An evening pause: The music is the Flower Duet from the opera Lakme by Léo Delibes. Tomorrow’s evening pause will be a magnificent short documentary about this man and how he came to kite flying. And I wonder if you can guess what he had done for a living.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Link here. The article is a very detailed and thorough look at the number of Trump appointments, nominated, approved, or missing, for almost all the major cabinet positions, noting above all the lack of names submitted for many positions.
At the end of Trump’s first 100 days, only 27 of 556 political appointments had been confirmed, as compared with 69 for former President Barack Obama and 35 for former President George W. Bush.
If blame is appropriate, there’s plenty of it to go around. The administration blames Democrats for slow-rolling nominees. But Democrats and some Republicans counter that the White House isn’t sending names quickly enough. And a handful of nominees have taken themselves out of contention, mostly because of their various business interests. Since the president likes hiring business leaders, that’s proving no small problem.
The lack of confirmed appointees means agencies are severely limited in the scope of their policy action, whether it’s enacting changes made by Congress or following through on dozens of executive orders Trump has signed.
What strikes me is the feeling that probably a lot of these people are simply not needed. They are political appointees, given posh government jobs in exchange for their work helping presidents get elected. Almost across the board, the agencies involved are functioning just fine without these appointees in place. Trump can tell these civil servants what he needs done, and they can do it.
At the same time, the inability to get these appointees named and approved speaks volumes about the increasing failure of the federal government to function. They can’t even get political appointees in place, people who really aren’t needed and are really only there to pay back favors. What does this tell us about their ability to accomplish things that must get done?
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
Today NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, covering sunspot activity for April. It is posted below, with annotations, as I have done now every month since 2010.
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.
April showed an uptick in sunspot activity, enough to move the numbers back up above the 2007 low prediction. Nonetheless, activity as the cycle has been ramping down has consistently and generally remained below expectation, and does seem heading to an early arrival of solar minimum, sometime in late 2019 or early 2020, about a year early.
I don’t want to sound like a broken record, as I have written this practically every month since I started these updates in 2010, but this short and weak solar maximum suggests the possibility that we might be facing a grand minimum, where there are no significant sunspots for decades. Some solar scientists think this is coming. Others are much more doubtful. Regardless, we can only wait and watch, while also recognizing that weak solar maximums and grand minimums have in the past consistently coincided with global cool weather. The reasons why this has happened are not yet known, but it has happened nonetheless.
Fascism in academia: A department chairman at Duke Divinity School in North Carolina objected to the nature and content in a racial re-education training program, and found himself brought up on charges and has since resigned.
The link contains the full correspondence and history that led to the chairman’s resignation. In order to understand the fascist nature of the school’s actions, it is necessary for you to take the time to read it all, including the comments. Essentially, he raised cogent arguments about why he thought the racial training course was a waste of time and inappropriate, and was immediately accused of racism and harassment, and has since resigned.
As one commenter noted,
I worked at a Christian liberal arts college in the late 80s, early 90s, and even then had to put up with this stuff. Not as bad, but it was in the air. I imagine the good Dr. had simply had enough. Unless you live it, you have no idea how horribly oppressive such an atmosphere is, as the ex-student wrote about. 1984 is alive an well at America’s college, and obviously some, seminary campuses. No, bravo to Dr. Griffiths for having the guts to stand up to the totalitarian lefties at his campus.
My only criticism of this chairman is that he resigned. He should have fought it out, making these fascists defend their positions. Instead, by resigning he has ceded control of the school to them.
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.
Cool image time! The image on the right, reduced and cropped to show here, was taken by Cassini in January as it was preparing to head into its final 22 orbital dives between Saturn and its rings. The image shows the gas giant’s north polar, with all its magnificent features. As the press release notes, the north pole was in shadow for the first part of Cassini’s mission, and only in recent years has finally moved into sunlight so that the spaceship can see and image it.
Although the sunlight falling on the north pole of Saturn is enough to allow us to image and study the region, it does not provide much warmth. In addition to being low in the sky (just like summer at Earth’s poles), the sun is nearly ten times as distant from Saturn as from Earth. This results in the sunlight being only about 1 percent as intense as at our planet.
This view looks toward Saturn from about 31 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Jan. 22, 2017 using a spectral filter which preferentially admits wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 939 nanometers.
Be sure to look at the full image.
