Science discovers the obvious! Researchers at the University of Colorado have found that the post-9/11 security efforts — such as the TSA — do little to increase security and much to turn society into a police state.
In competition with the Orbital/Virgin Galactic proposal I mentioned yesterday, Boeing has submitted its own proposal to provide crew and cargo ferrying service to ISS.
Considering the federal budget debt and the political winds for reducing that debt, I have great doubts the subsidies for these proposals will ever arrive. Nonetheless, with the end of the shuttle program and nothing to replace it, the United States has a serious need for a system to get crew and cargo into space. And in a free society, fulfilling that need means profits, which is why these proposals are beginning to appear, and will get built, regardless of whether Congress funds them up front or later buys the services.
Lockheed has won a $171 million NASA contract to pack cargo for ISS through 2017.
My question however is this: How do they plan on getting the cargo into space?
Today’s announcement by the Obama administration of their choice for NASA’s new chief scientist, Waleed Abdalati, reveals once again how much climate research guides their thinking, not space exploration. Key quote:
His research has focused on the study of polar ice cover using satellite and airborne instruments. He has led or participated in nine field and airborne campaigns in the Arctic and the Antarctic.
This is not a criticism of Dr. Abdalati. His research interests, however, make very clear where the Obama administration really wants NASA to look: down at the Earth instead of up beyond Earth orbit.
Two stories on the recent attempts of the EPA under the Obama administrions to create new climate regulations. First, a federal appeals court decided Friday not to block the new EPA climate regulations. Second, the war between Texas and the EPA over the EPA’s effort to regulate Texas industry continues unabated.
Repeal the damn law! A judge today ruled that the Obamacare mandate is unconstitutional. More here.
Repeal this stinker! A new poll says that the number of people who want Obamacare repealed continues to grow.
Oink! Social Security advocates fear payroll tax cut.
More TSA absurdity, with video: Indian ambassador given full patdown by TSA.
The new colonial movement, in space! South Africa joins the race, launching its own space agency.
Repeal this stinker! Poll finds that almost half of all doctors plan to retire or close their practices as Obamacare is phased in.
The continuing space war: A draft version of NASA’s budget suggests that the lame duck Congress will more or less follow the recommendations of the authorization bill passed in September.
More nations certain to follow! Because of onerous TSA regulations, the Japanese postal service has ended airmail shipments to the US of any package weighing more than a pound.
Didn’t the Cold War demostrate that profits, private property, and free enterprise do it better? By order of Congress, however, NASA is planning to put a nonprofit organization in charge of ISS research.
Focused like a laser on the really important stuff! Congress today passed a bill requiring the FCC to regulate the volume of television commercials!
Sadly, the pigs appear to be winning. Obama’s deficit commission has failed to pass its recommendations.
White House initiates a study on whether astronaut corps should be trimmed.
This story is more evidence that I was right when I said Obama was lying when he claimed he loved manned spaceflight. If he was serious about sending humans to asteroids and beyond, he wouldn’t be so eager to find ways to shrink the astronaut corp.
Update: I should emphasize that I am not criticizing the idea of trimming the astronaut corp. I just want it clear that Barack Obama is clearly not a supporter of manned space, and that I believe his proposals (the commercial space subsidies) are merely window-dressing to placate his opponents while he dismantles the program.
The space war continues to heat up again. In a hearing today in the Senate, several senators complained loudly that NASA isn’t implementing the details of the September authorization act.
What clowns. These same senators haven’t provided NASA (or anyone) with a budget. They have also given NASA an authorization bill that does not provide the agency with enough money while simultaneously demanding that things be done faster. And they’ve done this at a time the federal government is almost bankrupt. Moreover, the bill requires that NASA build things that the Obama administration doesn’t want to build (though in truth, the Obama administration itself is so confused that no one, including them, knows what they are going to do).
All in all, the whole thing is a mess.
As I’ve said earlier, it’s all pork. Even if NASA gets the money laid out in the authorization bill, it will accomplish nothing except spread some cash around to several congressional districts. Nothing will get built. And in the process of sending that money to new aerospace companies NASA will do much to squelch their creativity and innovation.
Better to cut it all, and let the aerospace industry sink or swim on its own. It will almost certainly do better that the government at this point. In fact, how could it do worse?
The space war over NASA continues. NASA’s human spaceflight program is “adrift,” according to John Karas, the general manager of Lockheed Martin’s human space flight division. Key quote:
“Everybody’s arguing, debating. We are in this giant storm with no direction, and more than likely we’re gonna get hit with more waves of money cuts. So we have to have some future plan here; some future direction — or we’re just going to get capsized,” he said.
The use of the word “adrift” is ironic, as this was the very word that President Obama used to describe NASA’s state shortly after taking office. It seems to me, however, that under Obama things are far more confused and chaotic then they ever were under Bush.
Lockheed Martin is moving ahead with its plan to launch the first Orion capsule on a Delta 4 Heavy rocket, notwithstanding the desire of NASA that Lockheed instead focus on using NASA’s own as yet unbuilt rocket system.
It’s stories like this that fill me with dispair: House Majority Leader-designate Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) says that Republicans will keep some provisions of Obama’s healthcare law intact. Key quote:
Provisions that Republicans will seek to retain include the barring of insurance companies from refusing coverage to patients with a pre-existing condition and allowing young people to stay on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26.
You would think the numerous demonstrations, the loud townhall protests, and finally, the election results themselves would have given Cantor a hint of what the public really wants: total and complete repeal of this stinker of a bill.
