Author: Robert Zimmerman

Orbital Sciences’ balance sheets booming as a result of commercial space.

9:07 am

Orbital Sciences’ balance sheets booming as a result of commercial space.

“Orbital’s fourth quarter financial results reflected solid growth in revenues, earnings per share and free cash flow, and capped a very successful year in 2013,” noted Mr. David W. Thompson, Orbital’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. This highly successful report reflects the successes Orbital have enjoyed during the last year. The most publicly recognized successes have involved the opening launches of their new Antares launch vehicle, two of which lofted the first Cygnus spacecraft on their missions to the ISS.

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The FAA has given its permission for Blue Origin to expand its operations in Texas.

9:00 am

I’m so glad: The FAA has given its permission for Blue Origin to expand its operations in Texas.

“After reviewing and analyzing currently available data and information on existing conditions and the potential impacts of the Proposed Action, the FAA has determined that issuing experimental permits and/or launch licenses to Blue Origin for operation of suborbital RLVs at the West Texas launch site would not significantly impact the quality of the human environment,” the agency said in document posted on its website.

Two takeaways: First, Blue Origin is moving forward with the testing of more sophisticated suborbital and maybe orbital spacecraft. That is great news. Second, it really is annoying that they need the government’s approval to do this, especially since the FAA knows far less about it then they do.

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For the first time in 20 years, the global total spent on government space programs declined in 2013.

8:54 am

For the first time in 20 years, the global total spent on government space programs declined in 2013.

According to Euroconsult’s newly released research report, Profiles of Government Space Programs, global budgets for space programs dropped to $72.1 billion in 2013 following peak spending at $72.9 billion in 2012. This is the first time since 1995 that public space programs worldwide have entered a downward trend, a direct result of the cyclical nature of countries’ investment in space-based infrastructures combined with governments’ belt-tightening efforts during tough economic times.

This is not bad news. It just reflects the shift from public to private in the space industry in the U.S. and elsewhere, which is also reducing the cost for doing exactly the same thing. Thus, spending might drop, but more is being done.

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Patrick Henry’s speech to the Virginia House of Burgess, March 23, 1775.

7:53 pm

For no reason in particular: Patrick Henry’s speech to the Virginia House of Burgess, March 23, 1775.

After reading it I have no doubt you will agree that this man is a right-wing extremist of the worst sort. Why, for instance, hasn’t the IRS come after him, along with OSHA, the EPA, and numerous other of our noble federal agencies that were created to protect us?

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Governments spent $359 billion in 2012, about the same as 2011, on their effort to stop global warming.

1:31 pm

Where the big money really is in climate science: Governments spent $359 billion in 2012, about the same as 2011, on their effort to stop global warming.

Global investment in climate change plateaued at USD $359 billion in 2012, roughly the same as the previous year, according to a new Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) study, “The Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2013.” Once again the figure falls far short of what’s needed. The International Energy Agency projects that an additional investment of USD 5 trillion is required by 2020 for clean energy alone, to limit warming to two degrees Celsius. However, the gap is likely wider: The World Bank projects we are on a path to four degree Celsius warming, suggesting that efforts to scale up finance are falling further and further behind.

I include the quote above to make it clear that the source is very much a supporter of the human-caused global warming scenario. And while the article also details the large amounts of money invested in fossil fuels, it is important to recognize the difference. The money for stopping global warming is almost entirely used for fake research or public relations propaganda efforts or to support government regulatory agencies. The money for fossil fuels is money used to invest in actual energy production.

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The trial of the century.

11:30 am

The trial of the century.

Michael Mann doesn’t like people calling him a fraud for torturing and manipulating the climate data to create the false illusion that the climate is warming. And so, he is trying to shut down any criticism or analysis of his very poorly done science by using the power of government to enforce his will.

Two quotes from the article that are of interest:

Here is the point at which we need a little primer on libel laws, which hinge on the differentiation between facts and opinion. It is libel to maliciously fabricate facts about someone. (It is not libel to erroneously report a false fact, so long as you did so with good faith reason to believe that it was true, though you are required to issue a correction.) But you are free to give whatever evaluation of the facts you like, including a negative evaluation of another person’s ideas, thinking method, and character. It is legal for me, for example, to say that Michael Mann is a liar, if I don’t believe that his erroneous scientific conclusions are the product of honest error. It is also legal for me to say that he is a coward and a liar, for hiding behind libel laws in an attempt to suppress criticism.

These are all reasons that the lawsuit should have been summarily thrown out. It goes beyond the legitimate scope of libel and defamation laws and constitutes an attempt to suppress opinions that are considered politically correct.

