Category: Points of Information

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

Mob shuts down speech at Claremont McKenna College

11:03 am

Fascists: An angry mob of around 250 at Claremont McKenna College blocked access to a speech while threatening violence to the speaker and forcing her to end the speech early.

A throng of angry protesters converged at Claremont McKenna College on Thursday and effectively shut down a pro-police speech as they surrounded the building, forcing the speaker to give the talk via livestream to a near-empty room as they yelled “F*ck the police” and “Black Lives Matter” and banged on windows.

Heather Mac Donald, a Manhattan Institute scholar and author of the 2016 book “The War on Cops,” even gave her talk earlier than originally planned at the preppy and private Southern California campus because of the rowdy crowd estimated at more than 250 protesters, she told The College Fix via email Thursday. Thirty minutes into the speech, police officers told her to cut it short, and she was given a four-officer escort through a side door and safely through some surprised protesters who had flanked that exit, Mac Donald said.

These leftist protesters at all these universities nothing but brown-shirted jack-booted thugs, using violence to silence any dissent to their way of thinking. Worse, it increasingly appears they are going to succeed, as it appears most college administrations and their faculty agree with their violent tactics, while the general public seems uninterested in stopping the oppression being imposed here.

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ULA slashes launch prices for Atlas 5

9:12 am

Capitalism in space: In order to compete with SpaceX ULA announced this week that it will cut its launch price for the Atlas 5 rocket by one third.

United Launch Alliance has dropped the price of its workhorse Atlas 5 rocket flights by about one-third in response to mounting competition from rival SpaceX and others, the company’s chief executive said on Tuesday. “We’re seeing that price is even more important than it had been in the past,” Tory Bruno, chief executive of United Launch Alliance, or ULA, said during an interview at the U.S. Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. “We’re dropping the cost of Atlas almost every day. Atlas is now down more than a third in its cost,” Bruno said.

It appears that they have discovered that the prime reason they lost their bid of an Air Force GPS satellite launch to SpaceX was because their price was too high.

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Air Force willing to use re-used Falcon 9 first stages

9:09 am

Capitalism in space: The head of the Air Force’s space division said yesterday that they would be willing to launch satellites using Falcon 9 used first stages.

“I would be comfortable if we were to fly on a reused booster,” General John “Jay” Raymond told reporters at the U.S. Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. “They’ve proven they can do it. … It’s going to get us to lower cost.”

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Citizen scientists crowd scource discovery of 4 exoplanets

9:05 am

After being promoted on an Australian tv show an effort to use public help to plow through Kepler’s vast archives discovered four new exoplanets within two days.

In three days, the Australia iteration of astronomy TV show Stargazing Live brought us #SpaceGandalf and now its viewers have discovered four planets. After it was promoted on the show, citizen scientists and fans of the program came together to contribute to a crowd-sourcing project, stalking around 100,000 stars on the Zooniverse website, which displays recent data from the Kepler Space Telescope.

And you betcha, in just 48 hours, around 10,000 volunteers discovered scores of potential new planet candidates, with scientists confirming the discovery of four “super-Earth” planets orbiting a star in the constellation of Aquarius.

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Atmosphere detected around Earth-sized exoplanet

9:00 am

Worlds without end: Astronomers have detected an atmosphere around an Earth-sized exoplanet 39 light years away.

The researchers pored over measurements from the European Southern Observatory in Chile and found that at one wavelength band of light, the planet looked larger than at others, as it crossed the face of its parent star. “These things don’t pop up in the way you expect,” said John Southworth, an astronomer at Keele University in the UK. “We found evidence for the atmosphere at one wavelength band and that wasn’t what we were expecting.”

The observations point to an atmosphere that is rich in water or methane, but it will take more measurements with other telescopes to identify the chemicals present.

The planet is about 16% larger than Earth. There remain a lot of uncertainty here with this result, so we should not yet take it too seriously.

