Tag: policy

House about to renew FISA with only cosmetic changes

9:34 am

The fix is in: The House is about to vote on a renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), incorporating what appear to be only cosmetic changes to the law.

The deal reached by House leaders would require officers overseeing FISA applications to certify that the Justice Department has been fully informed of any issues with the accuracy of the application, and require that agencies submitting applications appoint officers to ensure the applications are compliant with the law.

The bill also includes measures to assuage concerns by Democrats and libertarians worried about government overreach in surveilling of American citizens, such as ending the National Security Agency’s to collect call detail records. It also includes measures to increase transparency, requiring the Justice Department to publish reports explaining its positions on how information is derived for FISA applications.

These are changes desired by the Democrats in the House. Or to put it another way, they are working hard to renew a law that I would call “The Law to Enable Democrats and their Allies in the Justice Department, FBI, and CIA to spy on Republicans”.

This law should expire. Trump should veto any renewal effort, no matter who writes it. It is unconstitutional., has done nothing to protect us, even as it is has been abused to violate our constitutional rights.

And even if it could be argued that the law provided the country some added security that would be lost if it expires, freedom is more important.

UPDATE: The House has passed the bill, which Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) condemned as “weak sauce.”

“The ‘Deal’ on FISA is weak sauce diluted [and] made impotent by A.G. Barr. None of the reforms prevent secret FISA court from abusing the rights of Americans. None of the reforms prevent a President of either party from a politically motivated investigation. Big Disappointment!” Paul tweeted early Tuesday evening.

Paul and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who have both vocally called for sweeping reforms to FISA, are urging President Trump to veto the bill if it arrives at his desk.

Barr was first pushing for passage of a renewal that would have changed nothing in the law, making me think that his so-called investigations into the FISA corruption are probably hogwash. He might make noises about upholding the law, but so far what he has done makes him appear a willing partner in the Washington corrupt culture, working to keep the status quo.

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Big budget cut for India’s manned space program

9:01 am

India’s manned space program has received a 70% cut in funding in that country’s most recent budget, according to one news story from India.

From the first link:

The human spaceflight program of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), called Gaganyaan, received only about 30% of the funds sought by the according to the Times of India. ISRO said it will find a way around the low budget, but details were not provided in the news report.

The plan has been to launch a unmanned mission late this year or early next year, with the 5-to-7-day manned mission to occur one year later.

Based on the article from India, it appears to me that these cuts are part of the negotiation process for determining ISRO’s budget, and are not yet firm. It also appears that the government is experiencing sticker shock. It wants a manned mission, but when it was told what it would cost it balked.

I suspect that it is highly unlikely that they will be able to fly the manned mission by 2022 with these cuts. The Modi government will either have to decide to spend the money, or significantly delay its human spaceflight effort.

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Russia delays first 2020 Proton launch due to “component mismatch”

8:48 am

Russian officials yesterday announced that they are delaying the first Proton launch in 2020 from March to May in order to replace components that during tests were found to be “mismatched.”

According to [Khrunichev Space Center Director General Alexei] Varochko, quality control tests revealed mismatch of one of the components’ parameters. “In order to ensure proper serviceability and guarantee the implementation of the Khrunichev Center’s liabilities, it was decided to replace the components set, including in the Proton-M carrier rocket, which is kept at the Baikonur space center, to put Express satellites into orbit,” he said.

Nor are they having issues only with their Proton rocket. Two days ago they announced a one month delay of a Soyuz rocket, set for launch for Arianespace, because of “an off-nominal malfunction … on a circuit board” in the Freget-M upper stage. Rather than replace the component, they have decided to replace the entire stage

Proton is built by the Khrunichev facility. Freget-M is built by the Lavochkin facility. For both to have issues like this suggests once again that Russia’s aerospace industry continues to have serious quality control problems in its manufacturing processes. The one bright spot is that they are at least finding out about the problems prior to launch.

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New inspector general report slams NASA’s SLS management

10:20 am

A new report [pdf] by NASA’s inspector general released today harshly slams the management of NASA for the never-ending cost overruns and scheduling delays that have plagued the agency’s effort to build and launch the Space Launch System (SLS).

