Tag: government

Audit finds SLS unlikely to launch in 2018

4:00 am

A NASA audit has found that it is unlikely that the first SLS test flight will take place as scheduled in 2018, and that the first manned flight is also likely to be delayed from its 2021 launch target.

“NASA’s first exploration missions — EM-1 and EM-2 — face multiple challenges that will likely delay their launch,” the report states. The missions “are not likely to launch by 2018 or 2021, respectively,” it continues.

When might a crew launch? Hard to say.

The report says incomplete NASA information makes it “more difficult for both the agency and external stakeholders to gain a full understanding of the costs of that mission or to assess the validity of the agency’s launch date assumptions.”

If the first manned flight happens in 2023, as now expected, it means that it will occur 20 years after George Bush first proposed the Crew Exploration Vehicle (Orion) and the heavy lift rocket to put it into space. The total cost to fly this one mission will be approximately $43 billion.

Let me repeat that: $43 billion and 20 years to fly a single manned mission. Does no one in government see something wrong with this picture?

Posted from the West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit.

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China launches advanced communications satellite

9:28 pm

China today successfully launched an experimental communications satellite, outfitted to test the use of ion engine attitude thrusters as well as ground-to-orbit laser communications tests.

The article also outlines China’s busy launch schedule in April, which will include the launch and first test flight of their Tianzhou-1 cargo freighter. That flight will test the freighter’s ability to rendezvous and dock with their Tiangong-2 test space station module. This article notes that the freighter has been mounted on its Long March 7 rocket in preparation for launch in mid-April.

Posted in the air, now past Nova Scotia and moving into the Atlantic.

I must say that I am very glad to get out of Newark Airport. Though they have recently upgraded the airport, they have done so at the cost of providing affordable services to the traveler. All the restaurants there are very over-priced, and provide tiny portions. I actually ended up eating two dinners at two different restaurants in order to get enough food, and paid almost $40 for the pleasure. In addition, the tip was automatically added to the bill. I had no choice about that, even though the service was routinely bad. (They had installed tablets at every table so that you could order by computer. Getting a waiter to provide water however was practically impossible, and when I did get one they were slow to bring it.)

In addition, there were no fast food restaurants, which I normally avoid but would have been a far better choice in this case.

Newark is part of the New York urban area, a decidedly leftwing Democratic enclave. Thus, I am not surprised that things there cost too much, provided poor service, and also provided few choices.

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The Last Day

6:01 pm

An evening pause: This short Israeli film seems pertinent as I leave for Israel again to visit family. The film was made before 2012, and attempts to portray a moment in the future.

When I first scheduled this, I suggested that people make sure they read the analysis at the youtube website. Youtube however has terminated this filmmaker’s account. I wonder why. Could it be because some from the Islamic world complained? Could it be that some within the google/youtube world didn’t like its message?

The video is still on youtube, however, posted by others. Freedom lives, even as some try to squelch it.

Hat tip Jim Mallamace.

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U.S. refuses to sign G7 statement supporting Paris climate accord

9:42 am

In another indication that the Trump administration is going to completely reshape the U.S.’s environmental policy, Energy Secretary Rick Perry refused to sign a statement issued during the G7 meeting in Italy endorsing the Paris climate treaty.

Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said the U.S. “is in the process of reviewing many of its policies and reserves its position on this issue, which will be communicated at a future date,” Italy’s industry and energy minister Carlo Calenda said in a statement. Calenda said other G7 members “reaffirmed their commitment towards the implementation of the Paris Agreement to effectively limit the increase in global temperature well below 2°C above pre-industrial level.”

The Trump administration would not sign onto a statement mentioning Paris, since the president is still deciding whether or not to keep his campaign pledge. Perry also wanted the G7 to include support for coal and natural gas in its statement. “Therefore, we believe it is wise for countries to use and pursue highly efficient energy resources,” Perry said in a statement after his meeting in Rome with energy ministers from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the European Union.

