SpaceShipTwo’s engine did not cause failure

8:39 am

The investigation into the failure of SpaceShipTwo last week during a powered flight test has determined that the accident was not caused by the spaceship’s engine and that the spaceship’s feathering system for return to Earth began deploying early during powered flight.

The ship’s fuel tanks and its engine were recovered intact, indicating there was no explosion. “They showed no signs of burn-through, no signs of being breached,” Christopher Hart, acting chairman of the National Transportation and Safety Board, told reporters at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, Calif

Instead, data and video relayed from the ship show its hallmark safety feature — a foldable tail section designed for easy re-entry into the atmosphere from space — was deployed early.

More here. Deployment required two commands, activation and then deployment. Data shows that the co-pilot Michael Alsbury activated the system slightly early. The second command, however, was not given, but the feathering system began to deploy nonetheless, during powered flight when the ship was accelerating upward. That is when the ship broke up.

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SpaceShipTwo accident pilots identified

9:36 pm

As the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) begins its investigation into the SpaceShipTwo test flight failure, the identities of the two pilots have finally been released.

The Kern County Coroner’s Office announced Nov. 1 that Michael Alsbury, a 39-year-old test pilot employed by Scaled Composites, was the person killed in the crash of the vehicle north of Mojave, California. Scaled Composites confirmed that identification in a press release issued late Nov. 1, which also stated that the pilot injured in the crash was the company’s director of flight operations, Peter Siebold. Alsbury was the co-pilot of SpaceShipTwo on its first powered flight, in April 2013. According to public flight logs maintained by Scaled Composites, he most recently flew SpaceShipTwo as co-pilot on an unpowered test flight on Aug. 28, a “cold flow” test where nitrous oxide was vented through the engine but not ignited.

Siebold was the pilot or co-pilot of SpaceShipTwo on its previous four flights, including the Aug. 28 flight with Alsbury. Siebold was also a pilot on several test flights of SpaceShipOne, an earlier suborbital spaceplane developed by Scaled Composites that won the $10-million Ansari X Prize in 2004. In the statement, Scaled Composites said that Siebold was “alert and talking with his family and doctors,” but provided no other details about his condition.

Alsbury should receive the same honor given to all other astronauts and pilots who have sacrificed their lives so that humans will someday leave the surface of the Earth.

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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, ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also 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

New rocket coming from ULA?

12:45 pm

The competition heats up: The head of ULA hints that the company is developing a new rocket.

“Today, we have Atlas and Delta,” Bruno said of ULA’s product line. The company is completing studies leading to an announcement early next year of “what we will have next.” He confirmed, “It could be a new rocket.”

It could be that they have seen the writing on the wall and realize that Atlas and Delta are simply too expensive to compete with SpaceX and have decided they need to come up with something better. I hope so.

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Rosetta gets in position to release Phalae

9:36 am

Rosetta has successfully maneuvered into position prior to releasing Philae on November 12 for landing on Comet 67P/C-G.

The thruster burn took place starting at 02:09:55 UTC (03:09:55 CET), ran for 90 seconds and, based on an initial analysis of spacecraft radiometric data, delivered a delta-v – change in speed – of 9.3 cm/sec, as confirmed by the Rosetta Flight Dynamics team. It was the second and final of two ‘deterministic’ (i.e. direction and thrust are prepared in advance) manoeuvres that moved Rosetta onto the planned lander delivery orbit, now at a height of about 30 km, which will be maintained right up until the pre-delivery manoeuvre at two hours before separation at 08:35 UTC (09:35 CET) on the morning of 12 November.

…[T]he next planned orbit-changing manoeuvres will occur on the 12th at (a) 2 hours before separation and (b) about 40 minutes after, in between which Philae will be released. The pre-delivery manoeuvre will shift Rosetta’s trajectory so that the orbiter would be on a path so as to pass over the comet at a distance of 5 km, while the separation will occur at 08:35 UTC on board the spacecraft about 22 km (the confirmation signal will arrive on Earth at 09:03 UTC).

Since Philae is a passive lander, firing no thrusters but simply being thrown gently at the comet by Rosetta, the last two burns are crucial. The first literally puts Rosetta on the same collision course as Philae so that when the lander is released it is on a course to hit the comet. The second takes Rosetta out of that collision course, since no one wants it to hit the comet also.

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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.

“The sky is crying.”

9:19 am

Words from Mohave.

Friday began bright and sunny, a day full of promise that quickly brought tragedy. As I write this early on Saturday, a cold hard rain is lashing at my windows. That’s a good thing. We need it.

And it feels right. The sky is crying, adding to an ocean of tears shed here today.

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“Medical science doesn’t support official rhetoric on ebola.”

