UCLA fires popular free speech professor

11:09 am

Fascist California: UCLA today terminated its contract with a popular free speech professor whose classes on free speech were always overbooked.

Dean of Social Sciences Laura Gomez told Keith Fink, an attorney and a free speech defender who’s been critical of UCLA for denying students’ free speech rights, in a letter he wouldn’t be appointed as a continuing lecturer. She wrote that Fink’s review found his “teaching does not meet the standard of excellence.” UCLA’s ousting of Fink was first reported by The Daily Wire.

The university’s decision ends a months-long saga between the UCLA administration and Fink, who said his superiors blocked students from taking his free speech courses and put him through a “star chamber” review process because they don’t like his right-of-center politics.

In a statement to The College Fix, Fink’s teaching assistant Andrew Litt said “this outcome is entirely politically-motivated” by Fink’s superiors and others at the university “who do not like his message on issues [such] as free speech and due process which UCLA routinely flout. His termination is an injustice to the students and the taxpayers of the state, a threat to all teachers and academic freedom and a slap in the face to the notion of due process and fundamental fairness. He will not give up the fight here based on principle,” Litt continued.

According to Fink, the problems began when the heads of his department changed. The new heads, including Gomez above, apparently wanted to force him out, merely because of his politics. Can’t have any diversity of opinion, y’know, in a modern California university.

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Astronomers discover complex molecules in protostar accretion disk

10:18 am

Astronomers have discovered several complex molecules in the accretion disk surrounding a very young baby star about 1300 light years away in the constellation Orion.

The research team’s ALMA observations have clearly detected an atmosphere of complex organic molecules above and below the disk. These include methanol (CH3OH), deuterated methanol (CH2DOH), methanethiol (CH3SH), and formamide (NH2CHO). These molecules have been proposed to be the precursors for producing biomolecules such as amino acids and sugars. “They are likely formed on icy grains in the disk and then released into the gas phase because of heating from stellar radiation or some other means, such as shocks,” says co-author Zhi-Yun Li of the University of Virginia.

What is even most interesting about this discovery is that these complex molecules are not scattered throughout the disk, but are concentrated in regions above and below its central plane, what the astronomers are labeling “an atmosphere.” This suggests that differentiation — the same process that separates the heavier molecules from lighter ones both in centrifuges and in the cores of planets — occurs quickly in accretion disks as well.

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Genesis cover

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, free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"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

Lesley Gore – California Nights

6:01 pm

An evening pause: From a very amusing 1967 Batman television episode, with the evil arch villain Catwoman, played by Julie Newmar. Lesley Gore’s lip-syncing isn’t the best, but the overall silliness of the scene, as well and the entire show, makes it is worth watching. The song is nice too. Unfortunately, I can’t find the whole episode, but this search on youtube finds a host of scenes from that classic of campy 1960s television.

Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.

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Republican House restores spending in NASA budget

4:53 pm

The House committee marking up NASA’s budget has added about $800 million to the budget proposed by the Trump administration, restoring the proposed cuts in the SLS/Orion budget as well as in NASA’s education programs.

NASA’s exploration account receives the largest increase in the House bill: a $616 million increase over the request to $4.55 billion. The bill would fund the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System at the same levels as in the 2017 omnibus bill, rather than the lower levels in the budget proposal. It increases funding for ground systems and exploration research and development above both the request and the 2017 omnibus bill.

The bill would also restore much of NASA’s education program, which the administration proposed closing in its 2018 budget request, offering $37.3 million in closeout costs. The bill offers $90 million for education, $10 million below the 2017 level. The bill specifically funds two programs in that office, Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program, that would have been shut down in the budget request.

Plans to end those education programs faced bipartisan opposition when the CJS subcommittee held a hearing on NASA’s budget proposal June 8. “I’m concerned about, in your budget, your cuts to the Office of Education,” said Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), a former chairman of the House Appropriations Committee who is now a member of the CJS subcommittee. “I can’t understand why you would want to cut that.”

The budget also adds money to the planetary budget, but also micromanages NASA by ordering it to fly two missions to Europa.

