Category: Points of Information

Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.

Tiangong-1 reentry now estimated between March 25 and April 17

8:26 am

China’s first space station, a test module called Tiangong-1, is now expected to reenter the atmosphere and crash to Earth sometime between March 25 and April 17.

The Tiangong-1 space lab was launched in 2011 to test docking technology and life support by hosting two crews, but loss of control over the spacecraft’s propulsion means it cannot be deorbited in a controlled manner.

The spacecraft’s orbit is decaying due to atmospheric drag and that process is accelerating as Tiangong-1 runs into denser concentrations of particles at lower altitudes.

The station will break-up during reentry, and most of it will burn up. However, some chunks will hit the ground. The article gives details about how they are tracking it in preparation for reentry.

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Off hunting javelinas again

8:01 pm

A javelina

Posting on Friday and over this weekend will be nil, as I am leaving tonight, Thursday, and will be in the back country with no phone or internet service on my second javelina hunt. If we bag something early we will be back early, but that can hardly be guaranteed.

For a description of my javelina hunt last February, go here.

Note that there will be an evening pause on Friday night, regardless.

Update: Due to technical issues, I am instead heading out tomorrow afternoon, so posting will resume for the morning hours.

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Can you spot the racist xenophobic politician in this quiz?

11:48 am

Link here. Here’s the first question:

“Those who enter the country illegally and those who employ them disrespect the rule of law, and they are showing disregard for those who are following the law. We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented (and) unchecked, and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently and lawfully to become immigrants in this country.”

A) Adolf Hitler
B) Donald Trump
C) Barack Obama

Answer: Then-Sen. Obama, news conference, 2005

The quiz continues, each time providing a quote that sounds remarkably like Trump or numerous conservative Republican politicians in discussing the problems of illegal immigration, with the answer instead being almost always Barack Obama or Bill Clinton.

The point here is not that Democratic politicians were once against illegal immigration. No, what this quiz illustrates is how completely insane the left has become since Trump became president. Their hatred of Trump has caused them to accuse him and Republicans of the most ridiculous slanders, based on nothing. Thus, this quiz illustrates how completely unqualified any Democratic politician is that spouts accusations of racism and xenophobia against Trump and the Republicans. Such politicians don’t know what they are talking about, have only a single goal of blocking any actions by Republicans, no matter how sensible, and cannot be trusted with legislative power.

The sad thing is that the voters who put such Democrats into power are not likely to change their votes, as they are as much consumed by a bigoted hatred of Trump and Republicans as the Democratic Party.

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Update on Falcon Heavy core stage landing failure

8:26 am

Link here. According to Musk, the reason the core stage hit the water so fast is that some engines did not fire as intended.

He said engineers believed only one of three engines fired during a final burn designed to slow the rocket’s descent before touchdown. The stage only missed the boat by about the length of a football field, but the force of its water impact was enough to “take out” two engines on the nearby drone ship and spray it with debris.

This is proper engineering procedure. They flew a test, and learned something. They now need to figure out why it happened, and fix it.

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Linux beats Windows and Apple for security

10:10 pm

Another reason I use Linux: A survey of computer security experts confirms that they generally consider Linux superior to either the Windows or Apple operating systems when it comes to security.

Obviously, if you are used to Windows or Apple, making the switch seems daunting. It isn’t, as I know from experience, having been a Linux user now for almost a dozen years. And if you want to try out Linux, all you really need is a spare laptop or desktop, one or two years old, that you aren’t using any more, and to then follow the instructions provided here on Behind the Black by reader James Stephens for Getting and Installing Linux:

Put a flavor of Linux on that old computer, and begin playing with it. Before long you will find that you don’t need Microsoft or Apple anymore.

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Obama ignored Russian treaty violations to give it U.S. uranium mining rights

10:01 pm

The real Russian collusion: In testimony before Congress an FBI informant outlined today how the Obama administration gave Russian control of the company Uranium One, that owned 20% of the U.S. uranium mining rights, despite being given clear evidence that Russia was providing aid to Iran in violation of treaties.