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Hubble snaps close-up of Jupiter

4:08 pm

Jupiter by Hubble

Cool image time! The Hubble Space Telescope has taken a magnificent global view of Jupiter. The image on the right is only a thumbnail. Make sure to go to the link to see the full image, which amazingly compares quite favorably with the images being sent down by Juno in orbit around the gas giant.

This Hubble image once again demonstrates the remarkable advantages of an optical telescope in space. Equipped with the right instruments, it could do much of the research now being done by the planetary missions, and do it from Earth orbit.The research possibilities and the knowledge revealed from the ability to see things clearly in the optical bands is truly endless.

Even more important, we are wired to what we see. Give us a good visual image and many questions can immediately be answered.

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Suborbital promises

7:49 am

Capitalism in space: Two stories today highlight the contrasts that presently exist within the still unborn suborbital tourist industry:

In the first, Richard Branson made another one of his bold predictions, the same kind of prediction he has been making about Virgin Galactic now for almost a decade. Again and again he claims, based on nothing, that his spaceship will be carrying people into orbit in mere months. It never happens. It won’t happen here.

In the second, Jeff Bezos announces that he hopes to fly people on his New Shepard suborbital spacecraft by 2018, but at the same time he also announces that the program is delayed.

Bezos, speaking in front of the company’s exhibit at the 33rd Space Symposium here that features the New Shepard propulsion module that flew five suborbital spaceflights in 2015 and 2016, backed away from earlier statements that called for flying people on test flights later this year. “We’re going to go through the test program, and we’ll put humans on it when we’re happy,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to be 2017 at this point. It could be.”

Bezos has been very careful, from the beginning, to make no bold or specific predictions about when his spacecraft will fly manned. Here, he is once again making it clear that any previously announced schedules were very tentative, and should not be taken too seriously.

Which person would you trust with your life on a suborbital flight?

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ULA prepares to choose engine for Vulcan

7:21 am

Capitalism in space: ULA’s CEO Tory Bruno announced at a space conference this week that should Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine pass its testing phase his company will be prepared to select it for their Vulcan rocket.

Bruno also said that no decision has yet been made, and that Aerojet Rocketdyne’s AR1 engine remains an option, though it is 18 to 24 months behind in development.

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Russia proposes extending ISS beyond 2024

7:13 am

The head of Roscosmos said at a space conference this week that his nation is open to extending its ISS partnership with the U.S. beyond 2024 to 2028.

Russia has several good and bad reasons for wanted to do this.

  • Their shortage of cash will make it difficult for them to fly their own station.
  • They need a space station in order to maintain the jobs that exist at their mission control as well as throughout their space industry.
  • There are many good political reasons for them to maintain this space partnership with the U.S. It prevents the U.S. from completely breaking off relations, should Russia do something the U.S. doesn’t like (such as invading a nearby country).
  • They recognize that the ability to do long term research in an orbiting space station is essential for anyone who plans future interplanetary missions.

I will let my readers decide which of these reasons are the good reasons, and which are bad.

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Orbital ATK developing new rocket

6:38 am

Capitalism in space: Orbital ATK is developing a new rocket, based on the solid rocket technology it provided for the space shuttle, to compete with SpaceX and ULA.

Two versions of the rocket are planned. The medium-lift variant will have a two-segment, solid-fuel first-stage motor and a single-segment, solid second. The heavy lifter will have a four-segment first stage and a single-segment second. Both versions can be outfitted with strap-on boosters for extra lift capacity, Orbital representatives said.

To complete the rocket’s development the company says it needs to win a follow-up contract that the Air Force has been issuing to help ween the U.S. from the use of Russian rocket engines.

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ULA reduces workforce at Vandenberg

9:23 pm

Capitalism in space: In an effort to save costs ULA is reducing its workforce at Vandenberg by 48.

The company has been aggressively trying to streamline its operations to better compete against SpaceX. This reduction was expected, and based upon what I saw when I toured Vandenberg a few years ago, entirely justified. While SpaceX’s operations then looked lean and simple, ULA’s set up appeared a bit inefficient.