What this budget tells me is that the Republicans in Congress have no idea why Trump was elected. The public likes space, but it does not like its tax dollars wasted, and the public who voted for Trump (and the Republicans) considers much of what the federal government does to be a big waste. They want that budget trimmed. The Trump budget didn’t gut NASA, but it did try to refocus its effort away from pork. These House changes reinstate much of that pork.

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Conscious Choice cover

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.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“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.

CNN Lists Job Opening For Head Fiction Writer

12:10 pm

Link here. Key quote:

The network is reportedly looking for a seasoned author of thrilling fiction novels to fabricate news stories for its online and televised news coverage.

“Must have a penchant for weaving complex narratives and fabricating intricate storylines out of thin air for the sake of ratings. Experience in Cold War-era spy novels preferred, in the style of Tom Clancy, etc.,” the listing states. “Author will be responsible for making stuff up out of the blue to form the basis of 5-6 news stories per day. Full salary & benefits.”

The listing also states that “no journalism background is required.”

It seems to me that this listing is the most honest I’ve ever seen. Though I’m not sure what difference it makes whether any applicants have a modern “journalism background” or not. Considering what they teach students about journalism in today’s modern colleges, there really isn’t much difference between journalism and fiction anyway.

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Leaving Earth cover

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.

 

Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.

 
"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

China cuts off oil to North Korea

12:03 pm

It’s about time. China’s national oil company has suspended all oil sales to North Korea because of lack of payment.

The reason North Korea doesn’t have the money to buy oil is largely because it hasn’t been able to sell any coal to China. And the reasons for both is likely China’s increasing desire to rein in North Korea’s missile and nuclear arms programs.

Without oil or coal, North Korea’s leadership will find itself hard-pressed to survive.

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Public school teachers now required to do student mental health assessments

11:19 am

What could possibly go wrong? A federal law passed in 2015 and signed by President Obama now requires public school teachers to do mental health assessments of their elementary school students, without obtaining parental permission.

You read that right: if you live in an ESSA state, your child’s mental health will be assessed by a non-medical professional in a non-medical context. The paperwork will not be protected by HIPAA laws, which means that the school district can share a teacher’s assessment of your child’s mental health with literally anyone. Parents are not asked for permission before the DESSA is administered, nor do they have any say over where the records go once they are obtained.

Worse, the assessments require teachers to fill out a form with 72 questions on each student, a time-consuming task that will likely interfere with unimportant things like teaching.

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A river canyon on Mars

11:02 am

A river on Mars

Cool image time! The image on the right, reduced in resolution significantly to show here, was taken by the Themis camera on Mars Odyssey, and shows an unnamed canyon on Mars. Be sure to click on the image to see the full resolution version.

This canyon of course no longer has anything flowing in it. Moreover, it is not clear whether this was formed by water or lava. Unfortunately, the image is part of a series of “Art images” from Mars Odyssey, where they pick an image and suggest it looks like something else. In this case, they are claiming this looks like a “snake, slithering down the image.” Cute, but not very helpful. And unfortunately, they don’t add any further details at all about the image or its location. The context image suggests this canyon is next to a volcano.

After doing further research at the Themis image site, I was able to locate this image on Mars (using latitude 32.0515 and longitude 152.236 given at the link) and look at the images surrounding this one. Further research identified the volcano as Hecates Tholus in the Elyesium Plantia region to the west of Mars’s giant volcanoes.

Looking at all the nearby Mars Odyssey images, it appears that there are a lot of flows like this in this area, and all of them appear to be lava flows, with this one being the largest. A close look at the area just to the south of where the deep canyon opens out shows that the small surface flow draining into the canyon also appears to sit on much larger surface flows (at least two) that left the surface higher than the surrounding terrain.

Elyesium Plantia itself is a plateau, somewhat close to the border between Mars’s southern highlands and the northern plains where some scientists think an ocean might have once existed. Thus, it makes sense that the canyon drains north, as it is following the dip down to those northern low plains.

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SpaceX expanding facilities in Florida for refurbishing used first stages

10:01 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX is proposing to expand its facilities at Port Canaveral for refurbishing used first stages.

It appears they need the approval for the work from the port’s Board of Commissioners, though I suspect this board will rubber stamp its approval as quickly as it can.

