NASA’s moon buggy prototype goes up for auction
The prototype of the moon buggy that NASA developed, discarded, and was then salvaged from a junkyard has been placed in auction and is expected to sell for at least $125K.
Category: Behind The Black
ULA to launch two Bigelow space station modules
The competition heats up: ULA and Bigelow Aerospace have announced a partnership to launch two of Bigelow’s largest space station modules, each with about as much interior space as both Skylab and Mir.
Both will be ready for launch by 2020. Neither company has made clear if they have any outside investment, though they left open the option of working with NASA and having the modules attached to ISS.
Merle Haggard – Okie From Muskogee
An evening pause: Someone who did not live through the 1960s cannot imagine the violent reactions to this song when it came out in 1969. It was either loved or hated, expressing the polarization of the times. Sadly, not much has changed in half a century, other than the poles have grown farther apart, with the side Haggard is gently criticizing here so filled with hate that it would not surprise me if they would to try to prevent the song’s performance if someone wanted to sing it on a college campus today.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman, in honor of Merle Haggard’s passing last week.
Kepler out of safe mode
Good news: Engineers have been able to regain control of the Kepler space telescope and hope to resume science observations by the end of the week.
They still are unsure what caused the problem, and will be researching this at the same time.
Delusional banking
Time to consider holding more of your money in cash: The International Monetary Fund said on Sunday that it now supports the idea of imposing negative interest rates on depositor money at some central banks.
In other words, steal the money, placed originally in the banks for safety from theft.
The following quote from the article, however, reveals how truly hopeless the situation really is:
Critics argue that the move to negative rates, especially in Japan where the central bank has failed to ignite growth or shift inflation upwards, are a sign of desperation. What is needed they say is additional government spending instead of more loose monetary policy. In addition, they charge that the move may damage the economy by inflating financial market asset bubbles and squeezing bank profit margins. [emphasis mine]
The idea that more government spending will solve the problem of too much government spending, which is why these central banks are in debt and need to steal the money of the depositors in order to become solvent again, is absurd. That the world’s economic experts can see no other solution, like maybe getting government spending under control so that reasonable taxes can pay the bills, tells us that no reasonable solution will be tried, and that eventually everything is going to crash badly.
Dragon arrives at ISS
The competition heats up: SpaceX’s Dragon capsule has been berthed with ISS, bringing with it Bigelow’s privately built inflatable test module.
This berthing also makes it the first time the two American cargo freighters, Dragon and Cygnus, are docked at ISS at the same time.
In a related non-news story, the head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, which now controls that country’s entire aerospace industry, claimed in a television interview today that Russia is the world’s “undisputed leader … in launch vehicles and launch services,” noting that they launch about 40% of all launches worldwide.
That’s nice for him to say, but just because you say it doesn’t make it so. I expect that 40% number (which includes all Russian government launches and is thus inflated from their actual market share) to shrink considerably in the coming years, as the Russian space industry has shown a complete inability to innovate in the last twenty years. With the consolidation of that industry into a single corporation all run by the government, I do not expect that inability to go away anytime soon.
Video of Falcon 9 first stage barge landing
This is so incredible to watch that I must post it on the webpage. I think I’ve already seen it a dozen times, and still cannot get over how the rocket, coming in fast and on an angle, rights itself, lands, bounces slightly, and then settles upright into place.
The future here is rushing up on us, fast, in the best way possible.
Next Atlas 5 launch delayed indefinitely
In the heat of competition: Because of the continuing investigation into the launch issue during its last launch, ULA has now extended the delay of the next launch of its Atlas 5 from one week to an indefinite delay.
The report at the link is very brief, and it also does not give a source. I was not able to find any other reports of this story after doing a web search as well as a search of ULA’s website, so it remains unconfirmed. Nonetheless, I suspect it is real, suggesting the company has uncovered some unexpected issue with the Atlas 5 that now requires more serious action that is going to take time. Stay tuned.
Kepler in trouble
Engineers report that the Kepler space telescope went into safe mode about two days ago.
During a scheduled contact on Thursday, April 7, mission operations engineers discovered that the Kepler spacecraft was in Emergency Mode (EM). EM is the lowest operational mode and is fuel intensive. Recovering from EM is the team’s priority at this time.
The mission has declared a spacecraft emergency, which provides priority access to ground-based communications at the agency’s Deep Space Network. Initial indications are that Kepler entered EM approximately 36 hours ago, before mission operations began the maneuver to orient the spacecraft to point toward the center of the Milky Way for the K2 mission’s microlensing observing campaign.
This brief report does not look good. If the spacecraft is in a “fuel intensive” mode, it means it is using extra fuel to survive. This suggests that if they don’t recover it soon it might run out of the fuel and be lost forever.
ULA trims workforce
The competition heats up: In an effort to cut its costs, ULA has announced that it is laying off 375 workers.
The job cuts are not because the company is having financial troubles, but because they need to lower their launch prices to compete with SpaceX.They have always had some fat that could be trimmed but have not done so because, before SpaceX, there was no effort in the launch industry to cut costs. SpaceX, and some good healthy competition in a free market, is now forcing this upon everyone.
Imogen Heap – Just For Now
An evening pause: I challenge anyone to tell me what the lyrics in this piece are about. In fact, don’t bother, because the meaning of the words is really irrelevant. The focus is on the sound of the words, and that sound is really really good.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
SpaceX lands its first stage on a barge
The competition heats up: SpaceX has for the first time successfully landed the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on a barge, even as it has successfully launched Dragon to ISS.
Go here to see the stage on the barge, even as I type. More here, including images.
That makes two first stages recovered, suggesting that this is going to become increasingly routine for the company. Now comes the next big step, using one of these used stages a second time to launch another satellite.
