"Missing" Airplanes, Public Unrest/Resource Wars, and the Stalled Out Space Race

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

Hello everyone -- sorry for the long absences from posting here.

I've noticed over the last few weeks that the global news in many sectors is getting pretty seriously alarming. I.e. the Middle East, the Ukraine situation, and of course, the energy giants and whatever they are doing behind the scenes of all this present disquiet.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/%27The_Chase_of_the_Golden_Meteor%27_by_George_Roux_01.jpg

There is a book that my spouse and I acquired at a yard sale or thrift store a while back, a Jules Verne title called something like "The Chase of the Golden Meteor".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chase_of_the_Golden_Meteor


The Chase of the Golden Meteor (French: La Chasse au météore) is a novel by Jules Verne.

It was one of the last novels written by the prolific French hard science fiction pioneer and was only published in 1908, three years after his death.

It is one of seven such posthumous novels, many of which were extensively edited by his son.

Verne himself first wrote "La Chasse au météore" in 1901 and then rewrote it before his death.

Michel Verne is known to have emphasised the romantic sub plot of this novel and expanded it from 17 to 21 chapters, among other changes. [1]

It concerns the rivalry between two amateur astronomers in the same small American town who spot a new meteor and attempt to claim the credit for themselves.

The meteor turns out to be extremely valuable, as can be guessed from the title, and another eccentric amateur scientist, this time an inventor, creates a device which will cause it to fall where he chooses.

This character was an invention of Michel, rather than Jules, Verne.

The book is seen as less an early example of hard science fiction than a social satire lampooning greed, monomania and vanity.

The future world depicted in the book includes two political predictions which failed to materialise in the century since its publication: firstly, the United States comes to be composed of 51 states and accordingly, its flag has 51 stars, as opposed to the 45 states that existed in 1905 when Verne died; secondly, Greenland becomes an independent, fully sovereign nation state.

Like, Verne knew 150 years ago that we would be mining asteroids 'n' stuff in the future. Had history taken a different turn it might have happened long before 2030...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/21/us-space-mining-asteroids-idUSBRE9AK0JF20131121


Gold rush in space? Asteroid miners prepare, but eye water first

By Susan Thomas

LONDON Thu Nov 21, 2013 6:09am EST

(Reuters) - Mining in space is moving from science fiction to commercial reality but metals magnates on this planet need not fear a mountain of extraterrestrial supply - the aim is to fuel human voyages deeper into the galaxy.

Within three years, two firms plan prospecting missions to passing asteroids. When even a modest space rock might meet demand for metals like platinum or gold for centuries, it is little wonder storytellers have long fantasized that to harness cosmic riches could make, and break, fortunes on Earth.

But with no way to bring much ore or metal down from the heavens, new ventures that have backing from some serious - and seriously rich - business figures, as well as interest from NASA, will focus on using space minerals in interplanetary "gas stations" or to build, support and fuel colonies on Mars.

There may be gold up there, but the draw for now is water for investors willing to get the new industry off the ground.

Governments believe it has a future; NASA has a project that may put astronauts on an asteroid in under a decade and on Mars in the 2030s. And if the costs seem high, grumblers are told that one day the new skills might just save mankind from sharing the fate of the dinosaurs - if we can learn how to stop a massive asteroid smashing into Earth.

"We are dreamers," declares the web site of Deep Space Industries (DSI), next to an image of a wheel-like metal station hooked up to a giant floating rock. But what the U.S.-based start-up firm calls the first small steps in a "long play" to develop the resources of space are about to happen.


Multinationals and Elites Suppressing Free Resources/Free Energy

Wikipedia and Reuters fail to mention that these so-called "dreamers" were 100% right and on the money for the last 150 years but big money keeps holding back the obvious, the ventures that would benefit the many and not the few who gain financially by maintaining a stranglehold on other members of the species...

UNITED STATES GOV'T ACTIVELY SUPPRESSING SCIENTIFIC ADVANCEMENT?

http://www.ted.com/conversations/10702/have_capitalism_globalisation.html


Have capitalism, globalisation and greed stunted our technological growth?

I have often wondered if oil is the reason we are not driving around in hover cars or more cars running on alternative fuels, any car that could hover with precision, accuracy and long periods would probably not use a combustion engine, take also tires cars with the technology to hover would not require rubber tires.

I have no doubt we could have acheived these technologies years ago, but oil and rubber tires are extremely lucrative and make the few very rich, imagine a world of hover cars that are completely automated you wouldn't need to pay road tax they don' t need roads and car insurance would be drastically lower granted it may still be needed just incase!, but our whole society seems centred around a system of wealth and power to which only a few are privy, we seem to have spent the last sixty or so years continually reinventing the car, television and video in one form or another, because these few simple technologies keep us in a perpetual state of consumerism, not to mention our computing abilities which have managed to keep most of the western society in a state of wage slavery.

Our monetary system can only take the human race so far, but to get past our current statewe may need an overhaul of everything we know, not just our monetary system but our politics and our moral compass?

This is just a small example of how we could have expanded our technology over the last sixty years i'm sure there are many more.

Topics: Innovative technologies Science & Technology Technological progress moral technology

http://forums.anandtech.com/archive/index.php/t-1419151.html
View Full Version : So, what is really holding back the research and application of alternative fuels?



WHY SO MANY RECENT PLANE CRASHES in 2014?

http://www.planecrashinfo.com/

Why so many oil pipeline explosions/train explosions/fires in 2013?

:(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pipeline_accidents

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Space_Race





Sometimes i wonder if the nuclear bomb is what really killed the space race :(

mass depression. :scared:

[aheb]

Missed you Tes. Always enjoyed your imput
what about the weather? isn't it mad? or is it just me? check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxy9055dwgY

hope it's not too off topic

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http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/02/us/us-spy-plane/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

U.S. official: Spy plane flees Russian jet, radar; ends up over Sweden
From Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent
updated 6:14 PM EDT, Sat August 2, 2014

Washington (CNN) -- The Cold War aerial games of chicken portrayed in the movie "Top Gun" are happening in real life again nearly 30 years later.

A U.S. Air Force spy plane evaded an encounter with the Russian military on July 18, just a day after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed by a suspected surface-to-air missile that Ukraine and the West allege was fired by pro-Russia rebels in eastern Ukraine.

The RC-135 Rivet Joint fled into nearby Swedish airspace without that country's permission, a U.S. military official told CNN. The airplane may have gone through other countries' airspace as well, though it's not clear if it had permission to do so.

The U.S. plane had been flying in international airspace, conducting an electronic eavesdropping mission on the Russian military, when the Russians took the unusual action of beginning to track it with land-based radar.

The Russians then sent at least one fighter jet into the sky to intercept the aircraft, the U.S. official said Saturday.

The spy plane crew felt so concerned about the radar tracking that it wanted to get out of the area as quickly as possible, the official said. The quickest route away from the Russians took them into Swedish airspace. The U.S. official acknowledged that was done without Swedish military approval.

As a result of this incident, the United States is discussing the matter with Sweden and letting officials know there may be further occurrences where American jets have to divert so quickly they may not be able to wait for permission.

"We acknowledge a U.S. aircraft veered into Swedish airspace and will take active steps to ensure we have properly communicated with Swedish authorities in advance to prevent similar issues before they arise," the U.S. State Department said.

The incident was first reported by the Swedish media group DN.se. Russian officials did not provide any immediate reaction about the encounter.

This was at least the second potentially-dangerous encounter between a U.S. plane and Russia over the past few months. On April 23, a Russian Su-27 Flanker fighter jet buzzed within 100 feet of the nose of a U.S. Air Force RC-135U reconnaissance plane over the Sea of Okhotsk between Russia and Japan, a Defense Department official said.

Russian fighter jet nearly collided with U.S. military plane in April

Russian and U.S. aircraft often encounter each other, both in Northern Europe as well as the area between the Russian Far East and Alaska. But the official said the land radar activity by the Russians in this instance was unusual.