Cantor’s desire to keep the pre-existing condition clause will only make the entire insurance business unprofitable. When I lived in New York and the state legislative passed a similar bill, more than half of all insurance companies immediately abandoned the state, as they understood that no one had any reason to buy health insurance, until they actually got sick. And without the premiums from healthy people, the companies knew they would have no resources left to pay the expenses of those who were sick. (See my 1994 article on this subject for the magazine The Freeman.)
As for the clause allowing young people to stay on their parents’ plan until 26, all this will do is force insurance companies to drop all coverage for children, as this union did in New York.
Either way, what gives Eric Cantor and the Republicans (or the Democrats before them) the lordly wisdom to determine how this particular business (or any) should be run? Freedom demands that these business transactions should be left to the market, the insurance companies, and their customers, not to the whims of politicians.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), the reusable X-37B — in orbit at the moment and expected to return to Earth in the near future — has no compelling use.
“It’s hard to think of what could make that mission compelling,” [UCS scientist Laura] Grego told SPACE.com. “It doesn’t protect you from antiaircraft fire, and the element of surprise doesn’t really work in your favor if you’re launching on Atlas V [rocket].”
In reading this article, it is fascinating how completely unimaginative the scientists from the Union of Concerned Scientists seem. Nor do I find this surprising. For the last few decades this organization has opposed almost every new aerospace engineering project that might actually have made possible the human exploration of space. It’s as if these scientists feared new ideas and grand achievement. Sadly, the UCS had great influence with policy makers in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and thus helped limit the American government’s space program capabilities during that time period.
Fortunately, the UCS’s influence has waned in recent years. Though the American government space program might be dying, it is because of budget limits and a lack of leadership by the Obama administration, not the unimaginative thinking of the UCS. Furthermore, their lack of imagination — which once seemed so culturally dominant — seems to no longer influence the rest of society. The happy result is the creative innovation coming from many new private aerospace companies.
The UCS meanwhile reminds me of an old curmudgeon, who won’t keep quiet but everyone still ignores.
This bill is going to dog Democrats for years: The Obama healthcare bill is forcing a New York union to drop insurance coverage for the children of its members.
The squealing ain’t just coming from cheese-eating social program advocates: The Defense Department is gearing up to protest proposed cuts in the military budget as outlined by the deficit commission.
Jeff Foust has noticed that the Obama’s deficit commission has rewritten its recommendation that the NASA subsidies to commercial space be cut. The rewrite doesn’t really change the recommendation. Instead, it merely corrects the language to more accurately describe the subsidy program.
In a wonderful example of government stupidity, environmental officials in Wisconsin want to try to “exclude” bats from caves in order to prevent the spread of white nose syndrome.
Some quick background: White nose syndrome appeared in upstate New York about four years ago, killing about 90 percent of the bats affected. It has since spread down the east coast following bat migration patterns as they travel during the summer months. (While human activity might spread the syndrome as well, the evidence all points to the bats as the primary vector.) A newly discovered fungus that is seen on all affected bats, for which the syndrome is named, is the prime suspect for killing them, as it disturbs them during hibernation, causing them to wake more frequently, burn up their reserves,and thus starve to death.
Wisconsin officials, in their infinte wisdom, have decide that the way they will save the bats of their state will be to declare the fungus an invasive specie. They will then be empowered to do anything they can to prevent its spread. And how will they do this? By preventing bats from entering caves and bringing the fungus with them.
Let me say that again: Wisconsin environment officials want to “exclude bats from caves” in order to save them. The result of course will be a biological genocide, since without access to caves during the cold hibernation period the bats will surely die.
If you don’t believe me, see this press release. To quote:
The third proposed rule adds provisions to NR 40.04 and 40.07 relating to early detection and prevention of the spread of the disease due to human activities, including the decontamination of clothes and equipment that have been used in mines or caves, and limited access of bats or people to caves or mines. [emphasis mine]
If you still don’t believe me, read the state’s actual proposed management plan [pdf]. To quote page 5:
Under the proposed rules, the department may ask any person who owns, controls, or manages property here a cave or mine may be present to install and properly maintain physical barriers to limit access to the cave or mine by either individuals or bats, in accordance with a plan approved by the department. The department is seeking funding to assist with the installation of barriers, and therefore cost to those parties who install such barriers should be negligible. Additionally, commercial caves will have the option to exclude bats from their cave(s) with the help of the department, allowing them to remain open for tourism, and resulting in no loss of tourism dollars. [emphasis mine]
Moreover, this plan will give these officials the power to enter private property without the landowners’ permission.
Cavers have been trying to explain to the Wisconsin officials that this entire approach is madness. So far, these pleas have had very little effect. You can see their efforts here.
This whole story might be one of the best examples of why it is always bad idea to concentrate a lot of power in the hands of government. Better to spread the power around among a lot of private landowners, as then you also spread the stupidity around as well, and reduce the chances that the only approach taken is the worse approach.
Sarah Palin comments on the Obama administration’s policies towards NASA.
Why NASA recently pulled the X-34 out of storage. Key quote:
The idea to ship the X-34s to Mojave and inspect them originated with a Dryden-based NASA engineer, Brown said. “When he found out this thing still existed … he decided people should take a look to see if it could be refurbished and made flightworthy.” That’s when the contractors came to retrieve the two neglected spacecraft, pictured above en route to the Mojave.
But that doesn’t mean NASA has formal plans to operate the X-34s under its own auspices, now or ever, Brown stressed. Provided they’re in flyable shape, it’s far more likely the space agency will make the X-34s available to private industry. “There are a number of firms interested in these things, developing communications and other technologies,” Brown said. “It would be helpful if they had a vehicle.”
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Another government land grab: Obama administration plans to establish 187,000 square mile polar bear reserve.
The administrator of TSA speaks: You are my servant and you will bend over.