Campbell [the informant] had provided the FBI with evidence of the criminal network and delivered the information to the FBI. which was monitoring his work as an informant and approving his transfer of bribery money to the Russians. Those transfers, which were made in bulk $50,000 sums and at times delivered in cash, occurred between senior executives of the American transportation company and the Russian executives connected to Rosatom. He had given the FBI irrefutable evidence showing how contracts obtained from the same Russian energy company Tenex, were based on contract bribery and other nefarious actions, he said.

Senior members of the FBI, Department of Treasury, Department of Energy and Department of Justice were also briefed on Campbell’s information and were apprised of the various facets pertaining to Russia’s acquisition of the Canadian company. In fact, Campbell had been told by his FBI handlers that his work had made it at least twice into President Obama’s classified presidential daily briefings.

…Despite the insurmountable evidence collected by Campbell, the Obama administration’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States approved Russia’s purchase of Uranium One in the fall of 2010.

The real question that his testimony apparently did not address (though earlier reporting had said it would) is the connection between then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who approved the Uranium One deal, her Clinton Foundation that received millions from the Russians at this time, and the $500,000 in speaking fees that Bill Clinton also got from the Russians then. Those fees sure look like a quid pro quo, but this testimony did not provide any evidence to show that.

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New budget deal dumps budget caps

8:43 pm

The swamp wins again! The new budget deal negotiated today between Senate leaders Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and Chuck Schumer (D-New York) eliminates the sequestration budget caps that for the past half dozen or so years have put at least a few limits on government spending.

The deal removes sequestration budget caps for two years, increases defense spending and also boosts funding for domestic programs that were priorities for Democrats, such as opioid addiction programs. It also raises the debt ceiling until 2019.

It was unclear if the Senate deal will get enough support when it goes to the House.

According to this report, the deal will raise government spending by $300 billion over the next two years.

Even as the two parties make a lot of noise over the FBI scandal, their leaders move to keep the spigot of cash flowing to their buddies, and thus to themselves. And as they do so the federal debt grows, and grows, and grows. And we get closer and closer to outright bankruptcy and collapse.

Update: Trump has endorsed the deal.

“The Budget Agreement today is so important for our great Military,” he wrote on Twitter. “It ends the dangerous sequester and gives Secretary Mattis what he needs to keep America Great.”

“Dangerous sequester”? The sequestration rule has been the only thing that has kept any reins on budget spending for the past few years. In this matter Trump reveals his old liberal Democrat roots.

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Mayor of bankrupt Stockton wants to hand out $6000 to every resident

8:29 pm

California madness: The 26-year-old mayor of Stockton, California, which went bankrupt in 2012, wants to give every resident $6000 no questions asked.

Stockton is experimenting with a welfare program called “universal basic income,” which gives low-income residents $500 a month, no questions asked. The money is coming from a private grant. The California city, which went bankrupt in 2012, has recently made strides to become more economically viable, but is still struggling.

Mayor Tubbs, who was endorsed by Barack Obama, took office in January 2017. He is Stockton’s first black mayor, and its youngest-ever at age 26. “I feel that as mayor it’s my responsibility to do all I could to begin figuring out what’s the best way to make sure that folks in our community have a real economic floor,” Tubbs said.

Now we have an idea why the city went bankrupt. The money is coming from a private grant, but I guarantee it will not have the results the mayor expects.

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New anti-Trump emails: Obama “wants to know everything we’re doing.”

5:01 pm

Newly released emails between two anti-Trump FBI agents reveal that not only did they despise Trump, they had contempt for all Republicans and the “ignorant hillbillys” who voted for them, and most important, President Obama wanted “to know everything we’re doing.”

The timing of the texts reveal that Obama was not interested in any investigations of the Clintons, but in the work these agents were doing in trying to build a Russian collusion case against Trump.

More here.

Both links also provide video of Obama speaking just prior to this text’s date where he pointedly claims that he does “not talk to FBI Directors about pending investigations.”

Overall, the evidence here is building that these FBI officials, their superiors, and Obama himself, were conspiring to use the power of the government to attack a political opponent from the opposition party, a direct attack on our democracy.

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More evidence of data tampering at NOAA

11:09 am

A close review of NOAA’s historic temperature data for New York shows that the agency appears to have been adjusting its records to cool past records or warm recent ones, without any explanation.