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ULA gets three launch contracts

8:41 pm

Capitalism in space: ULA last week won three launch contracts, two from the Air Force and one from NASA.

Both rockets are part of the existing EELV Block Buy between the Air Force and United Launch Alliance. The mission assignments were announced Friday by the Pentagon. The missions exceed the lift performance of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets that has been certified by the Air Force for national security payloads, making ULA the only provider available to execute these heavy launches.

In other government-launch news, NASA said last month that the second satellite in the next-generation era of U.S. civilian weather observatories will be launched atop an Atlas 5-401 rocket. The Atlas 5 beat out the Falcon 9 in a competition to win the rights to launch the Joint Polar Satellite System spacecraft No. 2 in 2021 from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

For SpaceX to truly compete with ULA they need to get the Falcon Heavy flying.

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Russia responds to SpaceX reused booster success

10:57 pm

A bunch of stories from Russia today appear to express that country’s political response to SpaceX’s success yesterday in launching a commercial satellite using a previously flown first stage.

It appears that these stories are quoting a variety of Russian officials who apparently did not get their stories straight. Also, it appears that much of what they are saying here is pure bluster. For example, in the third link the official makes the silly claim that the ability of their rocket engines to be started and then restarted repeatedly proves they are dedicated to re-usability. And the first two links don’t provide much back-up for the claims that they can complete with SpaceX, especially since SpaceX presently charges a third less than they do per launch, and that is using new boosters. With reused boosters SpaceX’s launch fees will be less than half what Russia has been charging for a Proton launch ($90 million vs $40 million).

Similarly, the claim that they will complete 30 launches this years is absurd. They won’t be able to launch Proton until May, at the soonest, because of the need to remove defective parts from all of their in-stock engines. Soyuz launches are similarly delayed while they check its engines also. To complete 30 launches in only seven months seems very unrealistic to me, especially since the best they have done in a full year this century is 34 launches, with an average slightly less than 30 per year.

Nonetheless, this spate of stories and statements by Russian officials shows that they are feeling the heat of competition, and also feel a need to respond. The first story has this significant statement:

Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos is responding to the challenges with available possibilities, he added. “It has announced a considerable reduction in the cost of Proton rocket launches. The commercial price of this rocket’s launch is considerably higher than its prime cost and we have the potential for the price cut. But customers are giving up our services because the number of payloads [satellites] remains unchanged and does not grow. Correspondingly, a new player on the market snatches away a part of orders,” the expert noted.

Because of Russia’s low labor costs they have always had a large profit margin on their Proton launches. The $90 million they charged was set just below what Arianespace charged for its launches. It appears they are now planning to lower their prices further to match SpaceX.

Posted from the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

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First Falcon Heavy demo launch to include two used boosters

9:53 pm

The competition heats up: SpaceX plans to use two already flown first stage boosters when it does its first demo flight of Falcon Heavy later this year.

Musk said the rocket cores for Falcon Heavy’s first flight are two to three months away from completion. He emphasized that the first launch will carry a lot of risk, and as such, SpaceX doesn’t plan to carry a valuable payload or payloads with it. “We will probably fly something really silly on Falcon Heavy because it is quite a high risk mission,” he said.

SpaceX will seek to recover all the boosters from the first Falcon Heavy flight, assuming all goes according to plan. Musk said the two side boosters would land back at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, followed by the center core returning to a drone ship in the Atlantic.

They will also try to recover the upper stage, but are not hopeful this will succeed. The article also notes that they hope to fly an additional four used boosters in 2017. SES is eager to use them on its three scheduled flights this year.

The company has also said that the booster that was successfully reused this week will not fly again, but will instead be put on display in Florida.

Posted from the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

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Bad solder joints cause of Russian Proton engine defects

8:49 am

The problem that has forced the Russians to recall all Proton second and third stage engines has been identified as the use of the wrong materials in solder joints.