The ongoing civil unrest in Ukraine and the downing of MH 17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, which killed all 298 people aboard, have heightened tensions between Washington and Moscow. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was brought down by a suspected missile.

Pro-Russia rebels have denied allegations from Ukraine and the West that they shot down the Malaysian airliner, or that Russia supplied equipment used to shoot it down.

CNN's Jim Sciutto, Bill Mears and Mark Morgenstein contributed to this story

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http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/23/tech/innovation/rocket-experiment-failure/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Experimental SpaceX rocket self-detonates over Texas

By Ben Brumfield, CNN
updated 11:26 AM EDT, Sat August 23, 2014 | Filed under: Innovations


(CNN) -- A small rung on the long ladder to Mars broke Friday, when a rocket test in Texas ended in a midair ball of fire.

Debris from the SpaceX F9R rained down from the flames onto an open field outside of McGregor.

The rocket self-destructed as a safety measure -- a common practice in the aerospace industry in unmanned craft. A hitch in the F9R test vehicle turned up during launch, and the "flight termination system automatically terminated the mission," SpaceX said in a statement.

"There were no injuries or near-injuries."

But it was a vivid firework for bystanders parked on a nearby country road -- and for their cellphone cameras. CNN affiliate KWTX reported the explosion on Friday and posted video.

The F9R has been successfully tested before, but SpaceX decided to push the limits this time, and it didn't work out, the company said.

All about the landing

It's not how it flies up but how it comes down that makes the F9R a stepping-stone to a Mars mission. The rocket has landing gear, four legs that stick out like an insect's. So did its even shorter predecessor, which bore the name Grasshopper.

Until now, American space rockets have never been designed to return in the same fashion or form that they departed. The bulk of the rocket was tossed (or lowered by chutes) into the ocean, or discarded to fall back through Earth's cosmic incinerator, or left in the eternal void.

Not so the F9R. All of it, in one piece, slowly backs down to the pad it took off from, using its booster engines, and sets down gingerly on its feet.

Mars, here we come

That makes it reusable, a characteristic useful for a distant-future mission to Mars -- if anyone plans to return home from there, that is.

A trip to the Red Planet is the visionary call of the space industry from NASA to Mars One, the latter of which has devised a plan to send a one-way mission there, where astronauts would not return but eventually die.

But SpaceX CEO Elon Musk takes the vision a step further. He foresees the human colonization of Mars and other planets as the next step in human evolution, according to the company's website.

There is also a less sexy but more immediate advantage to reusable rockets: They save tons of money. SpaceX's large Falcon 9 rockets cost about $54 million each, the company says.

That's roughly the price tag of a smaller pre-owned passenger jet in good shape. But a jet flies multiple times. Most rockets usually only fly one time.

Making rockets reusable would cut space flight costs enormously, SpaceX says.

A short-hopper

F9R launches are less exciting. They don't rumble the earth with the kind of blastoff thunder that the space shuttles or Saturn rockets once did, and the F9R is small, comprising only one stage.

It's a sawed-off version of its parent, the Falcon 9, the first rocket from a commercial company to fly to the International Space Station, according to SpaceX.

Nine rocket engines fire up to boost the Falcon 9 into Earth's orbit. Just three propel the F9R, which has only flown to an altitude of 1,000 meters (3,280 feet). That equals about twice the height of New York's One World Trade Center -- a trivial feat for a rocket.

Lose a few

Rocket science is complex even for small rockets sometimes, and failures in various stages of space missions happen regularly.

That includes launches.

One need only think of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 that killed all seven astronauts on board when it exploded some 70 seconds into launch.

In mid-May, a Russian satellite launch went sour, when the rocket veered off path, causing an emergency system to cut off propulsion. The rocket had traveled 100 miles high and reportedly burned up in the atmosphere on its way back down.

It was at least the fourth time such a tried-and-true Russian rocket type failed.

As Musk tweeted after F9R's self-detonation:

"Rockets are tricky ..."

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http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/exploding-spacex-rocket-grasshopper-f9r-640x357.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/%27The_Chase_of_the_Golden_Meteor%27_by_George_Roux_01.jpg

eh not quite? XD

[Zaya]

I would say "mass depression" just about sums it up.

I think culturally we are highly depressed and therefore very not motivated. We believe we can only have what is available to us and we don't question these things enough (well, obviously, here we do question more, but out there....). We are all so distracted by the things that are holding us to our ways and paying bills, working, trying to find ways to be happy despite all odds... and all the while, we don't question how and why we are all so depressed.

Maybe it is less about waking up and more about perking up.

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

Sorry to be a downer but this article needed to be put as an update in here, IMO :(

ffs America what's going on?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/28/us/nasa-rocket-explodes/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Unmanned NASA-contracted rocket explodes over eastern Virginia
By Greg Botelho, CNN
updated 11:29 PM EDT, Tue October 28, 2014


(CNN) -- An unmanned NASA-contracted rocket exploded in midair early Tuesday evening, producing huge flames and loud booms along the eastern Virginia coast but no injuries or deaths.

Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo spacecraft had been set to launch at 6:22 p.m. ET from the Wallops Flight Facility along the Atlantic Ocean, carrying roughly 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments to the International Space Station.

It exploded about six seconds after launch.

What was left of the spacecraft and rocket plummeted back to Earth, causing even more flames upon impact.

The rocket and spacecraft -- which together cost more than $200 million, according to Frank Culbertson, the general manager of Orbital's Advanced Programs Group -- are gone. And there's obvious damage beyond that, including to the launchpad, though the night skies made it hard to immediately gauge how much.
Official: Rocket explosion tragic but ...
Nye: Rocket explosion 'heartbreaking'
Video shows crowd watching rocket explode

One thing officials do know is that rocket science is, in the words of NASA Administrator Bill Gerstenmaier, "a really tough business."

"Tonight's events really show the difficulty that it takes for us to do this task of delivering cargo to the space station," he said.

Witnesses: From 'breathtaking' to horrific

The Orbital rocket had been set to go up Monday, only to be scrubbed "because of a boat down range in the trajectory Antares would have flown had it lifted off," according to NASA. Coast Guard spokesman David Weydert said the boat that triggered the postponement was 40 miles offshore.

Tuesday, by contrast, seemed perfect. Just before liftoff, NASA reported "100% favorable" weather and "no technical concerns with the rocket or spacecraft being worked."

It seemed to be going perfectly when Ed Encina saw the launch brighten up the sky from his vantage point about 3 miles away.

"And then, all of a sudden, you see a big fireball," said Encina, a Baltimore Sun reporter.

Encina recalled a loud boom that caused "your feet (to) shake a little bit," as well as flames enveloping a roughly 100-yard area around the launchpad in a marshy area with brush.

CNN iReporter Dymetria Sellers, who watched from a drawbridge because the NASA visitors station was ful, recalled a "breathtakingly beautiful" sight when the rocket ascended, followed by mass confusion as flames lit up the early nighttime sky moments later.

"About 30 seconds later, we could hear and feel two booms reach us, and it was apparent the rocket had exploded," she said.
Mark Kelly: This is a 'risky business'
Raw video of unmanned rocket explosion

Did you witness the rocket explosion? Please share your images

Mark Kelly, a former NASA astronaut, said such a colossal fire was to be expected.

"It takes a lot of propellant to take a spacecraft of that size moving 25 times the speed of sound," Kelly told CNN, explaining how fast the rocket should have gone on its way to the space station. "So when it fails, it's usually pretty catastrophic."

Authorities said the safety parameters appear to have worked, and noted the lack of casualties.

"All we lost was hardware," Culbertson said. "That hardware, however, is very important."

NASA official: 'We'll fix it'

So what happened?

That's exactly what officials -- both from public agencies like NASA and private companies like Orbital -- hope to find out in the coming days and weeks.

"What we know so far is pretty much what everybody saw on the video," Culbertson said. "The ascent stopped, there was some, let's say disassembly, of the first stage, and then it fell to Earth. ... We don't really have any early indications of exactly what might have failed, and we need some time to look at that."