One tidbit from the story. SpaceX has so far recovered 13 first stages and flown two again. One (the first) has been put on display, which leaves 10 available for reflight. They plan to use two on the first Falcon Heavy launch. The remaining 8 are likely for sale (maybe 10 if the two reflown fly a third time), which explains the negotiations going on with Iridium and others.

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Uranus’s magnetic field switches on and off daily

9:54 am

Using data from the Voyager 2 flyby of Uranus in 1986, scientists now think that the gas giant’s magnetic field switches on and off each day as the planet rotates.

Uranus’s magnetosphere, in contrast [to Earth], exhibits precise regularity in its mode changes. This, say the researchers, is because it lies at an angle of roughly 60 degrees to the planet’s spin axis, causing its interaction with incoming solar winds to vary dramatically during the 17 hours it takes for a full rotation. “Uranus is a geometric nightmare,” says Paty.

“The magnetic field tumbles very fast, like a child cartwheeling down a hill head over heels. When the magnetised solar wind meets this tumbling field in the right way, it can reconnect and Uranus’s magnetosphere goes from open to closed to open on a daily basis.”

The researchers suggest the robust and regular changes to the magnetosphere may mean that the icy planet has spectacular auroras across its breadth every day.

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New company formed to service satellites in-orbit

9:50 am

Capitalism in space: MDA and SSL Loral today announced the formation of a new company, Space Infrastructure Services (SIS), that will service satellites already in orbit.

This partnership is based on the engineering being developed by SSL Loral under a DARPA research project.

The most important part of the announcement however is that SIS has also signed up its first customer.

The company also announced that SES, a world leading satellite-enabled solutions provider, with more than 50 GEO satellites and 12 MEO satellites on orbit, has entered into an agreement for an initial life extension mission with options for further missions. Under this agreement, SES will be the first commercial customer to benefit from satellite refueling that can be called up as needed with minimal disruption to spacecraft operation.

As it did with SpaceX, SES is aggressively supporting this new technology that will revolutionize space operations. Here the technology will allow them to repair their satellites, thus saving them the cost of replacing them with new satellites.

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First test launches of commercial manned vehicles upcoming

9:35 am

The first unmanned test flights of the manned capsules being built by SpaceX and Boeing are moving forward and appear to be on schedule.

Currently, SpaceX is on track to be the first to perform their uncrewed flight, known as SpX Demo-1, with Dr. Donald McErlean reporting to the ASAP that the flight continues to target a launch later this year. Currently, both NASA and SpaceX hold that SpX Demo-1 will fly by the end of the year – though L2 level KSC scheduling claims the mission has potentially slipped to March 2018.

Regardless, SpX Demo-1 will be followed – under the current plan – by Boeing’s uncrewed OFT (Orbital Flight Test) in mid-2018.

The article is worth a careful read, as it describes in detail the political and bureaucratic maneuverings that are taking place to get the NASA bureaucracy to accept the work being done by these two private companies. Make sure especially that you read the section about NASA’s desire that the vehicles meet an imaginary safety standard where they will only lose a crew once every 270 flights. The NASA bureaucracy has claimed for the last few years that neither spacecraft is meeting this requirement, but according to this article it appears they are finally also admitting that the requirement has really little basis in reality.

According to the ASAP [Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel] meeting minutes, Dr. McErlean said that “While these LOC [Loss of Crew] numbers were known to be challenging, and both providers have been working toward meeting the challenge, it is conceivable that in both cases the number may not be met.”

However, Dr. McErlean cautioned the ASAP and NASA about rushing to judgement on the current and whatever the final LOC number for each vehicle is. “The ASAP is on record agreeing with the Program that one must be judicious in how one applies these statistical estimates. In the case of LOC, the numbers themselves depend very heavily on the orbital debris model used to develop the risk to the system [as] orbital debris is a driving factor in determining the potential for LOC. The orbital debris models have been used and validated to some degree, but they are not perfect. One must be wary of being too pernicious in the application of a specific number and must look at whether the providers have expended the necessary efforts and engineering activity to make the systems as safe as they can and still perform the mission.”

To that last point, Dr. McErlean reported that both providers indeed “expended the necessary efforts and engineering activity to make the systems as safe as they can.” Importantly, too, Dr. McErlean noted that there was no evidence that spending more money on closing the LOC gap for both providers “could [make] their systems considerably safer.”

