In the heat of competition: ULA has scheduled May 27 has the new launch date of its next Atlas 5 launch, pending the results of its investigation into the engine anomaly from the previous launch.
They have not revealed whether they have pinned down the cause of the first stage engine’s premature shutdown.
The uncertainty of science: New measurements of the universe’s expansion rate, dubbed the Hubble constant, contradict theoretical predictions based on previous data.
For their latest paper, Riess’s team studied two types of standard candles in 18 galaxies using hundreds of hours of observing time on the Hubble Space Telescope. “We’ve been going gangbusters with this,” says Riess.
Their paper, which has been submitted to a journal and posted on the arXiv online repository on 6 April, reports that they measured the constant with an uncertainty of 2.4%, down from a previous best result2 of 3.3%. They find the speed of expansion to be about 8% faster than that predicted based on Planck data, says Riess. [emphasis mine]
I highlight the number of galaxies used to get this data because I think these scientists, are being a bit over-confident about the uncertainty of their data. The universe has untold trillions of galaxies. To say they have narrowed their uncertainty down to only 2.4% based on 18 is the height of silliness.
But then, the lead scientist, Adam Riess, recognizes this, as he is also quoted in the article saying “I think that there is something in the standard cosmological model that we don’t understand.”
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The competition heats up: The recovered first stage of last week’s Falcon 9 launch has returned to port, and is being prepared for tests and eventual reflight.
The Falcon 9’s destination is unconfirmed, but SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk said Friday the rocket’s first stage will likely go to launch pad 39A — a former shuttle launch facility now leased by SpaceX — for a series of engine firings to verify its flight readiness.
The objective: Fly the first stage booster again, perhaps as soon as June. “We’re going to do a series of test fires,” Musk told reporters after Friday’s launch. “We’re hoping to do that at the Cape, rather than transport it to Texas (SpaceX’s rocket test facility), and then bring it back. Our plan is to basically fire it 10 times in a row on the ground. If things look good at that point, then it’s qualified for reuse and launch. We’re hoping to re-launch on an orbital mission in … June.”
SpaceX already has one customer, satellite-maker SES, quite eager to pay the discounted price to fly one of its satellites on this booster.
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.
Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!
From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.
“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.
All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.
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.
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.
Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
