Tag: policy

TMT leadership looks at alternatives to Hawaii

9:01 am

Though they have refused to comment publicly, the Facebook page for the Thirty Meter Telescope on Monday showed the telescope’s management visiting the Canary Islands, a potential alternative site to Hawaii.

Their Facebook post serves two purposes. It shows that they mean business when they say they must start considering abandoning Hawaii. It also might force the Hawaiian state government to stop dragging its feet in the permitting process that protesters have forced TMT to go through, a second time.

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Does captivity hurt or help killer whales? Scientists disagree

9:21 am

The uncertainty of science: Two different science research teams strongly disagree about the positive or negative effects of living in captivity for killer whales.

In a decision hailed by animal-rights groups, the US marine-park company SeaWorld Entertainment announced last week that it will no longer breed killer whales. But whether captivity harms the planet’s biggest predator is an area of active scientific debate.

The latest arguments centre on two 2015 studies that drew dramatically different conclusions about the lifespans of captive killer whales (Orcinus orca), relative to those of wild populations. Although many factors affect well-being, an apparent discrepancy between the survival of captive and wild animals has long been cited by activists as evidence of the poor welfare of captive killer whales.

One of the studies is authored by a team largely made up of researchers at SeaWorld, which is headquartered in Orlando, Florida, and owns several animal parks that keep killer whales; the other is by two former killer-whale trainers at the company who feature in the 2013 documentary film Blackfish, which is critical of SeaWorld. In letters published last week, authors from each paper accuse the others of cherry-picking data to support positions on whether the animals should be captive — charges that each team in turn rejects.

Obviously, each science team has its own agendas. The result unfortunately is that the science is cloudy and unclear.

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United Arab Emirates teams up with Japan

8:49 am

The new colonial movement: The United Arab Emirates Space Agency (UAESA) has signed a cooperative agreement with Japan’s space agency JAXA.

The details are slim, but I suspect it is similar to the recent UAE/India deal and involves the UAE providing some of its oil money in exchange for getting some of Japan’s technical help.

Update: My suspicions were correct. UAESA has purchased launch services from Japan Mitsubishi for its Mars mission, dubbed Hope, scheduled for launch in 2020.

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China shuts down its first space station

3:52 pm

Though still in orbit, China has turned off Tiangong-1, its first space station, launched in 2011 and since visited by three manned crews.

The news story, from the state-run Chinese news organization, notes that the module’s orbit will slowly decay and eventually burn up in the atmosphere. It does not say how the Chinese intend to control that re-entry, since Tiangong-1 is likely large enough for some parts of it to survive and hit the ground.

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Russia finally approves 10-year space plan

9:31 am

The announcement yesterday that Russia is trimming its space budget by 30% was actually part of the final approval of their ten-year space plan, under discussion and planning for the past two years.

Interestingly, the 30% cut was only the last reduction of many in the budget plan since it was first announced. Initially, they hoped to budget 3.4 trillion rubles for their aerospace industry over the next decade. The final budget approved yesterday is for 1.4 trillion. That’s a 59% reduction.

Considering that the reductions have forced them to abandon any plans for building a re-usable rocket, they will be increasingly hard-pressed in the next decade to successfully compete for business in the commercial market. While Russia stands still with its older designs, others will be developing new less costly ways to launch rockets. The business will go elsewhere, and they will actually have even less money to work with.

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South Korea commits almost a billion dollars to AI research

8:56 am

In reaction to the recent Go victory by a computer program over a human, the government of South Korea has quickly accelerated its plans to back research into the field of artificial intelligence with a commitment of $863 million and the establishment of public/private institute.

Scrambling to respond to the success of Google DeepMind’s world-beating Go program AlphaGo, South Korea announced on 17 March that it would invest $863 million (1 trillion won) in artificial-intelligence (AI) research over the next five years. It is not immediately clear whether the cash represents new funding, or had been previously allocated to AI efforts. But it does include the founding of a high-profile, public–private research centre with participation from several Korean conglomerates, including Samsung, LG Electronics and Hyundai Motor, as well as the technology firm Naver, based near Seoul.

The timing of the announcement indicates the impact in South Korea of AlphaGo, which two days earlier wrapped up a 4–1 victory over grandmaster Lee Sedol in an exhibition match in Seoul. The feat was hailed as a milestone for AI research. But it also shocked the Korean public, stoking widespread concern over the capabilities of AI, as well as a spate of newspaper headlines worrying that South Korea was falling behind in a crucial growth industry.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye has also announced the formation of a council that will provide recommendations to overhaul the nation’s research and development process to enhance productivity. In her 17 March speech, she emphasized that “artificial intelligence can be a blessing for human society” and called it “the fourth industrial revolution”. She added, “Above all, Korean society is ironically lucky, that thanks to the ‘AlphaGo shock’, we have learned the importance of AI before it is too late.”

Not surprisingly, some academics are complaining that the money is going to industry rather than the universities. For myself, I wonder if this crony capitalistic approach will produce any real development, or whether it will instead end up to be a pork-laden jobs program for South Korean politicians.

