As scheduled Orbital ATK’s Cygnus freighter has been successfully berthed to ISS.
This launch and docking is a success both for Orbital as well as ULA, both of whom demonstrated that Cygnus can be launched not only on an Antares rocket but on an Atlas 5 as well.
The competition heats up: After three scrubs due to high winds, an Atlas 5 rocket today successfully placed Orbital ATK’s Cygnus cargo freighter into orbit.
If all goes well it will berth with ISS on Wednesday.
A comparison of the murder rate on U.S. islands that have very strict gun control laws with the average U.S. murder rate finds that gun control has no effect on reducing violence, and in fact might help increase it.
The article finds that the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico have far more murders per person than the U.S., while Hawaii has less. The research does demonstrate, however, that the argument used by places like Chicago, New York, and Washington, DC (that the access to guns in nearby communities causes their gun laws to fail) is bogus. It doesn’t matter if guns are available nearby, as shown above. Instead, as the author correctly notes,
A major problem with trying to lower murder rates with gun laws aimed at restricting the entire population’s access to firearms is that only a tiny number of guns are needed to supply those involved in violent crime. From an economic perspective, it does not matter much if you attempt to fill a bucket from a small pond or an ocean; filling the bucket is easy in either case.
For the second day in a row winds have forced a scrub of the Atlas 5 launch of Orbital ATK’s Cygnus capsule to ISS.
They have not yet decided whether they will try again on Saturday or Sunday.
Update: They have decided to try again on Saturday.
The competition heats up? Virgin Galactic has purchased a 747 from Richard Branson’s Virgin Airlines to use as the launch vehicle for its LauncherOne rocket.
They say that WhiteKnightOne will still be used for suborbital flights, but that they need the 747 for the orbital missions of LauncherOne. They also say that test flights will begin in 2017. We shall see.
The Cygnus cargo launch to ISS was scrubbed today due to bad weather.
They will try again on Friday.
As usual, yesterday’s mass shooting in California caused President Obama and the entire left to go into spasms demanding more gun control. A gunman shows up at a random site and begins shooting innocent unarmed people, and the first instinct of the left is to disarm more people so that vicious murderers will have more unarmed people to nonchalantly murder.
I say, it doesn’t matter whether yesterday’s killers were Islamic madmen, right-wing madmen, left-wing madmen, or plain-old madmen. What matters is that they had an easy time killing lots of people, because those people decided to remain unarmed and helpless in the face of violence.
I say, arm yourself. Get prepared so that if you find yourself in such terrible circumstances you can fight back and possibly survive, and in the process maybe save a lot of other lives as well. The likelihood that there will more such killers, most of whom will likely be Islamic terrorists because that is whom we are presently at war with, is quite high. To sit helpless and not prepared for battle is the height of foolishness.
You are personally responsible. You cannot depend on the police or government to defend you. You need to be prepared to defend yourself.
Arm yourself. The next time a killer shows up there should be ten free Americans capable of stopping him or her in their tracks, before anyone innocent dies.
The competition heats up: SpaceX is considering an attempt to land its Falcon 9 first stage on land in its next launch in two weeks.
Carol Scott, who works technical integration for SpaceX within NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, told reporters here at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station today that SpaceX’s first attempt at a land-based rocket landing may be coming sooner than the public expects. “You know how they want to fly the stage back, right? Their plan is to land it out here on the Cape [Canaveral] side,” Scott told reporters.
The company declined to comment on Scott’s remarks, which are vague enough to leave them plenty of wiggle room. Not that it matters. Even if they attempt the next first stage landing on a barge, a landing on land will soon follow. It is only a matter of time.
The competition heats up: Assuming the weather cooperates, Orbital ATK hopes to renew its cargo flights to ISS on Thursday with an Atlas 5 launch of an upgraded Cygnus capsule.
Right now the weather is iffy.
The competition heats up: Airbus has patented a concept for having the cargo/passenger section of an airplane modular and removable.
Instead of a single hull, aeroplanes would essentially be built with a hole in their fuselage between the nose cone and the tail section, into which modular compartments could be fitted and removed. The compartments, which could take on the purpose of a passenger, luxury passenger or freight unit, would be transferred between the aircraft and airport via a docking module, which according to Airbus would (ideally) be integrated into airport terminal buildings.