Orbital will lead the investigation, along with the Federal Aviation Administration, with NASA assisting.

Among other things, they'll try to collect and examine any debris that can be recovered, review data from the spacecraft before its destruction and look at videos around the launch time.

The main focus Tuesday night was safety. Bill Wrobel, the Wallops Flight Facility director, said fire crews had set up a perimeter around the affected area. "We're just basically letting the fire burn out, but they are contained," he added.

Authorities expressed confidence that no people were directly affected by the explosion, but they could come across scattered remnants that are possibly floating in the water.

As to when Orbital will fly again from Wallops, the only site it's now permitted to launch from, Culbertson didn't specify a timetable beyond saying, "We will fly again as soon as we can safely."

Gerstenmaier offered a similar take: "We'll figure out what the failure is, we'll fix it, and we'll learn from it."

2 missions set to resupply space station

In the meantime, they'll have to rebound from the loss.

A third of the spacecraft's cargo was material for scientific investigations such as a Houston school's experiment on pea growth and a study on blood flow in space.

There also were basic supplies meant for the crew of the space station -- now orbiting more than 200 miles above Earth -- including more than 1,300 pounds of food.

But in the short term, no one is saying the space station's six-person crew will go hungry.

NASA won't directly restock them, having relied on private companies to do so since the end of its space shuttle program. That includes Virginia-based Orbital, which had its first of eight planned ISS launches in January out of the Wallops facility as part of its $1.9 billion contract with NASA.

Orbital becomes second private firm to send cargo to ISS

If Orbital can't resupply the space station, others can. On Wednesday, for instance, a Russian Soyuz resupply spacecraft stocked with cargo and crew supplies is set to launch from Kazakhstan. SpaceX, another private company, plans its fifth mission in December, including more supplies and a laser instrument to measure pollution, dust and other aspects of the atmosphere, according to NASA.

Even if those missions somehow fail, the space station crew has enough on hand to last well into next year.

"The station is in great shape; the crew is in good shape," said Mike Suffredini, NASA's ISS manager.

iReport: Explosion as seen from Maryland's eastern shore

CNN's Chandler Friedman, Kevin Conlon, Jareen Imam and Dave Alsup contributed to this report.





zA0lBRrXGmw

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/%27The_Chase_of_the_Golden_Meteor%27_by_George_Roux_33.jpg/392px-%27The_Chase_of_the_Golden_Meteor%27_by_George_Roux_33.jpghttp://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/141028194735-erin-sot-unmanned-nasa-rocket-explodes-00004620-story-body.jpg

it's so similar, the art for the jules verne book could almost have come from the footage yesterday :( :wacko:

ol' jules was so damn full of surprises :) :alien: :flypig:

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This story gets weirder every day lol


http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/141029083137-01-antares-explosion-horizontal-gallery.jpg

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/30/us/antares-rocket-explosion/index.html?hpt=hp_t2


Operator deliberately destroyed rocket
By Amanda Barnett, CNN
updated 11:39 AM EDT, Fri October 31, 2014

On what was to be a resupply mission to the International Space Station, an unmanned NASA-contracted rocket exploded seconds after launch Tuesday, October 28, on the coast of Virginia. The launchpad was damaged, but no one was injured. On what was to be a resupply mission to the International Space Station, an unmanned NASA-contracted rocket exploded seconds after launch Tuesday, October 28, on the coast of Virginia. The launchpad was damaged, but no one was injured.

Unmanned rocket explodes



STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Rocket was destroyed after it malfunctioned, company says
The problem appears to have started in rocket's first stage
Some of the cargo has been found
Some debris turned up on a nearby island

(CNN) -- The unmanned Antares rocket that exploded off the coast of Virginia was deliberately destroyed after it became apparent there was a problem, a spokesman for Orbital Sciences Corporation said Thursday.

The flight termination system was engaged, Barron Beneski, vice president of corporate communications, confirmed in an email.

The company said on its website that evidence suggests the problem started in the rocket's first stage and that it "fell back to the ground impacting near, but not on, the launch pad."

The rocket was intentionally detonated before it hit the ground.
See the rocket explode
Explosion a setback for private space race?

"Prior to impacting the ground, the rocket's Flight Termination System was engaged by the designated official in the Wallops Range Control Center," Orbital said.

Teams investigate failure of unmanned rocket

Orbital says there's a lot of debris at the launch site and it's likely that substantial "evidence will be available to aid in determining root cause of the Antares launch failure."

Mark Kelly, a retired NASA astronaut and SpaceX advisory board member, told CNN it was the right call.

"They commanded the destruct system to make sure it didn't wind up in a populated area when they knew it wasn't going to make it to orbit," he said.

Opinion: Rockets blow up; we move on

The rocket and its Cygnus cargo module were carrying 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments for the International Space Station. Some of the lost cargo was meant for use by Kelly's twin brother, Scott Kelly, an astronaut scheduled to go to the space station in 2015.

"About four months' worth of his clothing and a bunch of his food" were lost, Mark Kelly said.

Some of the cargo has been found, and Orbital says workers are waiting for clearance to go into the area to collect anything still intact. The debris will be cataloged and moved to storage bays on Wallops Island.

NASA says several buildings around the launch pad have broken windows and imploded doors.

CNN affiliate WAVY reports residents on nearby Chincoteague Island, Virginia, found pieces of debris on their lawns.

Barbara Bowden said she noticed something unusual while she was out walking her dog.

"I actually thought it might have been a piece from the rocket, but not this far. ... I think it's incredible that it floated over this far," Bowden told WAVY.

NASA warns the debris could be dangerous and urges anyone who finds any to stay away from it and call 757-824-1295.

Will rocket's 'catastrophic failure' set back the private space industry?

CNN's Steve Almasy contributed to this report.

__________________________________________________________



@_@ SIGHHHHH

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HUGE EFFING UPDATE... sigh sigh sigh :(

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/31/us/spaceshiptwo-incident/index.html

Authorities: 1 dead, 1 injured in SpaceShipTwo test flight failure
By Jason Hanna, CNN
updated 3:35 PM EDT, Fri October 31, 2014


(CNN) -- One person died and another was injured Friday when Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo test flight failed following what the company described as a "serious anomaly."

The casualties are believed to be the pilots of the aircraft, though California Highway Patrol Officer Jesse Borne did not identify them.

The injured person has been airlifted to a local hospital, Borne said. He declined to identify the hospital.

Virgin Galactic has planned for years to sell trips in which SpaceShipTwo transports passengers about 62 miles above Earth -- the beginning of outer space -- and let them experience a few minutes of weightlessness before returning to ground.

News of the crash of SpaceShipTwo came just after 10 a.m. local time (1 p.m. ET).

"During the test, the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of the vehicle," the company said in a statement.

The company has not confirmed the two pilots manning SpaceShipTwo were either killed or injured.

"We will work closely with relevant authorities to determine the cause of this accident," the company said on Twitter.

The incident occurred over the Mojave Desert shortly after SpaceShipTwo separated from WhiteKnightTwo, the vehicle designed to carry it aloft, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.

It's the second incident in a week involving the commercial space industry.

On Tuesday, an unmanned Antares rocket exploded just after takeoff off the coast of Virginia. Controllers deliberately destroyed the craft after it became apparent there was a problem, a spokesman for Orbital Sciences Corporation said Thursday.



po38FUgCXhI



Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Crashes During Flight Test

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http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/01/us/spaceshiptwo-incident/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

SpaceShipTwo helmed by experienced pilots when flight failed
By Ralph Ellis, Chelsea J. Carter and Jason Hanna, CNN
November 2, 2014 -- Updated 0123 GMT (0923 HKT)

(CNN) -- A day after the deadly failed test flight of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, there were words of strength in the face of adversity.

The pilots' bravery cannot be overstated, Virgin Group Founder Richard Branson said. The goal of commercial spaceflight remains unchanged, he added.

