On Sunday, January 15th, 2012, the Russian spacecraft Phobos-Grunt fell to Earth after a failed attempt to get it to Mars. It burned up in our atmosphere some time around 18:00 UTC, though the exact time isn’t clear.

During its final orbit, I did a live video chat on Google+ with my friend, science journalist Emily Lakdawalla of The Planetary Society, and we talked about the probe. The entire discussion is now on YouTube:

It’s an hour and a half long, as we were following the news and rumors of the probe in real time. The big question the whole time was: where and when did the probe fall?

It’s a good question. Moving at 8 km/sec (5 miles/sec) as it came in, it covered a lot of territory — as you can see in the map above showing the final track of the spacecraft. And since the final moments apparently happened over the Pacific ocean and southern South America — places where there aren’t many observers — it’s not at all clear just where, or even when, the spacecraft came in. As Emily and I discussed in the video, it’s possible that the US intelligence people may know, since there are many spy satellites that observe the Earth and may have seen the spacecraft’s demise. However, understandably, the government may not want to release that data. Or even acknowledge it.

Even now, days later, it’s still not clear what’s what. The Russian Space Agency and news organizations have released statements I find a bit difficult to swallow, to say the least — like this one "suggesting" US military radar damaged the spacecraft, or this statement from Vladimir Popovkin — the chief administrator of the Russian space agency Roscosmos — suggesting foreign sabotage. Seriously.

Sigh.

Emily has a solid wrapup of what’s known right now. I’ll post more if we find out more, but it seems unlikely. The Earth has a lot of real estate, and even with seven billion people we’re spread relatively thinly across the surface. We may never find out what happened with Phobos-Grunt, which is too bad. The more we learn about how and why spacecraft fail, the more likely we can prevent such problems in the future.

Image credit: Robert Christy, the Zarya website

The United States House of Representatives and the Senate both passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This Act lays out the budget and expenditures of the US Department of Defense, but also has provisions for its authority. Since it defines the DoD budget, a version of it passes every year, but this year, the NDAA includes provisions that codify the ability of the President to basically snatch people off the streets inside our own country, and hold them indefinitely in detention without trial or hearing, and torture them. While some are saying that this ability already exists for the President, it is being codified into law by this Act.

Lest you think I am being reactionary, there is a vast outcry against these provisions, which includes the voices of the Defense Secretary, the Director of National Intelligence, the Directors of the FBI and CIA (!!), and the White House Advisor for Counterterrorism — all of whom spoke out that these indefinite detention provisions are bad for the country. The ACLU, which is all about defending civil rights, is strongly opposed to this. Even President Obama had threatened to veto the Act if these provisions were left in.

Yet despite this, Congress passed these terrible, terrible provisions, and now President Obama has rescinded his veto threat; most people seem to think he will sign this into law.

Both of my Senators voted to pass this legislation… one of whom, Mark Udall, actually tried to get an amendment into the bill to strip out the language about indefinite detention. It was voted down, in case you were unsure what Congress actually wanted from this bill. What boggles my mind is that even with his amendment shamefully voted down, in the end Senator Udall still voted for this Act. Did yours?

For what it’s worth, my Representative, Jared Polis, voted no. Did yours? Al Franken wrote an excellent essay on why he voted no as well.

I admit here I did something foolish. Because Senator Udall so clearly was against this horrifying provision, I thought he would vote against it. I also took President Obama at his word that he would veto the Act if those provisions weren’t stripped out. I should have written letters and made phone calls to both my Senators and the President, but instead I took no action, and now I’m worried it’s too late to stop this (though I urge everyone to write the White House and express their opinion).

However, I did send notes to my Senators. Here is the text, verbatim.

Senator-

I voted for you in the last election, hoping that you would add your voice against the growing fear-mongering and radical far-right movement that I think is plunging our country in the wrong direction.

However, put simply, your “Aye” vote on NDAA means I will not be voting for you in the next election cycle. The horrid provisions for indefinite detention and torture in this piece of legislature are what I might expect from the 1950s era Soviet Union, but not in our country, not today. This blatant codification of the violation of citizens’ rights by Senators and Representatives – men and women who swore to uphold the Constitution – is galling and disgusting.

