Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
Will the last one out please turn off the light? Companies are leaving California in record numbers.
A House panel has told the Department of Energy to get rid of underperforming research grants.
Though this article focuses on what it considers “whopping” cuts, I must point out that the total cuts to the DOE simply bring its budget back to its 2008 level, hardly a draconian cut.
How the recently dissolved California Space Authority wasted millions of dollars in federal earmarks and grants.
Sadly, this story is typical of many quasi-public/private authorities, most of which have nothing to do with the aerospace industry. There is a lot of one hand washing the other, using money the federal government nonchalantly gives away as if it is water.
The Roman emperor Hadrian built his country estate with the buildings aligned with the sun.
For centuries, scholars have thought that the more than 30 buildings at Hadrian’s palatial country estate were oriented more or less randomly. But De Franceschini says that during the summer solstice, blades of light pierce two of the villa’s buildings.
In one, the Roccabruna, light from the summer solstice enters through a wedge-shaped slot above the door and illuminates a niche on the opposite side of the interior (see image). And in a temple of the Accademia building, De Franceschini has found that sunlight passes through a series of doors during both the winter and summer solstices.
The cost of rare earth metals used in electronics has soared to record levels in the past two weeks as China clamps down on illegal mining and limits supplies.
A prototype of an unmanned sailing ship will begin a test voyage this fall.
Although Harbor Wing will operate without a captain and crew by sailing on a pre-programmed course, “the man is always in the loop,” Ott said. An operator, seated at a computer that could be hundreds of miles away, can control the craft with keystrokes that relay commands via satellite. The transmission gap, from order to receipt, is only 18 seconds, which “on the open ocean is not much,” he said, “so you have very close control.”
White House chief of staff can’t defend Obama’s “indefensible” (his word) economic policies.
A university research center is under attack for arbitrarily adjusting its sea-level data upward.
Good news: Some bats seem to be surviving despite being infected with white nose fungus [pdf].
NASA is about to decide on its shuttle heavy-lift replacement, and it looks like it will be almost entirely shuttle-derived.
As I have said previously, this rocket will almost certainly never fly. NASA has to start over after spending billions and years developing Constellation, and is being given less money and time to do it.
And even if I am wrong and this rocket does fly, I bet it will do only one flight and then be retired as too costly.
Poland joins the European Space Agency.
The debate over arsenic-based life continues.
Turf war: SpaceX has sued a NASA safety expert (with ties to the Ares rocket program) who questioned the safety of the Falcon 9 rocket.
The Pan-STARRS Telescope has found a comet that might provide us all a show in 2013.
An update from Messenger.
An idiot speaks: Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) yesterday equated Islamic terrorists with “Christian militants” in the United States.
Since 9/11 Islamic terrorists have carried out more than 17,000 attacks, killing tens of thousands. In that same time, you could count on one hand the number of attacks by “Christian militants,” if that many. For Representative Lee, it seems it is hard for her to tell the difference.
The IPCC is in trouble again for using a Greenpeace activist to help write one of its recent energy reports.
Some pigs win, some lose: Republicans refuse to cut farm and ethanol subsidies, but cut international food aid instead.
The cowardice of politicians from both parties to honestly face the federal deficit problem sadly continues.
The National Speleological Society has responded in strong opposition [pdf] to the demand by the Center for Biological Diversity that all caves on public land be closed to protect bats.
Calling for blanket cave closures across the U.S. is unnecessary, unenforceable, and counterproductive. While cave closures on some federal lands have been implemented, particularly in the eastern U. S., there is no evidence that this action has done anything to contain [white nose syndrome] (WNS). Most people working on WNS understand that bat to bat transmission is overwhelmingly the primary method of transmission, and administrative closing of caves and mines does nothing to prevent that.
Vandals who spray-painted an historic cave in Oregon in April have been caught. A video of the vandalism can be seen here.
Busybodies forever at work: San Francisco’s Animal Control and Welfare Commission has recommended the city ban the sale of goldfish, tropical fish and guppies in its borders.
How pasta became the world’s favourite food.
This ain’t good. One of the reasons ESA controllers recently put the comet probe Rosetta into hibernation for two and a half years was in order to buy time to solve a serious technical problem.
Mission managers said the hibernation will permit Rosetta to rest its four reaction wheels, two of which have shown signs of degradation. The satellite needs three to function, and one of the two problem wheels will be used only as a spare when the satellite is awakened in January 2014 in preparation for its approach to a comet.
Iran launched its own home-built satellite into orbit today, according to its state-run news service.
During a tanking test of the space shuttle Atlantis today a valve to the main engines leaked, requiring replacement and raising questions whether the July 8 launch date can be met.
Second X-51 hypersonic flight crashes prematurely.
After what the US Air Force described as a ‘flawless’ flight to the launch point aboard a Boeing B-52 mothership, the X-51 was successfully boosted to Mach 5.0 by a rocket booster. The Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne scramjet engine successfully ignited using its initial fuel, ethylene. During the immediate transition to JP-7, the conventional fuel that makes the X-51 unique, an inlet unstart occurred. A subsequent attempt to restart and reorient to optimal conditions was unsuccessful.
It’s all about power and control, not safety: The TSA has decided to block any further private companies from providing airport screening.
Ten congressmen (from both parties) and a law professor are suing the Obama administration to stop the war in Libya.
SpaceShipTwo completes two glide test flights within twenty-four hours.
