Slashdot Mirror

Last month when Boeing and SpaceX announced the first astronauts who will fly on their commercial crew spacecraft, several newspapers across the U.S. began publishing an op-ed that criticized the process by which Boeing competitor SpaceX fuels its Falcon 9 rocket. "The first op-ed appeared in a Memphis newspaper a week before the commercial crew announcement," reports Ars Technica. "In recent weeks, copies of the op-ed have also appeared in the Houston Chronicle, various Alabama newspapers, Albuquerque Journal, Florida Today, and The Washington Times." Ars Technica reports: All of these op-eds were bylined by "retired spacecraft operator" Richard Hagar, who worked for NASA during the Apollo program and now lives in Tennessee. (Based upon his limited social media postings, Hagar appears to be more interested in conservative politics than in space these days). Each op-ed cites Hagar's work on NASA's recovery from the Apollo 1 fire and the hard lessons NASA learned that day about human spaceflight. The pieces then pivot to arguing that SpaceX's load-and-go fueling process -- in which the crew will board the Dragon spacecraft on top of the Falcon 9 rocket before it is fueled -- ignores the lessons that Hagar's generation learned during Apollo.

"It's concerning to learn that some of the newer private space ventures launching today don't appreciate the same safety standards we learned to emphasize on Apollo," the op-ed states. "I suppose for Mr. Musk, inexperience is replacing the abundant safety protocols drilled into us after witnessing the Apollo 1 disaster. Astronaut safety is NASA's number one priority on any space mission. There is no reason it should not be for private space travel, but commercial space companies like SpaceX play by different rules."

There are some factual inaccuracies here. For one thing, SpaceX does play by the same rules as Boeing for commercial crew -- astronaut safety rules that NASA itself wrote. Moreover, NASA has already provisionally cleared load-and-go for Falcon 9 launches that will send the Dragon spacecraft into orbit. To try to understand his viewpoint, Ars attempted to reach Hagar by phone and email in September. In the course of this process, we learned that he did not actually submit many of these op-eds. In fact, based upon our research, at least four of the six op-eds that we located were submitted by two people with gmail.com addresses. Their names were Josh Brevik and Casey Murray. Further research revealed that two people with these names worked as "associates" at a Washington, DC-based public relations firm named Law Media Group or LMG. LMG's website says they are a 15-year-old firm that "develops and executes public-, Hill-, and agency-facing issue advocacy campaigns that shift the narrative in a changing world." The SourceWatch website more bluntly "calls LMG a 'secretive Washington DC public affairs firm' with a history of placing op-eds, and it seeks to mask the op-eds' financial sponsors," reports Ars.

schwit1 shares a report from Alabama Local News: NASA's administrator Jim Bridenstine has directed the space agency to look at boosting its brand by selling naming rights to rockets and spacecraft and allowing its astronauts to appear in commercials and on cereal boxes, as if they were celebrity athletes. While officials stress that nothing has been decided, the idea could mark a giant cultural leap for the taxpayer-funded government agency and could run into ethics regulations that prevent government officials from using public office for private gain.

"Is it possible for NASA to offset some of its costs by selling the naming rights to its spacecraft, or the naming rights to its rockets," Bridenstine said. "I'm telling you there is interest in that right now. The question is: Is it possible? The answer is: I don't know, but we want somebody to give us advice on whether it is." He also said he wanted astronauts to be not only more accessible to journalists but even to participate in marketing opportunities to boost their brands - and that of the space agency. "I'd like to see kids growing up, instead of maybe wanting to be like a professional sports star, I'd like to see them grow up wanting to be a NASA astronaut, or a NASA scientist," he said. "I'd like to see, maybe one day, NASA astronauts on the cover of a cereal box, embedded into the American culture."