From the report’s introduction:

Based on our review of SLS Program cost reporting, we found that the Program exceeded its Agency Baseline Commitment (ABC)—that is, the cost and schedule baselines committed to Congress against which a program is measured—by at least 33 percent at the end of fiscal year 2019, a figure that could reach 43 percent or higher if additional delays push the launch date for Artemis I beyond November 2020.

… [T]he SLS Program now projects the Artemis I launch will be delayed to at least spring 2021 or later. Further, we found NASA’s ABC cost reporting only tracks Artemis I-related activities and not total SLS Program costs. Overall, by the end of fiscal year 2020, NASA will have spent more than $17 billion on the SLS Program—including almost $6 billion not tracked or reported as part of the ABC.

The graph below, taken from page 45 of the report, illustrates the management failures here quite starkly.
» Read more

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China completes remote communications test of Mars rover

9:07 am

The new colonial movement: Though the report today in China’s state-run press is remarkably vague and lacking in details, it appears that they have successfully completed a remote communications test between their planned Mars rover and their ground control center.

The report also said that this will be the “only” such test before the summer launch of their orbiter/lander/rover to Mars.

China has been exceedingly closed-mouthed about this Mars project. Except for one landing test (which I found far from impressive), they have provided very little information about their progress.
While this does not mean they are having problems, it also does not engender confidence, especially because the launch window is only about four months away.

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China launches another GPS-type satellite

8:57 am

China today successfully launched another of its Beidou GPS-type satellites, using its Long March 3B rocket.

I found this data point from the link interesting:

Real-time, stand-alone Beidou horizontal positioning accuracy was classed as better than 6 meters (95 percent) and with a vertical accuracy better than 10 meters (95 percent). …[However, t]he system will be dual-use, based on a civilian service that will provide an accuracy of 10 meters in the user position, 0.2 m/s on the user velocity and 50 nanoseconds in time accuracy; and the military and authorized user’s service, providing higher accuracies.

New commercial GPS units will eventually add the Beidou constellation, and when combined with data from the U.S, Russian, European, and Indian systems, will likely get accuracies even higher.

The leaders in the the 2020 launch race:

5 China
4 SpaceX
2 Arianespace (Europe)
2 Russia

The U.S. still leads China 7 to 5 in the national rankings.

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Coronavirus and the madness of crowds

1:45 pm

Yesterday I got a bit of frustrating and disappointing news. The 51st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC-51) to be held in the Houston suburbs beginning on March 15 (to which I was planning to attend) had been canceled due to coronavirus/COVID-19 fears. From the organizers’ email:

We regret to inform you that LPSC 51 will be cancelled due to concerns about COVID-19. This difficult decision has been made after a careful assessment of the risks as determined by the CDC and WHO; consultation with NASA PSD leadership; and consideration of community feedback. We are fully committed to ensuring that our conference attendees remain safe and well.

The organizers had earlier in the week sent out an email stating that they were considering their options because of the epidemic, and would announce a decision on March 6. That they pushed forward the cancellation decision by two days was almost certainly prompted by the revelation yesterday that a case of coronavirus had been confirmed in Houston.

To say this is a disappointment is an understatement. I was very much looking forward to meeting face-to-face many of the planetary scientists I have been corresponding with during the past few years. I was also eagerly anticipating getting an up-front look at the most recent discoveries in the exploration of the solar system, and to pass those discoveries on to my readers.

My disappointment however must pale in comparison to the disappointment of the scientists involved, especially the younger ones trying to establish themselves in the field. They need conferences like this to not only promote their work, but to network and to learn for themselves what others in their field are doing.

What makes this decision more appalling to me is how completely pointless and fear-driven it is. While it makes sense to try to slow the spread of the disease while scientists scramble to understand it and possibly develop a vaccine, it also makes no sense to stop living and to cease all effort out of mindless fear and ignorant panic.

And what we have today is the latter. This planetary conference was not the only one cancelled this week. On March 2 the American Physical Society panicked and cancelled its only annual convention, only 36 hours before it was about to begin, out of a fear that a gathering of 11,000 scientists from all over the world would help spread the disease.

This decision was absurd, however, as a large bulk of the conference’s attendees had already arrived. The cancellation thus accomplished practically nothing to stop coronavirus, while succeeding ably in stymying the spread of knowledge.