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China and South Korea agree to counter North Korea’s missile/nuclear program

9:33 am

Under pressure from the Trump administration to do something about North Korea’s out-of-control and aggressive nuclear and missile program, China has worked out an agreement with South Korea to take “strong action”.

It remains a question how serious this response will be, but it is also the first sign in a long time that China is finally taking the threat from North Korea seriously.

Update: China refuses acceptance of coal from a fleet of North Korean ships.

This new story confirms that China was serious about this ban when it announced it in February. Set to run to at least the end of this year, the loss of income to North Korea, very poor already, should have some influence there. Whether good or bad, however, remains unknown. One cannot expect irrational and mad individuals holding great power to come to rational conclusions.

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Turkey moves to create its own space agency

9:22 am

The new colonial movement: A draft bill to create a Turkish space agency has been introduced in that country’s parliament.

The Turkish Space Agency, according to the draft bill, will also be in charge of coordinating, managing, and operating all satellite requirements, design, manufacture, launch, and operations in Turkey, as well as coordinating private Turkish industries towards those goals. Jane’s Defence Weekly reports that the draft bill for the Turkish Space Agency has previously been held up for years due to a dispute between the Turkish military and several Turkish administrations as to who should be the lead within the agency. The draft bill in front of parliament suggests that the military have lost that argument, doubtless because of the aftermath of the July 2016 attempted coup, and instead it will take the lead on technical issues rather than policy and strategy.

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Large archive of Canadian ice cores melts

8:38 am

A large archive of Canadian ice cores has been lost, melting when the freezer they were stored in failed.

The 2 April failure left “pools of water all over the floor and steam in the room,” UA glaciologist Martin Sharp told ScienceInsider. “It was like a changing room in a swimming pool.” The melted cores represented 12.8% of the collection, which held 1408 samples taken from across the Canadian Arctic. The cores hold air bubbles, dust grains, pollen, and other evidence that can provide crucial information about past climates and environments, and inform predictions about the future.

The storage facility is normally chilled to –37°C. But the equipment failure allowed temperatures to rise to 40°C, melting tens of thousands of years of history. Among the losses: some of the oldest ice cores from Mount Logan, a 5595-meter-high mountain in northern Canada. “We only lost 15 meters [of core], but because it was from the bottom of the core, that’s 16,000 years out of the 17,700 years that was originally represented,” Sharp says.

Scientists also lost 66 meters of core from Baffin Island’s Penny Ice Cap, which accounts for 22,000 years—a quarter of the record. That leaves “a gap for the oldest part, which is really the last glaciation before the warming that brought us into the present interglacial,” Sharp says.

Considering the cost and difficulty of drilling these cores, and then safely bringing them to the facility without melting, it seems to me astonishing that the facility did not have back-up freezer capability.

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R.I.P: Georgy Grechko

8:39 am

Russian cosmonaut Georgy Grechko died today at the age of 85.

Grechko was one of the Soviet Union’s most important early cosmonauts, flying some of the first long term missions on several of Russia’s early Salyut stations. He was also important in that in the first real elections run by the Soviet Union he ran for office against party officials, won, and helped throw the Communists out of power.

I met and interviewed Grechko when I was writing Leaving Earth. He struck me as a kind and intelligent person, exactly the kind of person you’d want in charge, and who rarely gets that chance. Russia is diminished by his passing.

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Solar panel project costing millions produces enough energy to run one microwave

8:21 am

Our government in action! An Idaho solar panel project that cost $4.3 million (so far) only produces enough energy per day to run one microwave.

On March 29th, the solar road panels generated 0.26 kWh, or less electricity than a single plasma television consumes. On March 31st, the panels generated 1.06 kWh, enough to barely power a single microwave. The panels have been under-performing their expectations due to design flaws, but even if they had worked perfectly they’d have only powered a single water fountain and the lights in a nearby restroom.

Solar FREAKIN’ Roadways has been in development for 6.5 years and received a total of $4.3 million in funding to generate 90 cents worth of electricity.