The ASAP at large concurred with this finding and noted their pleasure at the progress made in closing the LOC gap for both Dragon and Starliner. [emphasis mine]

In other words, NASA’s safety panel is eventually going to sign off, no matter what. Note also that the GAO’s earlier complaints about Boeing’s parachute testing program have now apparently vanished.

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June 27, 2017 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast with Iridium CEO Matt Desch

10:05 pm

Embedded below the fold. This podcast is a bit different, in that John and I essentially interviewed the CEO of Iridium, asking him questions about the company and their launch contracts with SpaceX. I was especially interested in Desch’s earlier statements saying that Iridium is negotiating with SpaceX about using used first stages, but wanted any use to be accompanied by an acceleration of its launch schedule.
» Read more

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Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine still leads race with Aerojet Rocketdyne

5:13 pm

Capitalism in space: An independent assessment of the development work being done by Blue Origin and Aeroject Rocketdyne on their competing rocket engines says that Blue Origin is still in the lead by two years, despite a testing incident in May.

The article also outlines how the present Air Force budget includes language that would prevent the Air Force from financing any part of ULA’s Vulcan rocket, other than the money presently being spent to subsidize Aeroject Rocketdyne’s AR-4 engine.

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SpaceX to try another launch on Sunday

5:03 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX is aiming for another launch on July 2 in Florida, only 9 days after their last launch there.

That will make three launches in nine days.

Meanwhile, in an interview on The Space Show with David Livingston, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell revealed that, after this year’s planned demo launch of the Falcon Heavy, they plan two commercial launches of the rocket in 2018.

That means the Falcon Heavy will have flown at least three times before SLS even comes close to its first test flight.

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US military tests laser weapon fired from helicopter

10:29 am

Life imitates science fiction: The U.S. Army and Raytheon have successfully tested the use of a laser weapon, fired from an Apache helicopter.

The U.S. Army and Raytheon have completed a flight test of a high-energy laser system on an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter that was deemed successful, according to a Raytheon statement Monday.

The recent test at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, “marks the first time that a fully integrated laser system successfully engaged and fired on a target from a rotary-wing aircraft over a wide variety of flight regimes, altitudes and air speeds,” the company said. Raytheon said the test achieved all primary and secondary goals that show a high-energy laser, or HEL, on an attack helicopter can provide high-resolution, multiband targeting sensor performance and beam propagation.

I especially like the name they have given the system: HEL.

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Orbital motion of a binary black hole detected for the first time

10:19 am

Astronomers have for the first time measured the orbital motion of two supermassive black holes that orbit each other.

Based on the initial data, the two black holes appear to orbit each other every 30,000 years. Eventually, they will spiral into each other, merge, and in the process produce ripples in the surrounding gravitational field that will be detectable by future gravitational wave detectors.

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Luxembourg offers prizes for new space business proposals

10:04 am

Capitalism in space: Luxembourg yesterday announced that it will award two prizes, worth a total of 430,000 Euros, for new innovative space business ideas.

The call for submissions covers the full chain for exploiting space resources, from searching for minerals, mining and selling the processed product.The proposals should include a long-term view for developing space resources and be able to generate an economic return in the short and medium term.

The first award is a €400,000 prize to support a study under the Luxembourg national space program managed by the ESA. The second, for €30,000, is for early-stage projects and offers an investing campaign on www.spacestarters.com.

The ministry will support both award winners by offering workspace for the companies.

It sounds like they will entertain practically any ideas put forth. The deadline to submit is September 8, with the award announcement made in November.

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Success of test mission paves way for orbiting gravitational wave detector

9:57 am

The success of LISA Pathfinder during the past year to test the technology for building an orbiting gravitational wave detector has now made it possible for Europe to approve construction of the full scale telescope, set to launch in the 2030s.

The LISA Pathfinder mission, launched in late 2015, beat its precision target by a factor of 1,000 and quieted critics who have doubted its potential, says project scientist Paul McNamara, an astrophysicist at ESA in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. “This is not the impossible task that some people believed it was.”

