Hubble Takes Perfect New Pix & Other Space News – 10/31/08

Just prior to the scheduled launch of the last Hubble Space Telescope’s repair/upgrade mission, an onboard data router failed.  The shuttle launch was delayed until next year.  Scientists and engineers worked to use an onboard backup (thank you, redundancy!).  That backup unit is up and running.  A test photo was released by NASA and things look real good!  Unfortunately, the already delayed upgrade mission was delayed a little more.  NASA wants to send up a replacement part to the unit that failed last month.  It won’t be ready for another six months.  That could delay NASA’s plans to reconfigure the launch pad to accomodate the next generation of launch vehicles.  Fortunately, Endeavour’s Nov. 14th launch to the International Space Station remains on schedule.

A Google Lunar X-Prize contestant is not only planning to send their craft to the Apollo 11 landing site, they’re planning to launch five additional missions for lunar polar exploration.  To win the Grand X-Prize ($20 million), a private company must achieve a series of goals by Dec. 31, 2010.  Astrobotic now wants to send it main craft to the moon in 2010, then two smaller rovers in 2011 and 2012.  An additional lander would also land in 2012, then another rover in 2013.  This is exactly the kind of plan I want to see: a medium-term, aggressive approach to lunar exploration.

NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander entered an inactive safe mode late Tuesday.  Very cold overnight temperatures and a dust storm has reduced Phoenix’s ability to generate enough power to conduct full science.  It’s not supposed to be a permanent condition.  Phoenix’s primary mission phase ended in August.  It has had its mission extended ever since.  Eventually, Phoenix will not be able to power itself.

NASA’s shuttle replacement might come online one year sooner than originally planned.  Plans are being drawn up to try to move the first test launch date up from 2015 to 2014.  They will be finalized in December.  This news came out prior to NASA’s announcement that the Hubble upgrade mission was going to be delayed again.  As I wrote above, the launch pad needs to be reconfigured for the Orion vehicle launch aboard the Ares rocket.

Cassini is going to pass by Saturn’s mood Enceladus for the third time tomorrow.  A number of very cool things have come from the previous two flybys.

News Pieces 9/27/08

In a move toward improving the transparency of bills in Congress, PublicMarkup.org has put the original Bush Bailout plan and Senator Chris Dodd’s plan dealing with the same issue up for public view.  The public can also comment on the legislation.

Oh, in case you’re wondering – despite having billions of dollars worth of bad assets and paying executives millions of dollars every year, the financial institutions looking for a $700 billion handout is still paying for lobbyists.  In the millions this year alone.  While families are losing their houses.  That’s immoral.

The Republican County Clerk in El Paso is illegally trying to prevent students at Colorado College from voting this November.  Why would that be?  Could it be that young voters are breaking 65-32 for Obama over McCain?  Every vote Bob Balink prevents for Obama and other Democrats is one step closer toward his party’s success.  There are 10 days left to register to vote for this year’s election.  How many voters will be unable to vote because of this Republican’s immoral efforts?

While the summer season has drawn to a close for the Arctic, thankfully ending the horrible rate of melt this year, the Antarctic’s winter is also ending.  This winter wasn’t as good to the sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere as last winter was.  The maximum extent was 15 million sq. km, over 1 million sq. km. less than the area last year.  It appears Aug. 2008 wasn’t a good year for ice worldwide as the Southern Hemisphere actually lost over 500,000 sq. km. of ice in a two-week time period.  August also saw the fastest rate of melt of ice in the Northern Hemisphere.  After attaining a +2 million sq. km. anomaly last year, the Southern Hemisphere is lucky to be right at the 1970-2000 mean, and appears to be heading negative as the melt accelerates.

