Category: Behind The Black

“Without significant spending cuts and reforms to reduce our debt, there will be no debt-limit increase.”

10:57 pm

I like the sound of this: “Without significant spending cuts and reforms to reduce our debt, there will be no debt-limit increase.”

Also this: “We should be talking about cuts of trillions, not just billions. They should be actual cuts and program reforms, not broad deficit or debt targets that punt the tough questions to the future.”

And this: “And to those who contend that the economy is too weak to take on the challenge of entitlement reform — I would simply say, you’ve got it backwards. The truth is that making fundamental reforms to these programs would be good for the economy — and good for the next generation.”

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Dark matter mysteries

10:23 am

Every year, as part of its educational and research mission, the Space Telescope and Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland holds a science symposium that focuses one of the big questions of astronomy, inviting over a hundred scientists to come and give their individual perspectives on the state of the field.

This year’s symposium ended yesterday, and the subject was the mysteries of dark matter. Though I wasn’t able to attend the symposium itself, they held a workshop for journalists yesterday, which I did attend. (You can watch the webcast here.)

So, what is dark matter?

First of all, it isn’t dark energy. Dark energy is that mysterious unknown phenomenon that is causing — on vast scales of many billions of light years — the expansion of the universe to accelerate rather than decelerate. It has nothing to do with the question of dark matter.

Second, no one knows. All that scientists do know is that objects in the outer regions of galaxies as well as the galaxies themselves don’t move at the speeds and directions expected if their known mass and gravity were the only forces influencing them. In order to successfully plot their orbits and motions, astronomers have to add a gigantic halo of extra mass, which they have dubbed “dark matter” because it is unseen, undetected, and completely invisible.
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U.N. Forces from Nepal introduced cholera to Haiti

9:10 am

We’re here to help you! U.N. rescue forces from Nepal were the ones who introduced cholera to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

Soon after the start of the outbreak, which has sickened close to 300,000 people and killed nearly 5000, Haitians fingered the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which has a camp populated by Nepalese soldiers in Mirebalais in the Centre Department, very close to where the first cholera cases occurred. The camp was also blamed in a leaked epidemiological report by a French cholera expert, Renaud Piarroux of the University of the Mediterranean in Marseille, written at the request of the Haitian government. Several genetic studies showed that the Haitian cholera strain strongly resembled others found recently in South Asia—although none pinpointed Nepal specifically.

Yet some cholera scientists—including Rita Colwell, seen by many as a giant in the field—contended that the bacteria had more likely been present in local waters, and that the outbreak had been triggered by a combination of environmental factors.

Rita Colwell is hardly what I’d call a “giant in the field,” at least nowadays. Though her biography lists a lot of research work, the last decade she has spent most of her time playing politics as a political appointee, going from one government agency to another.

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Fifty years ago: Alan Shepard’s suborbital flight

8:01 pm

An evening pause: Fifty years ago today, America’s response to Gagarin and the Soviets, Alan Shepard’s suborbital flight.

Or as he said as he lifted off, “The clock has started.”

The flight actually lasted 15 minutes 22 seconds. Though only a fourth the size of Gagarin’s much bigger Vostok capsule, the Mercury capsule was steerable. During the flight Shepard adjusted the capsule’s pitch, roll, and yaw, proving that humans could pilot a spacecraft manually.

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Space Adventures and tourists to the Moon

7:06 pm

Space Adventures and tourists to the Moon.

After consultation with Rocket Space Corporation Energia, modifications to the Soyuz TMA configuration have been agreed upon. The most important of which is the addition of a second habitation module to the Soyuz TMA lunar complex. The additional module would launch with the Block DM propulsion module and rendezvous with the Soyuz spacecraft in low-Earth orbit.

“Space Adventures will once again grace the pages of aerospace history, when the first private circumlunar mission launches. We have sold one of the two seats for this flight and anticipate that the launch will occur in 2015,” said Richard Garriott, Vice-Chairman of Space Adventures. “Having flown on the Soyuz, I can attest to how comfortable the spacecraft is, but the addition of the second habitation module will only make the flight that more enjoyable.”

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FAA wants your opinion about commercial space rules

9:51 am

The government marches on! The FAA wants your opinion about its future commercial space regulations.

Or to put it another way, how to stifle a newborn in the womb. In 2004 I said the new law allowing this kind of regulation was going to hurt the new space industries. We are about to see, with the FAA’s regulatory effort here, exactly how that will play out.

And I don’t think it will be good.

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Elon Musk defends his vision and success

11:11 pm

Elon Musk defends his vision and success. Key quote:

For the first time in more than three decades, America last year began taking back international market-share in commercial satellite launch. This remarkable turn-around was sparked by a small investment NASA made in SpaceX in 2006 as part of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. A unique public-private partnership, COTS has proven that under the right conditions, a properly incentivized contractor — even an all-American one — can develop extremely complex systems on rapid timelines and a fixed-price basis, significantly beating historical industry-standard costs.

China has the fastest growing economy in the world. But the American free enterprise system, which allows anyone with a better mouse-trap to compete, is what will ensure that the United States remains the world’s greatest superpower of innovation.

To put it simply, Musk is right, on all counts.

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