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Roscosmos budget slashed 30%

10:46 pm

How’s that consolidation working out for ya? The Russian government announced today that it will have to cut the budget for its space program by 30 percent over the next ten years due to the country’s deepening economic problems.

In line with its reduced funding, the space agency has agreed to delay a manned flight to the moon by five years – to 2035 from 2030 – and scrap plans to develop a reusable rocket, a potentially valuable cost-saving technology. A Roscosmos spokesman previously said the agency would reassess its plans after 2025.

Essentially, the consolidation of Russia’s entire aerospace industry into a single corporation run by the Russian government has produced a very expensive government program unable to accomplish much of anything for a budget of 1.4 trillion rubles ($20.4 billion) from 2016 to 2025. Sounds kind of like NASA, doesn’t it?

Give me competition over a centralized program any day, and see great things happen. Go with a centralized government program, and watch as the life ebbs from the creativity of everyone.

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ULA official resigns

8:48 am

In an update to the story last night about the head of ULA rejecting comments made by one of his chief engineers, that engineer has now resigned.

[Brett Tobey, formerly ULA vice president of engineering] resigned his position, effective immediately, ULA chief executive Tory Bruno said in a statement. ULA is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing. “The views, positions and inaccurate statements Mr. Tobey presented at his recent speaking engagement were not aligned with the direction of the company, my views, nor the views I expect from ULA leaders,” Bruno said in the statement.

In other words, we can’t have too much honesty here. There are games that Congress and ULA play with each other to justify the billions in subsidies the government gives ULA, and to note these games in a straightforward way is to note that the emperor has no clothes. We can’t have that.

I hope Tobey finds a job at SpaceX.

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ULA head rejects his engineer’s remarks about Aerojet Rocketdyne

9:47 pm

The heat of competition: The head of ULA has disavowed his engineers’ remarks that plugged Blue Origin’s engine for the Atlas 5 while dissing Aeroject Rocketdyne’s.

The engineer was giving a talk at the University of Colorado this week where he made it pretty clear that ULA favors Blue Origin over Aerojet Rocketdyne, but had to make believe they were treating both companies equally in the competition to replace the Atlas 5’s Russian engines in order to keep the Air Force happy. Bruno is probably now doing some damage control, as the government still wants to justify the Aerojet Rocketdyne contract (whose only real purpose was as a government pork barrel jobs program). Considering all the money the Air Force and congressmen give to ULA, he has to keep them both happy. And telling the world that their Aerojet contract is a waste of government money is not a very good way to do this.

Nonetheless, he also admitted that Blue Origin is way ahead in development, and is thus most likely to win the competition anyway.

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Tea party Republican wins primary for John Boehner’s seat

12:02 pm

A conservative tea party Republican has won the primary for former House Speaker John Boehner’s congressional seat.

If anything should tell the Republican leadership that they aren’t doing what the voters want, even more than the presidential campaign, it is this story. Boehner did nothing but show contempt for the tea party Freedom Caucus in the House, doing anything he could to block them. In the end, they were instrumental in getting him ousted. And as the article notes,

Davidson’s win Tuesday could give those [tea party] lawmakers reason to dig their heels in as things escalate. They can make their case to Republican leaders that, sure, putting their foot down on a proposed budget that increases spending might hinder Republicans’ goal of passing a budget on time. But what they’re doing is really in the interest of a growing number of Republican voters. Look no further than this highly symbolic seat they just won.

Even though I have serious doubts about Donald Trump’s conservatism, his rise is just another indication that the voters are pissed off at the leadership in Congress, from both parties. That leadership had better change its stripes soon, or it will find others taking their place, as has happened with John Boehner..

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IRS given power to revoke passports

9:53 am

What could possibly go wrong? A new federal law, passed by a Republican Congress, gives the IRS the right to revoke your passport, even as another federal law will soon require many to use that passport for any airline travel, even within the United States.

What should happen is that both these laws should be repealed, now. Otherwise, I fully expect in the coming years that this new IRS power will be used to squelch opposition to those in power, just as the Obama administration used the IRS prior to the 2012 election to block conservatives from fighting his re-election.

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Another glorious Democratic leader speaks!

9:47 am

Dumb and dumber: In yesterdays Democratic townhall event, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton not only claimed that “we didn’t lose a single person” in the regime change in Libya, she seemed unaware that

ISIS is taking up blocs of territory in Libya now, too. So have al-Qaeda affiliates like Ansar al-Sharia — the group that sacked our Benghazi consulate nearly four years ago, thanks in large part to security decisions made by State under Hillary’s leadership. We didn’t give Libya a chance — we destroyed Libya, and left nothing but a viper pit of terror networks to replace it. And Hillary thinks this is a success story.

Be sure to watch the video of Clinton at the link, where she argues that the elections in Libya have worked, installing a moderate government. I guess it was that moderate government that killed our ambassador and three others in Benghazi four years ago.

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