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Tag: engineering
CERN collider sees tantalizing hint of Higgs particle
The CERN Large Hadron Collider has seen a tantalizing hint of the Higgs particle.
Junk journalism
In a piece today at the Huffington Post, science journalist Seth Borenstein declares the wonders of NASA’s next mission: to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025, as declared by President Obama.
If you believe this is going to happen, then I have a bridge I want to sell you. To do it we need a spaceship in which people can live for at least a year, and a rocket to get that ship into orbit. Not only do we not yet know how to build such a spaceship, we no longer have the capability of putting it into orbit. In case you’re unaware (Borenstein acts like he is), the space shuttle no longer exists. And under this administration and Congress, any replacement we get isn’t going to be able to launch such an interplanetary spaceship anywhere in the near future, especially faced as we are with the present federal debt.
The disgraceful thing about this article, however, is the lack of skepticism shown by Borenstein.
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Public test of privately built moon lander delayed by gyro
A public test of privately built moon lander has been delayed by gyro problem. Key quote:
One customer has already bought a ticket with Moon Express, asking them to deposit a small telescope on the dark side of the Moon. Jain says the company will also offer low cost ways for anyone to use the moon as a kind of time capsule. “If something goes to the moon it stays there forever, people will pay to sends things like photos, or maybe your hair or DNA.”
NASA changes its contract arranged for commercial space
Turf war: At conference yesterday at the Johnson Space Center, NASA proposed changing how it issues its commercial space contracts so as to give it more control over their design and construction. The commercial companies are not happy.
Brett Alexander, a space industry consultant who counts among his clients the secretive aerospace startup Blue Origin of Kent, Wash., said at the July 20 briefing that industry needs to know NASA’s legal reasoning for dismissing SAAs as an option for the next CCDev round. “From an industry standpoint … we’re kind of flying blind because [NASA] has not divulged what its legal reasoning is, and I think they need to do that in writing. Not a couple charts, not things that you brief, but a legal brief that says ‘here’s why’” a traditional procurement is necessary.
My own sources say this change in contractual approach will significantly slow development of the new commercial manned space rockets and ships, possibly beyond 2017.
The only reason I can see for NASA to do this is to maintain control over manned space, even if they are not building anything. I think NASA is instead going to find out that doing anything to slow this development will be politically very dangerous for them.
More on the Taurus 2/Cygnus schedule
The delay until early next year of the first Taurus 2/Cygnus launch was in order to install required launchpad upgrades.
A good summary of the present American manned space situation
Clark Lindsey has put together a very succinct but thorough summary of the present and future state of American manned space.
The bottom line is that the U.S. can easily have multiple rockets and spaceships to put people into space, in only a few short years, if only our government will get out of the way.
New Taurus II/Cygnus launch schedule announced
Via Clark Lindsey: Orbital Sciences has announced an updated launch schedule for its cargo ship and rocket for supplying ISS.
The first test flight of Taurus II is set for late this year, with the first flight of the Cygnus cargo ship set for the first quarter of 2012.
The budget battle over resuming production of nuclear fuel for unmanned space missions heats up
The budget battle over resuming production of nuclear fuel for unmanned space missions heats up.
The journal Science finally admits things have not gotten warmer in the past decade
The journal Science finally admits things have not gotten warmer in the past decade.
The explanation provided, that recent volcanic eruptions cooled a warming earth, might be true, though the conclusions are based not so much on data but on climate computer models, a fact that leaves me somewhat skeptical. Nonetheless, what is significant to me about this article is that Science — which has been decidedly in the global warming political camp for years and has frequently lambasted scientists who suggested the climate’s warming has slowed or even stopped in the past decade — has now been forced to admit that the warming has stopped. That they feel compelled to push the global warming threat in the same sentence only reveals their continuing scientific bias.
Perry and other lawmakers blast Obama over shuttle retirement
Texas Governor Rick Perry, as well as other lawmakers from Congress, blasted Obama today over the shuttle retirement.
Bah. Perry claims to be a so-called small government conservative, yet he wants the government to spend a fortune to build and run the space program. Meanwhile, Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Kate Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas) were around in Congress when President George Bush announced the shuttle’s retirement seven years ago. Their effort since then to fund pork through NASA and thus have NASA build a giant new rocket system, either Constellation or its new Congressionally-designed replacement, has been a disaster. Right now it would be better, and far cheaper, if they stopped fighting the new commercial space companies and instead get behind them, especially since the Obama administration itself has done a very poor job of selling this new industry.
A little support from Congress could go a long way to not only reinvigorating the aerospace industry, it could speed our country’s return to manned space, with multiple competing companies.
The shuttle Atlantis has landed, ending the shuttle program
The shuttle Atlantis has landed, ending the shuttle program.