Obviously, none of this matters. The people who created the project care, and that’s what counts!

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ULA slashes launch prices for Atlas 5

9:12 am

Capitalism in space: In order to compete with SpaceX ULA announced this week that it will cut its launch price for the Atlas 5 rocket by one third.

United Launch Alliance has dropped the price of its workhorse Atlas 5 rocket flights by about one-third in response to mounting competition from rival SpaceX and others, the company’s chief executive said on Tuesday. “We’re seeing that price is even more important than it had been in the past,” Tory Bruno, chief executive of United Launch Alliance, or ULA, said during an interview at the U.S. Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. “We’re dropping the cost of Atlas almost every day. Atlas is now down more than a third in its cost,” Bruno said.

It appears that they have discovered that the prime reason they lost their bid of an Air Force GPS satellite launch to SpaceX was because their price was too high.

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ULA prepares to choose engine for Vulcan

7:21 am

Capitalism in space: ULA’s CEO Tory Bruno announced at a space conference this week that should Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine pass its testing phase his company will be prepared to select it for their Vulcan rocket.

Bruno also said that no decision has yet been made, and that Aerojet Rocketdyne’s AR1 engine remains an option, though it is 18 to 24 months behind in development.

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Russia proposes extending ISS beyond 2024

7:13 am

The head of Roscosmos said at a space conference this week that his nation is open to extending its ISS partnership with the U.S. beyond 2024 to 2028.

Russia has several good and bad reasons for wanted to do this.

  • Their shortage of cash will make it difficult for them to fly their own station.
  • They need a space station in order to maintain the jobs that exist at their mission control as well as throughout their space industry.
  • There are many good political reasons for them to maintain this space partnership with the U.S. It prevents the U.S. from completely breaking off relations, should Russia do something the U.S. doesn’t like (such as invading a nearby country).
  • They recognize that the ability to do long term research in an orbiting space station is essential for anyone who plans future interplanetary missions.

I will let my readers decide which of these reasons are the good reasons, and which are bad.

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Orbital ATK developing new rocket

6:38 am

Capitalism in space: Orbital ATK is developing a new rocket, based on the solid rocket technology it provided for the space shuttle, to compete with SpaceX and ULA.

Two versions of the rocket are planned. The medium-lift variant will have a two-segment, solid-fuel first-stage motor and a single-segment, solid second. The heavy lifter will have a four-segment first stage and a single-segment second. Both versions can be outfitted with strap-on boosters for extra lift capacity, Orbital representatives said.

To complete the rocket’s development the company says it needs to win a follow-up contract that the Air Force has been issuing to help ween the U.S. from the use of Russian rocket engines.

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ULA gets three launch contracts

8:41 pm

Capitalism in space: ULA last week won three launch contracts, two from the Air Force and one from NASA.

Both rockets are part of the existing EELV Block Buy between the Air Force and United Launch Alliance. The mission assignments were announced Friday by the Pentagon. The missions exceed the lift performance of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets that has been certified by the Air Force for national security payloads, making ULA the only provider available to execute these heavy launches.

In other government-launch news, NASA said last month that the second satellite in the next-generation era of U.S. civilian weather observatories will be launched atop an Atlas 5-401 rocket. The Atlas 5 beat out the Falcon 9 in a competition to win the rights to launch the Joint Polar Satellite System spacecraft No. 2 in 2021 from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

For SpaceX to truly compete with ULA they need to get the Falcon Heavy flying.

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Russia responds to SpaceX reused booster success

10:57 pm

A bunch of stories from Russia today appear to express that country’s political response to SpaceX’s success yesterday in launching a commercial satellite using a previously flown first stage.