And this:

In other words, Steyn’s evaluation of Mann’s scientific claims can be legally suppressed because Steyn dares to question the conclusions of established scientific institutions connected to the government. On this basis, the DC Superior Court arrives at the preposterous conclusion that it is a violation of Mann’s rights to “question his intellect and reasoning.” That’s an awfully nice prerogative to be granted by government: an exemption against any challenge to your reasoning.

I said before that I don’t know how the rest of us skeptics escaped being sued along with Steyn. Now we know. Mann is attempting to establish a precedent for climate censorship. If he wins this suit, then we’re all targets.

And global warming activists like Mann call me a “denier?”

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Ben Carson and his family and friends have been targets of IRS harassment since he criticized Obama in 2013.

10:19 am

Working for the Democratic Party: Ben Carson and his family and friends have become targets of IRS harassment since he criticized Obama in 2013.

Carson said audits and other harassment began in May or June of 2013 and gradually expanded to include family members, associates, and his charitable endeavors.

“I’ve been quite I would say astonished at the level of hostility that I have encountered,” Carson said in an exclusive interview with host John Bachman on “America’s Forum” on Newsmax TV.

“The IRS has investigated me. They said, ‘I want to look at your real estate holdings.’ There was nothing there. ‘Well, let’s expand to an entire [year], everything.’ There was nothing there. ‘Let’s do another year.’ Finally, after a few months, they went away. But they’ve come after my family, they’ve come after my friends, they’ve come after associates.”

This harassment apparently occurred after the IRS scandal broke in the spring of 2013, which means that instead of ending the harassment that supposedly outraged him, Obama accelerated it by aiming it directly at his electoral opponents.

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It appears that a large majority of Connecticut gun-owners are refusing to register their semi-automatic rifles, as required by that state’s new gun control law.

9:45 am

Pushback: It appears that a large majority of Connecticut gun-owners are refusing to register their semi-automatic rifles, as required by that state’s new gun control law.

Due to the new gun control bill passed in April, likely at least 20,000 individual people — possibly as many as 100,000 — are now in direct violation of the law for refusing to register their guns. As we noted above, that act is now a Class D Felony.

Mike Lawlor, “the state’s top official in criminal justice,” suggested maybe the firearms unit in Connecticut could “send them a letter.” However, he said an aggressive push to prosecute gun owners in the state is not going to happen at this point.

When the law has contempt for freedom, then the only answer is contempt for the law.

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The Republican leadership joins with Democrats to pass a debt limit extension.

10:57 am

The Republican leadership joins with Democrats to pass a debt limit extension.

Current Speaker of the House John Boehner pushed through a clean debt limit bill on Tuesday that gives the White House unlimited borrowing power for the next year. Only 28 Republicans – mostly allies of Boehner – voted for the bill while 199 Republicans opposed it.

To me, this extension is a disaster, as it appears to give Obama a blank check. The silver lining is that the Republican Party, minus its cowardly leaders, appears increasingly more unified behind stronger actions against spending. After the November election that trend should certainly continue.

If it doesn’t, bankruptcy is sure to follow.

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Environmentalists register opposition to a new commercial spaceport in Florida.

10:27 am

Environmentalists register opposition to a new commercial spaceport in Florida.

Opponents of the plan to carve out about 200 acres from the 140,000-acre (57,000-hectare) Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge cite concerns over protecting the refuge’s water, seashore, plants and wildlife, which include 18 federally listed endangered species. “It’s a very pristine, natural area. It’s clear water … very unique. You don’t have that anywhere else in Florida,” said Ted Forsgren with Coastal Conservation Association of Florida, which strongly opposes the project.

The environmentalists also cite the possibility that access to the refuge will become reduced because it will be closed during launches.

These objections are bogus. The reason this refuge even exists is because of the Kennedy Space Center. When the space center was created in the 1960s Congress also set aside the area around it as a wildlife refuge. Nothing could be built there anyway because of the need to create a buffer from the rocket launchpads. In the ensuing half century the wildlife has prospered, despite the launches. And access to the refuge has always been restricted in a variety of ways because of the space center. A new commercial launch facility won’t change any of this significantly.

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The first four cubesats of a fleet of 28 launched from ISS on Tuesday.

9:31 pm

The first four cubesats of a fleet of 28 launched from ISS on Tuesday.