The simple fact is that though COVID-19 is a concern and must not be ignored, it is hardly the worldwide crisis being touted by our mindless press, odious politicians, and largely politically correct intellectual community.

A rational look at the facts give a bit of context that deflates the balloon of this madness. Several facts, both good and bad:
» Read more

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DARPA finally picks Northrop Grumman for satellite servicing

9:56 am

Capitalism in space: Following the successful docking of Northrop Grumman’s Mission Extension Vehicle-1 (MEV) to a decommissioned commercial communications satellite on February 27, 2020, DARPA has finally selected that company as its partner in its government-funded satellite servicing program.

For reasons that have been puzzling, DARPA previously rejected the MEV and chose in 2017 as its partner what was then a mostly Canadian company, causing legal protests. That company however backed out of the program in January, and with the success of MEV, DARPA could no longer justify its strange aversion to Northrop Grumman.

Northrop Grumman had planned to market MEV to commercial companies. The infusion of support from DARPA will accelerate that process.

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Florida to reconfigure Cape Canaveral roads to accommodate New Glenn

9:46 am

Capitalism in space: Because the first stages of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket will be so large and heavy, Florida is instituting a project to widen roads and move light and utility poles in order to accommodate the transport from the factory to the launchpad.

The road widening will make room for the stage, which must follow a route not usually used. The more direct route however requires the stage to cross a bridge that cannot take its weight. If New Glenn does begin to fly regularly, however, I would expect money will eventually be found to rebuild that bridge.

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Japan suspends funding to TMT

9:33 am

The Japanese government has confirmed that it has suspended payment of its annual contribution to the budget of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) because of the project’s inability to begin construction on Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

Japanese astronomers strongly prefer placing TMT on Mauna Kea because it is relatively close to Japan, unlike the proposed replacement site in the Grand Canary Islands in the Atlantic.

I would say this is the next nail in the coffin for TMT in Hawaii. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has money to fund construction of a big telescope for U.S. astronomers, but has not been able to decide on whether to give the money to TMT, or to the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), already under construction in Chile, or to both.

Astronomers have been lobbying for dual funding, using the argument that the two telescopes are in the opposite north and south hemispheres. Moving TMT to the Grand Canaries, at a higher latitude than Hawaii, strengthens this argument. With the apparent exit of Japan it could be that the way is now cleared to give up on Hawaii and for TMT to make the move to a more welcoming site.

Hawaii’s protesters, supported by the state’s Democratically-controlled government, will of course celebrate. What they will be celebrating however will be the death-knell of science in Hawaii.

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Stalemate continues in Israel

10:29 am

With 99% of the votes counted from this week’s election Israel, it appears that the stalemate between the right and left party coalitions (that has forced three elections in the past year) will continue, with neither obtaining sufficient seats in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) to form a majority.

The stalemate this past year has forced some consolidation in the number of parties, but not enough. Netanyahu’s conservative block remains the largest at 58 seats, but it needs 61 to form a government.

The problem remains the small party Yisrael Beytenu, which was once part of the conservative block but pulled out last year. Their leader, Avigdor Liberman, has repeatedly demanded the formation of a unity government, comprised of Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party with the liberal Blue-and-White party, thereby cutting out the smaller religious parties that form the rest of Netanyahu’s block.

Though this position appears to have caused Yisrael Beytenu to lose one seat in the most recent election, its base, made up mostly of Russian immigrants, has remained firm. These votes, while tending to be conservative, seem also hostile to religion, thus explaining Liberman’s demands.

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Trump refuses to renew FISA without changes

10:11 am

President Trump yesterday once again told Congressional leaders that he will let the law that authorizes the FISA court to expire rather than sign a renewal with no changes in the law.

The surveillance provisions are set to expire on March 15, and the White House indicated to Republican leaders Tuesday that it would support only a temporary, 30-day extension to allow Congress to iron out the reforms.

House Democratic leaders have indicated publicly they are open to bipartisan compromise.

“Just got back from the White House. @realDonaldTrump made it abundantly clear that he will NOT accept a clean reauthorization of the Patriot Act without significant FISA reform! I agree with him!” Kentucky GOP Sen Rand Paul tweeted Tuesday.