The author took a look at NOAA’s graph this year showing New York’s average January temperatures going back to 1890, and noticed that, according to that graph, 1943 was 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than 2014. Yet, a close look at the actual data from 1943 strongly suggested that 1943 was actually 2.7F warmer, not 0.9F. Somehow, NOAA had adjusted the numbers, either in 1943 or in 2014, to make the present warmer or the past colder. Further analysis, removing the one station that appears to have experienced the most heat island influence, thus distorting its long term record, suggested the adjustments might actually be worse.

These results, while certainly not covering all weather stations and years, are still consistent with every other close look at NOAA’s adjustments. Those adjustments always cool the past and warm the present, so as to provide confirmation of the theory of global warming. More important, there is never any explanation for those adjustments.

Of the seven sites, six have remained at the same locations, within a few yards. The station at Auburn has moved by a couple of miles, but is still in similar terrain.

There is no reason then why any major adjustments should have been required at any site.

Apologists for temperature tampering usually say it is all due to TOBS (Time of Observation). Yet the station at Ithaca, based at Cornell University, has used morning readings throughout. With a temperature difference of 2.9C, this is typical of the other sites, suggesting that any bias from TOBS is minor.

Either there is outright fraud going on here in the climate divisions at NOAA, or they are entirely blind to their own confirmation bias. Either way, this data once again illustrates why there is great distrust in their results. Global warming might be happening, and human activity might be causing it, but these strange adjustments in the data leave many in doubt.

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Watching the Falcon Heavy launch

8:59 am

This morning there are dozens of stories across the entire media about SpaceX’s first test launch today of its Falcon Heavy rocket, generally pushing out all other space news. Most repeat the same information, about the rocket, the company, the goals, its history, and its consequences, all subjects that I have already covered extensively here at Behind the Black or elsewhere.

One story however is not only fun, and demonstrates the value of freedom and private enterprise. An uber-type car transportation company called Lyft is offering half-price rides from Orlando to watch the Falcon Heavy launch.

The benefits of innovation and competition will be routinely surprising, and come from places unexpected. Lyft is doing this because of the high traffic being generated by SpaceX’s launch. It gives them margin to cut prices while also generating some good PR.

Meanwhile, if you want to watch the launch (launch now delayed to 2:00 pm Eastern), you can either go to SpaceX’s video stream on its website, or on youtube, or you can go to the live feed at Spaceflightnow.

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Audit finds Pentagon dept lost hundreds of millions of dollars

11:12 am

Our government in action! An audit by the private audit firm Ernst & Young has found that the Pentagon department that handles the logistical needs of the military has lost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Ernst & Young found that the Defense Logistics Agency failed to properly document more than $800 million in construction projects, just one of a series of examples where it lacks a paper trail for millions of dollars in property and equipment. Across the board, its financial management is so weak that its leaders and oversight bodies have no reliable way to track the huge sums it’s responsible for, the firm warned in its initial audit of the massive Pentagon purchasing agent.

…In one part of the audit, completed in mid-December, Ernst & Young found that misstatements in the agency’s books totaled at least $465 million for construction projects it financed for the Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies. For construction projects designated as still “in progress,” meanwhile, it didn’t have sufficient documentation — or any documentation at all — for another $384 million worth of spending.

The agency also couldn’t produce supporting evidence for many items that are documented in some form — including records for $100 million worth of assets in the computer systems that conduct the agency’s day-to-day business.

There’s more. In fact, it goes on and on, listing numerous examples of shoddy accounting. One wonders who is benefiting by this incompetence, assuming it isn’t downright corruption.

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Large study finds saturated fats good!

9:53 am

The uncertainty of science: A new and very large health study has found that eating a high fat diets is actually healthy, and that the previous government dietary recommendations are seriously flawed.

That’s the conclusion of a massive new study published in Lancet that followed 135,335 people in 18 countries on five continents. The study found that consumption of fat was associated with a lower risk of mortality, while consumption of carbohydrates was associated with a higher risk. It found that the kind of fat didn’t matter when it came to heart disease, and that saturated fat consumption was inversely related to strokes.

The researchers say, ever so politely, that “dietary guidelines should be reconsidered in light of these findings.”

