Tag: policy

FAA regulations have forced a volunteer pilot program in Alaska to cancel its support of the Yukon Quest International Dog Race.

1:25 pm

We’re here to help you: FAA regulations have forced a volunteer pilot program in Alaska to cancel its support of the Yukon Quest International Dog Race.

The rules prohibit private pilots from accepting cost deferments such as fuel, accommodations and food. According to the agency’s regulations, allowing private pilots to accept compensation for costs is commercial activity, and commercial aviation is heavily regulated.

In other words, because these volunteers are simply getting reimbursed for their expenses the FAA forbids them from volunteering. Isn’t it great how the government is so helpful?

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Ed Weiler quit NASA over Mars planetary program cuts to be announced Monday

12:53 pm

Ed Weiler quit NASA in September because of the cuts to the Mars planetary program that the Obama administration will announce on Monday.

Weiler was NASA’s chief science administrator for most of the past thirty years.

As I have already noted, the programs that NASA shouldn’t cut are its planetary and astronomy programs. Far better to dump the Space Launch System, which eats up a lot more cash and will end up producing nothing. By doing so you would not only reduce NASA’s actual budget — thereby saving the federal government money — you could simultaneously increase the budgets of the planetary and astronomy programs.

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According to scientists, Obama’s proposed budget — to be announced on Monday — will cut the planetary program severely.

12:36 am

According to scientists, Obama’s proposed budget — to be announced on Monday — will severely cut NASA’s planetary program.

We will find out if this is true on Monday. However, I suspect it is, as all the rumors have pointed that way for months.

Meanwhile, Congress is forcing NASA to spend $3 billion on the Space Launch System (SLS), a rocket that will never get finished. As I have written previously, this is a very bad use of the taxpayer’s money. Better to get rid of SLS, put half the savings into the science program (which would almost certainly increase its overall budget) and pocket the rest as budget savings.

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“I feel duped.”

10:33 pm

The man duped is Fritz Vahrenholt, a former global warming advocate and leftwing environmentalist in Germany. The words were spoken in a long and detailed interview in Der Spiegel. Read it all, as it demonstrates without question that Vahrenholt has done his research about the complexities of climate research as well as the flaws and dishonesty contained within the IPCC reports. However, he gets to the nub of the matter when he is asked why he has taken on the role of a climate skeptic with such passion.
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“It is unacceptable that HHS fails to maintain accurate financial records and fails to adhere to federal law designed to protect taxpayer dollars from mismanagement and waste.”

9:41 am

“It is unacceptable that HHS fails to maintain accurate financial records and fails to adhere to federal law designed to protect taxpayer dollars from mismanagement and waste.”

HHS is Health and Human Services, the federal department tasked with running Obamacare.

The important thing to note about this story is how completely normal it seems for a government agency like HHS to have significant problems keeping track of its money and operations. No one is ever surprised when a government agency is found incompetent in this manner, and in fact, it happens frequently. And yet, the President and the Democrats in Congress thought it perfectly reasonable to hand over control of healthcare to that same government.

Not only is this story further evidence that Obamacare should be repealed, it illustrates again how clueless the Democrats were who voted for it.

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All NASA funding for the European ExoMars mission appears to have been cut by the Obama administration.

9:13 pm

All NASA funding for ESA’s unmanned ExoMars mission appears to have been cut by the Obama administration.

A public announcement by Nasa of its withdrawal from the ExoMars programme, as it is known in Europe, will probably come once President Obama’s 2013 Federal Budget Request is submitted. This request, expected in the coming days, will give the US space agency a much clearer view of how much money it has to implement its various projects. “The Americans have indicated that the possibility of them participating is now low – very low. It’s highly unlikely,” said Alvaro Gimenez, Esa’s director of science.

Though this story doesn’t confirm the earlier rumors that the Obama administration was going to eliminate the entire NASA planetary program, it sure lends those rumors further weight. However, the new budget should be released any day now, when we will finally find out.

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Obamacare vs. the Catholics

1:41 am

Religious liberty is such an inconvenient thing: Obamacare vs. the Catholics.

And then there’s this: An affront Catholics agree on.

And this: The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America has announced its unanimous support of the Catholic Church and opposition to the Obama Administration over the new Obamacare regulations.

My question is this: if Obama should back down before the election and cancel these odious regulations, will the liberal church leaders forget the whole thing and support him again, or will they finally wake up and see him for what he is: an arrogant power-hungry politician eager to force his will on everyone, regardless of their beliefs?

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R.I.P: Roger Boisjoly, 73, has died.

8:00 am

R.I.P: Roger Boisjoly, 73, has died.

Boisjoly was the engineer who in 1985 warned NASA about the danger of launching the shuttle in cold weather, that the solid rocket booster’s joints might not seal correctly under those conditions, thereby causing a catastrophic failure. Sadly, he was ignored, even ostracized, and on January 28, 1986, Challenger broke apart 74 seconds after launch, killing seven astronauts.