Currently set to fly in 2034, the full-scale Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will be the space analogue of the Laser Interfero-meter Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), two machines in the United States — each with a pair of 4-kilometre-long arms — that first detected the ripples by ‘hearing’ the merger of two black holes. LISA’s three probes will fly in a triangle, millions of kilometres apart, making the mission sensitive to much longer gravitational waves, such as the ripples produced by the collisions of even larger black holes.

The article also notes that the European Space Agency also approved two other large missions, one to launch in 2022 and go the moons of Jupiter, another an X-ray observatory that will launch in 2028.

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The academic community weighs in on Outer Space Treaty

9:49 am

Link here. They recognize the problem the Outer Space Treaty creates for property rights, but not surprisingly have trouble touching on the heart of the problem, that the treaty forbids the establishment of any nation’s laws on any territory in space.

Hertzfeld points out that the industry needs policies that address for-profit operations in space, particularly activities that will be managed or operated by the private sector. Until now, he says, most private sector activities have been narrow, but that could change as companies become more involved with satellites and in spaceflight. “How do you deal with property rights in space?” he said. “Ownership of these natural resources, mineral resources, up there? How do you deal with approaching satellites that are perhaps owned by someone else, particularly if it’s another nation’s satellite? How do you deal with debris that could cause accidents?”

“There are lots and lots of questions in how you do this internationally, because other nations are involved. These are the issues that are not clearly defined right now.”

Von der Dunk adds that there are still many countries that have no, or only a limited, national space law program. As a result, he says, in the implementation of the Outer Space Treaty, a divergence has grown that has led to gaps, inconsistencies and overlaps in domestic oversight. “Ideally, at the international level it would be good to have some form of harmonization at least of the approaches, noting that of course every sovereign state may have some individual idiosyncratic elements to deal with, but that idea has never moved beyond the stage of academic discussion,” von der Dunk said. “Sovereign states are not willing to comply with any serious effort to make this happen.”

I would love to know what “some form of harmonization” means.

Nonetheless, that this article was published in a major media outlet, which asked these academics about this issue, is once again evidence that people are finally recognizing the problems posed by the Outer Space Treaty, and are beginning to discuss ways for dealing with it.

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Climate scientists once again claim ozone layer is threatened

9:40 am

Crying wolf! New research by climate scientists suggests that the Earth’s ozone layer is once again threatened by modern human technology.

Industrial emissions of a chemical commonly used in solvents, paint removers, and the production of pharmaceuticals have doubled in the past few years, researchers have found, which could slow the healing of the ozone layer over Antarctica anywhere between 5 and 30 years—or even longer if levels continue to rise.

The findings are “frightening” and “a big deal,” says Robyn Schofield, an environmental scientist at the University of Melbourne in Australia who was not involved with the work.

They might be right, but why should anyone believe them? The climate field has been spouting doomsday predictions about global warming and sea level rise now for more than 20 years, none of which have come true. As far as I can tell, this might be more of the same thing.

Worse, it might not, but by not being honest with so many other climate predictions the field has lost all political credibility, a great tragedy for them and for all of science. It will take decades, if ever, for them to recover that credibility.

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Japan’s next rocket on schedule for 2020 launch

4:58 pm

A new Japanese rocket, the H3, being built by Mitsubishi and designed to cut launch costs by half, is presently on schedule for debut in 2020.

Key quote from the article:

JAXA has given MHI a greater level of influence on the H3 than it did with the H-2A. Ogasawara said whereas the total launch vehicle design for the H-2A was JAXA’s responsibility, MHI’s role as prime contractor and vehicle integrator gives the company more creative freedom. He stressed, however, that JAXA is still directly involved in the design and development for certain key components. “Therefore, we work together, JAXA and MHI, very closely,” he said.

I don’t know how much of that claim is true. That they are making it though suggests that they have been strongly influenced by the shift in the U.S. from NASA-run projects to commercially-run projects.

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Blue Origin to build its rocket engines in Alabama

4:48 pm

Capitalism in space: Blue Origin announced today that it will build its BE-4 rocket engine factory in Alabama.

There is one caveat. They will only commit to the factory once they have won their contract to build the BE-4 engine for ULA’s Vulcan rocket. And that contract is not yet awarded.

