Saturday, March 31, 2012
How much oil does USA have? More than ALL the MIDDLE EAST---America Get these FOOLS out of office!!
Date: Fw: A Little Oil Here and There
----- Original Message -----
: Fw: A Little Oil Here and There
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2011 5:35 PM
Subject: A Little Oil Here and There
----- Little Oil Here and There
This is from my cousin in Montana, she lives just west of Williston and they are drilling and are over populated. Houses in her town are being rented at $4,000.00 a month, they have some land and people want to buy it for housing. Downside Walmart can't keep shelves stocked and traffic is unbearable. LaVonne
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2011 12:48:08 -0800
From: bekechr81@yahoo.com
Subject: Fw: A Little Oil Here and There
To: stringerwf@hotmail.com; MARY.WARD87@Yahoo.com; marge@ppiarizona.com; lbmaxwell@Suddenlink.net; eiler-holley@msn.com; stringer3434@Gmail.com; claybetting@yahoo.com
Wow. You have probably seen this before and again, why haven't we seen this on national news, does make you wonder who is running our country.
----- Subject: A Little Oil Here and There
OIL - You better be sitting down when you read this !!!!!!
As you may know, Cruz Construction started a division in North Dakota just 6 months ago.
They send every Kenworth (9 trucks) we had here in Alaska to North Dakota and several drivers.
They just bought two new Kenworth's to add to that fleet; one being a Tri Drive tractor and a new 65 ton lowboy to go with it.
They also bought two new cranes (one crawler & one rubber tired) for that division.
Dave Cruz said they have moved more rigs in the last 6 months in ND than Cruz Construction moved in Alaska in the last 6 years.
Williston is like a gold rush town; they moved one of our 40 man camps down there since there are no rooms available.
Unemployment in ND is the lowest in the nation at 3.4 percent last I checked.
See anything in the national news about how the oil industry is fueling North Dakota's economy?
Here's an astonishing read. Important and verifiable information:
About 6 months ago, the writer was watching a news program on oil and one of the Forbes Bros. was the guest.
The host said to Forbes, "I am going to ask you a direct question and I would like a direct answer;
how much oil does the U.S. have in the ground?" Forbes did not miss a beat, he said, "more than all the Middle East put together."
The U. S.. Geological Service issued a report in April 2008 that only scientists and oil men knew was coming, but man was it big.
It was a revised report (hadn't been updated since 1995) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota,
western South Dakota, and extreme eastern Montana.
Check THIS out:
The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, and has the potential to
eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates
it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable( 5 billion barrels), at $107 a barrel,
we're looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion.
"When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor.
They had no idea.." says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's financial analyst.
"This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years," reports The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
It's a formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as the 'Bakken.'
It stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada.
For years, U. S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end.
Even the 'Big Oil' companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago.
However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves,
and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels. And because this is light, sweet oil,
those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL !!!!!!
That's enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 2041 years straight.
And if THAT didn't throw you on the floor, then this next one should - because it's from 2006 !!!!!!
U. S. Oil Discovery - Largest Reserve in the World
Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006
Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world.
It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction.
In three and a half years of high oil prices none has been extracted.
With this motherload of oil why are we still fighting over off-shore drilling?
They reported this stunning news:
We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth.
Here are the official estimates:
8 times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
18 times as much oil as Iraq
21 times as much oil as Kuwait
22 times as much oil as Iran
500 times as much oil as Yemen
and it's all right here in the Western United States !!!!!!
HOW can this BE? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this? Because the environmentalists and others have blocked all efforts to help America become independent of foreign oil! Again, we are letting a small group of people dictate our lives and our economy. WHY?
James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East, more than 2 TRILLION barrels untapped. That's more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post.
Don't think 'OPEC' will drop its price even with this find? Think again! It's all about the competitive marketplace, it has to.
Think OPEC just might be funding the environmentalists?
Got your attention yet? Now, while you're thinking about it, do this:
Pass this along. If you don't take a little time to do this, then you should stifle yourself the next time
you complain about gas prices, by doing NOTHING, you forfeit your right to complain.
Now I just wonder what would happen in this country if every one of you sent this to everyone in your address book.
By the way, this can be verified. Check it out at the link below !!!!!!
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911< http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911>
Curz Construction:
http://www.cruzconstruct.com/services..php< http://www.cruzconstruct.com/services.php>
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53 Year Old Mom Looks 33
The Stunning Results of Her Wrinkle Trick Has Botox Doctors Worried
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United Space Alliance could fly shuttle for 1/3 costs---America, speak up, Remove leaders of low intelligence from office
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11, 2012
Commercially operated shuttle for 1/3 cost
NASA knew right answer– operate shuttle commercially–wanted to spend more
Posted by keeptheshuttleflying.com at 8:52 PM 0 comments There was a solution and NASA knew it. That solution was to commercialize the STS Space Shuttles and use them in conjunction with a new Shuttle Derived Heavy Lift Launch vehicle, such a Shuttle-C. Shuttle-C could have been built for about $10 billion or about the same money wasted on Constellation before it got cancelled. A Shuttle-C could have lifted some 70,000kg into space. Sharing resources, facilities, and even missions would have reduced the cost for both the Commercial Shuttles and the Shuttle-C. NASA demonstrated the ability to operate the Shuttles at reduced cost when it started shifting people from the bloated Shuttle program to Constellation because this reduce Shutle flight costs from about $1.3 billion to only $750 million. Something NASA kept sayind couldn’t be done. The simple fact is the Shuttles died because NASA and the Aerospace Industry didn’t want a couple of billion dollars a year flying the Shuttles, they wanted the $200 Billion + building Constellation. At the price you could have flown the Shuttles on over 200 missions. So the Shuttles died and our manned space program was slaughterd for pork. Now they are promoting SLS, which is a vehicle with no mission other than pork.
Posted by keeptheshuttleflying.com at 7:50 PM
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Commercially operated shuttle for 1/3 cost
NASA knew right answer– operate shuttle commercially–wanted to spend more
Posted by keeptheshuttleflying.com at 8:52 PM 0 comments There was a solution and NASA knew it. That solution was to commercialize the STS Space Shuttles and use them in conjunction with a new Shuttle Derived Heavy Lift Launch vehicle, such a Shuttle-C. Shuttle-C could have been built for about $10 billion or about the same money wasted on Constellation before it got cancelled. A Shuttle-C could have lifted some 70,000kg into space. Sharing resources, facilities, and even missions would have reduced the cost for both the Commercial Shuttles and the Shuttle-C. NASA demonstrated the ability to operate the Shuttles at reduced cost when it started shifting people from the bloated Shuttle program to Constellation because this reduce Shutle flight costs from about $1.3 billion to only $750 million. Something NASA kept sayind couldn’t be done. The simple fact is the Shuttles died because NASA and the Aerospace Industry didn’t want a couple of billion dollars a year flying the Shuttles, they wanted the $200 Billion + building Constellation. At the price you could have flown the Shuttles on over 200 missions. So the Shuttles died and our manned space program was slaughterd for pork. Now they are promoting SLS, which is a vehicle with no mission other than pork.
Posted by keeptheshuttleflying.com at 7:50 PM
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SpaceX update
Sent from my iPad
Begin forwarded
Half-ton of cargo on Dragon's space station manifest
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
March 30, 2012
Technicians will load more than 1,000 pounds of food and clothing into SpaceX's Dragon capsule next month for delivery to the International Space Station on the commercial craft's first flight to the outpost.
NASA astronaut Megan McArthur participates in the Crew Equipment Interface Test at Cape Canaveral on March 28. The test gives astronauts, flight controllers and other officials a final chance to inspect the Dragon spacecraft before flight. Credit: SpaceX
Working inside the company's hangar adjacent to the Falcon 9 launch pad, technicians will carefully stow approximately 530 kilograms, or 1,168 pounds, of station-bound cargo inside the Dragon's pressurized section. Most of the supplies are currently scheduled to be loaded inside Dragon in mid-April.
Josh Byerly, a NASA spokesperson, said the cargo is comprised of mostly low-value items such as food, water, and clothing to supplement supplies delivered this week aboard Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle.
"It's not one-of-a-kind [hardware], but it's important cargo, all the same," said Mike Suffredini, NASA's space station program manager.
Future Dragon flights will be filled with more than 3,500 pounds of cargo.
Widely anticipated by NASA, lawmakers and space enthusiasts, the flight is due to blast off no sooner than April 30 at 1622 GMT (12:22 p.m. EDT) from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Beginning a two-day high-speed chase of the space station, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket will lift the gumdrop-shaped spacecraft into orbit a few minutes after launch.
The SpaceX flight will also carry some research payloads, including student experiments and scientific gear for NanoRacks, a company which designs low-cost research platforms for the International Space Station.
The space station crew will unload cargo from the Dragon spacecraft after its scheduled arrival at the orbiting lab May 3. The astronauts will replace the supplies with 660 kilograms, or 1,455 pounds, of equipment for return to Earth.
Artist's concept of the Dragon spacecraft approaching the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/SpaceX
Besides Russia's Soyuz crew capsule, the Dragon will be the only spacecraft able to return space station hardware and experiments to Earth. After about a three-week stay at the space station, the Dragon will parachute into the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California for recovery by a maritime retrieval team.
Supplies for the Dragon mission are already arriving at the Kennedy Space Center, where they are being packaged and prepared for flight inside the Space Station Processing Facility, according to George Diller, a NASA spokesperson at KSC.
Measuring 9.5 feet tall and 11.8 feet wide at its base, the Dragon's pressurized cabin has a volume of about 245 cubic feet, according to SpaceX.
The cargo aboard the Dragon craft's first flight to the space station will not go toward the commitment in SpaceX's $1.6 billion contract to transport 44,000 pounds of supplies to the complex over 12 operational flights.
"This was additional cargo that was added so that we could fully check out the cargo capability on the demo mission," Byerly said.
SpaceX's operational Commercial Resupply Services missions could begin as soon as August, assuming the upcoming test flight goes well.
© 2012 Spaceflight Now Inc.
===============================================================
Begin forwarded
Half-ton of cargo on Dragon's space station manifest
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
March 30, 2012
Technicians will load more than 1,000 pounds of food and clothing into SpaceX's Dragon capsule next month for delivery to the International Space Station on the commercial craft's first flight to the outpost.
NASA astronaut Megan McArthur participates in the Crew Equipment Interface Test at Cape Canaveral on March 28. The test gives astronauts, flight controllers and other officials a final chance to inspect the Dragon spacecraft before flight. Credit: SpaceX
Working inside the company's hangar adjacent to the Falcon 9 launch pad, technicians will carefully stow approximately 530 kilograms, or 1,168 pounds, of station-bound cargo inside the Dragon's pressurized section. Most of the supplies are currently scheduled to be loaded inside Dragon in mid-April.
Josh Byerly, a NASA spokesperson, said the cargo is comprised of mostly low-value items such as food, water, and clothing to supplement supplies delivered this week aboard Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle.
"It's not one-of-a-kind [hardware], but it's important cargo, all the same," said Mike Suffredini, NASA's space station program manager.
Future Dragon flights will be filled with more than 3,500 pounds of cargo.
Widely anticipated by NASA, lawmakers and space enthusiasts, the flight is due to blast off no sooner than April 30 at 1622 GMT (12:22 p.m. EDT) from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Beginning a two-day high-speed chase of the space station, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket will lift the gumdrop-shaped spacecraft into orbit a few minutes after launch.
The SpaceX flight will also carry some research payloads, including student experiments and scientific gear for NanoRacks, a company which designs low-cost research platforms for the International Space Station.
The space station crew will unload cargo from the Dragon spacecraft after its scheduled arrival at the orbiting lab May 3. The astronauts will replace the supplies with 660 kilograms, or 1,455 pounds, of equipment for return to Earth.
Artist's concept of the Dragon spacecraft approaching the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/SpaceX
Besides Russia's Soyuz crew capsule, the Dragon will be the only spacecraft able to return space station hardware and experiments to Earth. After about a three-week stay at the space station, the Dragon will parachute into the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California for recovery by a maritime retrieval team.
Supplies for the Dragon mission are already arriving at the Kennedy Space Center, where they are being packaged and prepared for flight inside the Space Station Processing Facility, according to George Diller, a NASA spokesperson at KSC.
Measuring 9.5 feet tall and 11.8 feet wide at its base, the Dragon's pressurized cabin has a volume of about 245 cubic feet, according to SpaceX.
The cargo aboard the Dragon craft's first flight to the space station will not go toward the commitment in SpaceX's $1.6 billion contract to transport 44,000 pounds of supplies to the complex over 12 operational flights.
"This was additional cargo that was added so that we could fully check out the cargo capability on the demo mission," Byerly said.
SpaceX's operational Commercial Resupply Services missions could begin as soon as August, assuming the upcoming test flight goes well.
© 2012 Spaceflight Now Inc.
===============================================================
ACLU trying to stop prayer
Subj: Prayer Request
I.
Prayer request
ACLU has filed a suit to end prayer from the military completely. They're making great progress. The Navy Chaplains can no longer mention Jesus' name in prayer thanks to the ACLU and others.
I'm not breaking this one.
If I get it a 1000 times, I'll forward it a 1000 times!
Let us pray...
Prayer chain for our Military... Don't break it!
Please send this on after a short prayer. Pray for our soldiers. Don't break it!
'Lord hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us. Bless them & their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. In Jesus’ name, .'
Prayer Request: When you receive this, please stop for a moment and say a prayer for our troops around the world.
There is nothing attached. Just send this to people in your address book. Do not let it stop with you. Of all the gifts you could give a Marine, Soldier, Sailor, Airman, & others deployed in harms way, prayer is the very best one.
GOD BLESS YOU FOR PASSING IT ON!
******************************* NABORS EMAIL NOTICE - This transmission may be strictly confidential. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, you may not disclose, print, copy, or disseminate this information. If you have received this in error, please reply and notify the sender (only) and delete the message. Unauthorized interception of this e-mail is a violation of federal criminal law. This communication does not reflect an intention by the sender or the sender's principal to conduct a transaction or make any agreement by electronic means. Nothing contained in this message or in any attachment shall satisfy the requirements for a writing, and nothing contained herein shall constitute a contract or electronic signature under the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act, any version of the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, or any other statute governing electronic transactions.
The case to save the shuttle---Restart Shuttle ASAP, it is a matter of national security
In August of 2003 the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) issued its report and concluded, among other things, that the space shuttles were aging, old technology, and too risky. Shortly thereafter President Bush initiated the Constellation program to retire the space shuttles and to replace them with the Ares Launch Vehicles and the Orion Spacecraft, patterned after the Apollo Program. As it stands, the space shuttles are to be retired during 2010, and the Constellation Project is well under way. This is a severe under-utilization of a valuable and still-usable national asset.
SHUTTLE ADVOCATES: SAVE THE SHUTTLE
To alert the public, my colleagues and I formed the Shuttle Advocates Team (SAT), an informal group of mostly retired Rockwell and Boeing engineers, with many years of experience working on the space shuttle Orbiter vehicle, from contract initiation through mission operation. We represent a cross section of space shuttle engineering and provide authoritative information regarding space shuttle performance and future capability. Many of us were also deeply involved in the Apollo Project and are therefore qualified to make comparisons between the space shuttle approach and the Constellation approach to space exploration. We call our team the Shuttle Advocates Team because our mission is to extend the use of the space shuttle system beyond the current end date of 2010. Much of the following information is drawn from material supplied to this writer by SAT engineers.
SPACE SHUTTLE HISTORY AND ITS CURRENT CAPABILITY
To clarify a point, what everyone commonly calls the shuttle or the space shuttle is what our team calls the Orbiter vehicle, that stubby-looking, winged spacecraft that holds the crew and payload. It is this unique United States vehicle that America and the world have come to identify with manned space travel, our "space truck," so to speak. The total space shuttle system consists of four major components: two Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), one External Tank (ET), and the Orbiter. The SRBs and the ET are necessary to enable the Orbiter to achieve Earth orbit. Our comments and statements primarily concern the Orbiter vehicles.
The Orbiter named Challenger was lost due to a problem with the SRB circumferential field joint seals ("O-rings") losing their resiliency during a cold winter launch. The improved SRB joint seal has solved that problem. The Columbia spacecraft was lost when a large piece of the ET's external insulation inexplicably detached from a critical area on the tank surface. The critical area is a 15-foot-wide area opposite the Orbiter, which extends aft about five feet from the forward attach point of the Orbiter. The piece of foam struck the Orbiter on the lower surface of the left wing's leading edge, causing a mortal hole that resulted in the loss of the vehicle and crew from reentry overheating. Extensive corrective actions by the ET Project have restored confidence, and successful spaceflights have resumed.
We cite these two accidents to make the point that they were caused by the other shuttle components used during ascent to orbit. The Orbiter spacecraft has never been the cause of any failures. The Orbiter has a perfect record of 123 consecutive successful missions, and we are confident that this record number will grow. We also have a dedicated team of new engineers trained by their mentors, thus insuring that the Orbiter can continue to be operated correctly.
The Orbiters are, of course, aging but have two thirds of their 100 mission design lives (per vehicle) still ahead of them. Sean O'Keefe, a former head of NASA, states in the NOVA documentary that prior to the Columbia accident NASA was planning to keep the space shuttles in operation till 2020. One of the members of SAT recently delivered a technical paper on the built-in space shuttle longevity and compared it to the Douglas DC-3, an aircraft that has been flying for over 70 years and is known for its reliability and ruggedness. The vehicles are well maintained and to this day remain pristine. If you look inside one of the Orbiters today, for example, it looks very similar to the first Orbiter on its maiden voyage back in 1981.
