Author: Robert Zimmerman

Europe’s primary Earth-observation satellite has gone silent.

9:15 am

Europe’s primary Earth-observation satellite, Envisat, has gone silent.

Launched in 2002, the satellite is billed as the most sophisticated environmental monitor in orbit, with ten instruments providing streams of valuable data on everything from ozone, clouds and greenhouse gases to land-use trends and sea-surface temperatures — data that have figured in more than 2,000 scientific publications, ESA says. Over the years, Envisat has also offered a unique vantage point on major environmental disasters such as the December 2004 earthquake and tsunami in southeast Asia and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Now, scientists fear that the satellite’s decade-long run has come to an abrupt end.

Problems began on 8 April when the satellite’s signal cut out as it was passing over a ground station in Sweden. ESA has been working with a team of scientists and engineers to diagnose the problem and to re-establish contact, but the outlook remains unclear.

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An up and down Sun, for real this time

2:19 pm

Though I am a bit late in covering this story (due to moving, unpacking, Passover, and an unexpected visit to the dentist), NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center on April 9 released its monthly update of the ongoing sunspot cycle of the Sun. The most recent graph is below the fold.

In order to understand the context of this new graph, however, it is necessary to make a correction and clarification.
» Read more

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European subsidies have put Arianespace in the black.

1:25 pm

European subsidies have put Arianespace in the black for 2011 and 2012.

The key quote however is this:

But ESA governments have made clear they are not happy having to cover losses, especially since the workhorse Ariane 5 rocket, introduced in the mid-1990s, is well past its teething stage and has conducted 47 consecutive launch successes. Its last failure was in late 2002.

Arianespace has dominated the commercial launch market in recent years, yet can’t make a profit. In this case, however, I suspect that if the company lost its subsides it would somehow find a way to finally reduce its budget.

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Assuming it gets the necessary funds, Boeing anticipates flight tests of its CST-100 reusable manned capsule in 2016.

10:11 am

More news from commercial space: Assuming it gets the necessary funds, Boeing anticipates flight tests of its CST-100 reusable manned capsule by 2016.

This story is part of the on-going lobbying effort to convince the Luddites in Congress to subsidize the new commercial space companies. To get some context, even if Congress gives NASA all of the money it has requested for this program, the annual cost will still be less than a third of the NASA-built Space Launch System, and will get us four different ways to get humans and cargo into orbit, and do it in far less time.

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Virgin Galactic has been cleared by the State Department to fly foreign tourists without obtaining an export license.

11:18 pm

Good news: Virgin Galactic has been cleared by the State Department to fly foreign tourists without obtaining an export license.

[Mark Sundahl, an associate professor of law at Cleveland State University in Ohio], said that without this determination from State, allowing a non-U.S. citizen to ride in a Virgin spacecraft — or even training a non-U.S. citizen to do so — would legally have been an export activity that required federal approval. The time it takes to obtain an export license varies, but several months is a reasonable estimate, said Sundahl, who specializes in international commerce and space law. “Under ITAR, any disclosure of controlled technical data to a foreign national, even if the disclosure takes place in the U.S., is treated as an ‘export’ of the technical data — which would require a license from the Department of State in addition to imposing other regulatory burdens on the exporter,” Sundahl said.

Freed from this regulatory requirement will make it easier for Virgin Galactic, as well as others, to sell tickets.

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Astronomers have identified two of the oldest known stars, about 12 billion years old, both only a hundred light years away.

4:19 pm

Astronomers have identified two of the oldest known stars, about 12 billion years old, both only a hundred light years away.

What is intriguing about this discovery is that these two white dwarfs had to have formed very soon after the Big Bang, long before the Milky Way galaxy existed as we know it today. How they ended up here is an interesting puzzle.

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Editors representing almost two dozen journals have publicly asked for an investigation into almost two hundred papers authored by anesthesiologist Yoshitaka Fujii.

4:07 pm

Editors representing almost two dozen journals have publicly asked for an investigation into almost two hundred papers authored by anesthesiologist Yoshitaka Fujii.

On 8 March, the journal Anaesthesia published an analysis questioning data in 168 of Fujii’s papers. Now the group of editors, mostly from journals focusing on anesthesiology, is planning to retract what may be Fujii’s entire English language body of work if the institutions with which he was affiliated cannot confirm that the studies took place, that the original research data have been verified, and that the studies had been properly reviewed in advance for ethical considerations.

Given the results of the Toho University investigation, getting those confirmations might be problematic. According to Ken Takamatsu, dean of the university’s faculty of medicine, Fujii told Toho’s investigating committee that he had discarded the experimental data for all of the studies then being questioned, but he claimed there had been no fabrication. [emphasis mine]

The number of papers in question equals 193. If these are all retracted it would be a new record.

The highlighted words illustrate something that pertains to the climate field, climategate, and Phil Jones of the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University. Jones, like the anesthesiologist above, had also destroyed his original data, making it impossible to verify the validity of his work. In both cases, such behavior is completely unacceptable in the field of science. It appears the field of anesthesiology recognizes this obvious fact. Sadly, the climate field does not, as Jones’ work is still considered valid by too many climate scientists.

One more thought: That it was possible for so many papers to be published in peer-reviewed journals — despite the fact that the editors now admit that they cannot even confirm that the studies took place — tells us a great deal about the failures in modern peer-reviewed science.

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Mars: dry with only periodic short bursts of wetness.

9:04 am

Mars: dry with only periodic short bursts of wetness.

Though this Science article outlines well the present “consensus” for Mars’s past climate, it also tries to make it sound like the planetary science community had once believed that Mars was once ocean-covered like the Earth and now has abandoned that consensus. To this I say bunk. Though many respected planetary scientists have looked for and found evidence for a past ocean on Mars, this possibility has always been controversial. From my readings most planetary scientists have always believed that Mars has generally been dry, interspersed with short periods when there is flowing liquid water on its surface. Even the advocates of the Martian ocean never proposed an Earthlike ocean, but a somewhat shallow and short-lived phenomenon.

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Fifty top NASA experts, including astronauts, scientists, and engineers, have issued a letter demanding that NASA stop making global warming claims in press releases and websites.

1:51 pm

A new consensus: Fifty top NASA experts, including astronauts, scientists, and engineers, have issued a letter demanding that NASA stop making global warming claims in press releases and websites.

We, the undersigned, respectfully request that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites. We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data. With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled.

The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.

The individuals who signed this letter comprise a who’s-who from NASA’s science and space exploration work over the past fifty years. Their willingness to sign such a letter cannot be dismissed lightly.

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Despite protests from the U.S. and South Korea, North Korea is continuing preparations for the launch an Earth observation satellite.

1:37 pm

Despite protests from the U.S. and South Korea, North Korea is continuing preparations for the launch an Earth observation satellite.

North Korea recently entered into a food aid agreement with the U.S., which requires the Asian nation to halt long-range rocket launches in exchange for critical resources to stem the country’s widespread poverty and famine.

Officials from the U.S. and South Korea have said that the Unha-3 launch is a violation of this agreement, and could carry significant consequences. South Korean officials have said they may even shoot down parts of the Unha-3 rocket if they breach the state’s borders.

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