Paul has been pushing for some fundamental changes, and it is very clear now that he has Trump backing him.

As far as I am concerned, we will be better off letting this unconstitutional law expire entirely. It was specifically designed to to give the courts and federal agencies a method for violating the Constitution in order to allow them more freedom for providing us better security. The result however has been that those agencies did a poor job of protecting us even as they misused the law in an effort to overthrow a legal election.

That Congress was even contemplating a renewal without changes illustrates once again how little they care about the interests of the American people, or the Constitution. They apparently like such violations, and want the ability to allow them to continue. Trump (and Senator Paul) are forcing them to do their proper jobs.

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Primary turnout numbers for Trump

9:56 am

While most of the press has been focused entirely on the results to the Democratic Party’s presidential primary elections, few have noticed that President Trump has actually been getting a very large turn-out of voters in those same primary states, sometimes exceeding the entire Democrat total, even though his opponents stand no chance of gaining the nomination and there is really no reason to come out to vote for him.

The article at the link posts the numbers in every state that has so far held a primary election. In three of those eleven elections Trump topped all Democrats combined. In three other states his numbers exceeded 90% of the Democratic total, and in a fourth it was within 80%.

Of the four remaining states, three are so solidly Democratic (California, Massachusetts, and Vermont) that no one expects Trump to win them. Yet, Trump’s numbers in California were still 60% of the Democratic totals.

What does this tell us? It suggests that Trump’s support remains very passionate, and very large. It also suggests that in the November election Trump can expect a strong turn-out. Whether that turn-out can give him the majority in the total vote remains unknown, as he would still need to draw a lot of votes from the populous coastal Democratic strongholds in New York and California.

The totals here also strongly suggest that Trump will not lose any of the states he won in 2016, and might gain a few, meaning he is on track to win the election easily. That the Democratic candidate is likely going to be either communist Bernie Sanders or senile Joe Biden further reinforces that conclusion.

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ExoMars2020 parachute tests delayed until late March

8:59 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) has decided to delay until late March the next high altitude tests of the revamped ExoMars2020 parachutes, despite the success of recent ground tests.

The tests of the 15-meter-diameter supersonic and 35-meter-wide subsonic parachutes—an essential part of the entry, descent and landing phase of the mission—had been scheduled for December and February. The delay comes despite six ground tests demonstrating successful parachute extraction – the point at which damage was caused in earlier, failed high altitude tests.

Both tests need to be successful for the go-ahead for launch of 300-kilogram Rosalind Franklin rover during the July 25 to Aug. 13 Mars launch window. Any failure would mean a wait of 26 months for the next launch window, opening late 2022.

There will be a meeting next week of the project’s top management, from both Russia and Europe, and I strongly suspect that they are going to decide to delay launch to the 2022 launch window. Not only have the parachutes not been tested successfully at high altitude, they recently discovered an issue with the glue holding the solar panel hinges on the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover.

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Astra scrubs first orbital launch

1:47 pm

Capitalism in space: Astra, competing for DARPA launch challenge, is about to attempt the first orbital launch of its Rocket 3.0. Live stream of launch embedded below.

The rocket is carrying three cubesats. DARPA’s goal is for the development of a rocket system that can very quickly go to launch. In this case Astra only found out what its payloads were about a month before launch, and had to proceed to launch in mere weeks. They will win $2 million. They can get another $10 million if they launch again by the end of March.

The launch went into an unplanned hold 53 seconds before launch. Their launch window extends to 6:30 pm (Eastern), so there is still a chance they can lift-off today.

They have now scrubbed the launch. No word yet on when they will reschedule. Their failure to launch today however means they will not win the $2 million launch challenge. It was unclear from the broadcast if they would win the $10 million if they manage two launches by the end of March. (According to this website, that award is also lost.) It was even unclear whether they would even try to launch their three cubesat payloads.

In fact, as I watched the post-scrub interviews, I began to get suspicious about this whole event. Astra has been very secretive about its work. They have never successfully launched before. Could this merely have been a demonstration that they could get a rocket set up on an empty concrete pad, with payload, in only a matter of weeks, knowing that the launch was simply impossible? I have no idea, but I do wonder.

