Author: Robert Zimmerman

SpaceX has reported that they have found the cause of the Falcon 9 launch abort this morning.

4:46 pm

In an email update, SpaceX reports that they have found the cause of the Falcon 9 launch abort this morning.

During rigorous inspections of the engine, SpaceX engineers discovered a faulty check valve on the Merlin engine. We are now in the process of replacing the failed valve. Those repairs should be complete tonight. We will continue to review data on Sunday. If things look good, we will be ready to attempt to launch on Tuesday, May 22nd at 3:44 AM Eastern.

If this is true, than this entire exercise is an unqualified success and illustrates a certain robustness to SpaceX’s engineering on Falcon 9. Their control computer during the launch process spotted the problem before it caused a complete loss of the vehicle and payload. They can now locate the problem, fix it, and proceed with launch.

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Falcon 9 aborted its launch tonight at 4:55 am (Eastern) at T minus zero seconds.

2:03 am

No go: Falcon 9 aborted its launch tonight at 4:55 am (Eastern) at T minus zero seconds.

Just after ignition there was a shutdown. They were able to make the vehicle safe, and are trying to figure out what happened. It appears there was a high pressure reading in one engine.

The next opportunity to launch is three days hence, though whether they will go for it then depends on whether they can figure out what caused the shutdown.

Update: More details here.

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Only 65% of the political class and only 61% of Democrats are aware that federal spending has gone up in the past ten years.

1:58 pm

Pitiful: Only 65% of the political class and only 61% of Democrats are aware that federal spending has gone up in the past ten years.

Interestingly, 85% of the general public knows this basic fact, which might explain why the intellectual elites of our country — from both parties — are continually being blindsided by the rise of the tea party movement and its continued success in elections.

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Based on further analysis of the data from WISE, the infrared space telescope, astronomers have now made a better estimate of the population of potentially hazardous asteroids

3:11 pm

Based on further analysis of the data from WISE, the infrared space telescope, astronomers have now made a better estimate of the population of potentially hazardous asteroids.

Potentially hazardous asteroids, or PHAs, are a subset of the larger group of near-Earth asteroids. The PHAs have the closest orbits to Earth’s, coming within five million miles (about eight million kilometers), and they are big enough to survive passing through Earth’s atmosphere and cause damage on a regional, or greater, scale.

The new results come from the asteroid-hunting portion of the WISE mission, called NEOWISE. The project sampled 107 PHAs to make predictions about the entire population as a whole. Findings indicate there are roughly 4,700 PHAs, plus or minus 1,500, with diameters larger than 330 feet (about 100 meters). So far, an estimated 20 to 30 percent of these objects have been found.

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Shut it down

8:25 am

Our government in action: An NIH nationwide study to track hundreds of thousands of children from birth to age 21 is wracked with budget and management problems.

All told, this study has already cost the taxpayers almost a billion dollars for the enrollment of only 4,000 children, not the 100,000 envisioned. That’s about $250,000 per child, an amount that seems incredibly high.

In addition to the above problems, it appears there are scientific ones as well:
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Antonio Breschi – Jig in the Castle

6:03 pm

An evening pause: An Irish jig morphs into some wild and spectacular improv.

Antonio Breschi on the piano, Mairtin O’Connor, accordion, Johnny MacCarthy, flute, Jane Cassidy, bazouki, and Steve Cooney, bass. Recorded in Belfast around 1990.

Breschi by the way is probably one of the world’s best improvisational pianists.

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