The shuttle mission to Hubble has been delayed by 4 days, from Oct. 10th to the 14th.  Most of the delay was caused by Hurricane Ike’s landfall and damage to the Houston, TX area.  Atlantis is scheduled to make the trip to Hubble.  Endeavour is waiting on a nearby launch pad in the event that Atlantis experiences damage significant enough to prevent a return to Earth.  Endeavour is scheduled to make another construction flight to the International Space Station later this year if the rescue mission is unneeded.

A potential lunar colony site has been mapped in 3-D using camera data that wasn’t meant for 3-D.  I think Mars exploration and colonies should come first, but recognize the long-term importance of the Moon as well.

Gas shortages are occurring across the southern U.S. A couple of factors are causing this situation.  Hurricanes Gustav and Ike shut down drilling and refining infrastructure as well as power delivery systems across the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana and Texas.  More disturbing is the following:

In its most recent Weekly Oil Data Review, Barclays Capital pointed out that the U.S. gasoline inventory has reached its lowest level since August 1967, when demand was a little more than half its current level of 9.3 million barrels a day. At 178.7 million barrels, inventories are 21.6 million barrels below their five-year average.

Replacing those inventories isn’t easy either.  “Once the refineries get back up and running, they’ll drain the already low crude oil inventories.”  Not discussed in the article is the impact of fuel corporations sitting on millions of acres of leased land without drilling.  Not discussed in the article is the impact of not building additional refining capacity in the last 30 years, making the drilling issue completely irrelevant.  It’s that lack of refining capacity (which are only operating at 67% of capacity right now) that has put a large region of the country in danger of running out of gasoline.  If that situation gets worse, food won’t be able to be supplied.  Then the anger over Bush’s Wall St. Bailout will seem minor in comparison.

News Items 9/7/08: Economy, Bailouts, Shuttle Delays

Larry Bartels has written an interesting book, as this write-up shows. The differences between a future Democratic president and a Republican one are stark, just in potential economic prosperity:

Data for the whole period from 1948 to 2007, during which Republicans occupied the White House for 34 years and Democrats for 26, show average annual growth of real gross national product of 1.64 percent per capita under Republican presidents versus 2.78 percent under Democrats. That 1.14-point difference, if maintained for eight years, would yield 9.33 percent more income per person, which is a lot more than almost anyone can expect from a tax cut.

Over the entire 60-year period, income inequality trended substantially upward under Republican presidents but slightly downward under Democrats, thus accounting for the widening income gaps over all. And the bad news for America’s poor is that Republicans have won five of the seven elections going back to 1980.

The two Great Partisan Divides combine to suggest that, if history is a guide, an Obama victory in November would lead to faster economic growth with less inequality, while a McCain victory would lead to slower economic growth with more inequality. Which part of the Obama menu don’t you like?

My thoughts exactly.

It was reported yesterday that the Federal government was prepared to bail out Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Between the two of them, they secure over $5 trillion in home loans. The two giants straddle the public/private divide in a way that I don’t think any other company does. The private side of the equation has, as we all have been forced to learn again, failed quite spectacularly. Well, the U.S. has seized Freddie and Fannie.

Fannie and Freddie have become virtually the only source of funding for banks and other home lenders looking to make home loans. Their ability to do so is crucial to the recovery of the battered home market and the broader U.S. economy.

Thanks to conservatives’ obsession with deregulation, American taxpayers have been forced to bail out Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae. Elections do have consequences. The billions of dollars that taxpayers will fork over could have gone instead toward programs or policies that would have made us all more prosperous. Stop falling for the false images Republicans like to put on display during campaign season. It’s how they govern that matters.

The last two space shuttle missions of 2008 are being delayed by two days due to delays associated with Tropical Storms Fay and Hanna. Atlantis will now launch no earlier than October 10. An International Space Station mission will launch no earlier than November 12.

NASA’s Cassini mission has discovered ring arcs orbiting two of Saturn’s smaller moons. The partial rings extend ahead of and behind the moons Anthe and Methone. Cassini has helped scientists discover some amazing things during its mission so far.