Each of the Orbiters was designed and qualified by tests and analysis for a minimum of 100 space missions. Many of the component test programs were extended to 400 missions to flush out any hidden or unexpected failure modes. The most-used Orbiter in the fleet has only performed 35 missions, so today there is plenty of useful life remaining for additional space missions.
Furthermore, the space shuttles are not old technology. The Orbiter is very similar to military and commercial airplanes, and only evolutionary changes have occurred in airplanes over the last 27 years, as opposed to radical redesigns. Furthermore, those changes are mostly in the avionics, which are readily updated. The more familiar examples of this are the Boeing B-52 and B-1 bombers and the Boeing 747 airliner, all of which are still flying after a longer period, and in the latter case the plane is still in production. The fact is if a spacecraft were designed today to do all the things the space shuttle can do, it would be virtually no different from the existing proven hardware.
A former Orbiter Chief Engineer and VP of Engineering reports, "Many people are unaware that NASA has long maintained an upgrade process to provide current technology to the Orbiter. Starting with the early space missions, many upgrades were installed to improve performance, enhance system reliability, and improve operational safety. More than $1 billion was spent after the Challenger accident on the SRBs, the ET, and the Orbiter. The successful flights after the Columbia accident also show that NASA keeps these shuttle components operating with technology that can meet the mission requirements, consistent with the available funding for modification kits and their installation. Over the years of shuttle operations, these upgrades have received lots of attention as recorded in Reference (1)." (The reference is to a 1999 National Research Council Report entitled "Upgrading the Space Shuttle," published by the National Academy Press.)
As summarized by a former Chief Engineer at Kennedy Space Center, "The Orbiter is the most fantastic flying machine built by man. Its retirement in 2010 is premature and shortsighted. What a waste of unique hardware and all the associated infrastructure and people skills that have been developed at Kennedy Space Center. (This applies as well to the other NASA Centers and to the Corporate Suppliers.) The knowledge base and support for complex space launches take a significant time to establish, and now we're planning to dismantle the talented workforce at that site, together with the software and procedures established over 123 flights, to begin a new program. Skills will be lost as we wait on the Constellation hardware to materialize—a situation very similar to the tough six years between the last Apollo launch (Apollo Soyuz) in 1975 and the drawn-out buildup for the shuttle that finally culminated in its first launch in 1981. Such an extended development with the Constellation elements in these days of budget shortfalls could seriously impact the first scheduled launch of Orion in 2015.
MANNED SPACE VEHICLE EXPLORATION UTILIZING THE SPACE SHUTTLE
The space shuttles, used in concert with the International Space Station (ISS), could provide a viable means of launching manned space vehicles to destinations in our solar system, such as the moon, Mars, or an asteroid. In a single launch, the space shuttle can orbit a 50,000 lb payload, a capability that has allowed us to construct and operate the ISS, which weighs one million lbs. By designing the interplanetary vehicles in modular form and assembling them in orbit utilizing the ISS, we can assemble vehicles of enormous size, if required. This capability would be of indispensable value in the case of a Trans Mars vehicle, which would require the transport of considerable energy to power the vehicle there and back. Should additional single payload launch capability (either in weight or size) be required, a Space Shuttle-C (an unmanned space shuttle variant with increased payload capability) could be built. An additional benefit of this approach is that the ISS could serve as a mission return stopping point, followed by space shuttle transport of astronauts to Earth. This could provide an extra margin of safety for astronauts with unforeseen needs.
The specific advantages of continuing the space shuttle approach to solar system exploration discussed above, as opposed to the current Constellation "space shuttle replacement" approach, are numerous:
1) The space shuttle is a proven and predictable system. In contrast, the Ares-1 Launch Vehicle (ALV) is already beset with technical uncertainties regarding weight limitations and excessive vibration.
2) The space shuttle system is a combination of launch vehicle and spacecraft. The space shuttle Orbiter's on-orbit capabilities include a remote arm capable of manipulating and repairing satellites. The Orbiter also includes an airlock to support extravehicular activities such as space repairs and component assembly. The Constellation system (the shuttle replacement) is a combination of the ALV and the Orion spacecraft. The Orion spacecraft does not have the above capability.
3) The space shuttle system can return both payloads and astronauts from orbit to Earth via a runway landing, while the Constellation approach will revert to parachuting a capsule and the returning astronauts into the ocean, as was the case with the Apollo system.
4) The space shuttle will provide uninterrupted U.S. support to the ISS. Pursuing the Constellation approach will result in a gap of five years or more, when the U.S. will have no capability of delivering supplies to the ISS or of delivering astronauts to the ISS and returning them. Relying on the Russians to fill this gap has become more problematic with the controversy over the Russian invasion of Georgia and the reluctance of the U.S. Congress to renew the legislative exemption that enables NASA to continue to purchase Soyuz spacecraft services as a backup to the space shuttle. The current exemption expires in 2011. Therefore, Congress will need to extend the exemption till the ALV/Orion system is operational.
5) The space shuttle approach will insure ongoing utilization of the ISS, a space colony that humankind should keep in place and operating for the foreseeable future.
6) With the space shuttle system, both the Orbiter and the SRBs are reusable. With Constellation, a relatively larger part of the system, the ALV, is a single-use component.
7) The space shuttle and supporting facilities are paid for!
The advantages of the Constellation approach over the space shuttle approach appear to be nil, the switch to the Constellation approach being predicated primarily on the unwarranted fear of another shuttle "accident" as put forward by the President's CAIB. Fortunately, there is time to reconsider. Even though the dismantling of the space shuttle system has begun, it probably would be more advantageous to stay with this system than to design and construct a whole new system to support the Constellation program. At a minimum, the shuttle system should be extended till its replacement is operational.
The next President and his NASA administrator should also consider a change in the next goal of the U.S. manned space program as well as a change in the hardware to achieve that goal. Scientific interest now centers on Mars rather than on the moon. Four of the five elements of a manned mission to Mars are already in place:
1) The space shuttle (the launch vehicle)
2) The International Space Station, or ISS (the assembly and launch platform for the Trans Mars vehicle)
3) Extensive experience with on-orbit assembly
4) Numerous unmanned precursor missions to Mars
The only missing element is the Mars Aerobraker Vehicle (MAV) to transport the expected three astronauts to and from Mars. Conceptual designs already exist for this vehicle. At an estimated departure weight of 400,000 pounds, a dozen shuttle flights could deliver all needed modules of the MAV to the ISS over a period of years at a cost of perhaps $10 billion. This would leave most of $200 billion (the amount currently contemplated for lunar exploration) to design, build, and assemble the MAV. This redirection would focus the attention and resources of NASA and the aerospace community on the MAV, and would sharpen skills valuable to the nation for further exploration of our solar system. With the manned space program thus redirected, the goal of landing humans on Mars within the next decade appears to be feasible.
My e-mail address is alrichardson2@aol.com
On behalf of the members of SAT, thank you for your interest.
Allen J. Richardson,
Former Orbiter Stress Analysis Supervisor
Editor's Note:
As documented in Space Shuttle Disaster, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board's report makes a strong case for the shuttle's retirement, based on the design and safety issues laid bare by the loss of both Columbia, in 2003, and Challenger, 17 years earlier. Fourteen astronauts died in those accidents. The Bush administration accepted the board's recommendations and announced that the shuttle would be retired in 2010. NASA was ordered to develop new spacecraft that could take astronauts back to the moon and beyond, and many in the space community are excited by the new vision.
But there are dissenters who fervently believe that retiring the shuttle is a mistake. The movement to delay the shuttle's retirement picked up steam in September 2008, as both John McCain and Barack Obama voiced support for extending the shuttle's operation, and a leaked e-mail written by NASA's top administrator revealed that the space agency was studying the feasibility of extending shuttle missions past 2010. It's no surprise that engineers who have worked on the shuttle and its development are among the most passionate advocates for keeping it flying. One of those engineers, Allen Richardson, who appears in the NOVA documentary as well as assisted with technical questions during the film's production, requested the opportunity to express his viewpoint.—Arun Rath, one of the producers of "Space Shuttle Disaster"
SHUTTLE ADVOCATES: SAVE THE SHUTTLE
To alert the public, my colleagues and I formed the Shuttle Advocates Team (SAT), an informal group of mostly retired Rockwell and Boeing engineers, with many years of experience working on the space shuttle Orbiter vehicle, from contract initiation through mission operation. We represent a cross section of space shuttle engineering and provide authoritative information regarding space shuttle performance and future capability. Many of us were also deeply involved in the Apollo Project and are therefore qualified to make comparisons between the space shuttle approach and the Constellation approach to space exploration. We call our team the Shuttle Advocates Team because our mission is to extend the use of the space shuttle system beyond the current end date of 2010. Much of the following information is drawn from material supplied to this writer by SAT engineers.
SPACE SHUTTLE HISTORY AND ITS CURRENT CAPABILITY
To clarify a point, what everyone commonly calls the shuttle or the space shuttle is what our team calls the Orbiter vehicle, that stubby-looking, winged spacecraft that holds the crew and payload. It is this unique United States vehicle that America and the world have come to identify with manned space travel, our "space truck," so to speak. The total space shuttle system consists of four major components: two Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), one External Tank (ET), and the Orbiter. The SRBs and the ET are necessary to enable the Orbiter to achieve Earth orbit. Our comments and statements primarily concern the Orbiter vehicles.
The Orbiter named Challenger was lost due to a problem with the SRB circumferential field joint seals ("O-rings") losing their resiliency during a cold winter launch. The improved SRB joint seal has solved that problem. The Columbia spacecraft was lost when a large piece of the ET's external insulation inexplicably detached from a critical area on the tank surface. The critical area is a 15-foot-wide area opposite the Orbiter, which extends aft about five feet from the forward attach point of the Orbiter. The piece of foam struck the Orbiter on the lower surface of the left wing's leading edge, causing a mortal hole that resulted in the loss of the vehicle and crew from reentry overheating. Extensive corrective actions by the ET Project have restored confidence, and successful spaceflights have resumed.
We cite these two accidents to make the point that they were caused by the other shuttle components used during ascent to orbit. The Orbiter spacecraft has never been the cause of any failures. The Orbiter has a perfect record of 123 consecutive successful missions, and we are confident that this record number will grow. We also have a dedicated team of new engineers trained by their mentors, thus insuring that the Orbiter can continue to be operated correctly.
The Orbiters are, of course, aging but have two thirds of their 100 mission design lives (per vehicle) still ahead of them. Sean O'Keefe, a former head of NASA, states in the NOVA documentary that prior to the Columbia accident NASA was planning to keep the space shuttles in operation till 2020. One of the members of SAT recently delivered a technical paper on the built-in space shuttle longevity and compared it to the Douglas DC-3, an aircraft that has been flying for over 70 years and is known for its reliability and ruggedness. The vehicles are well maintained and to this day remain pristine. If you look inside one of the Orbiters today, for example, it looks very similar to the first Orbiter on its maiden voyage back in 1981.
Each of the Orbiters was designed and qualified by tests and analysis for a minimum of 100 space missions. Many of the component test programs were extended to 400 missions to flush out any hidden or unexpected failure modes. The most-used Orbiter in the fleet has only performed 35 missions, so today there is plenty of useful life remaining for additional space missions.
Furthermore, the space shuttles are not old technology. The Orbiter is very similar to military and commercial airplanes, and only evolutionary changes have occurred in airplanes over the last 27 years, as opposed to radical redesigns. Furthermore, those changes are mostly in the avionics, which are readily updated. The more familiar examples of this are the Boeing B-52 and B-1 bombers and the Boeing 747 airliner, all of which are still flying after a longer period, and in the latter case the plane is still in production. The fact is if a spacecraft were designed today to do all the things the space shuttle can do, it would be virtually no different from the existing proven hardware.
A former Orbiter Chief Engineer and VP of Engineering reports, "Many people are unaware that NASA has long maintained an upgrade process to provide current technology to the Orbiter. Starting with the early space missions, many upgrades were installed to improve performance, enhance system reliability, and improve operational safety. More than $1 billion was spent after the Challenger accident on the SRBs, the ET, and the Orbiter. The successful flights after the Columbia accident also show that NASA keeps these shuttle components operating with technology that can meet the mission requirements, consistent with the available funding for modification kits and their installation. Over the years of shuttle operations, these upgrades have received lots of attention as recorded in Reference (1)." (The reference is to a 1999 National Research Council Report entitled "Upgrading the Space Shuttle," published by the National Academy Press.)
As summarized by a former Chief Engineer at Kennedy Space Center, "The Orbiter is the most fantastic flying machine built by man. Its retirement in 2010 is premature and shortsighted. What a waste of unique hardware and all the associated infrastructure and people skills that have been developed at Kennedy Space Center. (This applies as well to the other NASA Centers and to the Corporate Suppliers.) The knowledge base and support for complex space launches take a significant time to establish, and now we're planning to dismantle the talented workforce at that site, together with the software and procedures established over 123 flights, to begin a new program. Skills will be lost as we wait on the Constellation hardware to materialize—a situation very similar to the tough six years between the last Apollo launch (Apollo Soyuz) in 1975 and the drawn-out buildup for the shuttle that finally culminated in its first launch in 1981. Such an extended development with the Constellation elements in these days of budget shortfalls could seriously impact the first scheduled launch of Orion in 2015.
MANNED SPACE VEHICLE EXPLORATION UTILIZING THE SPACE SHUTTLE
The space shuttles, used in concert with the International Space Station (ISS), could provide a viable means of launching manned space vehicles to destinations in our solar system, such as the moon, Mars, or an asteroid. In a single launch, the space shuttle can orbit a 50,000 lb payload, a capability that has allowed us to construct and operate the ISS, which weighs one million lbs. By designing the interplanetary vehicles in modular form and assembling them in orbit utilizing the ISS, we can assemble vehicles of enormous size, if required. This capability would be of indispensable value in the case of a Trans Mars vehicle, which would require the transport of considerable energy to power the vehicle there and back. Should additional single payload launch capability (either in weight or size) be required, a Space Shuttle-C (an unmanned space shuttle variant with increased payload capability) could be built. An additional benefit of this approach is that the ISS could serve as a mission return stopping point, followed by space shuttle transport of astronauts to Earth. This could provide an extra margin of safety for astronauts with unforeseen needs.
The specific advantages of continuing the space shuttle approach to solar system exploration discussed above, as opposed to the current Constellation "space shuttle replacement" approach, are numerous:
1) The space shuttle is a proven and predictable system. In contrast, the Ares-1 Launch Vehicle (ALV) is already beset with technical uncertainties regarding weight limitations and excessive vibration.
2) The space shuttle system is a combination of launch vehicle and spacecraft. The space shuttle Orbiter's on-orbit capabilities include a remote arm capable of manipulating and repairing satellites. The Orbiter also includes an airlock to support extravehicular activities such as space repairs and component assembly. The Constellation system (the shuttle replacement) is a combination of the ALV and the Orion spacecraft. The Orion spacecraft does not have the above capability.
3) The space shuttle system can return both payloads and astronauts from orbit to Earth via a runway landing, while the Constellation approach will revert to parachuting a capsule and the returning astronauts into the ocean, as was the case with the Apollo system.
4) The space shuttle will provide uninterrupted U.S. support to the ISS. Pursuing the Constellation approach will result in a gap of five years or more, when the U.S. will have no capability of delivering supplies to the ISS or of delivering astronauts to the ISS and returning them. Relying on the Russians to fill this gap has become more problematic with the controversy over the Russian invasion of Georgia and the reluctance of the U.S. Congress to renew the legislative exemption that enables NASA to continue to purchase Soyuz spacecraft services as a backup to the space shuttle. The current exemption expires in 2011. Therefore, Congress will need to extend the exemption till the ALV/Orion system is operational.
5) The space shuttle approach will insure ongoing utilization of the ISS, a space colony that humankind should keep in place and operating for the foreseeable future.
6) With the space shuttle system, both the Orbiter and the SRBs are reusable. With Constellation, a relatively larger part of the system, the ALV, is a single-use component.
7) The space shuttle and supporting facilities are paid for!
The advantages of the Constellation approach over the space shuttle approach appear to be nil, the switch to the Constellation approach being predicated primarily on the unwarranted fear of another shuttle "accident" as put forward by the President's CAIB. Fortunately, there is time to reconsider. Even though the dismantling of the space shuttle system has begun, it probably would be more advantageous to stay with this system than to design and construct a whole new system to support the Constellation program. At a minimum, the shuttle system should be extended till its replacement is operational.
The next President and his NASA administrator should also consider a change in the next goal of the U.S. manned space program as well as a change in the hardware to achieve that goal. Scientific interest now centers on Mars rather than on the moon. Four of the five elements of a manned mission to Mars are already in place:
1) The space shuttle (the launch vehicle)
2) The International Space Station, or ISS (the assembly and launch platform for the Trans Mars vehicle)
3) Extensive experience with on-orbit assembly
4) Numerous unmanned precursor missions to Mars
The only missing element is the Mars Aerobraker Vehicle (MAV) to transport the expected three astronauts to and from Mars. Conceptual designs already exist for this vehicle. At an estimated departure weight of 400,000 pounds, a dozen shuttle flights could deliver all needed modules of the MAV to the ISS over a period of years at a cost of perhaps $10 billion. This would leave most of $200 billion (the amount currently contemplated for lunar exploration) to design, build, and assemble the MAV. This redirection would focus the attention and resources of NASA and the aerospace community on the MAV, and would sharpen skills valuable to the nation for further exploration of our solar system. With the manned space program thus redirected, the goal of landing humans on Mars within the next decade appears to be feasible.
My e-mail address is alrichardson2@aol.com
On behalf of the members of SAT, thank you for your interest.