Doug Messier at Parabolic Arc has a story today suggesting that there are rumors at NASA that the agency has decided that it will put astronauts in Orion for SLS’s first test flight, now tentatively scheduled for sometime in 2019.
At he notes, this will only be the second time in history humans will have flown on a untested rocket, the first being the space shuttle, where they had no choice as the vehicle needed people to fly it.
NASA’s arguments in favor of this manned test flight will probably rest on noting how much of the rocket is based on previously flown equipment. For example, the upper stage for this flight will be a modified Delta upper stage, a well tested and frequently flown stage. The first stage will be made of side-mounted first stage solid rocket boosters that are essentially upgrades of the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters. And the first stage engines are actual shuttle engines salvaged from the shuttle’s themselves. In addition, NASA will note that Orion will have a launch abort system, though it appears that there will be no test of this system prior to the flight.
These arguments don’t carry much weight. The Delta upper stage will also be modified for this flight, and this will be that version’s first use. Similarly, the solid rocket boosters have been modified as well, and this will be their first flight. And as I noted, the Orion launch abort system will not have been tested in flight.
Finally, and most important, the goal of this test flight is to see if these different parts have been integrated together properly. As a unit, none of them has ever flown together. To put humans on such a flight is very foolish indeed.
Messier sums this up quite well:
The flight might come off just fine. But, I fear that NASA’s concern about keeping the program funded, and Donald Trump’s desire for some space spectacular to boost his re-election chances, could combine to produce something very unfortunate.
I pray that people in the Trump administration put a stop to this silliness, as soon as possible.
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
In a move related to Trump’s effort to change policy at the EPA, the administration yesterday is reported to have forced out as many as a dozen members of EPA’s 18-person Board of Scientific Counselors.
At an April meeting, the Board of Scientific Counselors discussed the importance of climate change research at EPA and “the growing need for information on, and understanding of, climate change and responses to its impacts,” according to an agenda. They also talked about the importance of considering climate change as a stressor in areas of non-climate research.
The Trump administration has already sent signals that it does not value some areas of federal research, in particular climate science and work that could lead to further regulation of the fossil fuel and chemical industries. The board had 18 members, including Richardson, who said he knew of at least one other member fired. Departures could reach a dozen, he said.
There is going to be a lot of pigs squealing about this. The big question will be whether the Trump administration will have the courage to stand up to those squeals.
One of the Air Force’s two X-37B mini-shuttles landed today on the old shuttle runway at the Kennedy Space Center after spending 718 days in orbit.
This was the first landing at Kennedy, which also places the vehicle right at Boeing’s facility for maintaining it.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has a project to tow an iceberg more than 5,500 miles from Antarctica in order to provide that arid nation drinking water for about five years.
The National Advisor Bureau, headquartered in Masdar City, Abu-Dhabi, plans to source the massive blocks of ice from Heard Island, around 600 miles (1000 kilometres) off the coast of mainland Antarctica. It will then transport them around 5,500 miles (8,800 km) to Fujairah, one of the seven emirates which make up the UAE. One iceberg could provide enough for one million people over five years, according to the company.
And the scheme could begin as early as the start of 2018.
Capitalism in space: SpaceX will fly its second used first stage in June when it launches a Bulgarian communications satellite.
In a statement, BulgariaSat said its BulgariaSat-1 spacecraft is scheduled to launch in mid-June on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The first stage of that Falcon 9 will be the same one that launched 10 Iridium Next satellites from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in January. Maxim Zayakov, chief executive of BulgariaSat, said the use of a reused first stage lowers the launch price and “makes it possible for smaller countries and companies to launch their own satellites.”
The company did not disclose the price it is paying for the launch, including what discount it is receiving for using a “flight-proven” first stage.
Previously SpaceX had said it would charge about $40 million for a launch using a previously flown first stage, so I would suspect the discount is somewhere around that.
An evening pause: From the movie Topsy-Turvy (2000), Shirley Henderson, Dorothy Atkinson and Cathy Sara singing. The movie is about the creation of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado. Not surprisingly, the best scenes in the movie are the scenes where they perform songs from the operetta, such as this 2010 evening pause.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
Link here. The story describes how a number of prominent managers from that country’s space program have all been promoted into important political positions throughout the government.
Giving new meaning to the term high-flier, four aerospace engineers have become provincial governors in the past four years. … Until five years ago the quartet worked at either CASTC, a state-owned group that has spearheaded the technological development behind China’s ambitious space exploration programme – producing the country’s rockets, satellites and missiles – or the China National Space Administration, which is in charge of that programme.