Obviously, this decision has political components. By picking Alabama, Blue Origin hopes to blunt the political favoritism in Alabama to Aerojet Rocketdyne’s rocket engine, thus improving their chances of winning the ULA contract.

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SpaceX launches 10 Iridium satellites, lands first stage

7:58 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched 10 Iridium satellites while also once again successfully landing the Falcon 9 first stage.

This gives them 9 launches for the year, more than any other company or country in the entire world.

One cool personal detail about today’s launch. Diane and I were doing a hike with two friends, and at about 1:20 pm I asked Brian if his Iphone might have signal and could we maybe then watch the launch. Lo and behold, he did have signal, and we were able to connect with SpaceX’s live stream, and were able to take a fifteen minute hiking break to watch the launch and first stage landing while sitting on a mountain trail in the Santa Catalina mountains north of Tucson.

Ain’t technology wonderful?

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California government healthcare plan shelved

9:38 am

The head of California’s assembly on Friday shelved the senate’s proposed government takeover of that state’s entire healthcare industry, saying that the plan was “woefully incomplete.”

The plan, which was estimated to cost $400 billion, several times California’s annual total budget, had not included any way to pay for it.

At first glance it appears that common sense has arrived in California. A closer look shows no such thing has happened.

“We are disappointed that the robust debate about health care for all that started in the California Senate will not continue in the Assembly this year,” Democratic Sens. Ricardo Lara of Bell Gardens and Toni Atkins of San Diego, the bill’s authors, said in a statement. “This issue is not going away.”

The legislation was championed by the state’s nurses’ union and the Democratic Party’s more liberal wing. “The California Nurses Association condemns the decision by Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon to destroy the aspirations of millions of Californians for guaranteed health care,” the union’s co-president, Deborah Burger, said in a statement that also critiqued the timing of Rendon’s announcement, which was sent out shortly before 5 p.m. “Announcing this decision at 5 p.m. on a Friday afternoon is a cowardly act, developed in secret without engaging the thousands of Californians who have rallied to enact real health care reform.”

Rendon suggested the Senate draft a new version of the bill that addresses how to finance the plan and more clearly details how it would work. He also suggested the plan could be taken to voters in the form of a ballot measure. In the meantime, he said he would not advance the bill through the Assembly committee process. “This action does not mean SB 562 is dead,” Rendon said. “In fact, it leaves open the exact deep discussion and debate the senators who voted for SB 562 repeatedly said is needed.”

Even if they rewrite it to include a plan to pay for this government-run healthcare system, it won’t work. It never does. The program will still cost far more than they can afford, and it will still bankrupt California, as has socialism in Russia, Venezuela, Europe, and anywhere it has been tried. Every. Single. Time.

Not that these plain facts matter to the political leaders in California. They and their voters want free stuff, and darn it, they are going to give it to them!

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A detailed look at the UAE’s national space policy

9:09 am

Link here. The overall goals appear smart and worthwhile. They suffer from only one problem: This is a top-down policy, with the government attempting to drag the society forward in a specific direction. The direction might be a good one, but generally such efforts have limited success.

This paragraph meanwhile reveals the influence U.S. policy is having:

Effective and Attractive Space Regulatory Environment – The third enabler recognizes the need to incorporate and develop domestic space laws and regulations. These laws and regulations will be required to increase transparency, effectiveness, and resilience, and also provide protection of intellectual property rights as well as provide insurance policies and facilities for various private space activities. The legal and regulatory environment created through the third enabler will simplify the sharing of appropriate data and information to support value-added industries. The environment envisioned by the third enabler will strive to require the minimum regulatory burden on commercial space activities to enable the UAE to comply with its domestic and international legal obligations. That another country like the UAE might offer a more effective and attractive foreign legal and regulatory environment has been used to great effect in lobbying efforts in the United States and has prompted the both the House and Senate to reevaluate the U.S. commercial space licensing scheme. [emphasis mine]

I have highlighted the key phrases. The first illustrates the recognition that less government regulation is best, a variation of the basic American idea of freedom. The second notes the importance of competition. Just as Congress is rewriting its space laws to make it easier for U.S. citizens and companies to compete in space, the UAE recognizes that it must do the same.

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