Allen J. Richardson,
Former Orbiter Stress Analysis Supervisor
Editor's Note:
As documented in Space Shuttle Disaster, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board's report makes a strong case for the shuttle's retirement, based on the design and safety issues laid bare by the loss of both Columbia, in 2003, and Challenger, 17 years earlier. Fourteen astronauts died in those accidents. The Bush administration accepted the board's recommendations and announced that the shuttle would be retired in 2010. NASA was ordered to develop new spacecraft that could take astronauts back to the moon and beyond, and many in the space community are excited by the new vision.
But there are dissenters who fervently believe that retiring the shuttle is a mistake. The movement to delay the shuttle's retirement picked up steam in September 2008, as both John McCain and Barack Obama voiced support for extending the shuttle's operation, and a leaked e-mail written by NASA's top administrator revealed that the space agency was studying the feasibility of extending shuttle missions past 2010. It's no surprise that engineers who have worked on the shuttle and its development are among the most passionate advocates for keeping it flying. One of those engineers, Allen Richardson, who appears in the NOVA documentary as well as assisted with technical questions during the film's production, requested the opportunity to express his viewpoint.—Arun Rath, one of the producers of "Space Shuttle Disaster"
Protect yourself against thugs----you might wind up in the pen?
If you’ve decided to carry a firearm for personal protection (or even if you’re just thinking about it), I applaud your decision. Most people are not willing to do what is necessary to protect themselves, their family members, and even complete strangers from the ruthless attack or a violent felon...
It is critical that you realize that the MOMENT you’re forced to draw your gun in self-defense there will be 100+ decisions that you’ll need to make in a split second. The MOMENT you decide to draw your gun, YOUR LIFE WILL CHANGE.
If you need to take the time to THINK about these decisions, there’s a good chance you’ll make a choice that will put you in jail...or worse.
You need to have these decisions programmed into your brain BEFORE you leave your house with your gun!
Reading the Concealed Carry Report and being in the USCCA is all about helping people make informed decisions. We empower our members so they know EXACTLY what to do in a life or death situation.
The Concealed Carry Report is a free, weekly newsletter. Inside, you’re going to uncover the answers to the toughest questions a citizen can (and MUST) face before being able to responsibly carry a concealed handgun and defend himself.
It is critical that you realize that the MOMENT you’re forced to draw your gun in self-defense there will be 100+ decisions that you’ll need to make in a split second. The MOMENT you decide to draw your gun, YOUR LIFE WILL CHANGE.
If you need to take the time to THINK about these decisions, there’s a good chance you’ll make a choice that will put you in jail...or worse.
You need to have these decisions programmed into your brain BEFORE you leave your house with your gun!
Reading the Concealed Carry Report and being in the USCCA is all about helping people make informed decisions. We empower our members so they know EXACTLY what to do in a life or death situation.
The Concealed Carry Report is a free, weekly newsletter. Inside, you’re going to uncover the answers to the toughest questions a citizen can (and MUST) face before being able to responsibly carry a concealed handgun and defend himself.
Friday, March 30, 2012
5 of bho's biggest Whoppers
'The 5 biggest whoppers in Obama's energy speech'
Rick Moran
Investors Business Daily listened to Obama's energy speech so you didn't have to and picked out the top 5 lies told by the president about his energy policy:
"We're focused on production."
Fact: Obama has chosen almost always to limit production. He canceled leases on federal lands in Utah, suspended them in Montana, delayed them in Colorado and Utah, and canceled lease sales off the Virginia coast.
"The U.S. consumes more than a fifth of the world's oil. But we only have 2% of the world's oil reserves."
In fact, the U.S. has a mind-boggling 1.4 trillion barrels of oil, enough to "fuel the present needs in the U.S. for around 250 years," according to the Institute for Energy Research. The problem is the government has put most of this supply off limits.
"Because of the investments we've made, the use of clean, renewable energy in this country has nearly doubled."
Fact: Production of renewable energy - biomass, wind, solar and the like - climbed just 12% between 2008 and 2011, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.
We need to double-down on a clean energy industry that's never been more promising."
Fact: Renewable energy simply won't play an important role in the country's energy picture anytime soon, accounting for just 13% of U.S. energy production by 2035, according to the EIA.
"There are no short-term silver bullets when it comes to gas prices."
Fact: Obama could drive down oil prices right now simply by announcing a more aggressive effort to boost domestic supplies. When President Bush lifted a moratorium in 2008, oil prices immediately fell $9 a barrel.
The president has stressed natural gas and nuclear power - but in a half hearted, political sort of way. What's needed is something that Obama has failed to show for his entire presidency - leadership.
Gas prices are rising and will hit $4 a gallon soon. Obama's lack of leadership on energy will cost us dearly in the coming months.
Rick Moran
Investors Business Daily listened to Obama's energy speech so you didn't have to and picked out the top 5 lies told by the president about his energy policy:
"We're focused on production."
Fact: Obama has chosen almost always to limit production. He canceled leases on federal lands in Utah, suspended them in Montana, delayed them in Colorado and Utah, and canceled lease sales off the Virginia coast.
"The U.S. consumes more than a fifth of the world's oil. But we only have 2% of the world's oil reserves."
In fact, the U.S. has a mind-boggling 1.4 trillion barrels of oil, enough to "fuel the present needs in the U.S. for around 250 years," according to the Institute for Energy Research. The problem is the government has put most of this supply off limits.
"Because of the investments we've made, the use of clean, renewable energy in this country has nearly doubled."
Fact: Production of renewable energy - biomass, wind, solar and the like - climbed just 12% between 2008 and 2011, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.
We need to double-down on a clean energy industry that's never been more promising."
Fact: Renewable energy simply won't play an important role in the country's energy picture anytime soon, accounting for just 13% of U.S. energy production by 2035, according to the EIA.
"There are no short-term silver bullets when it comes to gas prices."
Fact: Obama could drive down oil prices right now simply by announcing a more aggressive effort to boost domestic supplies. When President Bush lifted a moratorium in 2008, oil prices immediately fell $9 a barrel.
The president has stressed natural gas and nuclear power - but in a half hearted, political sort of way. What's needed is something that Obama has failed to show for his entire presidency - leadership.
Gas prices are rising and will hit $4 a gallon soon. Obama's lack of leadership on energy will cost us dearly in the coming months.
Bho's actions and rising prices
The President’s Actions, and Rising Prices
by Mark Green
Mar. 30, 2012
TAGS
access crude crude oil domestic energy economy energy policy gas prices keystone xl supply taxes
Is President Obama the “anti-energy” president, as former Gov. Pete Du Pont argues in an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal (sub. required)? Certainly, in the areas that matter most – oil and natural gas development – a case can be made from the infographic below that the president’s policies haven’t helped.
Administration Oil Strategy Contributes to Price Increases
By “matters most” we mean the sources that current supply more than 60 percent of the energy we use – and which will continue to supply nearly 60 percent of the energy we use for the next quarter century, according to the Energy Information Administration.
That’s not knocking other energy forms, because we need them all. It’s recognizing this energy reality: Our economy runs on oil and natural gas – and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
In that context the president and his team should acknowledge that energy reality – by protecting and enhancing the energy sources that play the leading role supporting our economy. Here, this president and his administration often appear to be doing the opposite.
As the graphic shows, the president basically is pursuing an off-oil policy: delaying or canceling development on federal areas onshore and offshore, proposing punitive tax increases on America’s energy producers, threatening new layers of unnecessary regulation and rejecting key components like the Keystone XL pipeline. The president claims credit for oil and gas production (that belongs to others), while pursuing policies that actually put a drag on future oil and gas development, potentially jeopardizing America’s overall security.
Meanwhile, as the lines at the base of the graphic show, prices for crude oil have risen steadily since 2009, boosting costs for gasoline and diesel.
by Mark Green
Mar. 30, 2012
TAGS
access crude crude oil domestic energy economy energy policy gas prices keystone xl supply taxes
Is President Obama the “anti-energy” president, as former Gov. Pete Du Pont argues in an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal (sub. required)? Certainly, in the areas that matter most – oil and natural gas development – a case can be made from the infographic below that the president’s policies haven’t helped.
Administration Oil Strategy Contributes to Price Increases
By “matters most” we mean the sources that current supply more than 60 percent of the energy we use – and which will continue to supply nearly 60 percent of the energy we use for the next quarter century, according to the Energy Information Administration.
That’s not knocking other energy forms, because we need them all. It’s recognizing this energy reality: Our economy runs on oil and natural gas – and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
In that context the president and his team should acknowledge that energy reality – by protecting and enhancing the energy sources that play the leading role supporting our economy. Here, this president and his administration often appear to be doing the opposite.
As the graphic shows, the president basically is pursuing an off-oil policy: delaying or canceling development on federal areas onshore and offshore, proposing punitive tax increases on America’s energy producers, threatening new layers of unnecessary regulation and rejecting key components like the Keystone XL pipeline. The president claims credit for oil and gas production (that belongs to others), while pursuing policies that actually put a drag on future oil and gas development, potentially jeopardizing America’s overall security.
Meanwhile, as the lines at the base of the graphic show, prices for crude oil have risen steadily since 2009, boosting costs for gasoline and diesel.
Nonsensical retirement of the shuttle
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Nonsensical Retirement of Shuttle
Reversing the nonsensical retirement of Shuttle requires a miracle – DeCastro
August 23rd, 2011 by Chris Bergin
As the Space Shuttle Program (SSP) heads into its final week of operations, United Space Alliance (USA) Vice President and SSP manager Howard DeCastro has spoken about how the retirement of the fleet makes no sense, from a technical, ISS support and national security standpoint. A last ditch reversal of the decision, likely via a NASA/commercial arrangement, would require a “miracle”, due to political obstructions.
Howard DeCastro Interview:
The Shuttle Program closed out a 30 year career this summer when Atlantis returned home after a highly successful STS-135 mission.
She was welcomed back into the warm embrace of her NASA and contractor workforce, of which the United Space Alliance (USA) team provide the role as the main guardians of the fleet.
The term “bitter-sweet” was mentioned numerous times before, during and after Atlantis’ mission, although the overwhelming public response to the realization that STS-135 was the last NASA shuttle mission saw the word being used in the negative connotation.
Reactions varied from proud, through to sad, bemused and somewhat angry – as the United States effectively gave up its leadership in space – feelings which Mr DeCastro empathizes with.
“I can easily understand the public’s response. All Americans share a common desire to feel secure,” noted Mr DeCastro in an interview with NASASpaceFlight.com. “The U.S. Government is spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year in Defense and Homeland Security funding to provide for the defense of the nation.
See Also
Shuttle Forum Section
L2 Shuttle Section
L2 Shuttle Extension Section
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“Technological developments in space-based battlefield intelligence and war fighter assistance have played a significant role in the tactical successes of the U.S. military in recent campaigns. Superiority in the air – now space – has long been the key to our national security.
“History has shown that our human spaceflight program promoted domestic security; fostered the development of new technologies and industries; created high-skilled, well-paid jobs; and inspired many of our youth to study science, math and engineering – the technical human capital that ensured our country achieved its global economic strength in the 20th century.”
With the United States losing its own domestic human launch vehicle capability, Americans face a reality of watching their astronauts ride to a Space Station – which they have paid the majority of funding towards – on the Russian Soyuz, at the cost of several hundred million dollars of NASA funding over the next four or so years.
Although this is a temporary requirement, Mr DeCastro – a US Marine Corp. Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) - added that the implications of this interim agreement are centric to the potential problems a dependency on a foreign nation can result in. Directly, the highly respected manager feels the effective utilization of America’s national laboratory may suffer.
“Based on what I have read in the press, Americans are wondering why the United States would turn over the “high ground” – America’s lead in Human Space Flight – to other nation’s at a time when both our national and economic security are at risk,” he added.
“The United States is now dependent on the Russians to move our U.S. astronaut corps to the Space Station. In addition to the national security and economic concerns that dependence on Russia to transport American astronauts severely limits the amount of time U.S .research can be conducted aboard the Station at the exact point in time when the Station is finally assembled and open for business.
“Despite the fact that the U.S. taxpayer paid tens of billions of dollars to construct the Station’s unique microgravity research laboratory, in the future, the annual mix of astronauts aboard the ISS will be six Russian, four American, and two others (shared by Europe, Japan, and Canada).
“The day-to-day operational workload for the American astronauts aboard the ISS will be high and will provide only limited time for research into important vaccines such as salmonella and MSRA to mention only two of the experiments started by U.S. astronauts this past year.”
Shuttle Extension Articles: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/tag/extension/
While the decision to retire the Space Shuttle was effectively made as a result of the tragic loss of Columbia during her return from STS-107, a retirement plan drawn up under the stewardship of former NASA administrator Mike Griffin – part of the now-defunct Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) – was carried forward and supported by current Administrator Charlie Bolden.
It is often argued whether or not the current administrator could have reversed the retirement decision – had their been the political will – with the shutdown of shuttle-related vendors already in work by the time General Bolden took office.
However, from the early days of his leadership of NASA, it was clear the former Shuttle Commander had no intention of providing the Shuttle with a lifeline – as noted during an interview with the BBC, as he shook his head saying “no, it’s time to move on” when asked if there could be some additional flights.
Since then, General Bolden and especially his number two – Lori Garver – have been using nearly every opportunity with the media to talk of a “bright future”, centralized around the use of commercial vehicles, which are tasked with replacing the human domestic launch capability lost by the retirement of the Shuttle for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) operations.
While that capability is set to return in the 2015 timeframe, Mr DeCastro believes NASA’s transition places the United States human spaceflight program in “jeopardy” via the insistence of “subsidizing” the development of commercial companies which have already shown signs of not being able to keep to their projected schedules.
“In my opinion, the decision to terminate the Shuttle Program does not make sense since the “bright future” is further off than advertised and is dependent on the success of “commercial” space companies who, so far, have failed to meet their schedules for cargo resupply to the station,” Mr DeCastro noted.
“As yet those are the same entities NASA wants to rely upon for U.S. astronaut transport. As a business man, I applaud our Nation’s entrepreneurs since they are the backbone of our Nation’s economy. I have been in numerous business sectors during the past 50 years and I value the risk takers who created the industries that made our nation great.
“But if you study this particular situation closely, NASA is placing our Nation’s human spaceflight program in jeopardy in order to subsidize the development of some “commercial” space companies. Personally, I would not risk so much for the benefit of so few.
“I believe the public’s opinion will change only if the United States regains our Nation’s leadership position in human space exploration. I hope I live long enough to see that happen.”
Currently, it is more likely than not that the commercial partners will be able to take up the reigns of providing transportation to NASA astronauts, although that will only be one element of the capability lost by retiring Shuttle both during the gap and the initial ramp up of commercial cargo flights.
“NASA was not provided the funding needed to fly the Shuttles until a replacement program was operational. As a result, NASA has developed plans to support the International Space Station with the transport that is now available,” added Mr DeCastro.
“There is some risk that the providers may not be able to meet the manifest and there is some risk that a component failure on the ISS could reduce its capability and even its length of service. All of this has been carefully considered by NASA and the plans in place have an excellent chance of success.
“Tradeoffs were needed due to funding constraints. Not an uncommon problem these days. If the Shuttle had remained available through the life of the ISS the likelihood of success would be greater. The Shuttle is the only vehicle capable of providing the large component up and down mass necessary to ensure replacement of some systems/components and is the only vehicle capable of providing EVA service should that be required.”
It’s been known for over a year that efforts behind the scenes were being drawn up to provide a commercial option via the use of the orbiters themselves, a plan which would have more than halved the operational costs of NASA’s running of the fleet, running two orbiters (Atlantis and Endeavour) around two flights per year.
Sources note this plan could have been activated even after Atlantis came to a stop on the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF), resulting in the first commercial flight of a shuttle in around 18 months after an official green light.
Hints towards the continuation of such planning could be seen via comments made after STS-135, when NASA managers John Shannon and LeRoy Cain both noted a “do no harm” processing order was in place on both Atlantis and Endeavour, ensuring they could be returned to flight if required.
While the full details of the plan are restricted, it is understood this remains “technically” available, as much as Mr DeCastro notes it would now require a “miracle” from a funding and political standpoint.
“The decision to terminate the Space Shuttle Program was driven by budget constraints, not the health of the vehicles. Endeavour and Atlantis are capable of flying further missions but, by the end of the year, all three vehicles – Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis – will be well into processing for transport to their final destinations in Museums throughout the nation.
“Trying to return them to a flight ready status would be costly and time consuming once that processing is completed.
“If a miracle occurred and funding became available to continue Shuttle Operations, it could be managed by NASA or the private sector. The original NASA contract with USA put into place by NASA Administrator, Dan Goldin had a three phased approach with the last phase having USA operate the Shuttle program as a “commercial” venture selling NASA launch services.
“Needless to say, that Phase of the contract was not well received by some powerful decision makers in Washington so it was never implemented.
“During the past decade, NASA, USA and others have examined many ways to eliminate cost from the Shuttle program and operate it in a “commercial” manner so we know it could have been done.
“But it would have required the approval of many different Washington decision makers, some of whom worried about the risk involved in sending U.S. astronauts into space aboard a “commercially” operated vehicle, some who think the government should indemnify a “commercially” operated human space flight vehicle, some who did not think it would benefit the nation if NASA was still paying the bulk of the cost of the program and finally, some who viewed the Space Shuttles as global symbols of America’s leadership and freedom and did not want our Nation to lose that symbol.”
Political obstruction towards any form of extension was seen via the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), who sided with Mr Griffin during his insistence it was too “risky” – from a Loss Of Vehicle/Crew (LOV/C) standpoint – to extend the Shuttle Program.