For passenger planes this idea really doesn’t work. However, for cargo it is brilliant. Like trucks, it allows cargo to be loaded without using the expensive flight infrastructure.
The competition heats up? The founders of XCOR, who only weeks ago were pushed out in a management reorganization, have teamed up again to form a new company.
Forgive me if I am as skeptical of this new company as I am of XCOR. I’ve looked at all the news articles describing this new company, and see little there that excites me. Lots of talk about new management ideas and agile production efforts, but in the end nothing that suggests anything revolutionary.
These guys had more than a decade at XCOR to produce something and essentially never did. Why should I think they will do it now, just because they are hanging a different company name on their sign?
Don’t get me wrong. I will be the first to celebrate if they make something happen. I just remain exceedingly skeptical.
Last week President Obama signed the revisions to the Commercial Act that is being touted as allowing Americans property rights in space.
I have been following the news coverage of this event, and even though there have been many articles incorrectly pushing the above spin, only today was there a news story that finally noticed that these touted property rights would violate the Outer Space treaty.
The content of the second link above, though it notices the possible violations to the Outer Space treaty, is also still a pitiful example of journalism. It is very clear from reading the article that no one involved in writing it (the article’s byline is CBC News) ever read the newly passed law. I have, and found that nowhere in it does it actually grant Americans property rights in space. What it does do is demand that the executive branch support that idea and write a number of reports and studies to demonstrate that support.
The goal I think of this new law is to begin the political process towards the U.S. eventually pulling out of the Outer Space treaty. Congress is essentially stating that it doesn’t agree with the language of that United Nations treaty, and it wants the U.S. government to begin the process of either getting it changed, or preparing to pull out. (The treaty does provide language allowing nations to pull out. You give one year’s notice, and then do so.)
It would be nice if journalists who write about this subject did the simple and easy research necessary for reporting it intelligently.
Until they do, however, I guess people will just have to come here (written with a grin).
Rocket debris thought to have come from the launch failure of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 earlier this year has washed up on the shore of the Isles of Scilly near the southwestern tip of England.
I am sure that SpaceX engineers will want to look at this as it might help them better understand the causes of the launch failure.
An evening pause, posted early for Thanksgiving: I posted this for Thanksgiving back in 2012. It is worth watching and singing again, in these terrible times. The hope of America will always live on, even when America is gone. Ordinary people want freedom, love, family, and the right to live their lives as they wish, without harming others, so they can bring in “the blessings of harvest,” whatever that harvest might be. It must be our goal to allow that to happen, and to stop those that wish to prevent it.
The promise of living
With hope and thanksgiving,,,
The competition heats up: Boeing has awarded Aerojet Rocketdyne a $200 million contract to build the propulsion system for the service module for its manned Starliner capsule.
Unlike the big contract NASA gave Aerojet to restart its shuttle engine production line, this contract is for engines that will actually fly in space and accomplish something.
The competition heats up: Yesterday’s launch of Japan’s first commercial payload on its upgraded lower cost H-IIA rocket suggested that they are now a serious player in the competitive launch market. What the earlier articles didn’t tell me was the cost they charge to launch a payload on H-IIA.
This article today states that each launch costs 10 billion yen, which translates to about $80 million. That is about $10 million more than SpaceX charges for its Falcon 9, but is certainly cheaper than many other rocket companies. At this price they have a chance of grabbing some of the launch market, but to really compete they need to cut that cost even more, which the article suggests their next rocket will succeed in doing: “The government is developing a new core rocket named the H3, whose launches are expected to cost only about a half of the H2A.”
They do not say whether H3 will be reusable, but at $40 million per launch it will be the cheapest rocket on Earth. That it is government developed however makes me skeptical they will succeed. We shall see. What is clear, however, is that the competition is certainly encouraging the lowering of cost.
The competition heats up: Using its H-IIA rocket, upgraded to lower cost, Japan launched its first commercial payload today, putting Canada’s Telestar 12V into geosynchronous orbit.
It is not clear if Japan’s government-run space program can compete. The rocket is built by Mitsubishi, but it appears owned and operated by JAXA, the equivalent of Japan’s NASA. It has also been a very expensive rocket to launch, as for much of its existence it has been like SLS, more dedicated to producing pork jobs than actually competing with other rocket companies. Whether they can upgrade it sufficiently to compete in price with other rockets is highly questionable.