MarkWhittington writes: NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has been making the rounds of congressional committees, defending the indefensible, that being the latest Obama space agency budget proposal. Thursday it was the turn of the House Science Committee to complain to Bolden that the budget underfunded the Journey to Mars and to vow that more money would be forthcoming. One of the other complaints Congress has been making is that NASA lacks a plan to get people to Mars, scheduled to happen sometime in the 2030s. Bolden was coy, suggesting that the time was not right to start firming up architectures and missions. However, he did drop an intriguing hint that a nuclear thermal rocket engine being developed at NASA's Marshall Spaceflight Center may take people to Mars quicker than chemical rockets.

An anonymous reader writes: For the first time, public school students in Alabama will be required to understand evolution, thanks to new curriculum rules behind implemented next year. Teachers in the state will also be required to discuss climate change. Not only did the 40-person, Republican-controlled Board of Education pass the standards unanimously, but nobody even spoke out against them at a board meeting. The new rules say, "The theory of evolution has a role in explaining unity and diversity of life on earth. This theory is substantiated with much direct and indirect evidence. Therefore, this course of study requires our students to understand the principles of the theory of evolution from the perspective of established scientific knowledge. The committee recognizes and appreciates the diverse views associated with the theory of evolution."

HughPickens.com writes: Quentin Hardy reports at the NY Times that Google has announced it is opening its 14th data center inside a former coal-fired power plant in Stevenson, Alabama. While there is considerable irony in taking over a coal-burning plant and promoting alternative power, there are pragmatic reasons Google would want to put a $600 million data center in such a facility. These power facilities are typically large and solid structures with good power lines. The Alabama plant is next to a reservoir on the Tennessee River with access to lots of water, which Google uses for cooling its computers. There are also rail lines into the facility, which makes it likely Google can access buried conduits along the tracks to run fiber-optic cable. In Finland, Google rehabilitated a paper mill, and uses seawater for cooling. Salt water is corrosive for standard metal pipes, of course, so Google created a singular cooling system using plastic pipes.

New submitter Raymondware sends an update to last week's news that NASA had awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX to provide rockets for future manned spaceflight. Now, one of their competitors, Sierra Nevada Corp, has announced it will launch a legal challenge to the contracts. The company claims the government is spending $900 million more than it needs to for equivalent fulfillment, and they're demanding a review. They add, Importantly, the official NASA solicitation for the CCtCap contract prioritized price as the primary evaluation criteria for the proposals, setting it equal to the combined value of the other two primary evaluation criteria: mission suitability and past performance. SNC’s Dream Chaser proposal was the second lowest priced proposal in the CCtCap competition. SNC’s proposal also achieved mission suitability scores comparable to the other two proposals. In fact, out of a possible 1,000 total points, the highest ranked and lowest ranked offerors were separated by a minor amount of total points and other factors were equally comparable.

schwit1 writes: A GAO report finds that the Space Launch System is over budget and NASA will need an additional $400 million to complete its first orbital launch in 2017. From the article: "NASA isn't meeting its own requirements for matching cost and schedule resources with the congressional requirement to launch the first SLS in December 2017. NASA usually uses a calculation it calls the 'joint cost and schedule confidence level' to decide the odds a program will come in on time and on budget. 'NASA policy usually requires a 70 percent confidence level for a program to proceed with final design and fabrication,' the GAO report says, and the SLS is not at that level. The report adds that government programs that can't match requirements to resources 'are at increased risk of cost and schedule growth.'

In other words, the GAO says SLS is at risk of costing more than the current estimate of $12 billion to reach the first launch or taking longer to get there. Similar cost and schedule problems – although of a larger magnitude – led President Obama to cancel SLS's predecessor rocket system called Constellation shortly after taking office." The current $12 billion estimate is for the program's cost to achieve one unmanned launch. That's four times what it is costing NASA to get SpaceX, Boeing, and Sierra Nevada to build their three spaceships, all scheduled for their first manned launches before 2017.