I’m not sure this new study should be trusted that much either. Regardless, it does indicate that the field of diet and health has a great deal of uncertainty, and that we should all consider with great skepticism any recommendations from the government, based on that science.

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More info on Trappist-1 solar system

9:25 am

Astronomers, using ground-based and orbiting telescopes, have obtained more information about the seven Earth-sized exoplanets that orbit the star Trappist-1 forty light years away.

First, a European effort has found that the planets probably all have loads of water.

A new study has found that the seven planets orbiting the nearby ultra-cool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 are all made mostly of rock, and some could potentially hold more water than Earth. The planets’ densities, now known much more precisely than before, suggest that some of them could have up to 5 percent of their mass in the form of water — about 250 times more than Earth’s oceans. The hotter planets closest to their parent star are likely to have dense steamy atmospheres and the more distant ones probably have icy surfaces. In terms of size, density and the amount of radiation it receives from its star, the fourth planet out is the most similar to Earth. It seems to be the rockiest planet of the seven, and has the potential to host liquid water.

Data from the Hubble Space Telescope has meanwhile found that three of the seven planets do not have hydrogen in their atmospheres, which at first seems to contradict the European data.

The Hubble observations took advantage of the fact that the planets cross in front of their star every few days. Using the Wide Field Camera 3, astronomers made spectroscopic observations in infrared light, looking for the signature of hydrogen that would filter through a puffy, extended atmosphere, if it were present. “The planets are close enough to their host star, and they have very short orbital periods, which means there are lots of opportunities to make observations,” Lewis said.

Although Hubble did not find evidence of hydrogen, the researchers suspect the planetary atmospheres could have contained this lightweight gaseous element when they first formed. The planets may have formed farther away from their parent star in a colder region of the gaseous protostellar disk that once encircled the infant star.

The Hubble results are actually not very significant. They show only that they did not detect hydrogen in the atmospheres of these three exoplanets, which does not mean it isn’t there. Moreover, this Hubble press release appears to have been issued as much to sell the James Webb Space Telescope and to say that Hubble is looking at Trappist-1 also!

I should add that all of these results are very uncertain. We are looking at something that is very small and is also very far away. Any data obtained is certainly not a precise measurement of what is actually there, only a mere hint.

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Russia’s next ISS module, Nauka, delayed again

9:09 am

Russia is apparently going to have to delay the launch of its next ISS module, Nauka, into 2019.

Nauka was initially built in the 1990s as a back-up module for one of Russia’s first ISS first modules, Zarya. It has undergone numerous concept changes, and even more numerous delays, including the most recent and worst, where it was discovered that they had to scrub clean the module’s fueling system because they had become contaminated.

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Falcon Heavy launch tomorrow

8:58 am

Capitalism in space: Several stories today about tomorrow’s long-awaited Falcon Heavy launch, with a launch window opening at 1:30 pm (eastern).

First, the FAA has approved SpaceX’s launch license. This is an example of the absolute irrelevance of government. There was no way this launch license was going to be denied, which means that the FAA’s only purpose here was to simply make work for some bureaucrats.

Second, this story by Bill Harwood provides a nice summary of the context of the launch, including SpaceX’s success at shaking up the launch history in the past decade. The money quote, however, comes when Harwood quotes John Logsdon, founder and now retired director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. For years Logsdon has been the media’s go-to expert on the policy of space, and has consistently expressed unbounded faith and love for NASA projects like SLS. His perspective has always been that of the 1960s, when the space race then established the concept that in order to succeed in space you needed to have a government space program. The idea of a chaotic, competitive effort by private companies has always been inconceivable to him and most liberal policy experts. Thus, when asked about the purpose behind Falcon Heavy as well as Musk’s even bigger proposed rocket, the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), Logsdon was totally baffled.

“I don’t understand what they’re doing,” Logsdon said. “Elon’s out talking about they’re not going to pursue the Falcon line of rockets, he’s going to put all his efforts into the BFR. So, what is the future of Heavy?”

…Logsdon said he believes it is “good for the country to have two alternative heavy lift vehicles, at least for a little while, to see which one works better.” But he also believes the SLS enjoys enough solid congressional support to “sustain it for some few more years, anyway.”

