Tag: government

NASA reveals that the second flight of SLS in 20210 might not be manned.

12:52 pm

Pigs in space: NASA reveals that the second flight of SLS in 20210 might not be manned.

This project officially started in 2010, which means this second flight will come more than a decade later. They will have spent more than $20 billion by that time, not counting the money spent on Orion. They will have also spent billions developing one engine for the upper stage, only to shelve it to develop another which they will need to test. Hence, the possibility that the second flight will be unmanned. NASA has also admitted that the third flight of SLS won’t come until 2024 at the earliest.

What kind of crap is this? This isn’t a space program or a project to explore the solar system. It is pure pork, a boondoggle designed to spend as much taxpayer dollars as possible for as long as possible. It is time to shut it down.

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A citizen’s group is offering a one million dollar bounty to “anyone who can provide ‘smoking gun’ evidence” that implicates either the IRS leadership or members of the Obama administration as ordering the harassment of conservatives.

10:03 pm

Pushback: A citizen’s group is offering a one million dollar bounty to anyone who can provide ‘smoking gun’ evidence’ that implicates either the IRS leadership or members of the Obama administration as ordering the harassment of conservatives.

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The consequences if Russia carries out its threat to shut down the U.S. science GPS stations in Russia will be relatively minimal according to scientists.

9:45 am

The consequences if Russia carries out its threat to shut down the U.S. science GPS stations in Russia will be relatively minimal according to scientists.

Only if the stations, which are essentially nothing more that GPS geological data-loggers, are removed permanently or shut down for a long period will the consequences to geological research become more damaging. The article also points out the stupidity of the American government in this dispute. Its refusal to allow similar Russian GPS geological research data-loggers in the states makes no sense.

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In order to lower costs, Lockheed Martin wants to get more American parts into the European-built service module for the Orion capsule.

9:39 am

In order to lower costs, Lockheed Martin wants to get more American parts into the European-built service module for the Orion capsule.

And why do they want to lower costs? It ain’t for the normal free market reasons you’d expect. Instead, the Frankenstein project that is SLS/Orion has the U.S. building the capsule while Europe builds the service module. However, Europe doesn’t want to spend the money to build two service modules. Instead,

for financial reasons, ESA prime contractor Airbus Defense and Space may provide only “one and a half” service modules, Larry Price, Lockheed’s Orion deputy program manager, said in an interview here.

“They may not complete both of them, depending on funding,” Price said. But “we think we can drive Europe’s cost down so they can deliver two complete service modules” by steering the European company toward American suppliers already working on the Orion crew module. “If we use common parts, they can be lower price,” Price said. He added that ESA is set to deliver a full service module for the 2017 flight.

Read the article. It better than anything I can say will make it clear how much of a dead end project SLS/Orion really is. The rocket costs more than $14 billion per launch, has no clear mission, and the contractor (Europe) for the capsule’s service module only intends to build one and a half. What will NASA do after that? No one has any idea, nor does anyone at NASA have any plans to figure this out.

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The battle between France and Germany on how to replace the Ariane 5 rocket continues.

9:13 am

The battle between France and Germany on how to replace the Ariane 5 rocket continues.

To save money and lower cost, France wants to build a rocket that mostly uses solid rocket motors. Germany however has a problem with this.

German government officials have said they will have difficulty supporting the current Ariane 6 design, which features four identical solid-fueled stages — two as strap-on boosters, and two as the vehicle’s first and second stages — topped by the cryogenic upper stage powered by the same restartable Vinci engine that is the main element of the proposed Ariane 5 upgrade. Germany, through its space agency, the German Aerospace Center, DLR, has said it would prefer a liquid-fueled first stage for Ariane 6 as such a stage could be built in Germany and thus assure a large German industrial role in the program. Without such a role, DLR has said, German support for Ariane 6 might not be forthcoming.

The story above says that France is willing to negotiate with Germany over this, but if they do, they guarantee that Ariane 6 will be a costly rocket to build, making it very unattractive to satellite customers.

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The University of South Carolina is closing its Women & Gender Studies department and replacing it with a program to teach the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers.

11:20 am

Pigs fly! The University of South Carolina is closing its Women & Gender Studies department and replacing it with a program to teach the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers.

It appears university administrators have decided that they don’t have the option to ignore a state law that requires them to teach these fundamental American documents, as they tried to do earlier What is especially interesting is their decision on what to shutter to pay for the new courses. I suspect they had enough of porno on campus.

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A GAO report says that NASA has been hiding the true and very expensive cost of the SLS/Orion projects by specifically excluding the cost of any actual missions that go anywhere.

9:24 am

It is nothing but pork: A GAO report says that NASA has been hiding the true and very expensive cost of the SLS/Orion projects by specifically excluding the cost of any actual missions that go anywhere.

NASA so far has put only two SLS missions on the manifest: a late-2017 test launch of an unmanned Orion into lunar space followed by a repeat of the mission in 2021 with crew onboard. NASA officials told GAO auditors it expects to have spent at least $22 billion on SLS and Orion through 2021, an estimate that does not include the cost of building the SLS launcher for the second mission. … Moreover, NASA provided no cost estimate for the more powerful SLS rocket NASA would need to mount a crewed Mars expedition the Obama administration envisions happening in the 2030s. According to NASA’s early plans, such a mission would entail multiple SLS-Orion launches.

The cost estimates NASA has offered so far “provide no information about the longer-term, life cycle costs of developing, manufacturing, and operating the launch vehicle, crew capsule, and ground systems” the agency has identified as crucial to the eventual Mars mission, the GAO wrote in its report.

In other words, they are going to spend $22 billion to launch the thing once. Meanwhile, NASA’s commercial manned space effort is producing three different spacecraft for about $3 billion total. If anyone in Congress had any brains, picking between these two programs would be easy, a no-brainer. Sadly, they have no brains, and really aren’t making their budgetary decisions with the needs of the nation in mind.

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Two VA patients committed suicide after their treatments were delayed against the wishes of their psychiatrist.

4:03 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Two VA patients committed suicide after their treatments were delayed against the wishes of their psychiatrist.

Dr. Margaret Moxness, who says she was employed at the Huntington VA Medical Center in Charleston, W.Va., from 2008 to 2010, told “Fox & Friends” on Monday that she was told to delay treatment even after she told supervisors they needed immediate care. She said at least two patients committed suicide while waiting for treatment between appointments.

Though the story is specifically about the widening scandal involving the Veterans Administration, it also tells us exactly what to expect from Obamacare in the coming years: bureaucracy, bad patient care, long wait times, and corruption by management. This is what one should expect from any monopolistic government-run program that doesn’t have to deal with competition on the open market.

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