Serious security flaws found in Obamacare websites in three states
Finding out what’s in it: Federal investigators have found significant security problems with the Obamacare health insurance websites in the states of California, Kentucky, and Vermont.
The GAO report examined the three states’ systems from October 2013 to March 2015 and released an abbreviated, public version of its findings last month without identifying the states. On Thursday, the GAO revealed the states’ names in response to a Freedom of Information request from the AP.
According to the GAO, one state did not encrypt passwords, potentially making it easy for hackers to gain access to individual accounts. One state did not properly use a filter to block hostile attempts to visit the website. And one state did not use the proper encryption on its servers, making it easier for hackers to get in. The report did not say which state had what problem.
According to the story, it appears that nothing has been done in two of the three states to fix the problem. Worse, the study suggests similar problems exist at other state websites.
Hey, let’s solve the problem by voting for Clinton or Sanders! Both say the solution is to give the governments that screwed up here more power, money, and control. What could go wrong?
Vet charities not getting promised Trump donations
What does this tell us? Three months after Donald Trump held a charity event for veterans rather than participate in a presidential debate, more than half of the $6 million raised has not been given to any of the veteran organizations.
A survey by The Wall Street Journal of 19 of the 22 groups originally listed by Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign as the prospective recipients of the funds found that they had received roughly $2.4 million of the estimated $6 million in donations the campaign said the event generated. The total received by all of the groups is likely to be more.
Fascist New Jersey threatens prison for man flying Trump flag
Fascists: A man in New Jersey faces jail time for flying a campaign flag for Donald Trump in front of his home.
A New Jersey man who’s been flying Donald Trump’s campaign flag in front of his home since February could face up to a $2,000 fine or jail time when he faces a judge in the case.
Joe Hornick has been flying Trump’s “Make America Great Again” flag outside his West Long Branch home on a busy corner near the Monmouth University campus for months. But he got a ticket recently citing him for illegally posting political signage more than 30 days before an election. The New Jersey presidential primary isn’t until June 7. [emphasis mine]
Where in the Constitution does it say that political speech is forbidden thirty days before an election?
Anyway, this is another reason to avoid New Jersey, the state that routinely jails ordinary citizens for daring to exercise their second amendment rights. Now the state wants to jail people for exercising their first amendment rights.
Brownshirts shut down student Trump meeting
Facists: A collection of leftwing, Marxist, Black Lives Matter brownshirts crashed the first meeting of a Students for Trump club forming at Portland State University, shutting it down and threatening the participants.
I have posted the video below the fold. Be sure to watch it all. There is no doubt that if and when these fascists gain power they will use it to oppress and persecute anyone who disagrees with them. In fact, they readily admit on the video that they are doing this now, gleefully. Their hate is palatable.
» Read more
Phase 2 begins in DARPA spaceplane program
The competition heats up: DARPA is about to start asking for proposals for the second phase of its XS-1 spaceplane program.
In Phase 1 of XS-1, DARPA sought to evaluate the technical feasibility and methods for achieving the program’s goals. To achieve that, it awarded prime contracts to three companies, each working in concert with a commercial launch provider: The Boeing Company (working with Blue Origin, LLC); Masten Space Systems (working with XCOR Aerospace); and Northrop Grumman Corporation (working with Virgin Galactic). Phases 2 and 3 will be competed as a full and open Program Solicitation mandating an Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreement with the expectation of a single resulting award. Cost share is expected.
The primary goal is to build a vehicle that can fly ten times in ten days and put a small satellite into orbit.
April 7, 2016 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Tonight’s podcast, embedded below the fold, was aptly titled by John Batchelor “Big Space Delays and Delays and Delays the SLS.” Unfortunately I didn’t have time this time to outline the cost differences between SLS/Orion and commercial space. Next time!
In the wild
An evening pause: A beautiful nature video from National Geographic. Though it contains lots of cute animals, it also shows them in the wild, as they really are, hunting and being hunted. I am thus reminded of Tennyson’s description of nature, “red in tooth and claw,” from his poem In Memoriam, written at the death of a close friend.
… A monster then, a dream,
A discord. Dragons of the prime,
That tare each other in their slime,
Were mellow music match’d with him.
O life as futile, then, as frail!
O for thy voice to sooth and bless!
What hope of answer, or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil.
Hat tip George Petricko.
Update on Dawn at Ceres
Link here. Though the story initially focuses on the possibility that the mission might be extended a few extra months until the spacecraft’s fuel runs out, it also gives a good summary of what has been learned so far about the dwarf planet, including the theory that Ceres was once an “ocean world.”
[Carol Raymond, Dawn’s deputy principal investigator,] said Ceres appears to be a former ocean world and could have once been similar to Europa or Enceladus, the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn. “One of the things that we anticipated about Ceres before getting there is that it’s a former ocean world,” Raymond said. “We’re so interested in going to Europa and Enceladus, and these other interesting objects in the outer solar system because we think they harbor subsurface oceans at present, and possible habitable environments, and possibly even locations where there’s extant life.
“Ceres appears to have been one of those objects in the past, when it was younger and hotter,” Raymond said. “What we’re looking at now is, we believe, the remnant of a frozen ocean. The salt is left over from the brines that were concentrated as the ocean froze out, so it’s all a fairly consistent story that Ceres is a former ocean (world) where the ocean froze, and now we’re interrogating the chemistry, essentially, of that ocean-rock interface through the subsurface layers that we’re detecting on Ceres.”
The data has found the high latitudes to have lots of hydrogen, suggesting water-ice on or near the surface. The bright salt patches also suggest frozen water below the surface that left behind the salt when it reached the surface and evaporated away.