Nonetheless, that Japan is trying to compete is good news. The more competition, the better. The effort alone will produce new ideas, which in turn can only help lower the cost to get into space, thus making it possible for more people to afford it.
In the heat of competition: Three of XCOR’s founders are leaving the company, even as it struggles to finish its Lynx suborbital spacecraft.
XCOR Aerospace said in a statement that Jeff Greason and Dan DeLong, the chief technology officer and chief engineer of the company, respectively, were “stepping back” from those positions “to turn their attention to pursue other interests.” A third co-founder, Aleta Jackson, was not mentioned in the release but is also leaving the company.
I am saddened that these individuals will not be there should XCOR finally succeed in finishing Lynx and flying it. At the same time, the fact that they are leaving at this stage suggests strongly to me that Lynx is nowhere close to flying, and that the company bean-counters have realized this and have now been forced to take action.
As regular readers to BtB know, I have always been extremely skeptical of XCOR’s effort. I have always wanted them to succeed, but in casting a cold eye at their progress I have never had much confidence that they would. Today’s story sadly adds strength to my skepticism.
The competition heats up: Yesterday Jeff Bezos’s company Blue Origin did its second test flight of its New Shepard suborbital rocket and capsule, and successfully recovered the rocket’s first stage, landing the stage vertically using its rockets.
As Jeff Bezos wrote at the link:
Rockets have always been expendable. Not anymore. Now safely tucked away at our launch site in West Texas is the rarest of beasts, a used rocket.
This flight validates our vehicle architecture and design. Our unique ring fin shifted the center of pressure aft to help control reentry and descent; eight large drag brakes deployed and reduced the vehicle’s terminal speed to 387 mph; hydraulically actuated fins steered the vehicle through 119-mph high-altitude crosswinds to a location precisely aligned with and 5,000 feet above the landing pad; then the highly-throttleable BE-3 engine re-ignited to slow the booster as the landing gear deployed and the vehicle descended the last 100 feet at 4.4 mph to touchdown on the pad.
When you watch the video you’ll see that we took the liberty of engineering all the drama out of the landing.
I have posted video of the flight below the fold.
SpaceX has been attempting this with its orbital Falcon 9 rocket for the last two years. They have come very close, hitting their target and almost landing. They plan to try again in December. Blue Origin however has beaten them to it, even if they have done it with a suborbital rocket.This demonstrates unequivocally that the concept is sound and that a rocket’s first stage can be recovered. It also demonstrates that of all the rocket companies in the world, SpaceX and Blue Origin are in position to dominate for at least the next decade. I am very confident that SpaceX will succeed in its efforts to recover its first stage. I am also very confident that Blue Origin’s plans to upgrade New Shepard into an orbital rocket/capsule will proceed quickly.
In both cases, the companies will then move forward, capable of recovering and reusing significant parts of their rockets, thus making it possible to significantly lower the launch cost and thus charge their customers less. No one else is in this position, or even close to it. The launch market will belong to them.
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While Donald Trump has remained the leader in every poll for president since he entered the campaign, it still remains to be seen whether Republican voters will give him the nod when actual voting begins in the primaries. I have tended to believe that they will not, and I base this on Trump’s essential lack of understanding of the small government principles of conservatism. Though it is very clear that Trump has rejected the left and the big government ideas of the Democratic Party, it is also clear that he really doesn’t really believe in small government either. This story quoting a Trump speech from yesterday illustrates this very well:
Speaking during a town hall meeting in Iowa Thursday, Republican front-runner Donald Trump told the crowd the way to make college affordable for students is “to start some governmental program. … Well the only way you can do it is you have to start some governmental program and you have governmental programs right now,” Trump told the crowd.
Click on the link to read the whole quote, which also illustrates the generally incoherent way in which Trump speaks. His incoherency however, is not what hurts him here, but his easy acceptance of the idea that government is the solution.
Don’t get me wrong. Trump is by far a better candidate than any of the Democratic Party options, and he would do a far better job then them as well. His business experience in the real world will make him a better president, and is also likely the reason he now generally favors conservative solutions. Nonetheless, when voting time comes I think the Republican voters are going to move away from him.