My suspicions do not mean Astra won’t launch eventually. I just now have doubts they ever were ready today.

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SLS likely launch mid- to late-2021

9:33 am

According to comments by one NASA official last week, the first flight of SLS will likely not occur until the middle or late 2021, a further delay than the most recent prediction of April 2021.

NASA Associate Administrator Steve Jurczyk said on Friday that the first launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) with an uncrewed Orion spacecraft, Artemis I, will take place in mid-late 2021. He also said NASA will award contracts “within weeks” for the Human Landing System (HLS) as NASA strives to meet the Trump Administration’s goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by 2024 — the Artemis program. Embracing Artemis is the first step towards a trillion dollar cislunar space economy according to space industry executive Tory Bruno who spoke at the same conference in Laurel, MD. He urged everyone to stop “squabbling” and support the program.

There is a lot more in the article, including a lot of advocacy by Jurczyk and others for Lunar Gateway. I also found certain aspects of the Trump administration’s effort to make their 2024 target date for manned lunar landing, specifically related to the quick development of that Human Landing System (HLS), somewhat concerning:

We can’t thrash on the requirements. So on HLS, we said 90 days, we’re going to nail down the requirements. And if we can’t agree, NASA’s just going to tell you, use ours. We’re going to negotiate technical standards. Either use ours or show equivalency to yours, but after 90 days if we can’t get agreement, you’re going to use ours. … 90 days and we’re done with Human Landing System requirements.

I am all for doing it fast but one needs to also do it smart. I wonder about this approach.

Jurczyk noted that the administration and NASA are doing a lot of work outlining their plans for the whole Artemis exploration program following that lunar landing, and hope to reveal it by the end of March. Since this program still remains unfunded by Congress, that announcement will be part of the political campaign to obtain those funds.

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Chang’e-4 and Yutu-2 complete 15th lunar day on Moon

9:17 am

Chinese engineers have put both Chang’e-4 and Yutu-2 into sleep mode after successfully completing their fifteenth lunar day on the far side of the Moon.

According to the story from China’s state-run press, Yutu-2 has now traveled just under 400 meters, or about 1,311 feet. We do not have a map outlining its total path, though past data suggests it has generally traveled westward away from Chang’e-4. Other than this detail, the story provides little other information.

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The modern blacklist in climate science

10:32 am

Link here. This story, which outlines the effort by global warming scientists to blacklist any scientist who expresses skepticism about human-caused global warming, is really not news. This odious effort was documented more than a decade ago in the climategate emails, where people like Michael Mann and others revealed their attempts to block publication of any papers by such skeptics.

The horrible part of the story however is how the blacklist effort has grown in fury and effectiveness since those climategate emails were released. Instead of being outraged that these scientists were warping peer review, the climate field rallied around them in support. Now, not only do global warmists try to block publication by any skeptics, they now work to deny them funding and to get them fired from their jobs.

And they have been increasingly successful. Do not expect any really honest science to come from the climate field for years to come. It has created for itself a very secure bubble. Nothing can challenge its work, even when that work involves data tampering and falsification.

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Trump pushing for major FISA reform or he will let law expire

10:07 am

It appears that President Trump is now demanding a major rewrite of the law that authorizes the FISA court or else he will allow the law to expire.

Congress has approximately 10 working days to reauthorize three expiring provisions of the USA Freedom Act, a 2015 bill that overhauled the country’s surveillance laws, with Attorney General William Barr and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) backing a “clean” extension.

But Trump threw a grenade into those already fragile plans Thursday, when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told reporters that the president supports his effort to include broader reforms of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) as part of any reauthorization of the intelligence programs. “I’ve talked to the president, and I plan on insisting on getting a vote,” Paul said, asked by The Hill about including broader FISA reforms in a bill would authorize the expiring provisions of the USA Freedom Act.

Paul wants a vote on an amendment that would prevent FISA warrants from being used against Americans. Paul’s proposal would also prevent FISA information from being used against Americans in a domestic courtroom. The president, according to Paul, is supportive of his amendment.