But with one pilot's death, injuries to another and the loss of the aircraft, there are questions that must be answered along with the inspiring words.

Virgin Galactic, Branson admitted, will not "push on blindly."



...

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http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/01/world/space-tourism-analysis-crane/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Analysis: Will space accidents deter pioneer tourists?
By Rachel Crane, CNN
November 1, 2014 -- Updated 1700 GMT (0100 HKT)

(CNN) -- It is in our DNA to explore the unknown. But pushing boundaries and exploring space is far from easy. This week, the commercial space industry received a punch in the gut and the world experienced a jarring reminder of just how dangerous space travel can be.

On its 55th test flight, Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo suffered "an anomaly" just two minutes after it separated from its mother ship, WhiteKnightTwo, while 45,000 feet over the Mojave Desert.

One pilot was able to parachute out and is being treated for serious injuries, but tragically, the other perished.

The catastrophe comes on the heels of an explosion that happened earlier in the week when an unmanned rocket built by Orbital Sciences carrying a spacecraft loaded with more than 5,000 pounds of cargo exploded into a fireball just seconds after launch at NASA's Wallops flight Facility in Virginia.
Virgin Galactic spacecraft fails
Virgin Galactic has had deadly tests before
NASA investigates rocket explosion

Aerospace insiders routinely compare the emerging commercial space industry to the genesis of the aviation industry -- high risk, high reward.

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson said in a blog post following Friday's incident: "We've always known that the road to space is extremely difficult - and that every new transportation system has to deal with bad days early in their history."

A new private space race has emerged in recent years, with private companies like Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace competing to become the world's first commercial space line. Then you have companies like SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, and Boeing that are vying for NASA contracts worth billions.

This week's events put the spotlight on the private sector's ability to shoulder the responsibility of space travel. What will the long-term impacts of disasters have on the burgeoning commercial space industry?

It should be noted, that in terms of the larger government contracts, this relationship between the public and the private is not really all that new.

Since the inception of the space agency, NASA has turned to the private sector to accomplish its space faring goals. Boeing is the lead contractor on the International Space Station.

It is not a relationship we will see change anytime soon, even in the face of the Orbital Sciences accident. That is because the U.S. no longer has a home-grown way to get to the International Space Station. NASA is relying on the private sector to get there -- making commercial companies essential to the space agency's operations thus shielding them from the impact of public perception.

The space tourism industry is different. The service it is providing is a luxury experience. The companies are at the mercy of public perception of their capabilities to safely transport paying passengers on these suborbital flights.

Yes, Virgin has partnered with NASA to run research missions in zero-gravity, but beyond that, Virgin Galactic relies on selling tickets to space enthusiasts and adrenaline junkies for the bulk of its development cost. And they aren't cheap. It costs $250,000 a seat.

Passengers want to know they are going to be safe. Friday's accident will surely instil fear in the more than 700 people who have signed up to make the journey.

So what is the value of space tourism? And why risk human lives to make it a reality? As George Whitesides told CNN earlier this year: "At heart, what inspires me the most is the idea that space changes you, that space has this profound impact on the people that can experience it."

What Whitesides is referring to is the overview effect, a phenomenon that space travelers are said to experience when they see the curvature of the Earth -- changing the way people see the world, thereby influencing the way in which they live.

Both Whitesides and Branson have spoken openly about the fact that suborbital flights are not the ultimate end goal for Virgin Galactic. Point-to-point intercontinental travel would be the next application of this technology, meaning that one day passengers could travel around the world in about two hours.

While such plans have been put on hold since the accident, Virgin Galactic is intent on taking off. In his blog post following the crash, Branson said: "Space is hard -- but worth it. We will persevere and move forward together."

The question is, will people still be willing to pay $250,000 to go to space?

Inside Virgin Galactic's spaceship

Perils of aviation pioneers

_____________



What if it was Boeing?

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

$ spent on Aerospace Lobbying in 2014 by Company
Aerospace Industry is Issue #5 on Boeing's list in terms of priority in lobbying efforts
They spend much more on lobbying than on candidates
Have been compared to Enron... not a good thing

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/issuesum.php?id=AER


Client Subsidiary (Lobbied For) No. of Reports
Space Exploration Technologies - 15
Boeing Co - 10
Honeywell International - 9
Commercial Spaceflight Federation - 8
Washington State University - 8
Bombardier Inc Bombardier Transit Corp 7
GenCorp Inc Aerojet Rocketdyne 7
Alliant Techsystems - 6
Arianespace - 6
Greater Cleveland Partnership - 6
Harris Corp - 6
Lockheed Martin - 6
MacDonald, Dettwiler & Assoc Space Systems/Loral 6
Xcor Aerospace - 6
Air Canada - 4
General Dynamics - 4
Sierra Nevada Corp - 4
United Launch Alliance - 4
US Airline Pilots Assn - 4
Aerospace Industries Assn of America - 3
Airbus Group Airbus Americas 3
Alaska Aerospace Development Corp - 3
Assn of Univs for Research in Astronomy - 3
Association of Science-Technology Centers - 3
Astrotech Corp - 3
Brevard County, FL - 3
City of Huntsville, AL - 3
Coalition of EPSCoR States - 3
Dynetics Inc - 3
Exelis Inc - 3
Finmeccanica SpA Alenia Aermacchi North America 3
Flextronics International USA - 3
Fuentek - 3
Galactic Ventures - 3
GeoDigital International Corp - 3
Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd - 3
International Copper Assn - 3
Jackson & Tull Chartered Engineers - 3
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab 3
Kalitta Air - 3
LJT & Assoc - 3
MacDonald, Dettweiler & Assoc - 3
Manned Space Flight Education Foundation - 3
MDS Coating Technologies Corp - 3
Mississippi State University - 3
Morgan State University - 3
NanoRacks - 3
NASA Aeronautics Support Team - 3
National Space Grant Alliance - 3
Northrop Grumman - 3
Oceaneering Intl - 3
Orbital Sciences Corp - 3
Parker-Hannifin - 3
Planetary Resources - 3
Raytheon Co - 3
Rockwell Collins Inc - 3
SAIC - 3
Sea Orbiter - 3
Sgt Inc - 3
Sigma Space Corp - 3
Southwest Research Institute - 3
State of Nevada - 3
Vulcan Inc - 3
Zero Gravity Corp - 3
Airbus Group - 2
Alaska Air Group Alaska Airlines 2
ATK Thiokol - 2
Ball Corp Ball Aerospace & Technologies 2
City of Pensacola, FL - 2
ESI North America - 2
ILS International Launch Services - 2
Loyola Marymount University - 2
Moon Express - 2
Stratolaunch Systems - 2
Triumph Group - 2
University of South Carolina - 2
Yamaha Motor Co - 2
Aerospace Corp - 1
Airbus Group EADS North America 1
American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics - 1
Astronautics Corp of America - 1
Digital Globe - 1
Iridium Communications Aireon LLC 1
MAC Inc - 1
Planetary Society - 1
Small UAV Coalition - 1
Ultra Electronics Ultra Electronics ProLogic 1
United Technologies - 1
Van Scoyoc Assoc - 1
Washington Consulting Group - 1
Worldwide Aeros - 1
Zero Gravity Solutions - 1


Boeing "vying for huge contracts" CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/01/world/space-tourism-analysis-crane/


A new private space race has emerged in recent years, with private companies like Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace competing to become the world's first commercial space line. Then you have companies like SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, and Boeing that are vying for NASA contracts worth billions.

...

Since the inception of the space agency, NASA has turned to the private sector to accomplish its space faring goals. Boeing is the lead contractor on the International Space Station.


https://www.enotrans.org/eno-brief/the-role-of-the-export-import-bank-in-commercial-aircraft-finance

The Role of the Export-Import Bank in Commercial Aircraft Finance


Critical to achieving this goal will be expanded free trade agreements as well as growth in key industries where the U.S. has competitive advantages. Among those industries is the civilian aerospace sector. Along those lines, The Boeing Company stands as the single largest U.S. exporter today.