9:43 pm

The essay is long, but incredibly detailed, worth reading, and illustrates nicely how little politicians and bureaucrats understand the uncertainty of science and knowledge. Their focus is power and control, and thus they often will say anything that they think will help them maintain that power and control, even if it is an outright lie or misstatement.

In the case of ebola, the misstatements and lies have been frequent, bald-faced, and have done nothing to help these politicians and bureaucrats maintain power and control. If anything, their willingness to say things that were simply not true or not yet known has served to undermine their effectiveness while fueling the public’s increasing distrust and disbelief in anything they say.

That Barack Obama is lying or overstating his flawed knowledge on this subject does not surprise me. That some scientists at the CDC are doing so is a much greater concern.

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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

EPA threatens $75K per day fines to man who built pond on his own property.

6:11 pm

We’re here to help you: The EPA is threatening a man with $75K per day fines unless he tears down a homemade pond he built on his private property, using water from a 2-foot wide, 6-inch stream.

Johnson’s pond was created with a dam on a nearby creek in Fort Bridger, which he built about five years ago. He got the right permits from Wyoming state agencies. “I acquired a stock pond reservoir permit,” he said. “They said go ahead and build it. When I was done with the project, I got a hold of them again and did a final on it, and they sent me a paper back saying I’m in good standing, that my pond was exactly exercised as permitted.”

The EPA maintains Johnson broke a law by failing to obtain a federal permit before constructing the pond.

As Johnson himself notes, this is really a power grab by the EPA. The agency has wanted control over every piece of U.S. water for decades — no matter how small or temporary. In the late 80s they tried to claim that any temporary wet spot was a wetlands that they had jurisdiction over. Now, it is every minor creek. In both cases, the EPA never made any effort to document if any environmental harm was being done, only that they should have complete control over everything.

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Martin Brest – Hot Tomorrows

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Hat tip again to Phil Berardelli, author of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime. As Phil wrote to me, this scene is “the sensational finale from Martin Brest’s NYU student film, Hot Tomorrows. Brest, who went on to direct Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run and Scent of a Woman, broke all the rules in scrounging every resource he could find to make this 73-minute tragi-comic riff on the subject of death.”

Makes for a perfect Halloween evening pause.

An aside: Long ago, when I was in the movie business, I worked with many of the people who helped Brest make this film, and can say without doubt that he scored the best crew one could imagine finding for a student production.

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CDC deletes ebola info from website

10:12 am

Incompetence: One day after posting information that said ebola could be spread by a sneeze, the Centers for Disease Control has deleted that information from its webpage.

It could be the deleted webpage was wrong, which raises the question: Why had they posted it in the first place? Or it could be that the deleted webpage was right, which raises the question: Why did they delete it?

Or it could be that they haven’t the slightest idea what they are doing, which raises the question: Why do so many Americans still want to put their trust, and their lives, at the mercy of these government hacks?

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The Earth/Moon double planet, as seen by China’s Chang’e 5 probe

10:00 am

Earth/Moon as seen by Chang'e 5

China’s Chang’e 5 probe has taken a spectacular image of the Moon and Earth as it whips around the Moon on its circumlunar test flight.

Though China has released little additional information about the status of the mission, this image demonstrates that the vehicle is functioning well, sending back data, and that they are controlling its operation precisely and exactly as planned. The spacecraft is scheduled to return to Earth on November 1.

Meanwhile, China’s second lunar probe, Chang’e 2, now in solar orbit about 60 million miles from Earth, continues to operate four years after launch

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A mysterious piece of Russian space junk does maneuvers!

9:43 am

What was first thought to be a piece of debris left over from the launch of three Russian military communication satellites has turned out to be a fourth satellite capable of maneuvers.

The three satellites were designated Kosmos-2496, -2497, -2498. However, as in the previous launch on December 25, 2013, the fourth unidentified object was detected orbiting the Earth a few kilometers away from “routine” Rodnik satellites.

Moreover, an analysis of orbital elements from a US radar by observers showed that the “ghost” spacecraft had made a maneuver between May 29 and May 31, 2014, despite being identified as “debris” (or Object 2014-028E) in the official US catalog at the time. On June 24, the mysterious spacecraft started maneuvering again, lowering its perigee (lowest point) by four kilometers and lifting its apogee by 3.5 kilometers. Object E then continued its relentless maneuvers in July and its perigee was lowered sharply, bringing it suspiciously close to the Briz upper stage, which had originally delivered all four payloads into orbit in May.

This is the second time a Russian piece of orbital junk has suddenly started to do maneuvers. The first time, in early 2014, the Russians finally admitted five months after launch that the “junk” was actually a satellite. In both cases, the Russians have not told anyone what these satellites are designed to do, though based on the second satellite’s maneuvers as well as its small size (about a foot in diameter) it is likely they are testing new cubesat capabilities, as most cubesats do not have the ability to do these kinds of orbital maneuvers.