According to specifications, the structural walls and the nozzle chamber of the gas generator had to be fused together with the help of the solder designated G70NKh, which employs nickel, chromium and manganese alloy (Ni-Cr-Mn). However the investigation revealed that due to mismanagement of the raw material usage at the Voronezh Mechanical Plant, the required alloy had been replaced with the PZhK-1000 solder comprised of palladium, nickel, chromium and silicon (Pd-Ni-Cr-Si). Because the replaced solder did not meet specifications, it could lead to structural disintegration of the nozzle head during the firing of the gas generator.

The discovery of the problem with the solder triggered inspection of other engines and revealed that all RD-0210 and RD-0212 engines from the second and third stages that had been manufactured during 2015 and 2016 had been equipped with defective gas generators. In order to re-certify these engines for flight, each of them would have to be disassembled, the gas generator would have to be removed and replaced, followed by the re-assembly and re-testing of each engine!

The article also notes that the next Angara rocket is also “unfit for flight” due to unspecified defects. It also notes widespread corruption and mismanagement throughout the Russian aerospace industry.

Sadly, the decision by the Putin administration to consolidate their industry into one huge corporation run by the government, and thus eliminate any competition, is only going to make solving this problem more difficult. What Russia needs is competition, with many different companies free to challenge each other for business. It also needs to allow companies to fail and go out of business.

Instead, everything is controlled from above, and thus no competition can happen. Rather than finding a new company to build these engines, the government is going to provide the company “economic aid” in order to modernize it. This is like putting a band-aid on a broken bone.

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SpaceX recovers fairing of upper stage of Falcon 9

8:34 am

The competition heats up: Even as SpaceX made history yesterday in its successful use and recovery of a used first stage, it also recovered for the first time the fairing that protected the satellite.

For the first time, SpaceX also recovered the payload fairing, the conical shaped structure on top of the rocket that surrounds and protects the spacecraft during launch. The fairing separates from the spacecraft in two sections during the launch sequence — in this case, 3 minutes and 49 seconds after launch — and usually falls into the ocean and breaks into pieces. SpaceX outfitted these two fairing sections with parachutes so they could be recovered, which apparently will become standard practice.

Musk also indicated that they are now going to begin an effort to recover the second stage. “What’s the worst that could happen? It blows up? It would anyway.”

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SLS faces more delays

5:34 pm

Delays by ESA in the construction of the service module for Orion, plus the tornado damage at the Michoud facility in Louisiana, could force NASA to delay the first unmanned test launch of the SLS rocket, presently planned for late in 2018.

NASA is also considering delaying the flight further should the agency decide to make this first unmanned test flight a manned one. They also say they will need more money if they have to put people on the first flight. I guess $43 billion and almost 15 years wasn’t enough.

By the way, it took less than four years to win World War II. From Kennedy’s speech to the Apollo 11 landing was only eight years. One wonders when we, as a nation, will finally wake up and realize that SLS is not a rocket to the Moon, but an never-ending jobs program unable to accomplish anything in space.

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Practically every Russian Proton rocket engine defective

4:36 pm

The investigation of the Russian supply of rocket engines for its Proton rocket has discovered that practically every engine, numbering over seventy, had defects that needed repair.

71 engines, mostly used to power the second and third stages of the Proton rocket, require complete overhauls to remove defects. Arbuzov did not specify what was wrong with the engines. In January, Interfax reported on an investigation into high-quality metals swapped by a plant manager for cheaper alternatives. “Most of the work will be done in 2017, but we understand that some portion will inevitably slip into 2018,” Arbuzov said. “Our main goal is to avoid disrupting the government space program’s launch schedule, or the schedules of the Defense Ministry and commercial customers.”

There is also the possibility that these defects will be found in Soyuz rocket engines as well. Stay tuned.

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New theory eliminates need for dark energy

9:09 am

The uncertainty of science: A new theory now shows that dark energy, the apparent acceleration of the universe’s expansion rate on large scales, does not need to exist in order to explain the data that astronomers have obtained.