What Logsdon, being an academic his whole life, has never understood is the concept of profit and efficiency. Unlike the government projects like SLS that Logsdon tends to favor, Falcon Heavy is designed to provide customers a cheap way to get large payloads into orbit. That ability is going to soon provide SpaceX plenty of business, and will make SLS look like a complete waste of money. Furthermore, the BFR is Musk’s declaration that, as the head of a cutting edge private company, he is not going to stand still, but will keep pushing the envelope to provide his customers even better products in the future.

Finally, this CNN article, while typically shallow and not very knowledgeable, does provide one piece of important information, about the launchpad being used.

Because of a special walkway that has been constructed for it, Pad 39A is the only site that can host flights of SpaceX’s new spacecraft, Crew Dragon. That’s the spacecraft the company is developing to help NASA ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Crew Dragon has already faced delays. And destroying the launch pad could mean pushing deadlines back even further, according to U.S. Government Accountability Office Director Cristina Chaplain.

A launch failure on the launchpad would therefore significantly impact the schedule for SpaceX’s private manned capsule. This also explains why Musk has said he would consider this launch a success if the Falcon Heavy simply cleared the launch tower.

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Sunspot update for January 2018

11:51 pm

Today NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, covering sunspot activity for January 2018. Below is my annotated version of that graph.

As you can see, the low sunspot activity of the past two months continued in January. November 2017 remains the most inactive month for sunspots since the middle of 2009. January is now the second most inactive month, with December a very close third.

January 2018 Solar Cycle graph

The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community. The green curves show the community’s two original predictions from April 2007, with half the scientists predicting a very strong maximum and half predicting a weak one. The red curve is their revised May 2009 prediction.

Though activity continues to track close to but considerably below the 2007 weak prediction, the difference appears to be increasing as the ramp down to solar minimum continues. While I have said in past updates that the trend suggests an early arrival of the solar minimum, a close look at the previous ramp down in 2007 and 2008 shows that when activity became this weak, the ramp down slowed considerably. This previous pattern suggests that we could see another year or two of similarly low activity before the minimum arrives.

Regardless, the low activity, this soon, continues to suggest that the next maximum will also be weak, and might even not come at all, as some solar scientists have proposed. Instead, we might be heading toward another Grand Minimum, with no significant sunspots for decades.

Will that Grand Minimum produce cold weather worldwide, as it appears to have done during the last Grand Minimum in the 1600s? There is circumstantial evidence in the past decade that it might. We will not know, however, until it happens, and that possibility remains very uncertain.

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Palestinian condemnation, from a Saudi Arabian

3:07 pm

Link here. The story is about a Saudi Arabian video blogger who posted a two minute rant condemning the Palestinians as forcefully as can be imagined.

“You are the ugliest page in our history – like a bad memory that we’d like to forget. We want to tear this page out of [our history] and get rid of it completely, now and forever.

“We’ve had to sacrifice having ties with Israel – the most advanced country in the Middle East because of you and your problems and your use of our religion, language, and the fact that you’re Arabs. [emphasis mine]

This quote is only a small part of the rant. I highlight it specifically because it reveals a recognition in Saudi Arabia of the reality that Israel is a far better ally for the Saudis than the Palestinians. For an Arab to say kind words about Israel in a public forum is quite astonishing, considering the history of the past sixty years. Furthermore, this blogger would not be saying it if he did not know that his government approves. There is no free speech in Saudi Arabia.

This is one more indication that a major shift is about to occur in the Middle East, with certain countries possibly abandoning the Palestinians as their leadership is presently constituted, two corrupt terrorist organizations with no interest in living in peace with their neighbors.

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The FISA law itself is corrupt

12:21 pm

While this story is mostly focused on the obvious fact that the Democrats were outright lying when they claimed, before the FISA memo was released, that its release would reveal information that would place the country’s security at risk, it is this tidbit that I want to focus on:

But speaking of stupid, something else occurred that few are mentioning, but may be of more significance than anything. What were these FISA judges thinking who allowed for the surveillance? They actually read the Steele dossier, one would assume. Were they imbeciles or as biased as McCabe, Strzok and the rest of that seedy FBI cabal? Whether they were told that document came from the Clinton campaign or not, it read like an outtake from the back pages of the National Enquirer — and not one of the good issues (John Edwards, etc.). The dossier was ludicrous on its face, yet the supposedly great legal minds of the FISA court accepted it as what appears to be the most important evidence for the case.