Once you have that capability, you can then apply it to cubesats with any kind of purpose, from military anti-satellite technology to commercial applications.

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Ex-construction boss at Vostochny arrested

9:31 am

The man formerly in charge of construction at Russia’s new spaceport in Vostochny has been arrested and charged with stealing $43 million dollars from the project.

The corruption might be true, as this kind of thing is culturally typical for the centralized government-run operations that are generally favored in Russia. It is also possible that Putin’s government wanted a scapegoat to blame for the construction delays and cost overruns in building Vostochny.

Either way, Putin gets what he wants. This prosecution will make it very clear to everyone involved in building Vostochny that the government wants it built fast and without further theft, and it is watching what people do there very closely.

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Controversy surrounding IXV flight cancellation

9:24 am

Italian officials are suggesting politics or incompetence for the sudden cancellation Wednesday of the November test flight of Europe’s IXV experimental spaceplane.

ESA and CNES officials up to now have either declined to comment or, in the case of ESA, said they were at a loss to explain why a program whose mission profile has not changed in several years is now suddenly stalled for [range] safety issues that in principle should have been aired and resolved long ago.

One official, saying he could not believe that the two agencies simply forgot to evaluate the safety issues, said he preferred to suspect political motives. “Look, we are about to send a spacecraft and lander to Mars, in one year,” this official said. “Europe has rendezvoused with a comet a decade after the [Rosetta comet-chaser] satellite was launched. You want me to believe that somehow the agencies just forgot to evaluate safety? That is too far-fetched. I would rather believe there is some political motive.”

The claim is that no one ever evaluated the range issues in sending the Vega rocket to the east instead of its normal polar orbit trajectory. The Italian officials are suggesting that either the officials who cancelled the mission are incompetent, or that their competition with France within ESA over launch vehicles (Ariane 6 vs Vega) prompted the cancellation.

Europe’s lead launch-vehicle nation is France, which initially balked at participating in the Vega program. A French minister said that in Europe, launch vehicles are French. The French government declined to allow the export, to Italy, of the avionics suite that guides Vega, forcing Italy to develop its own. Italy has since done so and successfully flown it on Vega. As it stands now, one official said, France must accept the idea that with Vega, Italy has led development of a vehicle that at least in principle resembles an intercontinental ballistic missile. “Some people don’t like that,” this official said.

Either way, this cancellation combined with the difficult and extended disagreements within ESA over replacing Ariane 5 suggest that the future of this European partnership is becoming increasingly shaky.

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Two Republican senators propose limiting ability of government to confiscate property

11:30 am

Theft by government: Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) are both proposing limits to the federal government’s ability to confiscate private property.

Since these confiscations are essentially unconstitutional and illegal, “limiting” the government’s ability here to me seems to be a weak response. These confiscations should cease entirely, now. Still, at least these Republicans are making sounds they want to do something about this fascist behavior.

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Massive voter fraud in Maryland

9:55 am

An election watchdog group has uncovered evidence of massive voter fraud in Maryland, including evidence large numbers of non-citizens voting as well as more than 40,000 individuals registered to vote in both Virginia and Maryland.

The group, Virginia Voters Alliance, says that it compared how voters in Frederick County filled out jury duty statements compared with their voting records. The group’s investigation found that thousands of people in Frederick County who stated that they are not U.S. citizens on jury duty forms went on to cast votes in elections. Either they failed to tell the truth when they were summoned for jury duty, or they cast illegal votes. Both are crimes. The same group previously found that about 40,000 people are registered to vote in both Virginia and Maryland.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, numerous officials and campaign workers, almost all supporters of Democratic Senator Kay Hagan, have been caught on tape eagerly encouraging an illegal immigrant to vote illegally. I’ve posted the video below the fold.
» Read more

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Atlas 5 successfully launches GPS satellite

9:29 am

ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket today successfully launched an Air Force GPS satellite.

The article is worth reading because it does a nice job of summarizing the launch history of the Atlas 5, first introduced in 2002. The key quote, however, is this:

All of the rocket’s early flights carried commercial communications satellites, with the next few launches orbiting HellasSat-2, Rainbow 1, AMC-16 and Inmarsat-4F1. In August 2005 the sixth Atlas V embarked on the type’s first mission for the US Government, deploying NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on the first leg of its mission to the Red Planet.

In other words, the first six flights were commercial, with every flight since 2005 for either NASA or the military. What this suggests to me is that the Atlas 5 is not competitive in the commercial market. It is too expensive, and commercial customers can’t afford it. In contrast, the federal government hasn’t been interested in saving the taxpayer money for years, and pays for this overpriced rocket in order to keep its builders employed.

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TSA confiscates a toy ray-gun belt buckle

9:40 pm

Does this make you feel safer? At an airport security checkpoint the TSA confiscated a belt buckle made to look like a toy Flash Gordon ray-gun.