Trump’s apparent support for including broader changes to the surveillance court associated with FISA comes as he’s railed repeatedly about his campaign being “spied” upon by the Obama-era FBI. [emphasis mine]

The simple fact is that the FISA court has always been unconstitutional. As written, it is designed — and been used — to bypass the fourth amendment’s requirement that no searches be conducted of a person’s private property without probably cause and a search warrant. Paul’s amendment would simply bring the FISA court into line with constitutional law.

It would be criminal if both Congress and Trump allow this court to be renewed without making this change, especially considering the abuse committed by the Obama administration and government officials of the court in the past four years. Yet, Attorney General Barr as well as Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) are calling for exactly that.

Barr indicated during the lunch that Trump would support a clean extension of the three programs. McConnell threw his support behind extending the authorities during a press conference after the powwow with Barr. “These tools have been overwhelmingly useful according to our intelligence advisors, and I hope that when the Senate deals with these expiring provisions in a couple of weeks, we will be able to continue to have them in law, which will, of course, provide maximum protection for the American people,” McConnell told reporters.

As good as McConnell has been in getting Trump’s conservative judges confirmed to the courts, he sometimes infuriates me. Considering the abuse of power seen in the FBI, Justice Department, and Obama administration, it makes no sense to renew these laws unchanged.

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More SLS launches planned/proposed?

9:48 am

According to this article from Ars Technica, NASA is considering shifting gears in its Artemis lunar program to become more dependent on SLS rather than a mix of SLS and commercial rockets.

The new plan, if implemented, would substantially cut commercially developed rockets—such as SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and Blue Origin’s New Glenn—back from the Artemis program. Previously, NASA had said it would launch elements of its Human Landing System on commercial rockets, because such vehicles cost much less than the estimated $2 billion rate per launch of the SLS vehicle. Now, perhaps, private rockets may be called upon to launch smaller pieces such as a lunar rover to the Moon’s surface.

The source document, which appears to be very preliminary and which NASA calls “inaccurate”, also calls for four SLS launches leading up to the 2024 lunar landing, something that seems very very unlikely. Not only would it require Boeing to move faster in building additional SLS rockets, something the company has routinely been unable to do, this schedule assumes funding from Congress for SLS, something that remains unclear.

It also appears from the proposed launch schedule that Lunar Gateway is fading from view. This makes great sense, as the Gateway only causes delays and higher costs for any lunar landing program, something the Trump administration clearly wishes to avoid.

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Northrop Grumman completes test of Omega rocket 2nd stage

9:11 am

Capitalism in space: Northrop Grumman yesterday successfully executed a static fire test of the second stage of its OmegA rocket, set for first launch next year.

The first two stages are solid rockets, based on the solid rockets used by the space shuttle. They still have to test the liquid-fueled third stage.

The rocket’s development has essentially been funded by the military, and will thus be used mostly by them to launch national security payloads.

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Another professor arrested for lying about working with China

9:38 pm

Another professor, this time from the University of Tennessee, has been arrested for lying about his ties to China in a NASA proposal.

Anming Hu, an associate professor in the department of mechanical, aerospace and biomedical engineering at the university’s flagship Knoxville campus, was charged with three counts of wire fraud and three counts of making false statements…

Prosecutors say Hu defrauded the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by failing to disclose the fact that he was also a professor at the Beijing University of Technology in China. Under federal law, NASA cannot fund or give grant money to Chinese-owned companies or universities.

According to the indictment, as the University of Tennessee last December was preparing a proposal on Hu’s behalf for a NASA-funded project, Hu provided false assurances to the school that he was not part of any business collaboration involving China.

I wonder how much technical information he passed to China’s space effort.

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VIPER lunar rover delayed, NASA seeks new bids for delivering it to Moon

10:29 am

NASA earlier this week revealed that it is delaying the launch of its VIPER lunar rover until 2023, even as it announced that it is seeking new bids from commercial companies for delivering it to Moon.

In the past two months NASA has apparently been trying to reorganize its unmanned lunar exploration, resulting it a variety of puzzling and sometimes sudden shifts in policy and direction. First they announced they are going to issue a request for proposals, then they delayed it, then they issued it only to withdrew it one week later, with no explanation.