Civil aerospace is truly a global business, and one in which the U.S. is the world leader. While aerospace, broadly defined, includes commercial aircraft, defense, business jets, MRO’s (maintenance, repair and operations) and other related industries, the focus of this brief will be commercial aircraft. Specifically, I will discuss the role of Export-Import Bank (“Ex Im Bank”) in supporting exports of such aircraft.

As for 2012, Boeing Capital estimates that commercial aircraft financing will exceed $100 billion. Funding for such aircraft is forecasted as follows: Export Credit Agencies (ECA’s, which includes Ex Im) 30%, cash 25%, commercial banks 15%, capital markets 10%, operating lessors 10%, and other 10%. With current uncertainties in the banking and capital markets, ECA’s are expected to continue to play a major role in financing.

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

I don't like scaring people, beating the war drum, etc. But keep in mind 9/11 was only 13 years ago.

9/11 not only impacted foreign relations between the "west" and the "middle east", but it also impacted the stock market directly and had a huge impact on the US Defense industry, which people here on PA call the "military industrial complex".

People really focused on the airlines involved in 9/11 because of the short term stock market impact, but they didn't focus on the supplier of those aircraft which was Boeing... all 4 planes involved in 9/11 were Boeing airframes and as such no one knows the product better than the ones who built it.


in fact i gave serious thought to the idea yesterday morning that what might have started as a simple hijacking and ransom situation was co-opted and turned into an actual national security situation. Meaning what if it was possible that due to the Hadith, i.e. what Muslims claim about the killing of women and children, that this was not a Muslim's idea. I don't see how Muslims profited at ALL by what happened on 9/11. they've become the hunted, the scapegoat, and in the meantime the military industrial complex sells more hardware and gets more contracts.


I think the terrorists would have been 1000x as effective if they had simply ransomed the people off after landing the planes.

call me a moron but I think there is still a huge untold story re: 9/11 and there are undoubtedly untold stories re: the recent spacecraft emergencies.





Anywhere in the modern world you find a big enough money trail it's only a matter of time before you find burn marks. it's the way capitalism is evolving and our gov't needs to deal with it now not later. no matter the cost.

and in case you're confused about what i was trying to say up there,
imagine a situation where the hijackers intended to land the planes but a computer co-opted their hijacking and killed them all.

why bring up 9/11 in the context of the private space race?
because sometimes things don't stay private due to MIC involvement.

p.s. what do you get when you cross an ENRON with a NASA?
a huge effing disaster.


p.p.s.
from "911 Revisited" website:

http://www.viewzone.com/911revisited.html

As well as fully autonomous flight capability, the 767 and 757 are the ONLY COMMUTER PLANES MADE BY BOEING THAT CAN BE FLOWN VIA REMOTE CONTROL. It is a feature that is standard to all of them, all 757's and 767's can do it. The purpose for this is if there is a problem with the pilots, Norad can fly the planes to safe destinations via remote. Only in this flight mode can those craft exceed their software limits and perform to their actual physical limits because a pre existing emergency situation is assumed if this mode of flight is used.


p.p.p.s.

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2024920203_boeingslidexml.html


Originally published Friday, October 31, 2014 at 11:07 AM

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Over-wing escape slide tumbles from Boeing 757-300

An over-wing emergency slide fell from a Thomas Cook Group plane over Belgium shortly after the jet had departed London’s Gatwick airport bound for Egypt.

By Richard Weiss

Bloomberg News
Reader Comments
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An over-wing emergency slide fell from a Thomas Cook Group plane over Belgium shortly after the jet had departed London’s Gatwick airport bound for Egypt, according to the U.K. leisure carrier.

The Boeing 757-300 aircraft with 237 passengers on board was forced to return to Gatwick and abandon flight TCX 1638 to Hurghada on the Red Sea after a fault was reported with the slide, London-based Thomas Cook said in a statement Friday.

who needs terrorists? boeing **** falls out of the sky without help from above or below :(

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

A friend and I were discussing the over-the-wing slide that failed at the end of last month over Belgium after a passenger jet took off from London en route to Egypt.

The part that failed was a hatch door that is part of an electrical circuit.
We discussed on the night of the 31st the apparent need for a hand-cranked device rather than a hazardous pressure-sensitive device that's hardwired into crucial aircraft circuitry.

But the weird thing is, when we read the update on CNN about SpaceShipTwo, it said pretty clearly that the part that failed on SpaceShipTwo was indeed a hand-crank, or "feathering handle" that was supposedly fool-proof.

So either this super-important part failed or was sabotaged to fall apart inside after passing a last minute cursory inspection.

:(

I guess what I'm saying is, fate permitted us this discussion of emergency systems needing a human component in some cases due to what happened over Belgium with the Boeing plane ejecting the passenger slide by accident ... then the SpaceshipTwo discussion moved to include details of this handcrank failure.


it just seems so unlikely to me that something built for emergencies could fail like that w/o the other pilot pulling on it.

:der:


is anyone else out there in aerospace land going w t f this morning?
over a cup of coffee just up n scratching your heads about these two accidents, fate, life the universe and everything??


i will get some links for us:

youtube virgin galactic feathering handle video
ZxTioTB41tQ

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-31/over-wing-escape-slide-tumbles-from-thomas-cook-jet-over-belgium.html


Over-Wing Escape Slide Tumbles From Thomas Cook Jet Over Belgium
By Richard Weiss Oct 31, 2014 9:49 AM PT

...

While some aircraft have wings close enough the ground for people evacuating to slide safely down, most require a slide.

On the 757, the opening of any one of four over-wing emergency hatches -- two each side of the plane -- completes an electrical circuit and inflates an escape mechanism stowed in a separate compartment on the fuselage, according to a report from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board into an in-flight deployment that damaged a United Airlines (UAL) 757-200 in 1993.

...

^ story illustrating need for hand cranks



and below a story illustrating an accident blamed on hand cranks

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/11/03/virgin-galactic-spacecraft-crash-pilot-ntsb/18398329/


Virgin Galactic pilot unlocked 'feathering' handle early
Laura Mandaro, USA TODAY Network 3:07 p.m. EST November 3, 2014

A pilot of the Virgin Galactic spacecraft that crashed Friday, killing one of its two pilots, unlocked a lever used to move the aircraft to its unique "feathered" position early, crash investigators said late Sunday.

In its third media briefing on the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board's Acting Chairman Christopher Hart said a preliminary review of the telemetry and optical data from the test flight showed that at about 9 seconds after ignition, the "feather" parameters on the craft changed from locked to unlocked earlier than procedure.

Hart: Approximately 2 seconds later, just above Mach 1.0, feathers moved toward the extended position....#SpaceShipTwo
— NTSB (@NTSB) November 3, 2014

Feathering refers to a transformation of the spacecraft after it is released from the mothership, a jet that carries it toward sub-orbital space. After it detaches and reaches space, the spacecraft gets ready to re-enter the atmosphere by rotating the tail upwards to a 65-degree angle to the fuselage. The change into a shape similar to a shuttlecock slows its reentry, lowering its surface temperature.

Hart said that in order to engage the feathering function, a "feather" handle must be unlocked — and then a feather handle moved.

But about two seconds after the handle was unlocked, the spacecraft moved toward a feathered position, even though the handle was not moved, Hart said.

You can see Virgin Galactic describe the feature in a 2011 video.




the aerospace giants have kinda created a no win situation here.

i hope people maintain the courage to battle on, battle on, until a better day dawns for us all :)

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

I wanted to know if anyone else has read about this 2003 issue:

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/2-U-S-space-giants-accused-of-aiding-China-2688259.php

2 U.S. space giants accused of aiding China / Hughes, Boeing allegedly gave away missile technology illegally
John Mintz, Washington Post
Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, January 1, 2003

2003-01-01 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- The State Department has charged that two of the country's largest aerospace companies, Hughes Electronics Corp. and Boeing Satellite Systems, illegally transferred sensitive U.S. space technology to China in the 1990s that could have helped Beijing's military develop intercontinental missiles.