Think about that.

What we need, obviously, is the old word transparency. The public needs to see the full details of what went into the FISA decisions — and we don’t need to hear any of that fake palaver about national security. Everybody’s security depends on the FISA court working in a one-hundred percent unbiased manner. Otherwise we’re living a nightmare.

That court, and its workings, and its personnel should be a key part of any investigation going forward. New rules and regulations have to be put in place.

The author is thinking “reform.” We must dig into the workings of the FISA court and fix it so this kind of corruption never happens again.

Bah. What this scandal reveals is that the FISA law, created in 1978 during the Carter administration by a Congress strongly controlled by leftwing Democrats (following heavy election loses to the Republicans after Watergate) is itself a problem, and should be gotten rid of. The idea that a warrant against an American can be issued using secret information that no one is allowed to look at reeks with the possibility of abuse and corruption, which is exactly what we see here.

For example, the eleven judges presently on the FISA court were all appointed during the Obama administration. Though the law says the Chief Justice of the U.S. designates them, the law tilts the scale by requiring that “the judges must be drawn from at least seven of the United States judicial circuits, and three of the judges must reside within 20 miles of the District of Columbia.” Considering the political leanings of the DC area, it seems to me that this is going to make it very easy for the court to lean left politically.

No amount of dressing is going to fix this. The FISA court is essentially a Star Chamber where government operatives can use secret information to manipulate the court to allow them to go after their enemies. It is by definition hostile to every aspect of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and should be dumped.

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Lockheed Martin starts assembling first manned Orion capsule

10:38 am

My heart be still! Thirteen years after winning its contract to built the manned Orion capsule, Lockheed Martin proudly announced this week that it has finally begun building the first capsule that will carry humans.

I should add that this first manned flight is not scheduled to happen for another five years. Moreover, they have so far spent at least $14 billion on this capsule, and will likely spend another five billion by the time it finally launches. That’s 18 years and $19 billion, for a single manned mission. Seems somewhat shameful to me.

The article is filled with much of the dishonest hyperbole that has surrounded the Orion capsule from the start:

  • “NASA’s first of a new generation of manned deep space exploration craft”
  • “Orion will be a major step in the American program to establish a Deep Space Gateway station, return to the Moon, and eventually make a manned landing on Mars”
  • “Orion has tremendous momentum.”
  • “This is not only the most advanced spacecraft ever built, its production will be more efficient than any previous capsule.”

What Orion really is is a lie. It is nothing more than the ascent/descent capsule for the as-yet still undesigned, unfunded, and unbuilt interplanetary spaceship that will be needed for any real deep missions. It is also a boondoggle of the worst sort, providing pork for congressional districts while accomplishing nothing.

Lockheed Martin is lying in its press release here, and it is shameful that any journalist who knows anything about space should buy into those lies.

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Japan’s newest rocket puts tiny satellite in orbit

10:19 am

Japan today successfully launched a cubesat into orbit using a redesigned suborbital rocket flying its second test flight.

Standing just 31 feet (9.5 meters) tall and spanning around 20 inches (52 centimeters) in diameter, the SS-520-5 rocket was modest by launcher standards. With Saturday’s successful flight, the solid-fueled booster became the smallest rocket to ever put an object in orbit around Earth. A student-built shoebox-sized CubeSat named TRICOM 1R — weighing in at about 10 pounds (3 kilograms) — was mounted on top of the SS-520-5 rocket for liftoff from the Uchinoura Space Center in Japan’s Kagoshima prefecture.

This rocket, built by Japan’s space agency JAXA, is only a test vehicle. There are no plans to offer it as a commercial product, the agency hopes it will serve as a model that private companies can use to build their own. This approach might work, but it reminds me too much of many past and similar NASA projects, which once completed then vanished, with no real world utilization.

The 2018 launch standings:

6 China
2 SpaceX
2 ULA
2 Japan

I have dropped listing the countries that so far only have one launch.

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VA rewriting the words of Abraham Lincoln because of feminist whines

10:01 am

Because a feminist group complained, the Veterans administration is rewriting its motto, which had been take from an actual the words of Abraham Lincoln.