It wasn’t a real gun. It wasn’t even a toy gun. It was a belt buckle fashioned to look like a 1940s science fiction ray-gun. Even if it was one of the actual Flash Gordon ray-guns that was used in the movie serial, it couldn’t have done anything.

But it wasn’t. It was a belt buckle.

I am so glad we have the TSA looking out for us!

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Initial assessement of Wallops launchpad completed

6:00 pm

The investigation into the Antares launch failure has completed its initial assessment of the launchpad.

More here. Overall, the pad’s condition sounds better than expected. To quote the Orbital press release at the first link above,

The overall findings indicate the major elements of the launch complex infrastructure, such as the pad and fuel tanks, avoided serious damage, although some repairs will be necessary. However, until the facility is inspected in greater detail in the coming days, the full extent of necessary repairs or how long they will take to accomplish will not be known.

The image at the second link above shows some of the damage, none of which looks devastating.

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Cheap alternatives to Obamacare on the rise

4:24 pm

Finding out what’s in it: The purchase of short-term health plans outside of Obamacare is sky-rocketing as citizens scramble to avoid the law’s high costs.

A fast-growing, short-term alternative to ObamaCare that allows customers to get cheap, one-year policies could put the government-subsidized plan into a death spiral. The plans, the only ones allowed for sale outside of ObamaCare exchanges, generally cost less than half of what similar ObamaCare policies cost, and are increasing in popularity as uninsured Americans learn they are required to get health coverage. The catch — that the policies only last for a year — is not much of a deterrent, given that customers can always sign up for ObamaCare if their short-term coverage is not renewed.

“Applications rose 30 percent compared to last year,” eHealthInsurance.com Enrollment Specialist Carrie McLean told FoxNews.com. Other providers said they also see rapid growth in the plans, which have a typical monthly premium of just over $100, compared to traditional plans that cost an average of $271.

The irony here is that when Obamacare caused the cancellation of hundreds of thousands if not millions of health plans that people liked, wanted, and could afford, Obama and the Democrats claimed that those plans were cheap and bad plans that those people shouldn’t have liked or purchased in the first place. The Democrats knew better, and because they cared, they passed Obamacare to force everyone off those plans. Now, because Obamacare plans are so expensive many simply can’t afford them, people are buying these short-term health plans, which are exactly like the kind of garbage health plans that the Democrats claimed Obamacare had eliminated.

Thank you Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. Your wisdom knows no bounds!

Note also that when government creates a situation where needed products or goods are no longer affordable, some form of black market in those products or goods is going to appear, no matter what. This is an example of that.

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Video of election machine voter fraud?

11:21 am

Video has finally become available showing a voting machine picking a Democrat when a voter presses the touchscreen for a Republican.

Having been an election judge in Maryland, up until now I have been generally skeptical of this story that has been making the rounds in the past week. It is notoriously easy to accidently press the wrong button on a touchscreen, so hearing that people pressed Republican and got Democrat did not impress me. The story could easily be an example of Republican partisans trying to drum up outrage against Democrats, something I abhor, from either party. I wanted to see actual video.

Well, we’ve got some video now, which I’ve posted below the fold. As the article notes,

The YouTube footage is the first visual report of the alleged problem with the voting machines. The error appears to occur when the voter’s finger is slightly off center in the Republican box, which appears below the Democrat box. It is apparently still possible to vote for the Republican candidate, and it is possible for a vigilant voter to correct the mistake and vote again, but a voter in a hurry might easily register a mistaken vote for the Democrat by mistake and fail to notice. The problem seems to recur throughout the ticket of races. (No test involving a voter trying to choose the Democratic candidate and selecting the Republican instead is shown.)

The footage is still not conclusive, as there are many ways the action could be made to appear worse than it really is, and there is no real proof that this video is of an actual voting machine, in a voting booth.

If true, however, it suggests real voter fraud, as there is no way the machine could have accidently been programmed to misread a finger touch like this. Someone would have had to intentionally calibrated the machine to do this.

» Read more

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Houston mayor withdrews sermon subpoenas

10:22 am

A partial victory for free speech: The lesbian mayor of Houston has withdrawn the subpoenas her administration had issued demanding that conservative pastors turn over to the government any sermons or communications which had discussed politics.

I call this a partial victory because the mayor, Annise Parker, is still in office, and was still unapologetic about the subpoenas.

“The goal of the subpoenas is to defend against the lawsuit and not to provoke a public debate,” Parker said. She is ordering the subpoenas removed for the sake of Houston, not because the request were in any way illegal or intended to intrude on religious liberties, Parker said. “I didn’t do this to satisfy them,” Parker said of critics. “I did it because it was not serving Houston.”

She still thinks it was perfectly okay to make this demand against her opponents. Such a person should never be allowed the power of any political office, including dog-catcher.

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