Jamey Johnson & Lee Ann Womack – “Give It Away”
An evening pause: Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Author: Robert Zimmerman
Johann Strauss – Perpetuum mobile
An evening pause: Hat tip Dane, who added that “Herbert von Karajan’s eccentricity as a conductor” makes this worth watching all by itself.
May 17, 2016 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold. Topics: Belize, Congress, SpaceX, and Texas cows, among other things.
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TMT permitting process about to begin anew
The retired Hawaiian judge who will supervise the new permitting process for the Thirty Meter Telescope held a prelminary meeting on Monday to discuss scheduling and procedual matters.
The Hawaiian authorities have been slow-walking this new permiting process, which the telescope already completed according to law years ago. I say TMT should just leave Hawaii so its citizens can enjoy their barren mountain and the lack of jobs and wealth it will bring them.
Blockhead – The Music Scene
An evening pause: Animation by Antonio Francisco Schepperd. As I watched this I could not help think of the very expressive 1960s word psychodelic.
On the radio from Belize
I will be doing my Tuesday night podcast on John Batchelor, live Tuesday at 11:00 pm Eastern. We did a test phone call tonight and confirmed that the connection is good. I expect I will talk a bit about what I am doing here in Belize, as well as some of the space stuff going on the last few days and posted on Behind the Black.
I will also post the podcast link once John Batchelor gets it uploaded.
Upgraded Antares rolled to launchpad
The competition heats up: Orbital ATK’s upgraded Antares rocket, with new Russian engines for its first stage, has been rolled to the launchpad in preparation for its launch in July.
They plan to do a 30 second long hot fire engine test on the launchpad of the first stage engine to see if all works properly. If successful, they will then confirm the launch date in July.
Status of the third recovered Falcon 9 first stage
The recovered first stage from SpaceX’s last Falcon 9 launch experienced significant wear and tear during its high speed descent and landing.
They do not think they will be able to use the stage again, but will instead test it to determine the engineering tolerances that need to be met to make recovery and reuse in these situations more likely. The data will also help them increae the likelihood of reusability on launches that are less stressful.
Posted from Belize.
The Dubliners – Dirty Old Town
An evening pause: Performed live, 1976, in Finland.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Two days in Mountain Cow Cave
Still alive! We spent Saturday and Sunday surveying in Mountain Cow Cave, located on the Hummingbird Highway in a national park. Quite amazingly beautiful. Gigantic rooms filled with big towers and formations everywhere. The size makes surveying and sketching the rooms challenging, as I am sometimes staning in plsces far from any walls. To sketch a cave passage it helps to be able to see the walls.
No pictures, for the moment, as it is hard to upload large files here.
We go to a different cave tomorrow (Monday) while on Tuesday we will take a day off to go sightseeing at the Tikal ruins in Guatamala.
One more thing: there is a chance I will still do my Tuesday appearance with John Batchelor. If we find the phone connection acceptable, I will go on live at 11 pm eastern. I will know for sure by tomorrow night.
Iran announces satellite plans
The competition heats up: Iran has announced its plans to launch a series of home-built communications and Earth observation satellites.
Congress demands Air Force spend less and more at the same time
A House budget report has cut the Air Force launch budget while simultaneously requiring the Air Force to favor more expensive launch companies.
In addition to cutting the funding available for new launch contracts, House appropriators also want the Air Force to consider “the best value to the government” in evaluating bids.
ULA has been pushing for the best-value approach since it sat out last fall’s GPS-3 launch competition saying it couldn’t win a price shootout against SpaceX, which will launch the satellite which was awarded an $82.7 million contract last month for a May 2018 launch of a GPS-3 satellite. That contract was awarded as part of a best value source selection. “We do not yet feel we are in a position to win price-only competitions with our competitor,” Tory Bruno, ULA president and chief executive, said in a March interview with SpaceNews. “We believe we have better performance, reliability and schedule certainty.” Those traits would carry greater weight in a best-value competition.
Only our precious Congress. On one hand they cut the budget for launches because they think the Air Force is wasting money On the other they demand that the Air Force spend extra millions on launch contracts so that the company they favor, ULA, gets the work. One would almost think they do not have the nation’s interests in mind..