This week’s announcement is another attempt to release this request, accompanied by the delay in VIPER. Though NASA says the delay is to allow “for upgrades so that the rover can conduct longer and more exciting science on the Moon”, I think instead it is to simplify it so that the commercial companies will be able to launch and land it. VIPER’s heritage designs come from an earlier NASA rover project dubbed Resource Prospector that was cancelled because it was going to be too expensive and complex. I think the private companies building landers for such a rover told NASA that they couldn’t handle those heritage designs, forcing NASA to rethink.

If my suspicions are true, this is actually a very good sign. NASA is allowing the private sector to guide it in ways to save money and work more efficiently. That guidance might cause some initial delays as NASA shifts course, but in the long run it will make for a better run operation, costing less while accomplishing more.

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Europe considering delaying ExoMars2020 two years

8:09 am

The Europe Space Agency (ESA) is considering delaying the launch of its ExoMars2020 Mars rover two years because of continuing problems with its parachutes.

According to a spokesperson for the European Space Agency (ESA), a “working-level review” for the project was held among ESA and Roscosmos officials in late January, and a preliminary assessment was forwarded to the respective heads of the space agencies, Jan Wörner of ESA and Dmitry Rogozin of Roscosmos, on February 3. “They instructed the respective inspectors general and program chiefs to submit an updated plan and schedule covering all the remaining activities necessary for an authorization to launch,” the ESA spokesperson said. “This plan will be examined by the two agency heads who will meet on 12 March to jointly agree the next steps.”

It appears that the European and Russian officials will make a public announcement about ExoMars next month. Their options include pressing ahead with a launch this year or delaying two years until the next favorable window for a launch to Mars opens. Given multiple issues with the mission, a source said a delay is the most likely option.

The parachutes are not the only problem. They have just discovered during thermal testing that the glue used in the the hinges of the rover’s solar panels comes unstuck.

In August 2019, when the parachute issues were first revealed (after much hemming and hawing by ESA officials), I predicted a 50-50 chance they’d delay. When in September 2019 the problems were found to be more serious than first admitted, I lowered the chances of meeting the 2020 launch date to less than 25%.

Right now I predict that the launch of ExoMars2020 will not occur this summer, but will be delayed until the next Martian launch window in 2022. You heard it here first.

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College apologizes because teacher accurately quotes historical document

9:43 am

The coming dark age: The head of the University of Oklahoma has publicly apologized for a journalism professor because that professor had, after warning the class, accurately read aloud an historical document that included the word “nigger.”

The heart of the apology says it all:

The professor, a faculty member in History, read from a historical document that used the “N-word” repeatedly. While she could have made the point without reciting the actual word, she chose otherwise. Her issuance of a “trigger warning” before her recitation does not lessen the pain caused by the use of the word. For students in the class, as well as members of our community, this was another painful experience. It is common sense to avoid uttering the most offensive word in the English language, especially in an environment where the speaker holds the power.

This apology is downright hostile to the pursuit of knowledge, and coming from the head of a university is especially appalling.

My regular readers know that I forbid the use of obscenities by commenters, as I oppose the recent cultural trend to make their use ubiquitous and casual. I think it debases everyone, and prevents thoughtful debate. However, if you want to get an accurate sense of history you must have the open-mindedness to tolerate hearing such things in order to understand that history.

Moreover, this administrator assumes that his students are so pathetically weak and delicate that hearing this word would destroy them. Poppy-cock! What is really happening is that he is bowing to the race-mongers and political bullies who have been using their demands on what language to speak to force everyone to endorse their political rule.

The future is grim if it will become impossible to learn anything that might offend you. In fact, in that culture you really will not be able to learn anything at all.

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NASA leaning towards long-duration flight for 1st Dragon mission

9:11 am

Capitalism in space: According to one former astronaut as well as a review of photos of the training being given to the astronauts who will fly on SpaceX’s first manned Dragon flight, this Space News article thinks that NASA will make that first flight a long-duration mission.

This Dragon demo mission is officially still planned as a short mission, no more than two weeks. To extend it requires additional training, which the photos appear to show, and would thus delay its launch by as yet an unspecified time period.