ASAP’s remarks drew a rare reaction via Mr DeCastro’s NASA counterpart, John Shannon, who classed ASAP’s comments as “disturbing”. However, ASAP’s stance has never changed – despite a run of amazingly “clean” missions – as seen comments made less than a month ago, when another call to continue flying the Shuttle was strongly dismissed by the advisory body. (An upcoming article will be produced on the ASAP meeting, which was also wary of the commercial companies).
With such staunch opposition, the opportunity for the orbiters to fly again – even via a commercial role – always had a major roadblock from the proposals reaching a level where a serious consideration could be made.
“I could go into lots of details on how to make a “commercial” shuttle program succeed but bottom line there are many ways to make it work and if there were non-NASA customers, the program costs could have been shared,” added Mr DeCastro. “That said, the politics of such a decision blocked it from ever being seriously considered.
“The issue is almost entirely about cost and politics. The Orbiters are fully capable of continued safe operation. It is unfortunate that some have used the argument of “safety” to shorten the life of the Shuttle program. Those of us who have been closely involved in the process know it was a budget decision and a lack of political will to maintain our Nation’s leadership position in Human Space Flight.
“The safety records of the Soyuz compared to the safety records for the shuttle are about even. The most recent Shuttle missions have been among the best ever flown. The Team’s understanding of the Shuttle is better now than at any time in the past.
“The reason to shut down the Shuttle Program is that the Nation doesn’t want to spend any more money on Shuttle. President Bush cancelled the Shuttle Program to fund the Constellation Program. President Obama cancelled the Constellation Program to fund commercial companies.
“It would have been prudent to reinstate the Shuttle Program as part of the cancellation of the Constellation Program to eliminate our gap in America’s ability to access space with human transport.”
The second part of Mr DeCastro’s interview will be published next week.
To read about Atlantis and her sisters – from birth, processing, every single mission, through to retirement, click here for the links:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=25837.0
Click here for the amazing MaxQ Entertainment STS-135 Mission Review Music Video:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26178.0
(Images: Via Larry Sullivan, MaxQ Entertainment/NASASpaceflight.com, L2 and L2 presentations, NASA.gov, SpaceX, and USA. Further articles on the fleet will be produced during her down processing, driven by L2 – which is continuing to follow the orbiters via a wealth of FRR/PRCB/MER/MMT and SSP documentation/pressentations, videos, images and more.
(As with all recent missions, L2 is providing full exclusive level mission coverage, available no where else on the internet. To join L2, click here: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/l2/)
Tags: Extension, Shuttle
This article was published on Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011 at 8:46 pm and is filed under Featured, Shuttle.
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Nonsensical Retirement of Shuttle
Reversing the nonsensical retirement of Shuttle requires a miracle – DeCastro
August 23rd, 2011 by Chris Bergin
As the Space Shuttle Program (SSP) heads into its final week of operations, United Space Alliance (USA) Vice President and SSP manager Howard DeCastro has spoken about how the retirement of the fleet makes no sense, from a technical, ISS support and national security standpoint. A last ditch reversal of the decision, likely via a NASA/commercial arrangement, would require a “miracle”, due to political obstructions.
Howard DeCastro Interview:
The Shuttle Program closed out a 30 year career this summer when Atlantis returned home after a highly successful STS-135 mission.
She was welcomed back into the warm embrace of her NASA and contractor workforce, of which the United Space Alliance (USA) team provide the role as the main guardians of the fleet.
The term “bitter-sweet” was mentioned numerous times before, during and after Atlantis’ mission, although the overwhelming public response to the realization that STS-135 was the last NASA shuttle mission saw the word being used in the negative connotation.
Reactions varied from proud, through to sad, bemused and somewhat angry – as the United States effectively gave up its leadership in space – feelings which Mr DeCastro empathizes with.
“I can easily understand the public’s response. All Americans share a common desire to feel secure,” noted Mr DeCastro in an interview with NASASpaceFlight.com. “The U.S. Government is spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year in Defense and Homeland Security funding to provide for the defense of the nation.
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“Technological developments in space-based battlefield intelligence and war fighter assistance have played a significant role in the tactical successes of the U.S. military in recent campaigns. Superiority in the air – now space – has long been the key to our national security.
“History has shown that our human spaceflight program promoted domestic security; fostered the development of new technologies and industries; created high-skilled, well-paid jobs; and inspired many of our youth to study science, math and engineering – the technical human capital that ensured our country achieved its global economic strength in the 20th century.”
With the United States losing its own domestic human launch vehicle capability, Americans face a reality of watching their astronauts ride to a Space Station – which they have paid the majority of funding towards – on the Russian Soyuz, at the cost of several hundred million dollars of NASA funding over the next four or so years.
Although this is a temporary requirement, Mr DeCastro – a US Marine Corp. Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) - added that the implications of this interim agreement are centric to the potential problems a dependency on a foreign nation can result in. Directly, the highly respected manager feels the effective utilization of America’s national laboratory may suffer.
“Based on what I have read in the press, Americans are wondering why the United States would turn over the “high ground” – America’s lead in Human Space Flight – to other nation’s at a time when both our national and economic security are at risk,” he added.
“The United States is now dependent on the Russians to move our U.S. astronaut corps to the Space Station. In addition to the national security and economic concerns that dependence on Russia to transport American astronauts severely limits the amount of time U.S .research can be conducted aboard the Station at the exact point in time when the Station is finally assembled and open for business.
“Despite the fact that the U.S. taxpayer paid tens of billions of dollars to construct the Station’s unique microgravity research laboratory, in the future, the annual mix of astronauts aboard the ISS will be six Russian, four American, and two others (shared by Europe, Japan, and Canada).
“The day-to-day operational workload for the American astronauts aboard the ISS will be high and will provide only limited time for research into important vaccines such as salmonella and MSRA to mention only two of the experiments started by U.S. astronauts this past year.”
Shuttle Extension Articles: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/tag/extension/
While the decision to retire the Space Shuttle was effectively made as a result of the tragic loss of Columbia during her return from STS-107, a retirement plan drawn up under the stewardship of former NASA administrator Mike Griffin – part of the now-defunct Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) – was carried forward and supported by current Administrator Charlie Bolden.
It is often argued whether or not the current administrator could have reversed the retirement decision – had their been the political will – with the shutdown of shuttle-related vendors already in work by the time General Bolden took office.
However, from the early days of his leadership of NASA, it was clear the former Shuttle Commander had no intention of providing the Shuttle with a lifeline – as noted during an interview with the BBC, as he shook his head saying “no, it’s time to move on” when asked if there could be some additional flights.
Since then, General Bolden and especially his number two – Lori Garver – have been using nearly every opportunity with the media to talk of a “bright future”, centralized around the use of commercial vehicles, which are tasked with replacing the human domestic launch capability lost by the retirement of the Shuttle for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) operations.
While that capability is set to return in the 2015 timeframe, Mr DeCastro believes NASA’s transition places the United States human spaceflight program in “jeopardy” via the insistence of “subsidizing” the development of commercial companies which have already shown signs of not being able to keep to their projected schedules.
“In my opinion, the decision to terminate the Shuttle Program does not make sense since the “bright future” is further off than advertised and is dependent on the success of “commercial” space companies who, so far, have failed to meet their schedules for cargo resupply to the station,” Mr DeCastro noted.
“As yet those are the same entities NASA wants to rely upon for U.S. astronaut transport. As a business man, I applaud our Nation’s entrepreneurs since they are the backbone of our Nation’s economy. I have been in numerous business sectors during the past 50 years and I value the risk takers who created the industries that made our nation great.
“But if you study this particular situation closely, NASA is placing our Nation’s human spaceflight program in jeopardy in order to subsidize the development of some “commercial” space companies. Personally, I would not risk so much for the benefit of so few.
“I believe the public’s opinion will change only if the United States regains our Nation’s leadership position in human space exploration. I hope I live long enough to see that happen.”
Currently, it is more likely than not that the commercial partners will be able to take up the reigns of providing transportation to NASA astronauts, although that will only be one element of the capability lost by retiring Shuttle both during the gap and the initial ramp up of commercial cargo flights.
“NASA was not provided the funding needed to fly the Shuttles until a replacement program was operational. As a result, NASA has developed plans to support the International Space Station with the transport that is now available,” added Mr DeCastro.
“There is some risk that the providers may not be able to meet the manifest and there is some risk that a component failure on the ISS could reduce its capability and even its length of service. All of this has been carefully considered by NASA and the plans in place have an excellent chance of success.
“Tradeoffs were needed due to funding constraints. Not an uncommon problem these days. If the Shuttle had remained available through the life of the ISS the likelihood of success would be greater. The Shuttle is the only vehicle capable of providing the large component up and down mass necessary to ensure replacement of some systems/components and is the only vehicle capable of providing EVA service should that be required.”
It’s been known for over a year that efforts behind the scenes were being drawn up to provide a commercial option via the use of the orbiters themselves, a plan which would have more than halved the operational costs of NASA’s running of the fleet, running two orbiters (Atlantis and Endeavour) around two flights per year.
Sources note this plan could have been activated even after Atlantis came to a stop on the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF), resulting in the first commercial flight of a shuttle in around 18 months after an official green light.
Hints towards the continuation of such planning could be seen via comments made after STS-135, when NASA managers John Shannon and LeRoy Cain both noted a “do no harm” processing order was in place on both Atlantis and Endeavour, ensuring they could be returned to flight if required.
While the full details of the plan are restricted, it is understood this remains “technically” available, as much as Mr DeCastro notes it would now require a “miracle” from a funding and political standpoint.
“The decision to terminate the Space Shuttle Program was driven by budget constraints, not the health of the vehicles. Endeavour and Atlantis are capable of flying further missions but, by the end of the year, all three vehicles – Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis – will be well into processing for transport to their final destinations in Museums throughout the nation.
“Trying to return them to a flight ready status would be costly and time consuming once that processing is completed.
“If a miracle occurred and funding became available to continue Shuttle Operations, it could be managed by NASA or the private sector. The original NASA contract with USA put into place by NASA Administrator, Dan Goldin had a three phased approach with the last phase having USA operate the Shuttle program as a “commercial” venture selling NASA launch services.
“Needless to say, that Phase of the contract was not well received by some powerful decision makers in Washington so it was never implemented.
“During the past decade, NASA, USA and others have examined many ways to eliminate cost from the Shuttle program and operate it in a “commercial” manner so we know it could have been done.
“But it would have required the approval of many different Washington decision makers, some of whom worried about the risk involved in sending U.S. astronauts into space aboard a “commercially” operated vehicle, some who think the government should indemnify a “commercially” operated human space flight vehicle, some who did not think it would benefit the nation if NASA was still paying the bulk of the cost of the program and finally, some who viewed the Space Shuttles as global symbols of America’s leadership and freedom and did not want our Nation to lose that symbol.”
Political obstruction towards any form of extension was seen via the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), who sided with Mr Griffin during his insistence it was too “risky” – from a Loss Of Vehicle/Crew (LOV/C) standpoint – to extend the Shuttle Program.
ASAP’s remarks drew a rare reaction via Mr DeCastro’s NASA counterpart, John Shannon, who classed ASAP’s comments as “disturbing”. However, ASAP’s stance has never changed – despite a run of amazingly “clean” missions – as seen comments made less than a month ago, when another call to continue flying the Shuttle was strongly dismissed by the advisory body. (An upcoming article will be produced on the ASAP meeting, which was also wary of the commercial companies).
With such staunch opposition, the opportunity for the orbiters to fly again – even via a commercial role – always had a major roadblock from the proposals reaching a level where a serious consideration could be made.
“I could go into lots of details on how to make a “commercial” shuttle program succeed but bottom line there are many ways to make it work and if there were non-NASA customers, the program costs could have been shared,” added Mr DeCastro. “That said, the politics of such a decision blocked it from ever being seriously considered.
“The issue is almost entirely about cost and politics. The Orbiters are fully capable of continued safe operation. It is unfortunate that some have used the argument of “safety” to shorten the life of the Shuttle program. Those of us who have been closely involved in the process know it was a budget decision and a lack of political will to maintain our Nation’s leadership position in Human Space Flight.
“The safety records of the Soyuz compared to the safety records for the shuttle are about even. The most recent Shuttle missions have been among the best ever flown. The Team’s understanding of the Shuttle is better now than at any time in the past.
“The reason to shut down the Shuttle Program is that the Nation doesn’t want to spend any more money on Shuttle. President Bush cancelled the Shuttle Program to fund the Constellation Program. President Obama cancelled the Constellation Program to fund commercial companies.
“It would have been prudent to reinstate the Shuttle Program as part of the cancellation of the Constellation Program to eliminate our gap in America’s ability to access space with human transport.”
The second part of Mr DeCastro’s interview will be published next week.
To read about Atlantis and her sisters – from birth, processing, every single mission, through to retirement, click here for the links:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=25837.0
Click here for the amazing MaxQ Entertainment STS-135 Mission Review Music Video:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26178.0
(Images: Via Larry Sullivan, MaxQ Entertainment/NASASpaceflight.com, L2 and L2 presentations, NASA.gov, SpaceX, and USA. Further articles on the fleet will be produced during her down processing, driven by L2 – which is continuing to follow the orbiters via a wealth of FRR/PRCB/MER/MMT and SSP documentation/pressentations, videos, images and more.
(As with all recent missions, L2 is providing full exclusive level mission coverage, available no where else on the internet. To join L2, click here: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/l2/)
Tags: Extension, Shuttle
This article was published on Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011 at 8:46 pm and is filed under Featured, Shuttle.
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Eco-scams are as easy as A123
Eco-scams are as easy as “A123″
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2012
While President Obama was busy lambasting Big Oil tax breaks on Thursday, yet another one of his environmental welfare recipients (the very kind he wants to redistribute oil subsidies to) was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Who needs to win the Mega Millions lottery? Start a pie-in-the-sky eco-boondoggle, and a half-billion-dollar jackpot ripe for squandering is all yours!
The Solyndra of the week is A123 Systems, an electric vehicle battery company based in Massachusetts. The firm also has battery plants in Michigan, where former Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm once heralded A123 as a federal stimulus “success story.” Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the company headquarters and hailed it as a “great example of how Recovery Act funding is helping American companies.” In addition to nearly $300 million in Obama Recovery Act funds, Granholm kicked in another $135 million in tax credits and subsidies to bribe the company to keep jobs in her state.
How’s the return on government investment? This green dud will have taxpayers seeing red. A123′s official company motto is “Power. Safety. Life.” But the firm’s reality is “Out of power. Endangering safety. Clinging to life.”
Earlier this week, the company announced a recall of malfunctioning battery packs manufactured in Livonia, Mich. A123 makes the products for Fisker, Chevrolet and BMW electric cars. Consumer Reports flagged the potentially hazardous defect caused by faulty calibration earlier this month. The recall will cost upward of $55 million.
A Deutsche Bank analyst wrote: “We no longer have enough confidence that (A123) can raise sufficient capital (without massive equity dilution) and/or continue to augment their book to future business. Recent quality issues may lead to concerns over (A123′s) ability to manufacture with quality at high volumes, potentially leading to customer defections or at least difficulty in procuring new contracts.”
When it rains, it pours. The dead battery debacle follows news of 125 layoffs in November due to diminished vehicle production by top client Fisker Auto. That troubled company (which A123 has itself dumped $20.5 million of stock equity and cash into) admitted faulty wiring problems with its electric cars.
While Michigan workers lost their jobs, Massachusetts executives burned through $155 million in cash this year and the company stock plummeted to just over $1. A123 lost a net $172 million over the first three quarters of 2011 and has yet to see a profit. Like Solyndra’s top brass, A123 managers have been living high on the hog and partying it up with Democratic Party bigwigs.
The Michigan-based Mackinac Center reports that in February, “A123′s Compensation Committee approved a $30,000 raise for (Chief Financial Officer David) Prystash just days after (its primary customer) Fisker Automotive announced the U.S. Energy Department had cut off what was left of its $528.7 million loan it had previously received.”
Prystash’s hike was 8.5 percent, taking his base salary from $350,000 to $380,000. One A123 vice president, Robert Johnson, received a 20.7 percent pay increase that saw his salary grow from $331,250 to $400,000. Another vice president, Jason Forcier, vice president of the automotive solutions group, climbed from a $331,250 base salary to $350,000.
Analyst Paul Chesser of the D.C.-based National Legal and Policy Center raises pointed questions about the timing of the pay raises: “Were their actions intended as greater protection for their executives in the case of a sale or bankruptcy of the company?” Inquiring House GOP investigators looking into the Obama Department of Energy’s big green boondoggles should want to know.
And taxpayers should want to know more about the cozy ties between A123 and the White House and Democratic politicians. A123 Systems CEO David Vieau showered Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee and key Democrats on Capitol Hill with nearly $17,000 before receiving the stimulus injection. A123 enviro-boodle also flowed to Mass. Sen. John Kerry and Rep. Ed Markey. Betting on “smart grid” cronyism has been a bonanza for the well-connected — and a big, bad bet for taxpayers.
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2012
While President Obama was busy lambasting Big Oil tax breaks on Thursday, yet another one of his environmental welfare recipients (the very kind he wants to redistribute oil subsidies to) was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Who needs to win the Mega Millions lottery? Start a pie-in-the-sky eco-boondoggle, and a half-billion-dollar jackpot ripe for squandering is all yours!
The Solyndra of the week is A123 Systems, an electric vehicle battery company based in Massachusetts. The firm also has battery plants in Michigan, where former Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm once heralded A123 as a federal stimulus “success story.” Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the company headquarters and hailed it as a “great example of how Recovery Act funding is helping American companies.” In addition to nearly $300 million in Obama Recovery Act funds, Granholm kicked in another $135 million in tax credits and subsidies to bribe the company to keep jobs in her state.