In the past, provincial governors were predominantly selected from the ranks of those working in local government or the heads of prominent ministries. The political rise of a group with similar backgrounds has usually been linked to the power of a major faction or influential figure, such as party general secretary Xi.
People who have worked with the former aerospace engineers say the technocrats developed a cocktail of traits that appeared tailor-made to appeal to the current leadership. They did not cook the books, were willing to make necessary but unpopular decisions and were largely untainted by factional allegiances.
Their success also helps explain the increased growth of China’s space program in the past few years. These individuals are all likely to be strong supporters of that space program, and all of them are now very well placed to influence the government in favor of that program.
Trump today signed the $1 trillion continuing resolution, keeping the government well funded, with no significant cuts, through September.
The article included a detail I had not noticed previously. When the bill passed in the House, the only ones who voted against it were 103 Republicans, while the entire Democratic caucus voted for it. In other words, the Republican leadership screwed their own party and allied themselves with the Democrats to pass this big spending bill that cuts nothing and breaks almost every promise the Republicans and Trump made about spending during the election campaign.
The article also has this very revealing quote from Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney:
“I think it’s great that the Democrats like the bill. That’s fantastic.”
As I have said repeatedly, the election in November was nothing more than the Democratic primary, with a choice between a radical socialist (Clinton) and an old fashioned liberal Democrat (Trump). We get the government we deserve.
Capitalism in space: This past week Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos raised about $1 billion in cash by selling 1 million shares of his stock in Amazon.
Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos sold about $1 billion in company stock as part of a planned divestiture, a month after the world’s third-richest man said he spends about that amount annually on his space exploration company Blue Origin LLC.
Bezos sold 1 million shares from Tuesday to Thursday ranging in price from about $935 to $950 per share, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday. He still owns 79.9 million shares, or about 17 percent of the company, down from 83 million shares at the end of 2015.
What this means for Blue Origin is that Bezos has very deep pockets, and will likely be able to finance the development of its very big New Glenn rocket without outside help. That the company will likely also win contracts along the way for the company’s BE-4 rocket engine will also not hurt Bezos’ financial position.
India’s successfully launched a communications satellite early today using its Mark II GSLV rocket.
Friday’s launch, designated GSLV F09, was the fifth flight of the Mark II GSLV which debuted in April 2010. This replaced the Mark I, which first flew in 2001 and made its final flight at the end of 2010, introducing an Indian-developed third stage engine instead of a Russian-built engine flown on the Mark I. With this new cryogenic propulsion system, the GSLV Mk.II is a fully indigenous vehicle.
The GSLV’s service has been marred by concerns over its reliability – to date only half of its flights have been successful – however last September’s launch of INSAT-3DR saw it achieve three consecutive successes for the first time.
This launch success significantly strengthens ISRO’s ability to sell its launch services worldwide. They now have three different rocket configurations, all entirely home built, and all with a string of launch successes.
Failure theater: Senate Republicans today said in interviews that they plan to ignore the House Obamacare replacement bill, passed earlier today, and write their own bill from scratch.
A Senate proposal is now being developed by a 12-member working group. It will attempt to incorporate elements of the House bill, senators said, but will not take up the House bill as a starting point and change it through the amendment process. “The safest thing to say is there will be a Senate bill, but it will look at what the House has done and see how much of that we can incorporate in a product that works for us in reconciliation,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.
“We are going to draft a Senate bill,” added Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. “That is what I’ve been told.”
I have no faith in what we will get in the end, mainly because it is apparent these guys are not starting from the premise of eliminated the law and its unworkable regulations. Instead, they are proposing, as the House did, to install their own unworkable regulations.
An evening pause: I usually dislike most music videos because of their cliches and fakery, preferring live performances instead. However, this 1967 Nancy Sinatra music video, from the very early days of such things, is so simple it doesn’t bother me that much. In a sense, it even highlights the music.
Hat tip t-dub.
As Curiosity moves closer to the very base of Mount Sharp, it is presently making its last investigation of the various types of dunes found at the foot of the mountain.
From early February to early April, the rover examined four sites near a linear dune for comparison with what it found in late 2015 and early 2016 during its investigation of crescent-shaped dunes. This two-phase campaign is the first close-up study of active dunes anywhere other than Earth.