If a federal administrative judge and later a top State Department official agree with the allegations set out in a 32-page State Department "charging letter" filed without public notice last Thursday, the companies could be fined up to $60 million and be barred for three years from selling controlled technologies overseas, a penalty that could particularly hurt Boeing.

The companies have denied any wrongdoing in the case, which harkens to a series of failed space launches in China starting in 1995. Hughes officials are alleged to have given Chinese space experts highly detailed information about rocketry in an effort to help China's space program figure out why its rockets were failing soon after launch.

Hughes Electronics' space launch division, the entity that committed the supposed improprieties, was purchased by the Boeing Co. in 2000 for $3.7 billion. The two corporate bodies charged by the State Department last week are the Hughes parent company and the division of Boeing that gobbled up the former Hughes space launch unit.

This type of administrative charge is extraordinarily rare, U.S. officials said. The filing reflects State Department officials' anger that the two firms have aggressively battled the charges and resisted admitting what they did in China was wrong, they added.

"We don't believe we've done anything wrong," said Hughes Electronics spokesman Robert Marsocci. "We're in negotiations with the State Department, and we'll be reviewing our options." A Boeing spokesman, Dan Beck, said the company declined comment.

The Justice Department spent years on a criminal investigation of the companies and a third one involved in similar activity in China, Loral Space & Communications. But several months ago, federal prosecutors informed the firms that they would not file any criminal charges.

Last January, Loral laid to rest the allegations against it by agreeing with the State Department to pay a $14 million fine and to spend $6 million on internal reforms dedicated to stopping overseas technology transfer.

The charging document said Hughes and Boeing had committed 123 violations of the Arms Export Control Act or the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

"The department has had several rounds of discussion with Hughes and Boeing to explore a resolution similar to the one with Loral," said State Department spokesman Jay Greer. "We can note that unlike Loral, Hughes and Boeing have both failed to recognize the seriousness of the violations and have been unprepared to take steps to resolve the matter, or to ensure no recurrence of violations in the future."

Hughes and Boeing for years have insisted that the State Department is wrong as a legal matter to declare it improper for them to have had discussions with Chinese officials about the space launch failures.

The firms point out that during the mid-1990s, their operations in China were covered by regulations imposed by the Commerce Department that were more lax and, the companies say, allowed for some give and take with Beijing officials. The State Department says that more stringent export control laws still were in force, and that the companies broke them.

In the wake of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion in 1986, President Ronald Reagan decided in 1988 that U.S. space companies should be allowed to launch their satellites aboard China's Long March rockets to accommodate the fast-growing American telecommunications business.

But the U.S. firms were strictly barred from giving the Chinese any help on their launches without U.S. licenses and supervision by Pentagon inspectors. The U.S. government's fear was that the Chinese could use American know-how on the Long March commercial rocket launches to help the performance of Beijing's nuclear-tipped missiles.

The problem was that China's space officials were extremely aggressive in demanding that the American companies provide "technology transfer" as a condition for entry into the desirable Chinese market. The issue came to a head each time a Long March rocket crashed or failed in some other way, because that led global insurance companies to demand in-depth probes into the technical causes of the glitches. American firms came under pressure to share insights with the Chinese.

If it is found liable in the case, Boeing could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in overseas sales of satellites and in other foreign space business,

officials said.

________________________________________________





My mind can't take anymore fookin today :( lol

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/04/23/exclusive_air_force_to_scrutinize_nuke_bomber_units_following_missile_scandal


The general said the first review found an array of areas that needed improvement, from old equipment to poor morale, and that he hopes the new internal study will identify parts of the bomber fleet that can be fixed to avoid future problems. Global Strike Command's forces include Boeing's massive eight-engine B-52H Stratofortress bomber and Northrop Grumman's stealthy, bat-wing shaped B-2 Spirit, each of which can be equipped with conventional or nuclear weapons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Cox_Report_controversy

Mintz, John, "2 U.S. space giants accused of aiding China Hughes, Boeing allegedly gave away missile technology illegally", Washington Post, January 1, 2003


_______________________________________________



:scared: :baby: :drama:


ever wonder what the death throes of a huge crusty old corporation like Microsoft or Boeing looks like?



i think we're seeing it.
:crazy:

they already sold us out to china and now the secrets of US rocketry are out for anyone to read. it makes me sick.

to think that us PA kids actually feel guilty for exposing spies and evil corporatists

i mean seriously at least 5 min per day on average wasted feeling guilty for the sellouts who caused all this in the first place!!!!!



<3 to ulli and granny for speaking plainly in the spaceshiptwo thread

people SHOULD be outraged, they SHOULD ask questions --

these companies have a GD history of sabotage and espionage :(





BAE systems and Boeing together = worse than Bin Laden,
Bin Laden is a squished squirrel on the road, and these companies are the tanks...

there is no comparing the resources of the two @@ seriously

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

wanted to point out a couple similarities, at least in how some recent crashes were reported:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/10/31/virgin-galactic-spaceshiptwo-crashes-after-in-flight-anomaly-during-test-one-dead/

Post Nation
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo crashes after ‘anomaly’ during test, killing one
By Joel Achenbach, Drew Harwell and Mark Berman October 31

A Virgin Galactic spacecraft intended to carry tourists crashed in the Mojave desert due to an “in-flight anomaly” during a test flight Friday, killing one person, the company said.

The accident, the second this week involving a craft intended for spaceflight, left a trail of debris scattered across the Mojave. It was not known in the immediate aftermath what happened to SpaceShipTwo, but the company said in a statement that “a serious anomaly” had occurred.


http://www.spacenews.com/article/launch-report/41645falcon-9-test-vehicle-destroyed-in-accident


Falcon 9 Test Vehicle Destroyed in Accident
By Jeff Foust | Aug. 23, 2014


WASHINGTON -- An experimental version of a Falcon 9 first stage used to test technologies for future reusable versions of that launch vehicle was destroyed during a flight Friday (Aug. 22) at SpaceX’s Texas test site, the company confirmed Friday evening.

The vehicle, known as F9R-Dev, was performing the latest in a series of test flights at the McGregor, Texas, site when the vehicle suffered an unexplained “anomaly,” according to a SpaceX statement issued. Video of the flight published by local news media showed the stage perhaps tipping too far during a maneuver to translate, or fly sideways, during the test.

“During the flight, an anomaly was detected in the vehicle and the flight termination system automatically terminated the mission,” SpaceX said in its statement. Video showed the vehicle exploding, with debris raining down.


http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/10/28/nasa-rocket-explodes-wallops-island/18080871/

NASA and Orbital Sciences were gathering data to determine the cause of the failure of the Orbital CRS-3, the space agency said. No injuries were reported.

"There has been a vehicle anomaly," Orbital Sciences, the contractor supplying the rocket, said on its Twitter feed. It added later in a statement, "The vehicle suffered a catastrophic failure."

common thread?

use of the word "anomaly"

should be a red flag anytime aerospace or military crap arises.

<3 T :jaw:

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/09/technology/virgin-galactic-ceo-interview/index.html?iid=EL


Future of Travel
Virgin Galactic not pressing pause
By Gregory Wallace and Rachel Crane @CNNTech November 9, 2014: 9:43 PM ET

Inside Virgin Galactic after the crash

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
The stakes have never been higher for Virgin Galactic.

Richard Branson's quest to send tourists into space took a tragic turn last week when SpaceShipTwo broke apart on a test flight.

Today, in the lobby of Virgin Galactic headquarters sit two books. One is for pilot Peter Siebold, who survived the incident. The other is for co-pilot Michael Tyner Alsbury, who died.

In the books, and on the lobby's walls, are notes -- like this one from June Scobee Rogers, the wife of an astronaut who died in the 1986 Challenger accident.