The article also cites a third reason NASA is now favoring the long-duration option: The issues with Boeing’s manned Starliner capsule:

Another factor in any decision to extend Demo-2 is the status of the other commercial crew vehicle, Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner. That vehicle flew an uncrewed test flight in December, but software problems during the flight, including one which shortened the mission and prevented a docking with the ISS, have raised questions about whether a second uncrewed test flight will be needed. An investigation into those problems is expected by the end of this month.

Even if NASA decides a second uncrewed test flight of Starliner is not needed, a review of all of the spacecraft’s one million lines of code, and other reviews, is likely to delay a crewed test flight of the spacecraft. NASA and Boeing had previously agreed to make that test flight a long-duration mission, with NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Nicole Mann and Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson performing space station training in addition to that for the Starliner itself.

The delay in Boeing’s long duration mission leaves a gap in the schedule for maintaining crews on ISS. Flying Dragon long-duration would help solve that.

11 comments

Watch a liberal lynch mob form and riot, in real time

12:02 pm

Since the 2016 election campaign, the number of examples of physical attacks by leftists against conservatives, journalists, Trump supporters at campaign events, on college campuses, in restaurants, or simply on the street, has grown so much that they now seem to occur almost every day, and have become ubiquitous. In fact, they have grown so frequent that there are no longer unique and — in that sense — no longer newsworthy.

Just last week for example a couple was arrested for trying to run down two teenage boys with their car because the boys were riding bicycles with Trump flags.

According to an affidavit from Lake County, Indiana, Cailyn Smith, 18, and Kyren Jones, 23, were each charged on Thursday with two felony counts of intimidation and criminal recklessness over the incident involving the teens, who are brothers.

The brothers told police that they were riding their bikes at around 8:30 p.m. when a blue Chevy Malibu “swerved as if the driver wanted to hit them” and they had to ride their bikes into the grass, the affidavit stated.

A woman later identified as Smith then yelled “y’all scared just like your president” and “America is not great [expletive].” The couple reportedly sped off after the boys threatened to call the police.

As I say, this behavior has becoming horribly typical. The American left has become the most intolerant, close-minded, and vicious community I have ever seen in the U.S. in my entire life.

And with each passing day it is becoming even more violent and intolerant, its behavior rising to such levels of blind emotional hatred that we can almost guarantee it will soon lead to murder.

Don’t believe me? Then watch the video below.
» Read more

43 comments

Space Force lobbies for $1 billion extra

8:30 am

The Space Force has put forth an extra wish list of missions/projects that require an $1 billion more above the $15 billion the agency has already requested in the next federal budget for 2021.

While about 10 percent of the request is for classified programs, the remaining funding runs the gamut, from bolstering space situational awareness to accelerating the development of navigational satellites to establishing new commercial satellite communication capabilities in low earth orbit.

Overall this wish list appears properly focused, aimed at upgrading or improving existing space military assets rather than growing the Space Force’s bureaucracy. We shall see over time if this proves true. I can’t help having doubts.

4 comments

First SLS launch pushed back again to April 2021

9:15 am

NASA on February 20, 2020 finally admitted that the first SLS launch cannot happen in 2020, and set a new target date no earlier than April 18, 2021.

The previous target launch date in November 2020 was always a pure fantasy. NASA just held off admitting it in order to defuse any political consequences for having a program, building SLS, that will end up taking them almost two decades to complete.

This new launch date is likely the most realistic so far, since the hardware for SLS is actually finally coming together. Nonetheless, if anything at all should go wrong along the way, especially with the full static test firing of the core booster of the first stage scheduled for no earlier than August, then expect more delays, possibly lasting years.

14 comments

Yutu-2 finds rocks that appear young

7:29 am

Yutu-2 has found a cluster of small rocks that appear relatively young, with little erosion.

The rocks also also appear as if they came from another place on the Moon.

Closer inspection of the rocks by the rover team revealed little erosion, which on the moon is caused by micrometeorites and the huge changes in temperature across long lunar days and nights. That anomaly suggests that the fragments are relatively young. Over time, rocks tend to erode into soils.

The relative brightness of the rocks also indicated they may have originated in an area very different to the one Yutu-2 is exploring.

Youth in this case is very relative. The rocks might be young when compared to the surface on which they sit, but they still could be more than a billion years olf.

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