How’s the return on government investment? This green dud will have taxpayers seeing red. A123′s official company motto is “Power. Safety. Life.” But the firm’s reality is “Out of power. Endangering safety. Clinging to life.”
Earlier this week, the company announced a recall of malfunctioning battery packs manufactured in Livonia, Mich. A123 makes the products for Fisker, Chevrolet and BMW electric cars. Consumer Reports flagged the potentially hazardous defect caused by faulty calibration earlier this month. The recall will cost upward of $55 million.
A Deutsche Bank analyst wrote: “We no longer have enough confidence that (A123) can raise sufficient capital (without massive equity dilution) and/or continue to augment their book to future business. Recent quality issues may lead to concerns over (A123′s) ability to manufacture with quality at high volumes, potentially leading to customer defections or at least difficulty in procuring new contracts.”
When it rains, it pours. The dead battery debacle follows news of 125 layoffs in November due to diminished vehicle production by top client Fisker Auto. That troubled company (which A123 has itself dumped $20.5 million of stock equity and cash into) admitted faulty wiring problems with its electric cars.
While Michigan workers lost their jobs, Massachusetts executives burned through $155 million in cash this year and the company stock plummeted to just over $1. A123 lost a net $172 million over the first three quarters of 2011 and has yet to see a profit. Like Solyndra’s top brass, A123 managers have been living high on the hog and partying it up with Democratic Party bigwigs.
The Michigan-based Mackinac Center reports that in February, “A123′s Compensation Committee approved a $30,000 raise for (Chief Financial Officer David) Prystash just days after (its primary customer) Fisker Automotive announced the U.S. Energy Department had cut off what was left of its $528.7 million loan it had previously received.”
Prystash’s hike was 8.5 percent, taking his base salary from $350,000 to $380,000. One A123 vice president, Robert Johnson, received a 20.7 percent pay increase that saw his salary grow from $331,250 to $400,000. Another vice president, Jason Forcier, vice president of the automotive solutions group, climbed from a $331,250 base salary to $350,000.
Analyst Paul Chesser of the D.C.-based National Legal and Policy Center raises pointed questions about the timing of the pay raises: “Were their actions intended as greater protection for their executives in the case of a sale or bankruptcy of the company?” Inquiring House GOP investigators looking into the Obama Department of Energy’s big green boondoggles should want to know.
And taxpayers should want to know more about the cozy ties between A123 and the White House and Democratic politicians. A123 Systems CEO David Vieau showered Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee and key Democrats on Capitol Hill with nearly $17,000 before receiving the stimulus injection. A123 enviro-boodle also flowed to Mass. Sen. John Kerry and Rep. Ed Markey. Betting on “smart grid” cronyism has been a bonanza for the well-connected — and a big, bad bet for taxpayers.
Bho mocking critics of energy policy?
Is Obama Mocking Critics as Gas Prices Go Up?
As you drive America’s ribbon of highway, from California to the New York island, there’s one reality that can’t be escaped — gas prices keep going up, with no end in sight. But instead of taking action to bring relief to the American people, the Obama Administration is patting itself on the back for a job well done while mocking those who are calling for a commonsense energy policy.
This week saw the highest average gas price ever recorded in March — a whopping $3.87 per gallon. That’s up 4 cents from over a week ago, and 30 cents more than last year. On the West Coast, it’s up to $4.23 a gallon, but no matter where you go in America, you’ll feel the burn.
Meanwhile, the President is still beating the drums for his energy strategy, which he highlighted yesterday in a visit to the Copper Mountain Solar 1 Facility in Boulder City, Nevada. Anticipating the obvious criticism — that his investment in the Solyndra solar plant went belly up, costing American taxpayers $535 million — the President mocked those who question his ideas, saying they “lack imagination,” and he turned to name calling in order to deflect legitimate concerns about the viability of his green pipe dream and the fact that it has not produced the jobs that he promised:
One member of Congress who shall remain unnamed called these jobs ‘phony’ — called them phony jobs. I mean, think about that mindset, that attitude that says because something is new, it must not be real. If these guys were around when Columbus set sail, they’d be charter members of the Flat Earth Society.
But as Heritage’s Nick Loris points out, those who criticize the President’s policies aren’t opposed to new ideas. The Administration’s record of burning billions in taxpayer dollars to somehow transition America to a new energy economy have not produced results that earn confidence. The American people’s money is being used to offset private-sector investments and artificially prop up industries until they go bankrupt, like Solyndra, Beacon, Ener1, Abound, and so on. Only when technologies such as solar, wind, and biofuels become affordable and reliable will consumers embrace them.
While the President is out West selling his spending and tax hikes, back home in Washington his Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, is giving himself kudos for a job well done. In testimony before Congress this week, Chu was asked whether he would give himself an “A minus” on controlling the cost of gasoline. His response? “I would I say I would give myself a little higher in that since I became Secretary of Energy, I’ve been doing everything I can to get long-term solutions.” For the record, this is the same Steven Chu who said, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe” (which are routinely above $8 per gallon). Perhaps in that context, he does deserve an “A.”
Heritage’s Rob Bluey reports that ”the Obama Administration is overseeing a sharp decline in fossil fuel production (coal, oil, and natural gas) on federal lands, which recently hit its lowest point in nine years.” Those actions include withdrawing areas offered for 77 oil and gas leases in Utah, canceling lease sales in the Western Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coast, delaying exploration off the coast of Alaska, keeping other resource-rich areas off limits, finalizing rules that establish more hurdles to onshore oil and natural gas production on federal lands, and withdrawing 61 oil and natural gas leases in Montana as part of a lawsuit settlement over climate change.
And then there’s the issue of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would deliver 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta, Canada, to Gulf Coast refineries. When given the chance to approve the project, President Obama flat out said “no.”
Now, though, he is attempting to have it both ways, and is expected to announce plans to fast-track the southern portion of the pipeline. But this is all for show, as his announcement won’t change anything. TransCanada told Bloomberg News that the President’s announcement won’t affect their schedule at all, where construction on the southern portion is already slated to begin in June.
If the President were truly supportive of the project, he would not have personally lobbied Senate Democrats two weeks ago to vote against an amendment that would have authorized construction of the entire pipeline. He cannot now say he is expediting anything. President Obama is merely putting political rhetoric over smart policy in order to appease his environmental base and boost his sagging poll numbers simultaneously.
According to Gallup, those who are following the issue favor building the pipeline by a 78-22 margin. And even including those who are not following the issue closely, the pipeline still has the support of 57 percent of the nation.
President Obama uses the language of “all of the above,” but his actions speak greater volumes. Rather than give themselves an “A” for gas prices and mock their opponents, the Obama Administration should immediately speed up the permitting and leasing processes, remove litigation risks, reform punitive regulations, and stop throwing billions in taxpayer money at broken companies like Solyndra and calling it an answer.
2990Email481
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As you drive America’s ribbon of highway, from California to the New York island, there’s one reality that can’t be escaped — gas prices keep going up, with no end in sight. But instead of taking action to bring relief to the American people, the Obama Administration is patting itself on the back for a job well done while mocking those who are calling for a commonsense energy policy.
This week saw the highest average gas price ever recorded in March — a whopping $3.87 per gallon. That’s up 4 cents from over a week ago, and 30 cents more than last year. On the West Coast, it’s up to $4.23 a gallon, but no matter where you go in America, you’ll feel the burn.
Meanwhile, the President is still beating the drums for his energy strategy, which he highlighted yesterday in a visit to the Copper Mountain Solar 1 Facility in Boulder City, Nevada. Anticipating the obvious criticism — that his investment in the Solyndra solar plant went belly up, costing American taxpayers $535 million — the President mocked those who question his ideas, saying they “lack imagination,” and he turned to name calling in order to deflect legitimate concerns about the viability of his green pipe dream and the fact that it has not produced the jobs that he promised:
One member of Congress who shall remain unnamed called these jobs ‘phony’ — called them phony jobs. I mean, think about that mindset, that attitude that says because something is new, it must not be real. If these guys were around when Columbus set sail, they’d be charter members of the Flat Earth Society.
But as Heritage’s Nick Loris points out, those who criticize the President’s policies aren’t opposed to new ideas. The Administration’s record of burning billions in taxpayer dollars to somehow transition America to a new energy economy have not produced results that earn confidence. The American people’s money is being used to offset private-sector investments and artificially prop up industries until they go bankrupt, like Solyndra, Beacon, Ener1, Abound, and so on. Only when technologies such as solar, wind, and biofuels become affordable and reliable will consumers embrace them.
While the President is out West selling his spending and tax hikes, back home in Washington his Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, is giving himself kudos for a job well done. In testimony before Congress this week, Chu was asked whether he would give himself an “A minus” on controlling the cost of gasoline. His response? “I would I say I would give myself a little higher in that since I became Secretary of Energy, I’ve been doing everything I can to get long-term solutions.” For the record, this is the same Steven Chu who said, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe” (which are routinely above $8 per gallon). Perhaps in that context, he does deserve an “A.”
Heritage’s Rob Bluey reports that ”the Obama Administration is overseeing a sharp decline in fossil fuel production (coal, oil, and natural gas) on federal lands, which recently hit its lowest point in nine years.” Those actions include withdrawing areas offered for 77 oil and gas leases in Utah, canceling lease sales in the Western Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coast, delaying exploration off the coast of Alaska, keeping other resource-rich areas off limits, finalizing rules that establish more hurdles to onshore oil and natural gas production on federal lands, and withdrawing 61 oil and natural gas leases in Montana as part of a lawsuit settlement over climate change.
And then there’s the issue of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would deliver 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta, Canada, to Gulf Coast refineries. When given the chance to approve the project, President Obama flat out said “no.”
Now, though, he is attempting to have it both ways, and is expected to announce plans to fast-track the southern portion of the pipeline. But this is all for show, as his announcement won’t change anything. TransCanada told Bloomberg News that the President’s announcement won’t affect their schedule at all, where construction on the southern portion is already slated to begin in June.
If the President were truly supportive of the project, he would not have personally lobbied Senate Democrats two weeks ago to vote against an amendment that would have authorized construction of the entire pipeline. He cannot now say he is expediting anything. President Obama is merely putting political rhetoric over smart policy in order to appease his environmental base and boost his sagging poll numbers simultaneously.
According to Gallup, those who are following the issue favor building the pipeline by a 78-22 margin. And even including those who are not following the issue closely, the pipeline still has the support of 57 percent of the nation.
President Obama uses the language of “all of the above,” but his actions speak greater volumes. Rather than give themselves an “A” for gas prices and mock their opponents, the Obama Administration should immediately speed up the permitting and leasing processes, remove litigation risks, reform punitive regulations, and stop throwing billions in taxpayer money at broken companies like Solyndra and calling it an answer.
2990Email481
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Rx for jobs, economic growth, energy security
Rx for Job Growth, Federal Revenue and Energy Security: Drill, Obama, Drill!
Posted on September 7, 2011
The Gulf Economic Survival Team (GEST) is a consortium of large and small companies that have been negatively affected by the Department of the Interior’s bureaucratic overreaction to the BP oil spill. Earlier this year, GEST commissioned a study by IHS-CERA, a leading energy-oriented think tank, to determine what impact could be expected if BOEMRE (the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, DOI’s offshore regulatory arm) were to return to the pace of plan review and permit approval that was considered routine before the BP spill.
In anticipation of an Obama policy pronouncement on the economy and renewed stimuli on Thursday night, GEST sent a letter to President Obama, pointing out that a return to previous policy would quickly put 230,000 workers to work. Not only would it not cost the government a dime of stimulus money, it would generate revenue for the Treasury by the $billions. It would also enhance domestic fuel production, reduce imports and improve our balance of trade.
Swift action to reduce the growing backlog of plans and increase the pace of plan and permit approvals to explore for oil and natural gas resources in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico would increase employment opportunities in almost every state, boost tax and royalty revenues for governments, and help stabilize US energy security. And these benefits could materialize rapidly. Early alignment between the capacity to properly regulate oil and natural gas activities and the pace and scale of investment opportunities would capture the largest possible share of the activity gap, which in 2012 results in
230,000 American jobs
more than $44 billion of US gross domestic product (GDP)
nearly $12 billion in tax and royalty revenues to state and federal treasuries
US oil production of more than 400,000 barrels of oil per day (bd) (equivalent to approximately 150 million barrels in the full year)
reducing the amount that the United States spends on imported oil by around $15 billion
The employment effects would not be limited to the Gulf states. One third of those jobs would be generated outside the Gulf region in such states as California, Florida, Illinois, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.
[Emphasis added. - Ed.]
GEST’s letter to President Obama can be found here. (pdf link)
The IHS-CERA study can be found here. (pdf link)
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Posted on September 7, 2011
The Gulf Economic Survival Team (GEST) is a consortium of large and small companies that have been negatively affected by the Department of the Interior’s bureaucratic overreaction to the BP oil spill. Earlier this year, GEST commissioned a study by IHS-CERA, a leading energy-oriented think tank, to determine what impact could be expected if BOEMRE (the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, DOI’s offshore regulatory arm) were to return to the pace of plan review and permit approval that was considered routine before the BP spill.
In anticipation of an Obama policy pronouncement on the economy and renewed stimuli on Thursday night, GEST sent a letter to President Obama, pointing out that a return to previous policy would quickly put 230,000 workers to work. Not only would it not cost the government a dime of stimulus money, it would generate revenue for the Treasury by the $billions. It would also enhance domestic fuel production, reduce imports and improve our balance of trade.
Swift action to reduce the growing backlog of plans and increase the pace of plan and permit approvals to explore for oil and natural gas resources in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico would increase employment opportunities in almost every state, boost tax and royalty revenues for governments, and help stabilize US energy security. And these benefits could materialize rapidly. Early alignment between the capacity to properly regulate oil and natural gas activities and the pace and scale of investment opportunities would capture the largest possible share of the activity gap, which in 2012 results in
230,000 American jobs
more than $44 billion of US gross domestic product (GDP)
nearly $12 billion in tax and royalty revenues to state and federal treasuries
US oil production of more than 400,000 barrels of oil per day (bd) (equivalent to approximately 150 million barrels in the full year)
reducing the amount that the United States spends on imported oil by around $15 billion
The employment effects would not be limited to the Gulf states. One third of those jobs would be generated outside the Gulf region in such states as California, Florida, Illinois, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.
[Emphasis added. - Ed.]
GEST’s letter to President Obama can be found here. (pdf link)
The IHS-CERA study can be found here. (pdf link)
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Bho undermining Israel
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/bolton-israel-iran-obama/2012/03/29/id/434288
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Shuttle in museum---CC delays/safety issues/ISS performance dependent on shuttle servicing
In the Senate, more criticism of commercial crew
SpacePolitics.com
Wednesday afternoon’s hearing by the Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee revealed few new insights about NASA’s fiscal year 2013 budget proposal or Congress’s reaction to it. However, it did emphasize that commercial crew, and the amount of funding NASA is requesting for the program, is one of the most sensitive aspects of the overall budget.
“Mr Administrator, I believe that the core mission of NASA is to build cutting-edge systems that allow us to expand our knowledge of the universe,” said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL). “This administration, I believe, seems to think that NASA’s job is to use taxpayer money as venture capital to support speculative commercial companies, the future Solyndras of the space industry.” He complained that NASA sought to cut funding for the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion while increasing funding for commercial crew. “When is this administration going to get the message that the Congress, I believe, is not willing to subsidize so-called commercial vendors at the expense of NASA’s core mission of engineering and exploration?”
Earlier in the hearing, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), the ranking member of the subcommittee, reiterated similar concerns she expressed at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing earlier in the month. “I do support commercial crew,” she said in her opening statement. “However, I think NASA is continuing to throw money at too many companies with a hope of flying astronauts.” She said NASA should commission a study like it did for SLS and Orion to find what she said would be the quickest solution, one that would involve only one or two companies going forward. “Members of Congress are already coalescing around NASA choosing no more than two companies, providing competition as well as funding realities that we see in our budget and not stealing from the long-term future, which is Orion and the launch vehicle.”
Bolden did not make any new arguments for or other statements about the status of the commercial crew program or the commercial cargo providers, whose upcoming test flights may weigh heavily on commercial crew’s future. “Commercial crew and cargo are vital for me to be able for me to live up to my promise to you on the International Space Station,” he said in response to questions about the program from Hutchison, who is an advocate for station utilization. He said he believed SpaceX was still likely to launch on April 30, weather permitting, for its cargo test flight, and Orbital would be ready to launch in the summer, depending on the status of its launch facilities at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Virginia—delays in the completion of those facilities clearly being a sore point for both him and subcommittee chairwoman Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD).
Hutchison appeared almost weary of the exchanges she’s had with Bolden about the program. “I’m going to ask you a question, you’re not going to answer it, and we’re going to be where we are and we’re going to settle this one-on-one,” she said with a sigh when it was her turn to question Bolden.
Beyond commercial crew, Mikulski quizzed Bolden about whether NASA was drawing up any plans should budget sequestration proceed as currently required by law, an event that would cut the agency’s budget by 8% across the board, she warned. Bolden, who previously indicated he wasn’t worried about sequestration, said he remained optimistic Congress could avoid it. “While I am a realist, I am probably the world’s greatest optimist, and I am confident that the Congress will avoid that,” he said.
“Well, you couldn’t be an astronaut without being an optimist,” Mikulski responded. She argued, though, that NASA should have some contingency plans in place if there is a budget sequester, something Bolden said the agency hasn’t done to date. “I really would recommend both to the administration and to you,” she warned, “to really be ready for some real challenges.”
The hearing was the last one the subcommittee planned to perform before marking up its appropriations bill, which could come as soon as mid to late April. Since Sen. Hutchison is retiring after this year, Mikulski presented Hutchison at the beginning of the hearing with a gift: a small crystal space shuttle. Mikulski emphasized that the gift was from her, and not from Bolden. “I never get gifts from him,” she joked. “I’d rather have one from him.”