"The setback is tragic, but the courage and commitment of your fellow team will soon help you all to recover, and from the energy of grief, the phoenix will arise with even more resolve and commitment," she wrote.

While Virgin Galactic and Scaled Components, a division of Northrop Grumman (NOC) and the contractor that operated the test flight, reflect, they're also moving forward.

Virgin is focusing its attention on a second model of SpaceShipTwo, which has the potential to become the first commercial passenger spaceliner. The 60-foot-long craft would lift passengers just past the edge of space, where they'd be allowed to unbuckle for about six minutes of weightlessness before being transported back to earth.

It has been under construction for about two and a half years and is 90% structurally complete.

"We're going to take our time, make sure that we build this vehicle carefully, strongly and safely," Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides told CNNMoney.

Related: Inside the Virgin Galactic spaceship

He said the company is confident in its technology.

"We fly every day on airplanes that have had accidents," Whitesides said. "You do that because you know that fixes have been made -- that those vehicles are improved over time. That same thing will happen here."

Investigators give green light

While federal investigators try to figure out the causes of the SpaceShipTwo disaster, the company says it has the green light to continue work on the second model. It could be ready for testing in "maybe five to six months," Whitesides said.

"The early results of the investigation suggest that we'll be able to figure out any potential fixes and that they will not imply serious changes to the air frame," Whitesides said.

The National Transportation Safety Board has ruled out issues with the engines and fuel tanks, and is apparently looking into whether the feathering system, which is designed to slow the spacecraft, deployed prematurely.

"Clearly, our No. 1 job right now is to understand what happened and to make sure that it doesn't happen again," Whitesides said.

That said, Virgin Galactic is very aware of the risks to test pilots.

"There's a reason why test pilots are respected as some of the bravest and toughest people in the world," he said. "It's because they put themselves willingly into risky places so that they can make things safer for other people to fly later."

More than toys for the rich

The risks are worth it, Whitesides said, because Virgin Galactic's advances aren't just about giving the wealthy an impressive view.

"Space is important to all of our futures," he said, citing examples like advancing technology for GPS and weather satellites.

"At the end of the day, one of the things that I think is most powerful is that we'll be able to get a new perspective on our planet as hundreds and eventually millions of people are able to go into space," Whitesides said.

That's the vision the Virgin Galactic team is focused on.

"I think it's important that people know that the dream is still alive," he said.

In that spirit, the second craft has picked up a nickname in recent days: Hope.

--CNN's Rachel Crane reported from Mojave, Calif. Gregory Wallace reported and wrote from New York. Cullen Daly contributed to this report.

Related: I'll be first passenger, Branson says
First Published: November 9, 2014: 8:12 PM ET



___________________________________________________


In that spirit, the second craft has picked up a nickname in recent days: Hope.

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

Please pray for our astronauts. I think an ammonia leak can be pretty serious, some corrosion/cracking and definitely poisoning possible --

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/14/us/international-space-station-emergency/index.html

Astronauts relocate after space station alarm


By Mariano Castillo, CNN


Updated 1:24 PM ET, Wed January 14, 2015




(CNN)—A possible leak in the cooling system on the International Space Station has resulted in the evacuation of the U.S. crew from the American segment of the station to the Russian segment, NASA said Wednesday.

The U.S. astronauts are safe, the agency said.

The Russian Federal Space Agency earlier reported that there was a leak in the cooling system, but NASA described the relocation as a precautionary move following an alarm. A leak has not been confirmed, NASA said.

The American section of the space station is isolated while astronauts investigate the cause of the alarm.

NASA said its crew responded to increased pressures in the station's cooling loop. This could indicate an ammonia leak, NASA said.



Two U.S. astronauts are aboard the International Space Station -- commander Barry Wilmore and flight engineer Terry Virts.

"So, big-picture perspective, we're trying to figure out exactly what happened. We're not entirely convinced that this is an ammonia leak," Wilmore told NASA Mission Control in Houston.

It is possible that the alarm was set off by a faulty sensor or some other cause, he said.

They joined Samantha Cristoforetti, a flight engineer with the European Space Agency, and others in the space station's six-member crew.



edit/update:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-space-station-ammonia-leak-20150114-story.html

NASA evacuates its side of space station, but finds no leak



January 14, 2015, 11:30 AM|MOSCOW

In a rare scare, astronauts fled the American side of the International Space Station on Wednesday after an alarm indicated a possible toxic leak. NASA later said a computer problem likely set off the alarm, rather than escaping ammonia coolant.

"No signs of a leak," NASA reported via Twitter.

In the meantime, the six crew members huddled safely on the Russian side of the orbiting outpost, as Mission Control analyzed the data. As it turns out, the astronauts had to rush over to the Russian segment twice: the first time when the alarm sounded, the second following an initial all-clear.


...whew...


Now, it's believed that a failed card in a computer-relay box was the culprit.

p.s. but what about hackers?

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

Cider covered a critical topic and made a great thread, please read his thread and strongly consider what some of us have been saying about corporate power

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?80958-Boeing-patents-Star-Wars-style-force-fields-.......-May-the-Force-and-the...


Boeing patents ‘Star Wars’-style force fields

new Tuesday 24th March 2015 at 10:30 By David Icke


‘A new patent granted to aircraft, defense and security company Boeing is taking its
cues from science fiction. Just like the glowing energy shields seen protecting troops,
machines and even spacecraft in Star Wars and Star Trek, the design — named “Method
and system for shockwave attenuation via electromagnetic arc” — uses energy to
deflect potential damage.


As it is described, the system is not designed to prevent direct impact from shells or
shrapnel; rather, it is designed to protect a target — such as a vehicle or building —
from the damaging effects of shockwaves from a nearby impact.

The patent is for a shockwave attenuation system, which consists of a sensor capable of
detecting a shockwave-generating explosion and an arc generator that receives the
signal from the sensor to ionise a small region, producing a plasma field between the
target and the explosion using lasers, electricity and microwaves.’

________________


Phuck ME :( :jaw: :lol: :wizard:

[avid]

CERN messing about, and a 'plane' goes down.....

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

CERN messing about, and a 'plane' goes down.....

yes indeed!
them (CERN) and Boeing together, reminds me of Frank Herbert's characters (Holtzmann?) who create the Holtzmann drive, whatever it was called, the warp drive that the Navigators use.. to avoid long travel.
Oh yeah. the point being, there's a horrible horrible side effect to using an energy shield.

should the shield be struck by a lazgun, there's a thing where a scalar subatomic reaction happens, cleaner than but more dangerous than a nuke.
so the tech is a no go according to Herbert lol, a dead end trap for idiot rats.

CERN is just scary stuff man. black magic and even the former pope blesses it lmao. what the ffffff


The Holtzman effect[1] is a fictional scientific phenomenon in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert, beginning with the 1965 novel Dune. The effect is never explained in detail, but it makes (among other things) defensive force shields and instantaneous space travel possible.[2]

Frank Herbert was inconsistent with the spelling of "Holtzman," resulting in the variant spellings "Holtzmann" (1976's Children of Dune)[3] and "Holzmann" (1985's Chapterhouse: Dune).[4] This may be intentional, as Herbert mutated other words and names over the several millennia the Dune series spans, such as the change of "Arrakis" to "Rakis" and "Caladan" to "Dan" beginning with Heretics of Dune (1984).[5]

According to the Legends of Dune prequel trilogy by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson (2002–2004), the Holtzman effect is named after the scientist who discovered it, Tio Holtzman (though for many of its applications, Holtzman in fact takes credit for the mathematical theories of his assistant, Norma Cenva).[6]


norma cenva HMM could be an anagram, frankie was clever like that... like any mystic he must have told a few riddles too



norma cenva
cern and what else i dunno cause im an ignoramus.
hellstroms hive is where to really read about the holtzman **** altho its not named as such.



edit I was wrong about WHICH anagram but hey it was an anagram, lmao


Norma Cenva is a fictional character from the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. Mentioned briefly in Herbert's God Emperor of Dune (1981), she plays a large role in the Legends of Dune prequel trilogy (2002–2004) written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. The character reappears as the Oracle of Time in the Brian Herbert/Anderson novels Hunters of Dune (2006) and Sandworms of Dune (2007), which conclude the original series.