Vostochny manager resigns
Tne manager in charge of the cable work blamed for the scrub of the first launch from Vostochny has resigned.
In related news, Russia estimates it spent $1.3 billion building Vostochny.
In Belize
After two flights and a two hour drive I am now with the rest of the expedition in the Maya Mountain Lodge near San Ignacio on the western side of Belize. Tomorrow we go on our first survey trip to Mountain Cow Cave, a popular wild cave that tours periodically visit. We are surveying it for the local authorities so they have a better idea of what they have and can better protect it.
My internet connection here is slow, so posting will be less than I would like. Also, we will be spending most of our time caving. So don’t expect a lot of posting for the next week. I shouldn’t say that, as then all my readers will flee, but I have to be honest.
Lacy J. Dalton – Black Coffee
An evening pause: Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Off to Belize
This Friday morning I am leaving for Belize for a week long cave expedition. I do not know if I will have the time or internet access to post as normal. Moreover, the days will be spent underground surveying and pushing new cave passages, so if I do any posting it will be in the evenings. In addition, some of us will also be heading to Guatemala for a day to visit the ruins at Tikal.
I have never been to Belize before. If I can’t post there I will definitely post my impressions of my travels upon my return.
Posted from El Paso, Texas.
Pink Floyd – See Emily Play
An evening pause: The link calls this the official video, remastered in 2011. The style and look of the filming however fits the 1960s to a T.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
Republican-led Senate passes spending bill larger than requested by Obama
Feeding the anger: A bill passed today by the Republican-led Senate included more funding that originally requested by the Obama administration.
Moving legislation and avoiding fights has been a top election year priority for Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The Kentucky Republican wants the GOP Senate to prove that Republicans can govern by avoiding a one-and-done omnibus spending package at the end of the year. But the energy and water bill received little fanfare from Senate conservatives. They complain that the measure, which funds the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Interior, spends $261 million more than even Obama requested.
Sen. Mike Lee described the legislation as “simply unacceptable in a time of rising debt and slower economic growth.” The Utah Republican told The Daily Signal that “we’re never going to get our nation’s rising deficits under control until we can stick to our previous agreements on spending levels,” referring to the limits set in the 2011 Budget Control Act.
Though Congress has not passed a budget resolution, the Senate started advancing spending bills at levels established in the 2015 Bipartisan Budget Act, which increased government discretionary spending by $30 billion above the 2011 caps.
Still Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told The Daily Signal he’s glad the appropriations process has gotten off the ground finally. “This is the first time this appropriation bill has passed the Senate since 2009,” Lankford, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, explained. “To avoid last-minute continuing resolutions, backroom deals and omnibus bills, we must move bills through a regular order appropriations process.”
These guys just don’t get it. There is a reason that Trump and Cruz dominated their party’s presidential campaign, and it wasn’t because they were calling for Congress to advance big spending bills in Congress quickly.
Posted from El Paso, Texas.
Court rules against illegal Obamacare subsidies
Finding out what’s not in it: A federal court ruled today that the Obama administration had no legal right to issue subsidies to insurers that have not been appropriated by Congress.
The court was quite blunt about the White House’s illegal activities here:
Paying out Section 1402 reimbursements without an appropriation thus violates the Constitution. Congress authorized reduced cost sharing but did not appropriate monies for it, in the FY 2014 budget or since. Congress is the only source for such an appropriation, and no public money can be spent without one. See U.S. Constitution, Art. I, § 9, cl. 7 (“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law . . . .”). The Secretaries’ textual and contextual arguments fail.
Not surprisingly, the Obama administration rejects the court’s decision.
Airbus initiates smallsat launcher project
The competition heats up: Airbus has begun a project to develop a smallsat commercial launch rocket, competitive with Rocket Lab’s Electron and Virgin Galactic’s LaunchOne, aimed at the cubesat and nanosat satellite market.
The source for the story was unnamed, and also gave few details, so it is hard to know how real this is. What I gather however is that we might be seeing the beginnings of a long term split in the launch market, with one set of big rockets designed to launch human-related payloads, including humans, and a second set of small rockets focused on launching unmanned satellites.