, that suggests the Berkeley police were helping the leftist demonstrators.

Meanwhile, Yiannopoulos has announced that he is planning a week long free speech event in Berkeley later this year. Good for him.

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Airbus-Safran gets go-ahead to build first Ariane 6 test rocket

8:30 am

Capitalism in space: The European Space Agency (ESA) has given Airbus-Safran the go-ahead to build the first Ariane 6 rocket, which will be used for ground tests.

It is really important to recognize how this article illustrates the major things that have occurred in how Europe is builds its rockets. Note first that Arianespace is not mentioned at all, even though government bureaucracy has been in charge of ESA’s commercial business for decades. It is not in control any longer and is thus irrelevant. Note also that the design was created solely by Airbus-Safran, and that the only thing ESA did was approve it. The agency did not micromanage it, or revise it, or insist on changes, as would have been the case less than three years ago. Instead, it appears they essentially rubber-stamped it, leaving this work entirely to the private company, which in the end will operate and sell the rocket entirely for profit, while also providing ESA its needed launch vehicle.

At first glance, it appears that the ESA has adopted here the recommendations that I made in my policy paper, Capitalism in space:. In truth, they made these policy changes well before my paper was even written, which helps illustrates forcefully their universal correctness. If you want things built well and efficiently, you give people ownership of their work, you let them create it, and you get out of the way.

Or to use that forgotten word, you let freedom work its magic.

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China’s first unmanned freighter successfully docks with test station

8:04 am

Tianzhou-1, China’s first unmanned space freighter, today successfully docked with that nation’s test station module, Tiangong-2.

Tianzhou-1, China’s first cargo spacecraft, which was launched Thursday evening from Wenchang Space Launch Center in south China’s Hainan Province, began to approach Tiangong-2 automatically at 10:02 a.m. Saturday and made contact with the space lab at 12:16 p.m.

The Tianzhou-1 cargo ship and Tiangong-2 space lab will have another two dockings. The second docking will be conducted from a different direction, which aims to test the ability of the cargo ship to dock with a future space station from different directions. In the third docking, Tianzhou-1 will use fast-docking technology. It normally takes about two days to dock, while fast docking will take only six hours.

This testing program by China is very well thought out. They are performing a whole range of docking tests, and they are doing it with an unmanned prototype station that well simulates the full scale station they eventually plan to build.

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The Israeli finalist in the Google Lunar X-Prize is out of the running

10:19 pm

The Israeli team for the Google Lunar X-Prize, one of the five finalists, can no longer win the race because its SpaceX launch will not take place before the end of the year.

SpaceIL, formed by veterans of the Israeli tech sector, will not be able to launch by the year-end deadline set by the race’s organizers, according to Spaceflight Industries, the space transport company hired to carry the team’s spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket launch it purchased from SpaceX.

A Spaceflight executive tells Quartz that SpaceIL’s rocket is still in the launch queue but will be unable to launch before 2018, effectively scotching SpaceIL’s chance at the contest barring a last-minute extension to the deadline.

The article does a nice job of summarizing the situation for all five finalists, all of which appear to have problems that could prevent them from flying before the deadline at the end of 2018. It also notes that an extension could also be granted, as has happened twice before.

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France settles union dispute in French Guiana

10:10 pm

The union strike that has stopped all Arianespace launches from French Guiana for the past month has been settled.

The article provides no details on the settlement itself. Instead, it outlines the company’s intention to complete all the scheduled launches they had planned for 2017.

Update: This story outlines the basic agreement.

It authorises an emergency relief plan of up to 2.1 billion euros, which includes funds for security, education, healthcare and business aid.

France had already approved 1.1 billion in aid for French Guiana at the beginning of April. The additional funds were offered to meet demands made by the collective and local representatives, who rejected the government’s initial offer.

France will prioritise the implementation of the spending plan, said Bareigts, who described the agreement as a “decisive day for the future of Guiana”.

Essentially, this is a payoff to the unions and group in French Guiana that organized the strike. I am sure a lot of the money will go for good purposes, but I am even more sure that a majority of it will simply end up in the pockets of the strike organizers, doing little to help the people of French Guiana themselves.

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