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Lobbying to save commercial space

2:08 pm

Jeff Foust reports today that the long delayed final FAA reauthorization bill also includes language that will extend until 2015 the restrictions on the FAA’s ability to regulate commercial space.

How nice of them.

When the Commercial Space Law Amendments Act (CSLAA) passed in 2004 I wrote in my UPI column Space Watch that I thought it was a bad idea and would cause great harm to the commercial space industry. All the law accomplished was hand power to the FAA and Congress to restrict commercial activities in space, without providing the industry any real benefit. Even with this extension space commercial companies remain at the mercy of Congressional action or FAA regulation, neither of which is really interested in helping this new industry.

The bad elements of the bill are finally beginning to come to light.
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The head of Russia’s space agency makes news again

9:33 am

The following stories are all the result of statements made by Vladimir Popovkin, the head of Roscosmos, the Russian Federal space agency, during a radio interview yesterday.

This is the same guy that only a few weeks ago was throwing accusations at the U.S. for the failure of Phobos-Grunt.

What should we make of these statements? First, everything Popovkin says is aimed at fund-raising. Whatever his background, he is a political appointee whose job is to generate interest and funding for Russia’s space program. Everything he says in public must be weighed against this reality. That he first tried to shift the blame to the U.S. for Phobos-Grunt’s loss was an effort to absolve his program from any blame and thus reduce the possibility that the Russian government might cut his funding. Now that his agency has gotten approval of its insurance payment for the failure, however, he is free to say otherwise.

Second, these announcements give us a clear indication of where the Russia space effort is heading, and that effort looks both thoughtful and intelligent.
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A report tonight at the Daily Caller says that at least two Justice Department prosecutors accepted cash bribes from allegedly corrupt finance executives who were indicted but never arrested or prosecuted.

10:16 pm

Oh my, how much worse can it get? A report tonight at the Daily Caller says that at least two Justice Department prosecutors accepted cash bribes from allegedly corrupt finance executives who were indicted but never arrested or prosecuted. Worse,

The sitting governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, his attorney general and an unspecified number of Virgin Islands legislators also accepted bribes, the source said, adding that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is aware prosecutors and elected officials were bribed and otherwise compromised, but has not held anyone accountable.

I must point out that a certain skepticism is called for: This story is very vague about who, what, when, and where, and its sources are anonymous. Nonetheless, if true this might very well be the bombshell story that ends Eric Holder’s career. What it does to the Obama administration remains to be seen.

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By a significant majority the House has voted to repeal part of Obamacare.

8:43 pm

More House action: By a significant majority the House has voted to repeal part of Obamacare.

Once again, that a significant number of Democrats joined the Republicans in this vote illustrates where the political power lies. The Democratic leadership and President Obama are fighting a losing battle trying to support this turkey, especially since this section of Obamacare has already been abandoned as unworkable by the White House.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius effectively suspended the program last fall, conceding she couldn’t find a way to make it pay for itself. And the Congressional Budget Office took the program off the books, releasing lawmakers from budget rules that would have otherwise required them to replace the lost savings.

Since the rest of Obamacare is unworkable as well, expect more action to repeal it after the November election. And I expect that effort to succeed.

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The Orion test capsule arrived in Alabama for tests, covered in fan signatures.

6:45 pm

You think Americans aren’t interested in space travel? Get this: The Orion test capsule arrived in Alabama for tests, covered in fan signatures.

Orion and NASA’s space launch system might not get us there, but that doesn’t matter in this case. The public is expressing its desire for space travel quite clearly. All they need is someone to provide it to them at a reasonable cost.

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The CBO has projected another trillion plus deficit for 2012, the fourth year in a row the U.S. government has produced such a deficit.

10:18 am

The day of reckoning looms: The CBO now predicts another trillion-plus deficit for 2012, the fourth year in a row the U.S. government has produced such a deficit.

For those who like to blame Bush for everything, it must be noted that these deficits, all during the Obama administration, are three to four times larger than any previous single year deficit of any previous administration. As bad as the deficits were in the Bush years — and they were bad — they don’t hold a candle to what Obama has done.

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Romney puts forth his space plans at a rally in Florida

9:35 pm

In a campaign rally Friday in Florida, Mitt Romney put forth his perspective on the state of the American space program, and what he plans to do about it.

The speech is about 16 minutes long. It is worth listening to it in its entirety.

In it, Romney outlined the reasons he thinks a robust space program is important: defense, innovation, exploration, and the ability to respond to potential natural threats from space. Having done so, however, he then refused to outline any specific actions he would take to address these issues, saying instead that once in office he will bring together the right kinds of space experts who will then advice him on the right kind of plan to achieve all these important goals.

I appreciate his refusal to pander. At the same time, his vagueness does not make me enthusiastic. Moreover, he is only offering us the same thing we have seen numerous times before, another blue ribbon panel study outlining a plan. It would make me far happier if he already understood better the problems of the space program, and could articulate the actions he wishes to take, as Gingrich did.
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Because of technical problems with the Soyuz spacecraft it appears the Russians are going to postpone the next two manned launches to ISS.

