Author: Robert Zimmerman

NASA used Orbital Sciences’ Taurus 2 rocket for the failed launch of its Glory climate satellite in 2011, even though the agency knew the company had not fixed the problem that caused the loss of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory in 2009.

9:01 am

NASA used Orbital Sciences’ Taurus XL rocket for the failed launch of its Glory climate satellite in 2011, even though the agency knew the company had not fixed the problem that caused the loss of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory in 2009.

The investigators believed there was as much as a 50% chance the faulty component — a fairing separation system for ejecting the protective shroud that covered the satellite during launch — would fail again. Sadly, it did, destroying Glory. More significant for the future, however is this:

Other Orbital vehicles, including the air-launched Pegasus and a new Antares rocket, use a version of the same fairing separation system that is most likely responsible for the combined $700 million loss of two key climate-study satellites. Orbital’s original name for Antares was Taurus II.

So far, NASA has not accepted the Antares shroud-separation configuration for operational flights. Dulles, Va.-based Orbital says it has made a number of changes to its frangible joint fairing separation system in the wake of the Glory launch failure, including modifications to the frangible rail used on Antares. The company is developing that rocket under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program to carry cargo to the International Space Station (ISS).

If NASA isn’t satisfied with Orbital’s design changes to this system, it could significantly delay the launch of Cygnus and Antares to ISS.

Update: I had mistakenly referred to the Taurus 2 in the first sentence when the rocket used to launch Glory and OCO was the Taurus XL. This is now corrected.

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China’s Chang’e 2 lunar probe, now out of lunar orbit, did a fly-by of the 3 mile wide asteroid Toutatis as it zipped past the Earth last week, resulting in some spectacular images.

2:17 pm

China’s Chang’e 2 lunar probe, now out of lunar orbit, did a fly-by of the 3 mile wide asteroid Toutatis as it zipped past the Earth last week, resulting in some spectacular images.

Launched on October 1, 2010, Chang’e 2 orbited the Moon for 8 months before being redirected last year to the L2 Lagrange point, roughly a million miles on the side of Earth opposite the Sun. But when it left L2 last April, Western observers suspected the spacecraft was heading deeper interplanetary space. It didn’t take long to realize that Chang’e 2 was bound for Toutatis.

This is an example of a very smart re-use of a space probe.

By the way, the first fly-by of another planet took place fifty years ago this week.

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Climate experts are now calling for an end to the regularly scheduled mega-climate summits.

11:31 am

Good news: Climate experts are now calling for an end to the regularly scheduled mega-climate summits.

That these summits haven’t accomplished anything but allow climate bureaucrats to burn tons of airplane fossil fuel to gather in some of the world’s nicest warm weather cities during the winter — thereby making them all look like hypocrites — is not the reason these experts want to cancel the summits. They want to cancel the summits because the summits aren’t getting them the results they want: strict regulation on the lives of everyone else.

Nowhere does the article address the simple fact that in the past three years, since the release of the climategate emails, the creditability of the entire climate change field has gone to zero. The public doesn’t buy their sales pitch anymore, and thus neither do politicians, which is why no one is willing to make a deal at these summits. No one believes anything these climate experts are saying, especially since they have refused to clean up the corruption within their field.

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Sequestration and NASA

9:49 am

Here we go again. Yesterday an aerospace organization, Aerospace Industries Association, released a sixteen page report [pdf] claiming that NASA will lose 20,500 jobs and NOAA 2,500 if the federal government goes over the “fiscal cliff” and sequestration happens.

Immediately, a slew of news articles xeroxed this report to pound home this point, noting the job loses for the specific cities of each newspaper and how disaster awaits the country if sequestration is allowed to take place and we go over that blessed “fiscal cliff”:

The trouble is, this is all hogwash and bad journalism.
» Read more

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The satellite that North Korea launched early Wednesday appears to be tumbling out of control, according to unnamed U.S. officials.