It appears that these stories are quoting a variety of Russian officials who apparently did not get their stories straight. Also, it appears that much of what they are saying here is pure bluster. For example, in the third link the official makes the silly claim that the ability of their rocket engines to be started and then restarted repeatedly proves they are dedicated to re-usability. And the first two links don’t provide much back-up for the claims that they can complete with SpaceX, especially since SpaceX presently charges a third less than they do per launch, and that is using new boosters. With reused boosters SpaceX’s launch fees will be less than half what Russia has been charging for a Proton launch ($90 million vs $40 million).

Similarly, the claim that they will complete 30 launches this years is absurd. They won’t be able to launch Proton until May, at the soonest, because of the need to remove defective parts from all of their in-stock engines. Soyuz launches are similarly delayed while they check its engines also. To complete 30 launches in only seven months seems very unrealistic to me, especially since the best they have done in a full year this century is 34 launches, with an average slightly less than 30 per year.

Nonetheless, this spate of stories and statements by Russian officials shows that they are feeling the heat of competition, and also feel a need to respond. The first story has this significant statement:

Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos is responding to the challenges with available possibilities, he added. “It has announced a considerable reduction in the cost of Proton rocket launches. The commercial price of this rocket’s launch is considerably higher than its prime cost and we have the potential for the price cut. But customers are giving up our services because the number of payloads [satellites] remains unchanged and does not grow. Correspondingly, a new player on the market snatches away a part of orders,” the expert noted.

Because of Russia’s low labor costs they have always had a large profit margin on their Proton launches. The $90 million they charged was set just below what Arianespace charged for its launches. It appears they are now planning to lower their prices further to match SpaceX.

Posted from the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

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SLS faces more delays

5:34 pm

Delays by ESA in the construction of the service module for Orion, plus the tornado damage at the Michoud facility in Louisiana, could force NASA to delay the first unmanned test launch of the SLS rocket, presently planned for late in 2018.

NASA is also considering delaying the flight further should the agency decide to make this first unmanned test flight a manned one. They also say they will need more money if they have to put people on the first flight. I guess $43 billion and almost 15 years wasn’t enough.

By the way, it took less than four years to win World War II. From Kennedy’s speech to the Apollo 11 landing was only eight years. One wonders when we, as a nation, will finally wake up and realize that SLS is not a rocket to the Moon, but an never-ending jobs program unable to accomplish anything in space.

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Less than 1% of all science papers follow scientific method

7:05 pm

The uncertainty of science: A survey of the research done for papers published in scientific peer-reviewed journals has found that less than 1% properly follow the scientific method.

Armstrong defined eight criteria for compliance with the scientific method, including full disclosure of methods, data, and other reliable information, conclusions that are consistent with the evidence, valid and simple methods, and valid and reliable data.

According to Armstrong, very little of the forecasting in climate change debate adheres to these criteria. “For example, for disclosure, we were working on polar bear [population] forecasts, and we were asked to review the government’s polar bear forecast. We asked, ‘could you send us the data’ and they said ‘No’… So we had to do it without knowing what the data were.”

According to Armstrong, forecasts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) violate all eight criteria.

“Why is this all happening? Nobody asks them!” said Armstrong, who says that people who submit papers to journals are not required to follow the scientific method. “You send something to a journal and they don’t tell you what you have to do. They don’t say ‘here’s what science is, here’s how to do it.’”

Worse, the research found that many results came not from data but to confirm something that was politically advantageous or helpful in winning grants.

Digging deeper into their motivations, Armstrong pointed to the wealth of incentives for publishing papers with politically convenient rather than scientific conclusions. “They’re rewarded for doing non-scientific research. One of my favourite examples is testing statistical significance – that’s invalid. It’s been over 100 years we’ve been fighting the fight against that. Even its inventor thought it wasn’t going to amount to anything. You can be rewarded then, for following an invalid [method].”

“They cheat. If you don’t get statistically significant results, then you throw out variables, add variables, [and] eventually you get what you want.” [emphasis mine]

The scientific community and especially the climate field has got to get a handle on this and demand better. Otherwise, we lose the greatest gift science has given to civilization, an unwavering dedication to the truth.

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