The four “cubesats,” each about the size of a loaf of bread, were deployed from the space station this morning and began zipping freely around Earth. Twenty-four more will join them over the coming days, filling out the “Flock 1” satellite fleet operated by San Francisco-based startup Planet Labs. Planet Labs’ Flock 1 will provide frequent, low-cost, high-resolution imagery of Earth that could serve a variety of purposes, company officials say, from tracking deforestation and natural disasters to monitoring leaks in oil pipelines.

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DARPA opens the competition for awarding the first design contracts for a new experimental unmanned space plane, set to launch in 2017.

9:28 pm

DARPA opens the competition for awarding the first design contracts for a new experimental unmanned space plane, set to launch in 2017.

DARPA has high expectations for the XS-1 program, which it hopes can eventually launch 3,000- to 5,000-lb (1,361 to 2,268 kilograms) payloads to orbit for less than $5 million per flight — and to do it at least 10 times per year….

DARPA officials laid out their broad vision of the robotic XS-1 vehicle in a press release issued in September: “XS-1 envisions that a reusable first stage would fly to hypersonic speeds at a suborbital altitude,” they wrote. “At that point, one or more expendable upper stages would separate and deploy a satellite into low-Earth orbit. The reusable hypersonic aircraft would then return to earth, land and be prepared for the next flight.”

But DARPA is leaving the specifics of the XS-1 system — which aims to provide routine, aircraft-like access to space — up its potential builders, Sponable said. “We don’t care if it’s vertical take-off, horizontal land, vertical-vertical, which brings in a lot of the entrepreneurs,” he said in the FISO presentation. “We don’t care if they air-launch it, air-tow it, whatever. So we’ve left all those wide open.”

This DARPA program dovetails nicely with NASA commercial manned space program, as well as the emerging suborbital tourist industry. The combination should energize the reusable launch market quite effectively.

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Arianespace, under severe competitive price pressure from SpaceX, begs for more subsidies from ESA.

9:21 pm

The competition heats up? Arianespace, under severe competitive price pressure from SpaceX, begs for more subsidies from ESA.

In comments responding to a Feb. 11 audit of the French Accounting Court, Cour des Comptes, Israel said that since 2005 Arianespace has improved its competitiveness to the extent that some €200 million ($273 million) in annual subsidies from the 20-nation European Space Agency (ESA) have been halved. In addition, the reliability of the Ariane 5, which has seen 58 consecutive successes since 2002, has allowed the company to increase launch prices. The company also has reduced costs with a recent bulk buy of 18 Ariane 5 rockets that saved Arianespace 5%.

Nevertheless, Israel said the arrival of the medium-lift Falcon 9 as a competitor at the low end of the commercial communications satellite market, with prices substantially lower than what Arianespace charges for Ariane 5, means the company may be forced to ask ESA governments to increase price supports beyond the current €100 million per year. [emphasis mine]

In other words, this government-funded boondoggle doesn’t know how to compete effectively on the open market, and wants an additional government bailout to keep its head above water.

Note also the text in bold. Several commenters on this website have repeatedly insisted that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 was not the bargain claimed, despite numerous examples in the past three years of their competition saying they were that inexpensive. This statement by Arianespace’s CEO reaffirms the fact that SpaceX is cheaper, and is forcing major changes to the launch industry.

In related news, French government auditors have found much wrong with Arianespace’s current long term commercial strategy.

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95% of all climate models agree: The observations must be wrong.

9:53 am

“95% of all climate models agree: The observations must be wrong.”

I’m seeing a lot of wrangling over the recent (15+ year) pause in global average warming…when did it start, is it a full pause, shouldn’t we be taking the longer view, etc. These are all interesting exercises, but they miss the most important point: the climate models that governments base policy decisions on have failed miserably.

I’ve updated our comparison of 90 climate models versus observations for global average surface temperatures through 2013, and we still see that >95% of the models have over-forecast the warming trend since 1979, whether we use their own surface temperature dataset (HadCRUT4), or our satellite dataset of lower tropospheric temperatures (UAH).

When 90 different climate model predictions are compared with the actual data, all but two vastly overestimate the amount of heating that has occurred since 1979. In other words, these models are wrong, they are undependable, and they shouldn’t be used to decide policy by any politician.

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Richard Branson today claimed that Virgin Galactic will fly its first space tourists this year.

1:50 am

Did you ever get the feeling of deja-vu? On Monday Richard Branson claimed that Virgin Galactic will fly its first space tourists this year.

I am all for his success, but I must admit I am becoming skeptical. Branson said exactly the same thing in May 2013, except then he was claiming that the first tourist flight would occur before the end of 2013. It didn’t happen.

There are too many rumors about the engine troubles with SpaceShipTwo to allow me to accept Branson’s claims any longer at face value.

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