ISS Research Vulnerable To Cargo Schedule
Mark Carreau - Aviation Week
The future research productivity of the International Space Station (ISS) rests on the delayed startup of U.S. commercial resupply missions within the next year, experts from NASA and the agency’s oversight panels told the House Science, Space and Technology Committee March 28.
The transition from space shuttle resupply to private cargo providers that began with NASA’s six-year-old Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) initiative must be in full swing by mid-2013 if the space agency is to avoid research and possible staffing reductions aboard the six-person orbiting science laboratory, according to testimony from representatives of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and a NASA Advisory Council (NAC) task force.
The U.S.-led, 15-nation ISS partnership is committed to station operations through 2020.
Even the short-term projection assumes the success of scheduled unmanned cargo deliveries by the European Space Agency’s Automated Transfer Vehicle, Japan’s H-II Transfer Vehicle and Russia’s Progress, which experienced a launch failure last August.
“If you have delays that extend into 2013 and beyond, you will see a lot of impacts on the space station and scaling back of research,” Cristina Chaplain, GAO’s director for acquisition and sourcing management, told the House panel.
Under current scheduling, NASA anticipates up to five test and delivery missions by the agency’s two COTS partners, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp., by year’s end. They start with the April 30 launch of the SpaceX demonstration mission that includes plans for an early May station docking and a small cargo delivery.
A half-dozen additional Progress, ATV and HTV flights are slated for the remainder of 2012 as well, including Europe’s anticipated ATV-3 arrival at the station late March 28.
Much is at stake, as the U.S. space station partnership turns its focus from the station’s assembly, which drew to a close in mid-2011, to research and technology demonstrations.
“We are starting to begin serious use of the ISS,” said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for human exploration and space operations, who told the panel he anticipates at least one or two successful commercial cargo deliveries this year.
“Ultimately if we don’t get the cargo in the time frame we need, we will need to cut back on research first and then ultimately go to the survival mode,” he said. As few as two astronauts could maintain the station.
“In the near term, NASA’s plans are adequate,” testified Thomas Stafford, the former Apollo astronaut who chairs the NAC’s ISS Operational Readiness Task Force. However, he cautioned that the COTS initiative has been plagued by chronic overoptimism and remains vulnerable to lapses in management and contractor oversight.
“Beyond the mid part of 2013, NASA becomes increasingly dependent for its projected flow of spare parts and resupply needs on the planned fleet of cargo vehicles,” Stafford said.
He credited NASA with the foresight to equip the space station with critical spare parts, food and research gear on its final shuttle missions, STS-134 and STS-135, in May and July 2011.
“Without those two shuttle missions, right now we would be in a serious situation and probably be considering how we could de-crew the space station,” Stafford told the panel.
Examining ISS utilization
SpacePolitics.com
SpacePolitics.com
Wednesday afternoon’s hearing by the Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee revealed few new insights about NASA’s fiscal year 2013 budget proposal or Congress’s reaction to it. However, it did emphasize that commercial crew, and the amount of funding NASA is requesting for the program, is one of the most sensitive aspects of the overall budget.
“Mr Administrator, I believe that the core mission of NASA is to build cutting-edge systems that allow us to expand our knowledge of the universe,” said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL). “This administration, I believe, seems to think that NASA’s job is to use taxpayer money as venture capital to support speculative commercial companies, the future Solyndras of the space industry.” He complained that NASA sought to cut funding for the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion while increasing funding for commercial crew. “When is this administration going to get the message that the Congress, I believe, is not willing to subsidize so-called commercial vendors at the expense of NASA’s core mission of engineering and exploration?”
Earlier in the hearing, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), the ranking member of the subcommittee, reiterated similar concerns she expressed at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing earlier in the month. “I do support commercial crew,” she said in her opening statement. “However, I think NASA is continuing to throw money at too many companies with a hope of flying astronauts.” She said NASA should commission a study like it did for SLS and Orion to find what she said would be the quickest solution, one that would involve only one or two companies going forward. “Members of Congress are already coalescing around NASA choosing no more than two companies, providing competition as well as funding realities that we see in our budget and not stealing from the long-term future, which is Orion and the launch vehicle.”
Bolden did not make any new arguments for or other statements about the status of the commercial crew program or the commercial cargo providers, whose upcoming test flights may weigh heavily on commercial crew’s future. “Commercial crew and cargo are vital for me to be able for me to live up to my promise to you on the International Space Station,” he said in response to questions about the program from Hutchison, who is an advocate for station utilization. He said he believed SpaceX was still likely to launch on April 30, weather permitting, for its cargo test flight, and Orbital would be ready to launch in the summer, depending on the status of its launch facilities at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Virginia—delays in the completion of those facilities clearly being a sore point for both him and subcommittee chairwoman Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD).
Hutchison appeared almost weary of the exchanges she’s had with Bolden about the program. “I’m going to ask you a question, you’re not going to answer it, and we’re going to be where we are and we’re going to settle this one-on-one,” she said with a sigh when it was her turn to question Bolden.
Beyond commercial crew, Mikulski quizzed Bolden about whether NASA was drawing up any plans should budget sequestration proceed as currently required by law, an event that would cut the agency’s budget by 8% across the board, she warned. Bolden, who previously indicated he wasn’t worried about sequestration, said he remained optimistic Congress could avoid it. “While I am a realist, I am probably the world’s greatest optimist, and I am confident that the Congress will avoid that,” he said.
“Well, you couldn’t be an astronaut without being an optimist,” Mikulski responded. She argued, though, that NASA should have some contingency plans in place if there is a budget sequester, something Bolden said the agency hasn’t done to date. “I really would recommend both to the administration and to you,” she warned, “to really be ready for some real challenges.”
The hearing was the last one the subcommittee planned to perform before marking up its appropriations bill, which could come as soon as mid to late April. Since Sen. Hutchison is retiring after this year, Mikulski presented Hutchison at the beginning of the hearing with a gift: a small crystal space shuttle. Mikulski emphasized that the gift was from her, and not from Bolden. “I never get gifts from him,” she joked. “I’d rather have one from him.”
ISS Research Vulnerable To Cargo Schedule
Mark Carreau - Aviation Week
The future research productivity of the International Space Station (ISS) rests on the delayed startup of U.S. commercial resupply missions within the next year, experts from NASA and the agency’s oversight panels told the House Science, Space and Technology Committee March 28.
The transition from space shuttle resupply to private cargo providers that began with NASA’s six-year-old Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) initiative must be in full swing by mid-2013 if the space agency is to avoid research and possible staffing reductions aboard the six-person orbiting science laboratory, according to testimony from representatives of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and a NASA Advisory Council (NAC) task force.
The U.S.-led, 15-nation ISS partnership is committed to station operations through 2020.
Even the short-term projection assumes the success of scheduled unmanned cargo deliveries by the European Space Agency’s Automated Transfer Vehicle, Japan’s H-II Transfer Vehicle and Russia’s Progress, which experienced a launch failure last August.
“If you have delays that extend into 2013 and beyond, you will see a lot of impacts on the space station and scaling back of research,” Cristina Chaplain, GAO’s director for acquisition and sourcing management, told the House panel.
Under current scheduling, NASA anticipates up to five test and delivery missions by the agency’s two COTS partners, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp., by year’s end. They start with the April 30 launch of the SpaceX demonstration mission that includes plans for an early May station docking and a small cargo delivery.
A half-dozen additional Progress, ATV and HTV flights are slated for the remainder of 2012 as well, including Europe’s anticipated ATV-3 arrival at the station late March 28.
Much is at stake, as the U.S. space station partnership turns its focus from the station’s assembly, which drew to a close in mid-2011, to research and technology demonstrations.
“We are starting to begin serious use of the ISS,” said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for human exploration and space operations, who told the panel he anticipates at least one or two successful commercial cargo deliveries this year.
“Ultimately if we don’t get the cargo in the time frame we need, we will need to cut back on research first and then ultimately go to the survival mode,” he said. As few as two astronauts could maintain the station.
“In the near term, NASA’s plans are adequate,” testified Thomas Stafford, the former Apollo astronaut who chairs the NAC’s ISS Operational Readiness Task Force. However, he cautioned that the COTS initiative has been plagued by chronic overoptimism and remains vulnerable to lapses in management and contractor oversight.
“Beyond the mid part of 2013, NASA becomes increasingly dependent for its projected flow of spare parts and resupply needs on the planned fleet of cargo vehicles,” Stafford said.
He credited NASA with the foresight to equip the space station with critical spare parts, food and research gear on its final shuttle missions, STS-134 and STS-135, in May and July 2011.
“Without those two shuttle missions, right now we would be in a serious situation and probably be considering how we could de-crew the space station,” Stafford told the panel.
Examining ISS utilization
SpacePolitics.com
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Robotic cargo spacecraft docks with ISS
European Robot Cargo Ship Docks at Space Station
Denise Chow - Space.com
A huge, unmanned cargo ship arrived at the International Space Station Wednesday, delivering tons of fresh supplies for the six-man crew of the orbiting outpost.
After five days chasing down the space station in orbit, the European Space Agency's third Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-3) arrived at the complex at 6:31 p.m. EDT (2231 GMT). The vehicle is carrying about 7 tons of food, water, clothing, experiments and fuel for the space station in what is the heaviest load ever delivered to the outpost by a robotic spacecraft, ESA officials have said.
The ATV-3 flawlessly docked at a parking spot on the station's Zvezda service module using a sophisticated laser guidance system, as both vehicles flew 240 miles (386 kilometers) over the South Pacific Ocean. Dutch astronaut André Kuipers and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko were on hand to monitor the docking operations from inside the Zvezda module, NASA officials said.
"The capture was soft," one of the astronauts radioed to mission controllers. "We didn't even feel it."
The rendezvous and docking was managed by operators at ESA's ATV control center outside of Toulouse, France, as well as by NASA officials in Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
To celebrate the ATV-3's arrival at the space station, Dutch music group Love & Mersey, a Beatles tribute band, recorded a music video called "Back at the ISS." The musical greeting, which features lyrics in English, Dutch and Russian, has already been shown to Kuipers, Kononenko and the four other residents of the space station.
“Thank you, Love and Mersey," Kuipers said from space after watching the video, according to ESA officials. "Back at the ISS is a wonderful gift to music lovers everywhere, and I hope that it inspires young people to follow studies that take them into space one day, too."
The cylindrical, 13-ton cargo ship is 35 feet (10.7 meters) long and 14.7 feet (4.5 meters) wide and is so large it can fit a double-decker bus inside. The disposable spacecraft will remain attached to the space station for up to six months before the astronauts load it with garbage and deliberately send it to burn up as it re-enters Earth's atmosphere.
The ATV-3 launched into space on March 23 from Europe's South America-based spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
The spacecraft is named "Edoardo Amaldi," after the celebrated Italian physicist who is credited with helping to create the European Space Agency. Amaldi is also one of the founding fathers of CERN, the particle physics laboratory along the Swiss-French border that houses the Large Hadron Collider.
ESA names its ATV vehicles after historical figures in astronomy or space exploration. The agency's first ATV, Jules Verne, made its maiden flight to the space station in 2008. The ATV-2, named Johannes Kepler, followed in 2011.
Europe's next two planned ATVs, named ATV-4 Albert Einstein and ATV-5 Georges Lemaître, are currently scheduled to launch to the International Space Station in 2013 and 2014, respectively.
Space Station Crew Set to Land April 27 – Roscosmos
Denise Chow - Space.com
A huge, unmanned cargo ship arrived at the International Space Station Wednesday, delivering tons of fresh supplies for the six-man crew of the orbiting outpost.
After five days chasing down the space station in orbit, the European Space Agency's third Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-3) arrived at the complex at 6:31 p.m. EDT (2231 GMT). The vehicle is carrying about 7 tons of food, water, clothing, experiments and fuel for the space station in what is the heaviest load ever delivered to the outpost by a robotic spacecraft, ESA officials have said.
The ATV-3 flawlessly docked at a parking spot on the station's Zvezda service module using a sophisticated laser guidance system, as both vehicles flew 240 miles (386 kilometers) over the South Pacific Ocean. Dutch astronaut André Kuipers and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko were on hand to monitor the docking operations from inside the Zvezda module, NASA officials said.
"The capture was soft," one of the astronauts radioed to mission controllers. "We didn't even feel it."
The rendezvous and docking was managed by operators at ESA's ATV control center outside of Toulouse, France, as well as by NASA officials in Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
To celebrate the ATV-3's arrival at the space station, Dutch music group Love & Mersey, a Beatles tribute band, recorded a music video called "Back at the ISS." The musical greeting, which features lyrics in English, Dutch and Russian, has already been shown to Kuipers, Kononenko and the four other residents of the space station.
“Thank you, Love and Mersey," Kuipers said from space after watching the video, according to ESA officials. "Back at the ISS is a wonderful gift to music lovers everywhere, and I hope that it inspires young people to follow studies that take them into space one day, too."
The cylindrical, 13-ton cargo ship is 35 feet (10.7 meters) long and 14.7 feet (4.5 meters) wide and is so large it can fit a double-decker bus inside. The disposable spacecraft will remain attached to the space station for up to six months before the astronauts load it with garbage and deliberately send it to burn up as it re-enters Earth's atmosphere.
The ATV-3 launched into space on March 23 from Europe's South America-based spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
The spacecraft is named "Edoardo Amaldi," after the celebrated Italian physicist who is credited with helping to create the European Space Agency. Amaldi is also one of the founding fathers of CERN, the particle physics laboratory along the Swiss-French border that houses the Large Hadron Collider.
ESA names its ATV vehicles after historical figures in astronomy or space exploration. The agency's first ATV, Jules Verne, made its maiden flight to the space station in 2008. The ATV-2, named Johannes Kepler, followed in 2011.
Europe's next two planned ATVs, named ATV-4 Albert Einstein and ATV-5 Georges Lemaître, are currently scheduled to launch to the International Space Station in 2013 and 2014, respectively.
Space Station Crew Set to Land April 27 – Roscosmos
Policy of NO
Bunk on Oil Issues
by Mark Green
Mar. 29, 2012
TAGS
access cap domestic energy economy energy policy federal lands gas prices gulf of mexico offshore drilling private lands taxes
Normally, we don’t bother with blog posts from the Center for American Progress on oil issues because, to borrow from an old saying, there’s no point in fact-checking someone who puts out propaganda by the barrel. But since this post yesterday sought to “debunk” our “claims,” let’s have a look at CAP’s. Warning: These point/counterpoint, counter/counterpoint things can get a little long.
From CAP:
CLAIM: “More domestic production is critical to putting downward pressure on gasoline prices — supply matters.” – Jack Gerard, American Petroleum Institute President and CEO, March 26, 2012
TRUTH: To test whether more U.S. domestic production would lower gasoline prices, the Associated Press just completed an exhaustive analysis of 36 years of monthly U.S. oil production and gasoline price data. AP found that there is:
“No statistical correlation between how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump. If more domestic oil drilling worked as politicians say, you’d now be paying about $2 a gallon for gasoline. Instead, you’re paying the highest prices ever for March.”
Actual Truth: First off, the U.S. is the third-largest producer of oil in the world, so it would defy the laws of economics if there was zero correlation between “how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump.” More on that here. But don’t take our word for it – here are some thoughts from others:
William O’Keefe, the Marshall Institute: “…a policy of NO and a self imposed moratorium on increased exploration has probably resulted in hundreds of thousands of barrels or more not being produced. Adding those unproduced barrels to the current global supply would put downward pressure on crude oil prices which translate into to lower gasoline prices. Instead, there has been a policy of NO to the eastern Gulf of Mexico, NO to offshore drilling, NO to Alaska’s coastal plain, and NO to Keystone XL. With a more enlightened energy policy our oil production over the course of this decade could increase by a million barrels a day or more. That is not trivial.”
Geoff Styles, energy analyst: “Traders have to think about how prices are really set, and they understand that it's the interaction of the last few million barrels per day of supply, demand and spare capacity that really count, along with inventories. An extra million or two barrels per day – a quantity of which North America is certainly capable – can make a huge difference in oil prices.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer and the White House also agree that signals and supply matters.
Back to CAP:
CLAIM: “Opposition to higher energy taxes is rising among the public. A recent ‘What is America Thinking on Energy Issues’ poll showed that 76 percent of voters think that higher energy taxes could equal higher gas prices.” – Jack Gerard, API President and CEO, March 26, 2012
TRUTH: A Center for American Progress Action Fund poll conducted March 10-13, 2012 by Hart Research provided respondents with fourteen policy options asked which “would help a lot to address the issue of gasoline?” The following option was chosen by 55 percent of the respondents:
“Repeal the four billion dollars per year in federal subsidies that currently are given to the oil companies, and use that money instead to fund investments that will make us less dependent on oil.”
Another 22 percent said that this proposal “would help somewhat.” The combined totals finished highest among all the options.
Actual Truth: First of all, CAP’s response is a total non-sequitur. People can believe that higher energy taxes could equal higher gas prices and simultaneously believe that reducing oil use is needed to “address the issue of gasoline.” Second of all, this is a bit of a “garbage-in, garbage-out” question because oil companies don’t get subsidies. Here is a chart from EIA data:
Nor does the industry get tax credits (which reduce taxes dollar for dollar) or grants from the government. They get tax deductions for business investments that will generate tax revenues in the future. Unlike the case of credits or grants, the government will still be paid the full amount of tax owed on our operations. Which means the taxpayer is getting every dollar that’s owed. What the president is proposing is to front-load the tax collection, so that any increases in current collections come at the expense of future taxpayers.