Among the questions this Martian dune campaign is addressing is how winds shape dunes that are relatively close together, on the same side of the same mountain, into different patterns. Others include whether Martian winds sort grains of sand in ways that affect the distribution of mineral compositions, which would have implications for studies of Martian sandstones. “At these linear dunes, the wind regime is more complicated than at the crescent dunes we studied earlier,” said Mathieu Lapotre of Caltech, in Pasadena, California, who helped lead the Curiosity science team’s planning for the dune campaign. “There seems to be more contribution from the wind coming down the slope of the mountain here compared with the crescent dunes farther north.”
The article also included a vague update on the status of Curiosity’s drill, out of commission since its drill feed mechanism had problems moving the drill up and down back in the fall of 2016.
Engineers are assessing how the use of vibration to deliver samples may affect the drill feed mechanism, which is used to move the drill bit forward and backwards. In addition, high winds at the linear-dunes location were complicating the process of pouring sample material into the entry ports for the laboratory instruments.
“A balky brake appears to be affecting drill feed mechanism performance,” said Curiosity Deputy Project Manager Steven Lee, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. “In some cases, vibration has been observed to change feed effectiveness, so we’re proceeding cautiously until we better understand the behavior. In the meantime, the engineering team is developing several methods to improve feed reliability.”
What this release does not say is whether they are any closer to solving the problem, or whether the drill is essentially out of business for the reminder of Curiosity’s life. To me, the silence on this question is deafening, and strongly suggests that they have decided the drill cannot be used, for the foreseeable future.
Capitalism in space: Arianespace today successfully launched two commercial satellites with its Ariane 5 rocket, resuming launches at French Guiana after a month-long strike.
With friends like this, who needs enemies? The Republican Senate today passed the $1 trillion continuing resolution that contains none of the promised cuts to the federal budget promised by the Republican Party and by Donald Trump.
The vote was 79-18. The resolution now heads to the White House, where Trump is expected to sign it eagerly.
A look at the names in the Senate who voted against this bill essentially lists the few remaining real conservatives left. Such people are now a minority, surrounded by corrupt deal makers who have no interest in the needs of the nation.
The Republican-controlled House today passed a replacement healthcare bill that would not repeal Obamacare but merely tinker with it around the edges.
Anyone who thinks this is an Obamacare repeal is fooling themselves. A repeal would be very simple. The details of this new bill are so complicated that I have not been able to figure them out, even after reading numerous articles, both pro and con, about them. In other words, should this bill get past the Senate it will do little good, and will only allow the collapse of the health insurance industry to continue.
Getting this past the Senate is another story. It looks like the plan here was to pass it in the House, so these creeps could lie and claim they passed an Obamacare repeal, and then have the Senate kill it for them.
A new poll has found that while a large minority of registered voters approve of banning offensive speakers from college campuses, a majority still support the idea of a free and open society.
Below the fold is the entire poll [pdf] for this particular question, with the poll results broken down across a wide selection of demographic groups. Except for only a handful of such groups, which I have highlighted, Americans across the board continue to support the idea of free speech, though the large minorities are certainly worrisome. Then again, I have seen polls like this for most of my life, and the news story routinely focuses in on the large minorities that favor restricting free speech, as does the story at the link above. Such minorities have always existed, however, and sometimes there are even circumstances where they are right!
The question isn’t whether they are there. The questions should be: What are the trends? And are those who are hostile to free speech concentrated in any single demographic group that holds power?
So, what are those handful of demographic groups where a plurality favors banning speakers? Not surprisingly, those groups are Democrats, Democratic women, African-Americans, homemakers, those who do not have an identifiable job, and those who consider Medicare and Social Security to be the #1 issue facing the nation. Essentially, these groups form the heart and soul of the modern Democratic Party, which appears increasingly to also be the home of people who are hostile to freedom and wish to restrict it. This fact helps explain why the Democrats in the last Congress actually proposed an amend to the Constitution that would have partially repealed the first amendment, allowing Congress to restrict speech.
If you are Democrat and support free speech, you should be aware of this, either to change your party, or to consider leaving it. I tried the first when I lived in New York, failed, and thus was forced to chose the second. I have never looked back.
» Read more
We’re here to help you! The Franchise Tax Board of California has proposed new regulations that would allow the state to tax commercial launch companies.
You can read the full proposal here [pdf].