The Department of Veterans Affairs says it has received complaints about its official motto, which is a quote from Lincoln’s second inaugural address in 1865. The quote, which has been the VA’s motto for 59 years, reads:

“To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.”

The motto appears on plaques at many VA facilities across the U.S.

But in November, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America asked VA Secretary David Shulkin to change the motto, saying the Lincoln quote excludes women service members and symbolizes the obstacles they face in navigating the VA health system, Stars and Stripes reported. “They’re missing the point that women don’t feel comfortable at the VA,” IAVA Executive Director Allison Jaslow, a former U.S. Army captain who served in Iraq, told Stars and Stripes. “We want to be respected and appreciated as much as male veterans are, and the motto is symbolic of overall challenges.”

In response, Kayla Williams, director of the VA Center for Women Veterans, said the VA has gradually been introducing an altered version of the quote: “To care for those who shall have borne the battle and their families and survivors.”

I would have told this pampered feminist children to “Go pound sand.” Sadly, no one in government today has any courage, so instead, we are going to rewrite history, while allowing this group of hateful babies to denigrate the reputation of one of our greatest and most humane presidents.

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Update on the recovery of long lost IMAGE spacecraft

11:15 pm

Link here. Not much additional information, other than the engineers have determined that the spacecraft has definitely done a reboot and appears to be operational.

The puzzle is that when the satellite went dark around 2005, it was using its backup equipment, dubbed Side B, because of issues with Side A. Now however it appears to be using its primary equipment, Side A. Engineers at the moment do not understand why.

I should add that I previously thought IMAGE was designed to study the Sun. That was wrong. It was designed to study the Earth’s magnetosphere, and how that interacts with the solar wind and solar magnetic storms.

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Longest Russian spacewalk replaces ISS antenna, though issues remain

11:10 pm

On the longest Russian spacewalk ever, two Russian astronauts today replaced an antenna on ISS, though it appears the installation had issues that might require an additional spacewalk.

NASA’s Mission Control reported that the antenna was still working. Nevertheless, Russian space officials were convening a special team to see whether further action would be necessary. The antenna is used for communications with Russia’s Mission Control outside Moscow.

The trouble arose toward the end of the more than 8 hour spacewalk — the longest ever by Russians and the fifth longest overall — after Commander Alexander Misurkin and Anton Shkaplerov successfully replaced an electronics box to upgrade the antenna. The pair watched in dismay as the antenna got hung up on the Russian side of the complex and could not be extended properly. The antenna — a long boom with a 4-foot dish at the end — had been folded up before the repair work.

Misurkin and Shkaplerov pushed, as flight controllers tried repeatedly, via remote commanding, to rotate the antenna into the right position. Finally, someone shouted in Russian, “It’s moving. It’s in place.” NASA Mission Control said from Houston that the antenna wound up in a position 180 degrees farther than anticipated.

In checking other reports about this spacewalk, it remains unclear whether the antenna will work in the present configuration. I should also note that while the AP report above calls this a “critical” piece of equipment, the antenna that was replaced has sat unused on ISS since for about 17 years because it was meant to work with Russian geosynchronous communications satellites that were never launched.

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House memo describes misuse of FISA rules by Obama administration

11:19 am

The House intelligence committee memo released today reveals clear misuse of the FISA law and its rules for allowing spying on American citizens.

Essentially, the memo outlines how the Obama administration, the Department of Justice, and the FBI used sloppy, inaccurate, and unverified Clinton campaign material to get a FISA warrant, without revealing this fact to the courts, and then used that warrant to spy on the Trump campaign, during the campaign. Had they told the courts about the nature of that Clinton campaign material, the courts would never have allowed the FISA warrant.

This release essentially confirms what was already commonly known, that the Obama administration was misusing FISA to try to obtain campaign dirt on the Trump campaign.

I should note that, having read the memo, I can find nothing in it that threatens American security in any way. There was never any reason to keep it classified. In fact, the entire FBI investigation that is describes had nothing to do with the country’s security. Instead, it was clearly an effort by the FBI, the Justice Department, and Obama to abuse their power in order to sabotage the campaign of their political opponent.

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