NASA, crunched for money due to overages on James Webb Space Telescope, has cancelled its participation in the space gravitational wave mission LISA.
SpaceX unveils its plan for the Falcon 9 Heavy, what would be the world’s most powerful private rocket.
The new rocket will be able to carry about 117,000 pounds (53,000 kilograms) of cargo to orbit – about twice the payload-carrying capability of the space shuttle. The Falcon Heavy would launch more than twice as much weight as the Delta 4 heavy, currently the most powerful rocket in operation. Only NASA’s Saturn 5 moon rocket, which last launched in 1973, could carry more cargo to orbit, SpaceX officials said.
Musk said the rocket should lower the launch cost of cargo to about $1,000 per pound, about one-tenth the cost per pound on NASA shuttle launches.
More idiotic regulations from Obamacare: On Friday the FDA issued new Obamacare regulations, requiring calorie counts on restaurant menus.
EPA whistleblower slams global warming science and policy in new peer-reviewed study. The paper’s conclusion:
The scientific hypotheses underlying global warming alarmism are overwhelmingly contradicted by real-world data, and for that reason economic studies on the alleged benefits of controlling greenhouse gas emissions are baseless.
This idiotic thing has got to be repealed: Nearly $2 billion already paid to unions, state public employee systems, and big corporations under Obamacare.
The program began making payouts on June 1, 2010. Between that date and the end of 2010, it paid out about $535 million dollars. But according to the new report, the rate of spending has since increased dramatically, to about $1.3 billion just for the first two and a half months of this year. At that rate, it could burn through the entire $5 billion appropriation as early as 2012. [emphasis mine]
The squealing is now getting idiotic: The administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development claimed on Wednesday that GOP budget cuts for the 2011 budget “would lead to 70,000 kids dying.”
More proof it’s nothing but pork: Witnesses at House committee hearing express strong concerns about the heavy-lift rocket plan (the-program-formerly-called-Constellation) imposed on NASA by Congress.. Key quote:
“We simply do not know what is next,” said Maser, president of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, which builds the space shuttle’s main engines. “We are in a crisis.”
A cautionary tale: Adventures in federal budget cutting.
The experience has been difficult and has caused me some personal problems. I am afraid this will be the case for anyone who tries to cut spending — in the face of an entrenched bureaucracy that thrives on ever-increasing budgets.
Repeal the goddamn thing already! It appears that Louisiana will be the ninth state to seek a waiver from Obamacare.
The pigs rule! Congress to NASA: follow the authorization act.
In other words, Congress wants NASA to spend money (Pork!) on a rocket it can’t complete for the cash provided.
Senate Democrats and the White House offer $20B more in cuts.
This is further evidence that the political winds favor trimming the government. However, to find out how serious the Democrats are we’d need to find out some details about their specific proposed cuts.
More on the space war over NASA from Jeff Foust of The Space Review. Also read this Aviation Week article.
Overall, it is still a mess, with much of the money allocated to NASA a complete waste that will not get us into space.
The NASA space war mess.
Congress is now looking to flatline or cut NASA budget (or not enact new ones) while also playing its own game of telling NASA to do things it simply does not have the budget to do. A new slow motion train wreck is in the making.
An critique of NASA: No vision equals no innovation.
That NASA (and our government) lacks vision is not necessarily a bad thing. For the first time in decades, this is leaving room for new and independent companies to move in and fill the vacuum left by NASA. In the end, I think we will be far better off.
Repeal the damn bill! An industry report has revealed that consumers may be paying billions of dollars more in out-of-pocket health care expenses due to Obamacare.
Repeal the damn bill! The death panel that is part of Obamacare.
The board would cap the total amount of money Medicare recipients could get for care. Roe, a practicing doctor before he entered politics, said that means health care decisions will end up being based solely on cost, instead of what the best possible option is for Medicare patients. . . . Congress can recommend different spending amounts, but has to offset any increase in one area with a decrease in another. If Congress doesn’t change anything in the board’s “recommendations” for how much money should be spent per Medicare recipient, their recommendations become law – even without congressional approval or the president’s signature.
The program-formerly-called-Constellation moves forward: Lockheed Martin yesterday unveiled the Orion spacecraft and the test center to be used to prepare it for space.
Though this press announcement was actually intended to encourage Congress to continue funding, it also illustrated how this portion at least of Constellation had made significant progress before it was undercut by both Obama and Congress.
The mess from the NASA space war spreads: Three European space science missions are now on their own after the U.S. the space agency pulls funding.
A boxing gym, fighting its state’s eminent domain proceedings for being “blighted”, gets its day in court.
Those private companies better get cracking! The Russians have raised their ticket price again, from $56 to $63 million per astronaut ride on a Soyuz.
Does this make you feel safer? The TSA is going to retest the radiation levels of all its airport body scanners after maintenance records on some showed levels 10 times higher than expected. Also this:
The TSA is responsible for the safety of its own X-ray devices. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said it does not routinely inspect airport X-ray machines because they are not considered medical devices. The TSA’s airport scanners are exempt from state radiation inspections because they belong to a federal agency.
The squealing continues: Senators defend NPR funding. I like this quote in the comments:
What part of being broke do they not understand?
Not surprisingly, the Obama administration has appealed a Florida judge’s ruling that Obamacare is unconstitutional.