In the new work, the researchers, led by Phd student Gábor Rácz of Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, question the existence of dark energy and suggest an alternative explanation. They argue that conventional models of cosmology (the study of the origin and evolution of the universe), rely on approximations that ignore its structure, and where matter is assumed to have a uniform density. “Einstein’s equations of general relativity that describe the expansion of the universe are so complex mathematically, that for a hundred years no solutions accounting for the effect of cosmic structures have been found. We know from very precise supernova observations that the universe is accelerating, but at the same time we rely on coarse approximations to Einstein’s equations which may introduce serious side-effects, such as the need for dark energy, in the models designed to fit the observational data.” explains Dr László Dobos, co-author of the paper, also at Eötvös Loránd University.

In practice, normal and dark matter appear to fill the universe with a foam-like structure, where galaxies are located on the thin walls between bubbles, and are grouped into superclusters. The insides of the bubbles are in contrast almost empty of both kinds of matter. Using a computer simulation to model the effect of gravity on the distribution of millions of particles of dark matter, the scientists reconstructed the evolution of the universe, including the early clumping of matter, and the formation of large scale structure.

Unlike conventional simulations with a smoothly expanding universe, taking the structure into account led to a model where different regions of the cosmos expand at different rate. The average expansion rate though is consistent with present observations, which suggest an overall acceleration.

In other words, the uneven structure of the universe has never been considered in previous models, and once included in the equations the need for dark energy disappears.

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Less than 1% of all science papers follow scientific method

7:05 pm

The uncertainty of science: A survey of the research done for papers published in scientific peer-reviewed journals has found that less than 1% properly follow the scientific method.

Armstrong defined eight criteria for compliance with the scientific method, including full disclosure of methods, data, and other reliable information, conclusions that are consistent with the evidence, valid and simple methods, and valid and reliable data.

According to Armstrong, very little of the forecasting in climate change debate adheres to these criteria. “For example, for disclosure, we were working on polar bear [population] forecasts, and we were asked to review the government’s polar bear forecast. We asked, ‘could you send us the data’ and they said ‘No’… So we had to do it without knowing what the data were.”

According to Armstrong, forecasts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) violate all eight criteria.

“Why is this all happening? Nobody asks them!” said Armstrong, who says that people who submit papers to journals are not required to follow the scientific method. “You send something to a journal and they don’t tell you what you have to do. They don’t say ‘here’s what science is, here’s how to do it.’”

Worse, the research found that many results came not from data but to confirm something that was politically advantageous or helpful in winning grants.

Digging deeper into their motivations, Armstrong pointed to the wealth of incentives for publishing papers with politically convenient rather than scientific conclusions. “They’re rewarded for doing non-scientific research. One of my favourite examples is testing statistical significance – that’s invalid. It’s been over 100 years we’ve been fighting the fight against that. Even its inventor thought it wasn’t going to amount to anything. You can be rewarded then, for following an invalid [method].”

“They cheat. If you don’t get statistically significant results, then you throw out variables, add variables, [and] eventually you get what you want.” [emphasis mine]

The scientific community and especially the climate field has got to get a handle on this and demand better. Otherwise, we lose the greatest gift science has given to civilization, an unwavering dedication to the truth.

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Atlas 5/Cygnus launch delayed until mid-April

3:17 pm

ULA has delayed its next Atlas 5 launch to send a Cygnus cargo capsule to ISS until mid-April.

Gatens said NASA was now expecting the Cygnus to launch to the station no earlier than the middle of April. “The Orbital launch, the next launch, has slipped due to an investigation of a hydraulic leak in the booster engine compartment that’s in work,” she said. “There are some components being replaced. The investigation is going on and we’re currently targeting no earlier than, probably, a mid-April launch.”

ULA spokeswoman Jessica Rye said March 28 that a new launch date has not been set yet for the mission. “Additional information will be provided once testing to resolve the booster hydraulic issue is complete,” she said.

The launch was initially planned for mid-March. This delay has forced NASA to delay a spacewalk because it involves installing equipment that the Cygnus capsule is bringing to ISS.

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