An anonymous reader writes "A specially equipped Black Hawk was recently used to demonstrate the helicopter's ability to operate on its own. In the first such test of its type, the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research's Development and Engineering Center, based at Redstone Arsenal, flew the Black Hawk over Diablo Mountain Range in San Jose, Calif. Pilots were aboard the aircraft for the tests, but all flight maneuvers were conducted autonomously: obstacle field navigation, safe landing area determination, terrain sensing, statistical processing, risk assessment, threat avoidance, trajectory generation and autonomous flight control were performed in real-time. 'This was the first time terrain-aware autonomy has been achieved on a Black Hawk,' said Lt. Col. Carl Ott, chief of the Flight Projects Office at AMRDEC's Aeroflightdynamics Directorate and one of the test's pilots."

First time accepted submitter Burdell writes "A new startup has technology to read fingerprints from up to 6 meters away. IDair currently sells to the military, but they are beta testing it with a chain of 24-hour fitness centers that want to restrict sharing of access cards. IDair also wants to sell this to retail stores and credit card companies as a replacement for physical cards. Lee Tien from the EFF notes that the security of such fingerprint databases is a privacy concern." Since the last time this technology was mentioned more than a year ago, it seems that the claimed range for reading has tripled, and the fingerprint reader business has been spun off from the company at which development started.

An anonymous reader writes "A new oil sheen appeared in the Gulf of Mexico last week, and now scientists have confirmed that the oil bubbling up to the surface matches the type released by BP's Deepwater Horizon oil well last summer. Ed Overton, a chemist at Louisiana State University, examined samples of the oil and said, 'After examining the data, I think it's a dead ringer for the MC252 oil, as good a match as I've seen. My guess is that it is probably coming from the broken riser pipe or sunken platform.'"

Dasher42 writes "Claims are circulating on the Internet that the Coast Guard fears the Deepwater Horizon well has sprung two extra leaks, raising fears that all control over the release of oil at the site will be lost. The oil field, one of the largest ever discovered, could release 50,000 barrels a day into the ocean, with implications for marine life around the globe that are difficult to comprehend. So, considering that losing our oceanic life, with subsequent unraveling of our land-based ecosystems, is a far more possible apocalyptic scenario than a killer asteroid — what do we do about it?" Other readers have sent some interesting pictures of the spill. One set shows the Deepwater Horizon rig as it collapsed into the ocean. Others, from NASA, indicate that the spill's surface area now rivals that of Florida. The US government has indicated that it intends to require BP to foot the bill for the cleanup. And the Governator has just withdrawn support for drilling off the California coast.

TopSpin writes "NASA's Constellation Program and Ares rockets appear to have strong support in Congress. An appropriations bill passed by the House includes language that bars 'any efforts by NASA to cancel or change the current Constellation program without first seeking approval of Congress.' The Administration's appointed NASA leadership is being publicly hostile towards its traditional aerospace affiliations. As Charles Bolden put it to industry execs, 'We are going to be fighting and fussing over the coming year,' and 'Some of you are not going to like me because we are not going to do the same kind of things we've always done.'"

Over the years kids have come up with some creative ways to avoid having their parents find out about their bad grades, but a 11-year-old Alabama boy has been crowned excuse champion. The boy faked his own kidnapping to avoid bringing home a bad report card. He claimed that a man in a red, beat-up car grabbed him after school and forced him into the vehicle. The boy said that he was able to escape but had to leave his book bag, which contained his report card, behind. After some police questioning about the incident he confessed to making up the whole story.

FleaPlus writes "Steve Cook, project manager for the Ares I-X, Ares I, and Ares V rockets, announced that he will resign from NASA MSFC after 19 years at the agency, leaving for an executive position at Dynetics, Inc. This raises doubts about the future of the Ares program, which has been plagued with development problems and massive cost/schedule overruns since its inception. Steve Cook also oversaw the (since discredited) 2005 ESAS study which scrapped NASA's prior plans to adapt already-existing commercial rockets for human/beyond-LEO exploration in favor of internally developing the Ares rockets."