The rules are designed to apply to any company operating in California that generates at least half the money it takes in from “space transportation” — defined as the movement of people or property 62 miles above the surface of the Earth. That’s the internationally recognized line that separates our planet from the rest of space. It would apply to companies that use California as a launchpad, not California companies launching from other states, like Texas or Florida.
Essentially, they will tax any launch from Vandenberg, basing the tax on the distance the payload flies while still attached to the rocket and still the responsibility of the launch provider.
This is essentially a tax on SpaceX, since they are California’s only major launch company. This is also a tax on Vandenberg, the only spaceport in the state. The result? Expect future companies to flee California. Expect new spaceports to spring up elsewhere. As noted in the article:
At least one company has already been lured away from California for the promise of greater financial incentives — though of a more earthly variety. Moon Express, a company working to mine the moon for natural resources, moved from Mountain View to Florida. In an email, the company’s CEO and founder, Bob Richards, said the company “relocated from California to Florida in part due to the State of Florida’s progressive economic development incentives designed to attract commercial space companies
European engineers have managed to print bricks using simulated moondust and focused sunlight.
The resulting bricks have the equivalent strength of gypsum, and are set to undergo detailed mechanical testing. Some bricks show some warping at the edges, Advenit adds, because their edges cool faster than the centre: “We’re looking how to manage this effect, perhaps by occasionally accelerating the printing speed so that less heat accumulates within the brick. But for now this project is a proof of concept, showing that such a lunar construction method is indeed feasible.”
The video at the link is very unconvincing. While it shows film of the printing process, it does not show film of anyone holding or manipulating the finished bricks. Instead, it shows one or two photos of finished bricks, all of which give the impression that these bricks crumble easily at the edges, I suspect that the bricks are simply too fragile for practical use.
So, is this a proof of concept? Maybe. They have at least shown that 3D printing using materials on the Moon might work.
The Cassini science team has released a movie compiled from images taken during the spacecraft’s first dive between Saturn and its rings.
I have embedded the movie below the fold. It cuts off before the spacecraft’s closest approach because they took a very conservative approach to this fly-by, turning the vehicle so that its antenna dish protected it. This prevented the taking of the best images. The second dive, that occurred yesterday, will have better images.
» Read more
Capitalism in space: Vector today successfully completed the first suborbital test flight of an engineering test prototype of its orbital rocket.
The rocket that flew is the same one I photographed during my March 30th tour with Vector CEO Jim Cantrell of Vector’s Tucson factory.
China’s answer to Boeing and Airbus’s domination of the aviation business, a 158-seat passenger jet dubbed C919, is due to make its maiden flight later this week.
According to Xinhua, the first flight of the C919, assembled by state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), will be conducted at the Shanghai International Airport on Friday, but could be delayed if weather conditions are not suitable. The timing for the first flight was set after the passenger jet passed a thorough assessment in April.
A successful maiden flight, followed by a series of safety certification processes, could open a floodgate for new orders for the single-aisle passenger jet, likely to generate 1 trillion yuan (HK$1.13 trillion) in business for Comac, according to Galaxy Securities. The C919 has received 570 orders and commitments from 23 customers, mainly Chinese state-owned carriers and leasing companies.
The plane is three years behind schedule. And while much of it is Chinese-made, a considerable percentage of major parts are produced by U.S. and European manufacturers.
How’s that Iran deal working out for you? An Iranian test launch of a cruise missile from a submarine yesterday appears to have been a failure.
Iran attempted to launch a cruise missile from a submarine in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday but the test failed, two U.S. officials told Fox News. An Iranian Yono-class “midget” submarine conducted the missile launch. North Korea and Iran are the only two countries in the world that operate this type of submarine.
In February, Iran claimed to have successfully tested a submarine-launched missile. It was not immediately clear if Tuesday’s test was the first time Iran had attempted to launch a missile underwater from a submarine.
This test is not surprising, considering that it also appears that Iran is using the billions they obtained from the Obama administration as part of the nuclear deal to fund a massive military buildup.
Iranian officials announced late last month that Iran’s defense budget had increased by 145 percent under President Hassan Rouhani and that the military is moving forward with a massive restructuring effort aimed at making it “a forward moving force,” according to regional reports.
Iranian leaders have stated since the Iran deal was enacted that they are using the massive amounts of cash released under the agreement to fund the purchase of new military equipment and other armaments. Iran also has pursued multi-million dollar arms deals with Russia since economic sanctions were nixed as part of the deal.
But hey, what’s a few bombs between enemies, eh?