Her name is an anagram of "Norma Vance", wife of author Jack Vance, with whom Frank Herbert was good friends.[citation needed]


too creepy lmao that her name also contains the word cern

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

Here's another mysterious interruption of service, this time an unmanned supply vehicle from Russia,
they are saying it will never make it to the Space Station --

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/29/world/space-russian-cargo-ship/index.html

NASA: Russia seeks contact with craft bound for International Space Station
By Laura Smith-Spark, CNN
Updated 8:05 AM ET, Wed April 29, 2015

(CNN)Russia is continuing efforts to make contact with an unmanned cargo spacecraft that took off on a resupply mission to the International Space Station but is now spinning out of control, NASA said Wednesday.

The ISS Progress 59 cargo spacecraft launched successfully early Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

But after it separated from the Soyuz booster rocket's third stage, Russian flight controllers were unable to confirm the health of all the spacecraft's systems, including the deployment of its navigational antennae and docking system, NASA said.

A planned rendezvous with the ISS six hours later was initially postponed to Thursday, but it's now unclear whether it will happen at all.

According to NASA, the cargo ship is carrying more than 3 tons of food, fuel, oxygen, spare parts and scientific experiment hardware for the space station.

But the hitch will not put the six ISS crew members at risk, NASA said.

"The spacecraft was not carrying any supplies critical for the United States Operating Segment (USOS) of the station," a statement said. "Both the Russian and USOS segments of the station continue to operate normally and are adequately supplied well beyond the next planned resupply flight."

That next flight, which will be the seventh SpaceX commercial resupply services mission to the space station, is not scheduled to take off before June 19, NASA said.

Meanwhile, Russian flight controllers continue their efforts to make contact with Progress 59 as it passes over Russian ground stations.

NASA said Tuesday that Russian flight controllers had "confirmed that the vehicle had entered into a slow spin and have issued commands to attempt to control it."

According to Russian state news agency Tass, six attempts to make contact will be made Wednesday.

The U.S. supplies on board the spacecraft include spare parts for the station's environmental control and life support system, backup spacewalk hardware and crew clothing, "all of which are replaceable," NASA said.

U.S. astronaut Terry Virts, from Maryland, is the current space station commander.

CNN's Amanda Barnett contributed to this report.

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

BOOM check this out my friends and pray for America to turn around --
power at what cost I ask you?

and I was right about Boeing, omg screw them! :(


http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/05/24/boeing-unveils-electromagnetic-pulse-weapon.aspx?source=eogyholnk0000001

Boeing Unveils Amazing, Slightly Terrifying New Electromagnetic Pulse Weapon

With pinpoint accuracy, this electronic warfare drone can black out opposing forces at will.

https://g.foolcdn.com/editorial/images/168335/champ1_large.PNG

BOEING'S "CHAMP" (COUNTER-ELECTRONICS HIGH-POWERED MICROWAVE ADVANCED MISSILE PROJECT) IS A ONE-MISSILE, FLYING BLACKOUT. IMAGE SOURCE: BOEING.

Born into Generation X, I grew up with the threat of nuclear war -- and all its corollaries, from visions of mushroom clouds to "duck and cover" drills in high school to Terminator movies, and of course, the ever-present worry that one day a sneaky Soviet satellite would detonate way up in the sky and fry all of our electronics with an "electromagnetic pulse."

So imagine my surprise when the U.S. Air Force confirmed last week that it's developed an electromagnetic pulse weapon of its own, and that Boeing (NYSE:BA) is helping to build it.
https://g.foolcdn.com/editorial/images/168335/oak-ridge-national-laboratory-map_large.PNG

OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY MAPS THE AREAS LIKELY TO BE BLACKED OUT IN THE EVENT OF A HIGH-ALTITUDE NUCLEAR EMP ATTACK ON THE UNITED STATES. BOEING'S AREA OF EFFECT WILL BE CONSIDERABLY SMALLER. IMAGE SOURCE: OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY.

A CHAMP-ion idea
The weapon in question: Boeing's "CHAMP," short for Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project. It's essentially the old nuclear electromagnetic pulse weapon that we used to worry so much about -- but without the nuclear part. CHAMP carries a small generator that emits microwaves to fry electronics with pinpoint accuracy. It targets not nations or cities but individual buildings, blacking out their electronics rather than blowing up physical targets (or people).

What makes CHAMP even more interesting is that, unlike a nuclear electromagnetic pulse weapon, which fires once, blacking out entire nation-states, CHAMP can fire multiple times, pinpointing and blacking out only essential targets. This would permit, for example, taking down radar defenses in a hostile state, while saving the electrical grid that supports the civilian population. In a 2012 test flight in Utah, a single CHAMP was reported to have blacked out seven separate targets in succession, in one single mission.

https://g.foolcdn.com/editorial/images/168335/champ2_large.PNG

WHEN CHAMP LIGHTS UP, BUILDINGS GO DARK -- ONE BY ONE. IMAGE SOURCE: BOEING.

Even back then, a Boeing representative was able to boast: "We hit every target we wanted to," predicting further that "in the near future, this technology may be used to render an enemy's electronic and data systems useless even before the first troops or aircraft arrive." Three years later, that future has arrived. Air Force Research Laboratory commander Maj. Gen. Tom Masiello says CHAMP is "an operational system already in our tactical air force."

Who makes it?
Boeing headlines the CHAMP product, but at least two other companies are known to be involved in the project. According to Military Embedded Systems, it's actually Raytheon (NYSE:RTN) that builds the electronic innards of the device -- the "shooting end" of a weapon that doesn't actually shoot anyone. (Raytheon's involvement shouldn't come as a surprise, given the company's expertise building complementary weapons, such as its MALD-J radar-spoofing, electronics-jamming drone.)

Additionally, Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) builds the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile -- Extended Range (JASSM-ER), which the Air Force intends to use as CHAMP's delivery mechanism. A cruise missile with an estimated range in excess of 600 miles, JASSM-ER will itself be deployable from combat aircraft such as F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, B-1 and B-52 bombers, and the F-35 stealth fighter -- extending CHAMP's reach even further.

To date, Military Embedded Systems notes that the Air Force Research Laboratory has contracted Boeing to build only five CHAMP devices. But the trend in Pentagon acquisitions projects suggests the Air Force could soon be building these weapons en masse. From MALD-J radar-jamming drones to Switchblade kamikaze guided rockets and now CHAMP mini-electromagnetic-pulse weapons, the Air Force seems intent on fighting its next war more or less entirely by remote control.

To the extent CHAMP makes that easier for them, I expect it to be a very popular product indeed.

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https://g.foolcdn.com/editorial/images/168335/champ3_large.PNG

CHAMP COULD BE ARRIVING IN AIR FORCE ARSENALS SOON -- DELIVERED BY STEALTH. IMAGE SOURCE: BOEING.

Rich Smith owns shares of Raytheon Company. You can find him on CAPS, publicly pontificating under the handle TMFDitty, where he's currently ranked No. 359 out of more than 75,000 rated members.

The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.


also dear friends:


http://www.baesystems.com/article/BAES_175238;baeSessionId=opGHr0ZOIeyOS9gemtdb5-kXAFXZijCQ1JlTma3oCfLW_girCtMM!229364842?_afrLoop=774179032075000&_afrWindowMode=0&_afrWindowId=null#!%40%40%3F_afrWindowId%3Dnull%26_afrLoop%3D774179032075000%26_afrWindowMode%3D0%26 _adf.ctrl-state%3Dbwrpmsjzh_4

TUESDAY 15 JULY 2014
777X TAKES OFF WITH BAE SYSTEMS' ADVANCED, INTEGRATED FLIGHT CONTROL ELECTRONICS