Lake Erie could lose 1.5 feet of water to climate change by the end of the century.  That might not sound like much, but for every inch less of water, ships have to carry 8,000 fewer tons of cargo.  That has real economic impacts over the course of just one year.  Can our economy withstand this and the countless other results of climate change?

President’s Weekend Random Goodies

A collection of things today:

Atlantis successfully deployed and installed the Columbus science module to the ISS. The link has a nice picture of the current configuration of the ISS after Atlantis undocked earlier today. A couple of small tasks were left to the ISS inhabitants to finish up. The space shuttle Endeavour began its move to the launch pad also. STS-123 will deliver a new addition to the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm and the first segment of Japan’s massive Kibo laboratory (nice picture!).

The military is planning on shooting down a defunct spy satellite. Russia says it’s a weapons test (it is) and China is worried about it. Well, why worry about what those two think? They’re only nuclear-armed countries that our current administration isn’t doing so hot a job of interacting with.

Jared Polis has an extended diary responding to Vincent Carroll’s attack on his economic status. Funny how Republicans never shoot their own for being successful, regardless of the policies they’re advocating. Ave Cassandra talks more about problems with insurance companies: their efforts to prevent care from actually occurring.

John Andrews (past president of CO Senate & fellow with the Claremont Institute) had an opinion piece in yesterday’s Post. Let me start by saying I can’t believe this guy is a fellow of an institute that produces policy papers. His column yesterday, continuing a long-term writing pattern, was filled with name calling and fear mongering. I guess that’s all Republicans ever had anyway, but it’s painfully obvious now that all their policies have failed so spectacularly. Just a small example: “President Barack Obama’s maturity deficit against the GOP’s war-hero nominee…” How childish. I certainly do not remember John touting Sen. Kerry’s war experience or maturity against an AWOLer in 2004. Party above principle seems to be the operating state for Republicans.

Columbus succecfully installed

In other news today, the ESA’s Columbus module was successfully installed and powered up at the International Space Station. The lab has a control center in Munich, Germany. 100 flight controllers and engineers will work in three shifts to watch over Columbus in around-the-clock operations. Set up will continue over the next couple of days. External tests will be installed Friday.

Another lab, Japan’s multi-module unit named Kibo, will be launched and similarly set up later this year.

The successful Columbus installation is indeed good news for space science.

Errata: 29Dec2007

Some things running around:

The Rocky’s Lynn Bartels put in a sob story about poor, picked on Marilyn Musgrave. It’s all the mean attack ads that were run in 2006 that led to her garnering only 46% of the vote in CO-04. Riiiight. Supporting a U.S. constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and introducing legislation to ban abortion had nothing to do with that. Funny – neither manage to crack the top 10 in voter concerns, even those of Republicans. Anyone want to guess who had more 527 ads run on them in 2006: Marilyn or Angie Paccione? If you can’t take the heat Marilyn, don’t help dish it out. She’s the same politician, folks. She’s just trying to sing a different tune now that she’s in the minority.

King George has taken the next step in changing our country’s government. Apparently, he can “pocket veto” without pocket vetoing. Or something. Congress, if you plan on letting him get away with this nonsense, please don’t go back to work in 2008. The rolling over dog act isn’t getting anything done for the people. Kagro X raises some good questions. I think his last question is a little off, however. I’d rather have it asked, “How much more can the Americans people and our brand of democracy take?”

Heh. This would be interesting.

I have a slightly different take on this situation. How about ‘If you’re willing to do it to your mother, it’s not torture’? Although starting out with yourself would be a decent beginning. Seriously, I cannot for the life of me understand why we’re debating whether it’s torture or not. When it starts happening to American soldiers and citizens, don’t act all surprised, ‘kay?

Sweeny Todd is pretty good. AVPR not so much.

The shuttle Atlantis may not fly in January. Dang it. NASA needs to get the ISS constructed before the fleet is retired. Thought I’ve thought since the 2010 retirement announcement that they’ll likely extend their lifetimes.