9:29 am

Because of technical problems with the Soyuz spacecraft it appears the Russians are going to postpone the next two manned launches to ISS.

So, in one breath Americans whine about how we are dependent on the Russians to get into space, while in the next breath they lambast the only Presidential candidate (Gingrich) willing to aggressively do something about it without spending billions of dollars. You would think they’d at least be interested in what he had to say.

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The full Gingrich speech on space

11:47 pm

As noted by one commenter, the full Gingrich speech on space is available here on C-SPAN.

I have now listened to the whole speech, and can say without hesitation that everything I wrote in my previous post was correct. Gingrich is knowledgeable about space, science, and history. He is basing his proposals on past successful models where the U.S. government did nothing but buy the product developed by private individuals or companies. These proposals actually continue as well as accelerate the Obama administration’s efforts. And he is not proposing a giant pork program.

His proposal to have a moon base by 2020 is unquestionably campaign talk that won’t happen. Nonetheless, this proposal is aimed at energizing the American aerospace industry by focusing the government’s goals, which will then need to be purchased by the government from private companies. He also made it very clear he wants to shrink the NASA bureaucracy, reducing its budget while devoting ten percent of that savings (equal to billions of dollars) for prizes. The example of a $10 billion tax-free prize for the first to get to Mars was only for illustration. As he said,

The model I want us to build is largely is the model of the ’20s and ’30s, when the government was actively encouraging development but the government wasn’t doing anything. The government was paying rewards, it was subsidizing the mail. … We had enormous breakthroughs in aviation in the ’20s and ’30s at very little cost to the government because lots of smart people [outside the government] did it.

I beg everyone to listen to this speech, in its entirety. It illustrates a thoughtful man who understands history. Gingrich might not be a perfect man, and he certainly is not the perfect candidate for President, but don’t tell me what you think of him if you refuse to listen to him. For two decades too many people have eagerly expressed opinions about him without really listening to what he has actually said or done. And what he says here is reasonable, intelligent, and certainly worthy of consideration.

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“The implication that Mr. Cunningham may have engaged in criminal conduct with respect to Fast and Furious is a major escalation of the Department’s culpability.”

3:06 pm

“The implication that Mr. Cunningham may have engaged in criminal conduct with respect to Fast and Furious is a major escalation of the Department’s culpability.”

Mr. Cunningham is a Department of Justice lawyer. The “Department” is the Department of Justice itself. And “Fast and Furious” was the Obama administration’s project to allow about 2000 guns to be smuggled illegally into Mexico, for reasons that remain inexplicable.

Though Cunningham has the right to take the fifth, it should immediately disqualify him from his job, and the Obama administration should fire him. That they don’t tells us a lot about their own culpability in the Fast and Furious gun smuggling scandal. As Issa wrote in his letter to Eric Holder on Tuesday,

Mr. Cunningham’s broad assertion of his Fifth Amendment privilege raises the specter that the Department has allowed him to continue in his position as Chief of the Criminal Division knowing that he might have criminal culpability himself.

You can read Darrell Issa’s (R-California) full letter to Eric Holder here. [pdf]

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Gingrich pledges a moon base by his second term

7:16 pm

Bumped with Update 2: I will be on the radio in Houston tomorrow morning with Scott Braddock for twenty minutes to discuss Gingrich’s proposals. See the “Recent and Upcoming Appearances” list in the right column for details.
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In a speech today Newt Gingrich pledged a moon base would be operating by his second term.

I’m not sure I trust the reporting here. However, this story fits with many other things that Gingrich has said over the years. And though I like his desire to think big, I dislike the feeling I get that he wants to once again make this a big government-run effort.

There will certainly be more details about Gingrich’s proposals in the coming days.

Update. More details here.

It seems to me that Gingrich’s promise of a moonbase by 2020 is campaign fodder, designed to inspire voters not only to dream big but to vote for Gingrich. However, his proposal that the U.S. offer big prizes for private achievement in space is right on the money, literally identical to ideas I proposed more than eight years ago.

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“My message is simple.” Rating the reading grade level of all State of the Union speeches.

9:59 am

“My message is simple.” Rating the reading grade level of the State of the Union speeches.

The Flesch-Kincaid test is designed to assess the readability level of written text, with a formula that translates the score to a U.S. grade level. Longer sentences and sentences utilizing words with more syllables produce higher scores. Shorter sentences and sentences incorporating more monosyllabic words yield lower scores.

Smart Politics ran the Flesch-Kincaid test on each of the last 70 State of the Union Addresses that were delivered orally by presidents before a Joint Session of Congress since Franklin Roosevelt. Excluded from analysis were five written addresses (by Truman in 1946 and 1953, Eisenhower in 1961, Nixon in 1973, and Carter in 1981) and two addresses that were delivered orally, but not by the President himself (Roosevelt in 1945 and Eisenhower in 1956). The vast majority of State of the Union speeches were delivered in writing prior to FDR.

While you might not be surprised by the results, a close look at the list illustrates both the influence of television and the decline in political thought in the past half century.

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