And lastly, oil and natural gas companies are the largest investors in technologies that reduce greenhouse gases. So perhaps this question should be re-phrased: “Do you support the government taking private industry investments in new energy technologies so that the state can direct such research based on political whim?”
Back to CAP:
CLAIM: “API represents more than 500 oil and natural gas companies…that…supports 9.2 million U.S. jobs.” – Jack Gerard, API President and CEO, March 26, 2012
TRUTH: Using API’s NAICS criteria (codes for various occupations) with Bureau of Labor Statistics data, CAP estimates that there were 1,790,000 employees in the oil and gas industry in 2011. Of these, 828,000 – or 46 percent – worked at gasoline stations.
Actual Truth: Note that CAP focuses on employees (and is off by 400,000 there), ignoring the word Gerard actually used, “supports.” And CAP ignores that the industry’s job creation extends beyond the industry itself, as Caroline Baum notes:
“Oil-and-gas drilling crews need equipment, food, clothing and lodging. They want to frequent bars and restaurants in the makeshift boom towns sprouting up in areas of North Dakota, Montana, south Texas and Pennsylvania. Manufacturers of drilling equipment need raw materials, such as steel and chemicals. So there’s a natural multiplier effect. Think of it as fiscal stimulus without the government first taking from Peter to give to Paul…Every direct job created in the oil-and-gas extraction industry, for example, yields 2.3 jobs elsewhere in the economy, Franklin says. This is expressed as a multiplier of 3.3, higher than the average of 2 for the 195 industries tracked by the BLS. Petroleum-and-coal product manufacturing (refineries) happens to have the highest multiplier at 8.2. And yes, manufacturing industries are at once the most capital-intensive, the most productive and still have the biggest spillover effect when it comes to generating jobs.”
Back to CAP:
CLAIM: “Raising taxes will not lower energy prices for American families and businesses — in fact, the Congressional Research Service says this plan could cause gasoline prices to go higher.” – Jack Gerard, API President and CEO, March 26, 2012
TRUTH: A Congressional Research Service memo, “Tax Policy and Gasoline Prices” to Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) determined that eliminating tax breaks for big oil companies would have little impact on the price of gasoline.
Actual Truth: So CAP is rebutting our use of a CRS report from March 2012 by quoting from a CRS memo from last year? But since CAP brings it up, here’s what that earlier CRS memo said:
“… if the changes in taxes did impact domestic, or overseas exploration and development activity, that does not necessarily imply that less oil would be available in the U.S. market. More might be imported, with little or no effect on gasoline prices.”
In other words (which CAP apparently endorses), don’t worry – we can just import more!
More CAP:
CLAIM: The administration “says it is for natural gas, but 10 federal agencies are looking at new regulations that could needlessly restrict it.” – Jack Gerard, API President and CEO, March 7, 2012
TRUTH: Nothing of the sort is underway. Minority staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee thoroughly investigated this claim, and debunked it.
“In a fact sheet supporting the 10-agency assertion, API lists numerous agencies that don’t even have legal authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing...”
Actual Truth: Um, that is sort of exactly our point – that a number of agencies with no business regulating hydraulic fracturing are jumping on the regulation bandwagon.
CAP:
CLAIM: “The industry receives not ONE subsidy, and it is one of the largest contributors of revenue to our government of any industry in America.” – Jack Gerard, API President and CEO, February 23, 2012
TRUTH: Numerous Republican leaders have noted that a tax break is the same as a direct government or subsidy, in a different form. This includes President Ronald Reagan’s chief economic advisor, Martin Feldstein, former Senate Budget Committee Chair Pete Domenici (R-NM), House Ways and Means Committee Chair Dave Camp (R-MI), and Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH).
Feldstein: “These tax rules — because they result in the loss of revenue that would otherwise be collected by the government — are equivalent to direct government expenditures.”
Domenici: “Many tax expenditures substitute for programs that easily could be structured as direct spending. When structured as tax credits, they appear as reductions of taxes, even though they provide the same type of subsidy that a direct spending program would…”
Camp: “‘Tax expenditures’ [are] provisions that technically reduce someone’s tax liability, but that in reality amount to spending through the tax code.”
Boehner: “What Washington sometimes calls tax cuts are really just poorly disguised spending programs.”
Actual Truth: Each in turn: There’s no loss of revenue for the government (Feldstein), they’re not tax credits (Domenici), they don’t reduce tax liability (Camp), and they’re not tax cuts (Boehner). See above.
And lastly:
CLAIM: “Oil production on federal lands is flat, and oil production on federally controlled offshore areas is down.” – API, “Energy Myths and Facts”, 2012
TRUTH: The Energy Information Administration reports that 3.7 quadrillion BTUs of energy from crude oil were produced from federal lands and waters in 2011. This is a 12 percent increase over the 3.3 quadrillion BTUs produced in 2008 under President George W. Bush. It is also more than was produced from federal lands and waters in 2006 and 2007.
Actual Truth: Interestingly, they really are into comparing 2011 to 2008, 2007 and 2006. Let’s have a look:
2011 doesn’t look so pretty now. Especially compared to where we should be in some areas:
So, sorry CAP, your debunking is mostly just bunk. And speaking of bunk, here is what our current energy policy looks like, with all of its self-imposed limitations. Not bunk is what actual American progress looks like.
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by Mark Green
Mar. 29, 2012
TAGS
access cap domestic energy economy energy policy federal lands gas prices gulf of mexico offshore drilling private lands taxes
Normally, we don’t bother with blog posts from the Center for American Progress on oil issues because, to borrow from an old saying, there’s no point in fact-checking someone who puts out propaganda by the barrel. But since this post yesterday sought to “debunk” our “claims,” let’s have a look at CAP’s. Warning: These point/counterpoint, counter/counterpoint things can get a little long.
From CAP:
CLAIM: “More domestic production is critical to putting downward pressure on gasoline prices — supply matters.” – Jack Gerard, American Petroleum Institute President and CEO, March 26, 2012
TRUTH: To test whether more U.S. domestic production would lower gasoline prices, the Associated Press just completed an exhaustive analysis of 36 years of monthly U.S. oil production and gasoline price data. AP found that there is:
“No statistical correlation between how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump. If more domestic oil drilling worked as politicians say, you’d now be paying about $2 a gallon for gasoline. Instead, you’re paying the highest prices ever for March.”
Actual Truth: First off, the U.S. is the third-largest producer of oil in the world, so it would defy the laws of economics if there was zero correlation between “how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump.” More on that here. But don’t take our word for it – here are some thoughts from others:
William O’Keefe, the Marshall Institute: “…a policy of NO and a self imposed moratorium on increased exploration has probably resulted in hundreds of thousands of barrels or more not being produced. Adding those unproduced barrels to the current global supply would put downward pressure on crude oil prices which translate into to lower gasoline prices. Instead, there has been a policy of NO to the eastern Gulf of Mexico, NO to offshore drilling, NO to Alaska’s coastal plain, and NO to Keystone XL. With a more enlightened energy policy our oil production over the course of this decade could increase by a million barrels a day or more. That is not trivial.”
Geoff Styles, energy analyst: “Traders have to think about how prices are really set, and they understand that it's the interaction of the last few million barrels per day of supply, demand and spare capacity that really count, along with inventories. An extra million or two barrels per day – a quantity of which North America is certainly capable – can make a huge difference in oil prices.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer and the White House also agree that signals and supply matters.
Back to CAP:
CLAIM: “Opposition to higher energy taxes is rising among the public. A recent ‘What is America Thinking on Energy Issues’ poll showed that 76 percent of voters think that higher energy taxes could equal higher gas prices.” – Jack Gerard, API President and CEO, March 26, 2012
TRUTH: A Center for American Progress Action Fund poll conducted March 10-13, 2012 by Hart Research provided respondents with fourteen policy options asked which “would help a lot to address the issue of gasoline?” The following option was chosen by 55 percent of the respondents:
“Repeal the four billion dollars per year in federal subsidies that currently are given to the oil companies, and use that money instead to fund investments that will make us less dependent on oil.”
Another 22 percent said that this proposal “would help somewhat.” The combined totals finished highest among all the options.
Actual Truth: First of all, CAP’s response is a total non-sequitur. People can believe that higher energy taxes could equal higher gas prices and simultaneously believe that reducing oil use is needed to “address the issue of gasoline.” Second of all, this is a bit of a “garbage-in, garbage-out” question because oil companies don’t get subsidies. Here is a chart from EIA data:
Nor does the industry get tax credits (which reduce taxes dollar for dollar) or grants from the government. They get tax deductions for business investments that will generate tax revenues in the future. Unlike the case of credits or grants, the government will still be paid the full amount of tax owed on our operations. Which means the taxpayer is getting every dollar that’s owed. What the president is proposing is to front-load the tax collection, so that any increases in current collections come at the expense of future taxpayers.
And lastly, oil and natural gas companies are the largest investors in technologies that reduce greenhouse gases. So perhaps this question should be re-phrased: “Do you support the government taking private industry investments in new energy technologies so that the state can direct such research based on political whim?”
Back to CAP:
CLAIM: “API represents more than 500 oil and natural gas companies…that…supports 9.2 million U.S. jobs.” – Jack Gerard, API President and CEO, March 26, 2012
TRUTH: Using API’s NAICS criteria (codes for various occupations) with Bureau of Labor Statistics data, CAP estimates that there were 1,790,000 employees in the oil and gas industry in 2011. Of these, 828,000 – or 46 percent – worked at gasoline stations.
Actual Truth: Note that CAP focuses on employees (and is off by 400,000 there), ignoring the word Gerard actually used, “supports.” And CAP ignores that the industry’s job creation extends beyond the industry itself, as Caroline Baum notes:
“Oil-and-gas drilling crews need equipment, food, clothing and lodging. They want to frequent bars and restaurants in the makeshift boom towns sprouting up in areas of North Dakota, Montana, south Texas and Pennsylvania. Manufacturers of drilling equipment need raw materials, such as steel and chemicals. So there’s a natural multiplier effect. Think of it as fiscal stimulus without the government first taking from Peter to give to Paul…Every direct job created in the oil-and-gas extraction industry, for example, yields 2.3 jobs elsewhere in the economy, Franklin says. This is expressed as a multiplier of 3.3, higher than the average of 2 for the 195 industries tracked by the BLS. Petroleum-and-coal product manufacturing (refineries) happens to have the highest multiplier at 8.2. And yes, manufacturing industries are at once the most capital-intensive, the most productive and still have the biggest spillover effect when it comes to generating jobs.”
Back to CAP:
CLAIM: “Raising taxes will not lower energy prices for American families and businesses — in fact, the Congressional Research Service says this plan could cause gasoline prices to go higher.” – Jack Gerard, API President and CEO, March 26, 2012
TRUTH: A Congressional Research Service memo, “Tax Policy and Gasoline Prices” to Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) determined that eliminating tax breaks for big oil companies would have little impact on the price of gasoline.
Actual Truth: So CAP is rebutting our use of a CRS report from March 2012 by quoting from a CRS memo from last year? But since CAP brings it up, here’s what that earlier CRS memo said:
“… if the changes in taxes did impact domestic, or overseas exploration and development activity, that does not necessarily imply that less oil would be available in the U.S. market. More might be imported, with little or no effect on gasoline prices.”
In other words (which CAP apparently endorses), don’t worry – we can just import more!
More CAP:
CLAIM: The administration “says it is for natural gas, but 10 federal agencies are looking at new regulations that could needlessly restrict it.” – Jack Gerard, API President and CEO, March 7, 2012
TRUTH: Nothing of the sort is underway. Minority staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee thoroughly investigated this claim, and debunked it.
“In a fact sheet supporting the 10-agency assertion, API lists numerous agencies that don’t even have legal authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing...”
Actual Truth: Um, that is sort of exactly our point – that a number of agencies with no business regulating hydraulic fracturing are jumping on the regulation bandwagon.
CAP:
CLAIM: “The industry receives not ONE subsidy, and it is one of the largest contributors of revenue to our government of any industry in America.” – Jack Gerard, API President and CEO, February 23, 2012
TRUTH: Numerous Republican leaders have noted that a tax break is the same as a direct government or subsidy, in a different form. This includes President Ronald Reagan’s chief economic advisor, Martin Feldstein, former Senate Budget Committee Chair Pete Domenici (R-NM), House Ways and Means Committee Chair Dave Camp (R-MI), and Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH).
Feldstein: “These tax rules — because they result in the loss of revenue that would otherwise be collected by the government — are equivalent to direct government expenditures.”
Domenici: “Many tax expenditures substitute for programs that easily could be structured as direct spending. When structured as tax credits, they appear as reductions of taxes, even though they provide the same type of subsidy that a direct spending program would…”
Camp: “‘Tax expenditures’ [are] provisions that technically reduce someone’s tax liability, but that in reality amount to spending through the tax code.”
Boehner: “What Washington sometimes calls tax cuts are really just poorly disguised spending programs.”
Actual Truth: Each in turn: There’s no loss of revenue for the government (Feldstein), they’re not tax credits (Domenici), they don’t reduce tax liability (Camp), and they’re not tax cuts (Boehner). See above.
And lastly:
CLAIM: “Oil production on federal lands is flat, and oil production on federally controlled offshore areas is down.” – API, “Energy Myths and Facts”, 2012
TRUTH: The Energy Information Administration reports that 3.7 quadrillion BTUs of energy from crude oil were produced from federal lands and waters in 2011. This is a 12 percent increase over the 3.3 quadrillion BTUs produced in 2008 under President George W. Bush. It is also more than was produced from federal lands and waters in 2006 and 2007.
Actual Truth: Interestingly, they really are into comparing 2011 to 2008, 2007 and 2006. Let’s have a look:
2011 doesn’t look so pretty now. Especially compared to where we should be in some areas:
So, sorry CAP, your debunking is mostly just bunk. And speaking of bunk, here is what our current energy policy looks like, with all of its self-imposed limitations. Not bunk is what actual American progress looks like.
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Post American World--written by fellow muslim. Bho reading----better pass this on
If each person sends this to a minimum of 20 people on their address list, in three days,
all people in The United States of America would have the message.
I believe this is one proposal that really should be passed around.
________________________________________________________________
THIS WILL CURDLE YOUR BLOOD AND CURL YOUR HAIR
Description: cid:image001.jpg@01CCB96D.4D1AFD50
The name of the book Obama is reading is called: The Post-American World, and it was written by a fellow Muslim.
"Post" America means the World After America ! , Please forward this picture to everyone you know, conservative or liberal. , Democrat or Republican, Folks we need to be aware of what our president is thinking--or planning
We must expose Obama's radical ideas and his intent to bring down our beloved America!
By: Kelly Barham
all people in The United States of America would have the message.
I believe this is one proposal that really should be passed around.
________________________________________________________________
THIS WILL CURDLE YOUR BLOOD AND CURL YOUR HAIR
Description: cid:image001.jpg@01CCB96D.4D1AFD50
The name of the book Obama is reading is called: The Post-American World, and it was written by a fellow Muslim.
"Post" America means the World After America ! , Please forward this picture to everyone you know, conservative or liberal. , Democrat or Republican, Folks we need to be aware of what our president is thinking--or planning
We must expose Obama's radical ideas and his intent to bring down our beloved America!
By: Kelly Barham
The Case to Save the Shuttle
By Allen J. RichardsonPosted 10.14.08NOVA
In August of 2003 the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) issued its report and concluded, among other things, that the space shuttles were aging, old technology, and too risky. Shortly thereafter President Bush initiated the Constellation program to retire the space shuttles and to replace them with the Ares Launch Vehicles and the Orion Spacecraft, patterned after the Apollo Program. As it stands, the space shuttles are to be retired during 2010, and the Constellation Project is well under way. This is a severe under-utilization of a valuable and still-usable national asset.
SHUTTLE ADVOCATES: SAVE THE SHUTTLE
To alert the public, my colleagues and I formed the Shuttle Advocates Team (SAT), an informal group of mostly retired Rockwell and Boeing engineers, with many years of experience working on the space shuttle Orbiter vehicle, from contract initiation through mission operation. We represent a cross section of space shuttle engineering and provide authoritative information regarding space shuttle performance and future capability. Many of us were also deeply involved in the Apollo Project and are therefore qualified to make comparisons between the space shuttle approach and the Constellation approach to space exploration. We call our team the Shuttle Advocates Team because our mission is to extend the use of the space shuttle system beyond the current end date of 2010. Much of the following information is drawn from material supplied to this writer by SAT engineers.
SPACE SHUTTLE HISTORY AND ITS CURRENT CAPABILITY
To clarify a point, what everyone commonly calls the shuttle or the space shuttle is what our team calls the Orbiter vehicle, that stubby-looking, winged spacecraft that holds the crew and payload. It is this unique United States vehicle that America and the world have come to identify with manned space travel, our "space truck," so to speak. The total space shuttle system consists of four major components: two Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), one External Tank (ET), and the Orbiter. The SRBs and the ET are necessary to enable the Orbiter to achieve Earth orbit. Our comments and statements primarily concern the Orbiter vehicles.
The Orbiter named Challenger was lost due to a problem with the SRB circumferential field joint seals ("O-rings") losing their resiliency during a cold winter launch. The improved SRB joint seal has solved that problem. The Columbia spacecraft was lost when a large piece of the ET's external insulation inexplicably detached from a critical area on the tank surface. The critical area is a 15-foot-wide area opposite the Orbiter, which extends aft about five feet from the forward attach point of the Orbiter. The piece of foam struck the Orbiter on the lower surface of the left wing's leading edge, causing a mortal hole that resulted in the loss of the vehicle and crew from reentry overheating. Extensive corrective actions by the ET Project have restored confidence, and successful spaceflights have resumed.