9:29 pm

The satellite that North Korea launched early Wednesday appears to be tumbling out of control, according to unnamed U.S. officials.

The Defense Department does have the capability to detect a tumbling satellite, especially if its solar panels are visible, though I must emphasize that the information here is so vague it hardly means anything. Regardless, the real issue here is not that North Korea put a working satellite into orbit, but that it now has the rocket capability to put anything into orbit. For us this is not a good thing: A rogue nation that is trying to build nuclear weapons that is also officially still at war with our ally South Korea now has this capability.

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A new New York skyscraper — the largest residential building in the world — has won the top award for 2011 for its unusual undulating facade.

9:08 am

A new New York skyscraper — the largest residential building in the world — has won the top award for 2011 for its unusual undulating facade.

It is worth a look, as the building is quite strange-looking and actually stands out in the New York skyline, something you would think would be difficult for a new skyscraper to do.

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North Korea launched its rocket today, despite indications earlier in the week that they were delaying the launch due to technical problems.

10:06 pm

North Korea launched its rocket early Wednesday, despite indications earlier in the week that they were delaying the launch due to technical problems.

It appears those “technical problems” were a feint to distract everyone just prior to launch. Based on radar data it also appears the rocket did put an object into orbit.

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The solar scientists change their prediction again

12:39 pm

Today, with little fanfare, the solar scientists at the Marshall Space Flight Center adjusted slightly downward their prediction for the upcoming solar maximum, from a sunspot number of 73 down to 72. This was the fourth month in a row that they have revised their prediction.

The Marshall scientists do not archive their predictions, which I suspect is a convenient way of preventing people from noticing how much they change them. I however like to archive these revisions. Below is a full list of their changes during the past two years:
» Read more

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Climate models still fail to predict mid- and long-term trends in the climate.The uncertainty of science: Climate models still fail to predict mid- and long-term trends in the climate.

12:07 pm

The uncertainty of science: Climate models still fail to predict mid- and long-term trends in the climate.

To test the forecast quality of the 23 most important climate models, the AWI scientists investigated how well these models were able to reproduce atmospheric teleconnection patterns over the past 50 years. A total of 9 known circulation patterns were investigated retrospectively, four of which in special detail. The result was that the spatial distribution of atmospheric teleconnection patterns is already described very well by some models. However, none of the models were able to reliably reproduce how strong or weak the Icelandic Low, Azores High and other meteorological centers of action were at a particular time over the last 50 years, i.e. the temporal distribution patterns. [emphasis mine]

The “centers of action” are large global weather patterns like el Nino that can influence the global climate worldwide. Most climate scientists believe that global warming will manifest itself first in these centers of action. Yet, no climate model was able to predict what we know actually happened during the past fifty years with these large centers.

But we must ignore this fact and base all our climate law on what these models predict. What could go wrong?

In related news, the United Kingdom had its coldest autumn since 1993 this year. And if you look at the temperature graph at the link, covering autumn temperatures since 1910, you will notice hardly any change, up or down.

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A Democratic state representative threatened violence on the Michigan House floor today over the passage of a right-to-work law in their state.

10:20 am

Leftwing civility: A Democratic state representative threatened violence on the Michigan House floor today over the passage of a right-to-work law in their state.

Update with video: a mob of union thugs rip down the tent of a conservative group, while people were inside. More details about the violence here. More video here, showing these creeps as they attack Steven Crowder and push the tent down with a woman inside.

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Democratic senators (who voted for it) have joined Republicans to call for the delay or cancellation of an Obamacare tax on medical equipment.

10:16 am

Finding out what’s in it: Democratic senators (who voted for it) have joined Republicans to call for the delay or cancellation of an Obamacare tax on medical equipment.

Maybe if these idiots had read the damn bill before they passed it we wouldn’t have this problem. But then again, this is the quality of senators the American people want in charge of our country. I read this and weep.

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