CountryGeek passed us a link to a story in the Birmingham News, saying that schools in the Alabama city will be the first US students to make use of the XO laptop. The piece touches on a bit of the project's history, and seems to indicate the Birmingham school district is ready to make a serious commitment to these devices. "Langford has asked the City Council to approve $7 million for the laptops and a scholarship program that would give Birmingham students with a C average or above a scholarship to college or tech school of their choice. The City Council has not yet approved the funding. The rugged, waterproof computers will be distributed to students on April 15, Langford said, and children will be allowed to take them home. If a computer is lost, the school system can disable it, rendering it useless, Langford said. Students will turn in their computers at the end of their eighth-grade year."

Quixote writes "A couple of days ago, there were news reports about a traffic camera near Univ. of Alabama being actually used to checkout passersby by someone at the state troopers' office. Today, there's a news report about 3 people being arrested for 'public misconduct' by the same camera (including one man for grabbing his crotch (don't ballplayers routinely do this? ;)). This story highlights an issue which most privacy advocates worry about: the extension of a surveillance technology to cover areas it was not intended to cover. This camera is a traffic camera: it was installed for monitoring the traffic conditions on the road. Now it is being used to monitor people (albeit the 'monitoring' was for some <ahem> other purposes in the beginning). I will submit that in a public place you have no right to privacy; but this yet another example of something to keep in mind when considering other 'privacy eroding' technologies."

zoid.com writes: "Nuclear-fusion drives, anti-matter protons and solar sails? NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center broke ground on a new administration and lab building for the Propulsion Research Center today. This lab will will be used to develop new propulsion concepts and techniques for the future of space exploration."

LordNimon writes "According to an article in the Huntsville (AL) Times, Michael Williams, a Republican candidate for Congress, is proposing a 1% tax on any science fiction- or space-related products (e.g. books, toys, and games) and using that money to fund NASA. At first I thought this guy was crazy, considering the administrative nightmare of determining which products should be taxed. But then I realized something - this tax would make those who are most interested in space the primary source of space development funding. Instead of making everyone pay for NASA, those who care most about it also fund it the most. Maybe if the guy didn't work in a supermarket, he'd be taken more seriously."

TOTKChief writes "In reference to the /. story about radiation safety at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, MSFC Center Director Art Stephenson has replied to those safety allegations outlined by The Huntsville Times. It's funny to note that the actions that Stephenson has taken are exactly those recommended by Jim Bult, who was fired for whistle blowing by the NASA contractor that he worked for. Depressing."

TOTKChief writes "In reference to the /. story about radiation safety at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, MSFC Center Director Art Stephenson has replied to those safety allegations outlined by The Huntsville Times. It's funny to note that the actions that Stephenson has taken are exactly those recommended by Jim Bult, who was fired for whistle blowing by the NASA contractor that he worked for. Depressing."

TOTKChief writes "NASA Watch reported on this the other day, but now the Huntsville Times has dug into the firing of a NASA contractor charged with radiation safety at Marshall Space Flight Center. NASA is so serious about safety and redundancy that they're sending two probes nearly simultaneously to Mars, but it's apparent here that they don't give a rip about the safety of their employees."

TOTKChief writes "NASA Watch reported on this the other day, but now the Huntsville Times has dug into the firing of a NASA contractor charged with radiation safety at Marshall Space Flight Center. NASA is so serious about safety and redundancy that they're sending two probes nearly simultaneously to Mars, but it's apparent here that they don't give a rip about the safety of their employees."

Chris Howard wrote to tell us about a new chamber to trap antimatter. Eventually antimatter may prove a cheap energy source for interplanetary exploration (as in Star Trek). moonboy contributed this link to a new plasma engine NASA is developing. Finally in related news, Tom Rothamel informed us of a setback for the Delta III rocket (i.e. a successful test, since those are the ones that find bugs): "Well, the new Delta III rocket's first test flight just exploded. I saw it on RealVideo from Boeing."