We cite these two accidents to make the point that they were caused by the other shuttle components used during ascent to orbit. The Orbiter spacecraft has never been the cause of any failures. The Orbiter has a perfect record of 123 consecutive successful missions, and we are confident that this record number will grow. We also have a dedicated team of new engineers trained by their mentors, thus insuring that the Orbiter can continue to be operated correctly.
The Orbiters are, of course, aging but have two thirds of their 100 mission design lives (per vehicle) still ahead of them. Sean O'Keefe, a former head of NASA, states in the NOVA documentary that prior to the Columbia accident NASA was planning to keep the space shuttles in operation till 2020. One of the members of SAT recently delivered a technical paper on the built-in space shuttle longevity and compared it to the Douglas DC-3, an aircraft that has been flying for over 70 years and is known for its reliability and ruggedness. The vehicles are well maintained and to this day remain pristine. If you look inside one of the Orbiters today, for example, it looks very similar to the first Orbiter on its maiden voyage back in 1981.
Each of the Orbiters was designed and qualified by tests and analysis for a minimum of 100 space missions. Many of the component test programs were extended to 400 missions to flush out any hidden or unexpected failure modes. The most-used Orbiter in the fleet has only performed 35 missions, so today there is plenty of useful life remaining for additional space missions.
Furthermore, the space shuttles are not old technology. The Orbiter is very similar to military and commercial airplanes, and only evolutionary changes have occurred in airplanes over the last 27 years, as opposed to radical redesigns. Furthermore, those changes are mostly in the avionics, which are readily updated. The more familiar examples of this are the Boeing B-52 and B-1 bombers and the Boeing 747 airliner, all of which are still flying after a longer period, and in the latter case the plane is still in production. The fact is if a spacecraft were designed today to do all the things the space shuttle can do, it would be virtually no different from the existing proven hardware.
A former Orbiter Chief Engineer and VP of Engineering reports, "Many people are unaware that NASA has long maintained an upgrade process to provide current technology to the Orbiter. Starting with the early space missions, many upgrades were installed to improve performance, enhance system reliability, and improve operational safety. More than $1 billion was spent after the Challenger accident on the SRBs, the ET, and the Orbiter. The successful flights after the Columbia accident also show that NASA keeps these shuttle components operating with technology that can meet the mission requirements, consistent with the available funding for modification kits and their installation. Over the years of shuttle operations, these upgrades have received lots of attention as recorded in Reference (1)." (The reference is to a 1999 National Research Council Report entitled "Upgrading the Space Shuttle," published by the National Academy Press.)
As summarized by a former Chief Engineer at Kennedy Space Center, "The Orbiter is the most fantastic flying machine built by man. Its retirement in 2010 is premature and shortsighted. What a waste of unique hardware and all the associated infrastructure and people skills that have been developed at Kennedy Space Center. (This applies as well to the other NASA Centers and to the Corporate Suppliers.) The knowledge base and support for complex space launches take a significant time to establish, and now we're planning to dismantle the talented workforce at that site, together with the software and procedures established over 123 flights, to begin a new program. Skills will be lost as we wait on the Constellation hardware to materialize—a situation very similar to the tough six years between the last Apollo launch (Apollo Soyuz) in 1975 and the drawn-out buildup for the shuttle that finally culminated in its first launch in 1981. Such an extended development with the Constellation elements in these days of budget shortfalls could seriously impact the first scheduled launch of Orion in 2015.
MANNED SPACE VEHICLE EXPLORATION UTILIZING THE SPACE SHUTTLE
The space shuttles, used in concert with the International Space Station (ISS), could provide a viable means of launching manned space vehicles to destinations in our solar system, such as the moon, Mars, or an asteroid. In a single launch, the space shuttle can orbit a 50,000 lb payload, a capability that has allowed us to construct and operate the ISS, which weighs one million lbs. By designing the interplanetary vehicles in modular form and assembling them in orbit utilizing the ISS, we can assemble vehicles of enormous size, if required. This capability would be of indispensable value in the case of a Trans Mars vehicle, which would require the transport of considerable energy to power the vehicle there and back. Should additional single payload launch capability (either in weight or size) be required, a Space Shuttle-C (an unmanned space shuttle variant with increased payload capability) could be built. An additional benefit of this approach is that the ISS could serve as a mission return stopping point, followed by space shuttle transport of astronauts to Earth. This could provide an extra margin of safety for astronauts with unforeseen needs.
The specific advantages of continuing the space shuttle approach to solar system exploration discussed above, as opposed to the current Constellation "space shuttle replacement" approach, are numerous:
1) The space shuttle is a proven and predictable system. In contrast, the Ares-1 Launch Vehicle (ALV) is already beset with technical uncertainties regarding weight limitations and excessive vibration.
2) The space shuttle system is a combination of launch vehicle and spacecraft. The space shuttle Orbiter's on-orbit capabilities include a remote arm capable of manipulating and repairing satellites. The Orbiter also includes an airlock to support extravehicular activities such as space repairs and component assembly. The Constellation system (the shuttle replacement) is a combination of the ALV and the Orion spacecraft. The Orion spacecraft does not have the above capability.
3) The space shuttle system can return both payloads and astronauts from orbit to Earth via a runway landing, while the Constellation approach will revert to parachuting a capsule and the returning astronauts into the ocean, as was the case with the Apollo system.
4) The space shuttle will provide uninterrupted U.S. support to the ISS. Pursuing the Constellation approach will result in a gap of five years or more, when the U.S. will have no capability of delivering supplies to the ISS or of delivering astronauts to the ISS and returning them. Relying on the Russians to fill this gap has become more problematic with the controversy over the Russian invasion of Georgia and the reluctance of the U.S. Congress to renew the legislative exemption that enables NASA to continue to purchase Soyuz spacecraft services as a backup to the space shuttle. The current exemption expires in 2011. Therefore, Congress will need to extend the exemption till the ALV/Orion system is operational.
5) The space shuttle approach will insure ongoing utilization of the ISS, a space colony that humankind should keep in place and operating for the foreseeable future.
6) With the space shuttle system, both the Orbiter and the SRBs are reusable. With Constellation, a relatively larger part of the system, the ALV, is a single-use component.
7) The space shuttle and supporting facilities are paid for!
The advantages of the Constellation approach over the space shuttle approach appear to be nil, the switch to the Constellation approach being predicated primarily on the unwarranted fear of another shuttle "accident" as put forward by the President's CAIB. Fortunately, there is time to reconsider. Even though the dismantling of the space shuttle system has begun, it probably would be more advantageous to stay with this system than to design and construct a whole new system to support the Constellation program. At a minimum, the shuttle system should be extended till its replacement is operational.
The next President and his NASA administrator should also consider a change in the next goal of the U.S. manned space program as well as a change in the hardware to achieve that goal. Scientific interest now centers on Mars rather than on the moon. Four of the five elements of a manned mission to Mars are already in place:
1) The space shuttle (the launch vehicle)
2) The International Space Station, or ISS (the assembly and launch platform for the Trans Mars vehicle)
3) Extensive experience with on-orbit assembly
4) Numerous unmanned precursor missions to Mars
The only missing element is the Mars Aerobraker Vehicle (MAV) to transport the expected three astronauts to and from Mars. Conceptual designs already exist for this vehicle. At an estimated departure weight of 400,000 pounds, a dozen shuttle flights could deliver all needed modules of the MAV to the ISS over a period of years at a cost of perhaps $10 billion. This would leave most of $200 billion (the amount currently contemplated for lunar exploration) to design, build, and assemble the MAV. This redirection would focus the attention and resources of NASA and the aerospace community on the MAV, and would sharpen skills valuable to the nation for further exploration of our solar system. With the manned space program thus redirected, the goal of landing humans on Mars within the next decade appears to be feasible.
In August of 2003 the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) issued its report and concluded, among other things, that the space shuttles were aging, old technology, and too risky. Shortly thereafter President Bush initiated the Constellation program to retire the space shuttles and to replace them with the Ares Launch Vehicles and the Orion Spacecraft, patterned after the Apollo Program. As it stands, the space shuttles are to be retired during 2010, and the Constellation Project is well under way. This is a severe under-utilization of a valuable and still-usable national asset.
SHUTTLE ADVOCATES: SAVE THE SHUTTLE
To alert the public, my colleagues and I formed the Shuttle Advocates Team (SAT), an informal group of mostly retired Rockwell and Boeing engineers, with many years of experience working on the space shuttle Orbiter vehicle, from contract initiation through mission operation. We represent a cross section of space shuttle engineering and provide authoritative information regarding space shuttle performance and future capability. Many of us were also deeply involved in the Apollo Project and are therefore qualified to make comparisons between the space shuttle approach and the Constellation approach to space exploration. We call our team the Shuttle Advocates Team because our mission is to extend the use of the space shuttle system beyond the current end date of 2010. Much of the following information is drawn from material supplied to this writer by SAT engineers.
SPACE SHUTTLE HISTORY AND ITS CURRENT CAPABILITY
To clarify a point, what everyone commonly calls the shuttle or the space shuttle is what our team calls the Orbiter vehicle, that stubby-looking, winged spacecraft that holds the crew and payload. It is this unique United States vehicle that America and the world have come to identify with manned space travel, our "space truck," so to speak. The total space shuttle system consists of four major components: two Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), one External Tank (ET), and the Orbiter. The SRBs and the ET are necessary to enable the Orbiter to achieve Earth orbit. Our comments and statements primarily concern the Orbiter vehicles.
The Orbiter named Challenger was lost due to a problem with the SRB circumferential field joint seals ("O-rings") losing their resiliency during a cold winter launch. The improved SRB joint seal has solved that problem. The Columbia spacecraft was lost when a large piece of the ET's external insulation inexplicably detached from a critical area on the tank surface. The critical area is a 15-foot-wide area opposite the Orbiter, which extends aft about five feet from the forward attach point of the Orbiter. The piece of foam struck the Orbiter on the lower surface of the left wing's leading edge, causing a mortal hole that resulted in the loss of the vehicle and crew from reentry overheating. Extensive corrective actions by the ET Project have restored confidence, and successful spaceflights have resumed.
We cite these two accidents to make the point that they were caused by the other shuttle components used during ascent to orbit. The Orbiter spacecraft has never been the cause of any failures. The Orbiter has a perfect record of 123 consecutive successful missions, and we are confident that this record number will grow. We also have a dedicated team of new engineers trained by their mentors, thus insuring that the Orbiter can continue to be operated correctly.
The Orbiters are, of course, aging but have two thirds of their 100 mission design lives (per vehicle) still ahead of them. Sean O'Keefe, a former head of NASA, states in the NOVA documentary that prior to the Columbia accident NASA was planning to keep the space shuttles in operation till 2020. One of the members of SAT recently delivered a technical paper on the built-in space shuttle longevity and compared it to the Douglas DC-3, an aircraft that has been flying for over 70 years and is known for its reliability and ruggedness. The vehicles are well maintained and to this day remain pristine. If you look inside one of the Orbiters today, for example, it looks very similar to the first Orbiter on its maiden voyage back in 1981.
Each of the Orbiters was designed and qualified by tests and analysis for a minimum of 100 space missions. Many of the component test programs were extended to 400 missions to flush out any hidden or unexpected failure modes. The most-used Orbiter in the fleet has only performed 35 missions, so today there is plenty of useful life remaining for additional space missions.
Furthermore, the space shuttles are not old technology. The Orbiter is very similar to military and commercial airplanes, and only evolutionary changes have occurred in airplanes over the last 27 years, as opposed to radical redesigns. Furthermore, those changes are mostly in the avionics, which are readily updated. The more familiar examples of this are the Boeing B-52 and B-1 bombers and the Boeing 747 airliner, all of which are still flying after a longer period, and in the latter case the plane is still in production. The fact is if a spacecraft were designed today to do all the things the space shuttle can do, it would be virtually no different from the existing proven hardware.
A former Orbiter Chief Engineer and VP of Engineering reports, "Many people are unaware that NASA has long maintained an upgrade process to provide current technology to the Orbiter. Starting with the early space missions, many upgrades were installed to improve performance, enhance system reliability, and improve operational safety. More than $1 billion was spent after the Challenger accident on the SRBs, the ET, and the Orbiter. The successful flights after the Columbia accident also show that NASA keeps these shuttle components operating with technology that can meet the mission requirements, consistent with the available funding for modification kits and their installation. Over the years of shuttle operations, these upgrades have received lots of attention as recorded in Reference (1)." (The reference is to a 1999 National Research Council Report entitled "Upgrading the Space Shuttle," published by the National Academy Press.)
As summarized by a former Chief Engineer at Kennedy Space Center, "The Orbiter is the most fantastic flying machine built by man. Its retirement in 2010 is premature and shortsighted. What a waste of unique hardware and all the associated infrastructure and people skills that have been developed at Kennedy Space Center. (This applies as well to the other NASA Centers and to the Corporate Suppliers.) The knowledge base and support for complex space launches take a significant time to establish, and now we're planning to dismantle the talented workforce at that site, together with the software and procedures established over 123 flights, to begin a new program. Skills will be lost as we wait on the Constellation hardware to materialize—a situation very similar to the tough six years between the last Apollo launch (Apollo Soyuz) in 1975 and the drawn-out buildup for the shuttle that finally culminated in its first launch in 1981. Such an extended development with the Constellation elements in these days of budget shortfalls could seriously impact the first scheduled launch of Orion in 2015.
MANNED SPACE VEHICLE EXPLORATION UTILIZING THE SPACE SHUTTLE
The space shuttles, used in concert with the International Space Station (ISS), could provide a viable means of launching manned space vehicles to destinations in our solar system, such as the moon, Mars, or an asteroid. In a single launch, the space shuttle can orbit a 50,000 lb payload, a capability that has allowed us to construct and operate the ISS, which weighs one million lbs. By designing the interplanetary vehicles in modular form and assembling them in orbit utilizing the ISS, we can assemble vehicles of enormous size, if required. This capability would be of indispensable value in the case of a Trans Mars vehicle, which would require the transport of considerable energy to power the vehicle there and back. Should additional single payload launch capability (either in weight or size) be required, a Space Shuttle-C (an unmanned space shuttle variant with increased payload capability) could be built. An additional benefit of this approach is that the ISS could serve as a mission return stopping point, followed by space shuttle transport of astronauts to Earth. This could provide an extra margin of safety for astronauts with unforeseen needs.
The specific advantages of continuing the space shuttle approach to solar system exploration discussed above, as opposed to the current Constellation "space shuttle replacement" approach, are numerous:
1) The space shuttle is a proven and predictable system. In contrast, the Ares-1 Launch Vehicle (ALV) is already beset with technical uncertainties regarding weight limitations and excessive vibration.
2) The space shuttle system is a combination of launch vehicle and spacecraft. The space shuttle Orbiter's on-orbit capabilities include a remote arm capable of manipulating and repairing satellites. The Orbiter also includes an airlock to support extravehicular activities such as space repairs and component assembly. The Constellation system (the shuttle replacement) is a combination of the ALV and the Orion spacecraft. The Orion spacecraft does not have the above capability.
3) The space shuttle system can return both payloads and astronauts from orbit to Earth via a runway landing, while the Constellation approach will revert to parachuting a capsule and the returning astronauts into the ocean, as was the case with the Apollo system.
4) The space shuttle will provide uninterrupted U.S. support to the ISS. Pursuing the Constellation approach will result in a gap of five years or more, when the U.S. will have no capability of delivering supplies to the ISS or of delivering astronauts to the ISS and returning them. Relying on the Russians to fill this gap has become more problematic with the controversy over the Russian invasion of Georgia and the reluctance of the U.S. Congress to renew the legislative exemption that enables NASA to continue to purchase Soyuz spacecraft services as a backup to the space shuttle. The current exemption expires in 2011. Therefore, Congress will need to extend the exemption till the ALV/Orion system is operational.
5) The space shuttle approach will insure ongoing utilization of the ISS, a space colony that humankind should keep in place and operating for the foreseeable future.
6) With the space shuttle system, both the Orbiter and the SRBs are reusable. With Constellation, a relatively larger part of the system, the ALV, is a single-use component.
7) The space shuttle and supporting facilities are paid for!
The advantages of the Constellation approach over the space shuttle approach appear to be nil, the switch to the Constellation approach being predicated primarily on the unwarranted fear of another shuttle "accident" as put forward by the President's CAIB. Fortunately, there is time to reconsider. Even though the dismantling of the space shuttle system has begun, it probably would be more advantageous to stay with this system than to design and construct a whole new system to support the Constellation program. At a minimum, the shuttle system should be extended till its replacement is operational.
The next President and his NASA administrator should also consider a change in the next goal of the U.S. manned space program as well as a change in the hardware to achieve that goal. Scientific interest now centers on Mars rather than on the moon. Four of the five elements of a manned mission to Mars are already in place:
1) The space shuttle (the launch vehicle)
2) The International Space Station, or ISS (the assembly and launch platform for the Trans Mars vehicle)
3) Extensive experience with on-orbit assembly
4) Numerous unmanned precursor missions to Mars
The only missing element is the Mars Aerobraker Vehicle (MAV) to transport the expected three astronauts to and from Mars. Conceptual designs already exist for this vehicle. At an estimated departure weight of 400,000 pounds, a dozen shuttle flights could deliver all needed modules of the MAV to the ISS over a period of years at a cost of perhaps $10 billion. This would leave most of $200 billion (the amount currently contemplated for lunar exploration) to design, build, and assemble the MAV. This redirection would focus the attention and resources of NASA and the aerospace community on the MAV, and would sharpen skills valuable to the nation for further exploration of our solar system. With the manned space program thus redirected, the goal of landing humans on Mars within the next decade appears to be feasible.