You, sir, have lost my vote.

For Senator Udall, I added this before the last line: "I understand you tried to have an amendment placed into NDAA to reverse those provisions, and I appreciate that. But after it was voted down, leaving indefinite detention and torture in the Act, you still voted for it."

I’m very angry about this. And you know what upsets me the most? I was worried about writing this post. I was concerned that in the United States of America, a nation of laws founded upon a Constitution guaranteeing my rights, that I might go on some sort of watch list somewhere.

And it is for that very reason I posted this article. I refuse to live in fear of my own government. We cannot fear them. But they must respect us, because our government is of the people, by the people, for the people. And we are the people.

I might quibble over details in this video, but the overall message is spot-on.

Tip o’ the heat shield to NASA on Google+.

I recently posted a lengthy analysis of the fiscal year 2012 budget Congress and the President approved for NASA. I didn’t mention it then because it was off-topic, but in the press release for the funding bill, they list bullet points of "Important Policy Items". I took a screen grab of the last item listed, and the note below it:

Perhaps I’m the only one who sees irony in a bullet point saying Congress won’t appropriate $322M for an NOAA climate change service, while then immediately below it noting how the natural disasters that have befallen this country have required " historic levels of relief and recovery assistance", necessitating $2.3 billion in relief funds. Hmmm.

[Note: While it can be hard to pin any one natural disaster like a hurricane, heat wave, or snow storm on climate change, as we warm up we will see more things like those. I want my tax dollars to go to more scientific investigation by NOAA and other agencies. But then, I'm not funded in any way by the oil industry, and my only motivation is the open and honest investigation of the world around us since it might just save our species.]

[Note II: DeSmogBlog digs a bit deeper into this, and has some curious comments about climate-contrarian Congresscritters who kaboshed this.]

Geez, this again? Seriously?

Two years ago, someone hacked into a University of East Anglia server and anonymously posted thousands of emails from climate scientists. Quickly dubbed "Climategate", global warming deniers jumped on this, trying to show that these scientists were engaging in fraudulent activities. However, it was clear to anyone familiar with how research is done that this was complete and utter bilge; the scientists were not trying to hide anything, were not trying to trick anyone, and were not trying to falsely exaggerate the dangers of climate change.

I wrote about this when it happened and then again quickly thereafter, showing this was just noise. Accusations of fraud were leveled at climate scientist Michael Mann, but time and again he was exonerated: like this time, and then this time, and then this time, and of course this time, and then my favorite, this time.

Climategate was widely denounced as a manufactured controversy, except, of course, by denialists. Because they denied it. That’s axiomatic.

However, like a bacterium festering away someplace dank and fetid, Climategate is poised to infect reality once again: The Guardian is reporting that a second cache of stolen emails has been released anonymously, and once again the cries of conspiracy are being heard. However, it looks like these emails aren’t really new, and were simply from the original stolen batch, but were held back until today. Mind you, the emails from the first Climategate were released right before a big climate conference, in an obvious attempt to derail it in the media. This new batch was released days before a similar conference, in what appears to be a similar propaganda move.

[UPDATE: Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) has called on the US intelligence community to investigate who stole these emails. I think this is the right move. We still don't know who did this two years ago, and I'd be fascinated to see who was behind it. H/T Michael Mann on Twitter.]

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A few days ago, the US House and Senate compromised on a (partial) federal budget, and President Obama signed it into reality. Among many other things, NASA’s budget was in there. Congress has posted an overview of the bill, which I recommend perusing. Space News has an excellent overview of the budget, as does The Planetary Society blog.

The big picture: NASA will get a total of $17.8 billion for fiscal year 2012, which is about $600M less than last year, and over $900M less than what President Obama wanted.

Ouch.

But totals aren’t necessarily as important as specifics. What are the details?

James Webb Space Telescope

As you may recall, the House wanted to ax the James Webb Space Telescope, literally giving it 0 dollars. The Senate wanted to save it. The new funding just passed gives NASA’s Science Directorate a total of $5.1 billion, which is an increase over last year by about $150 million. That sounds great, but this total includes $530 million for JWST to keep it going.

I’m glad that the project won’t be canceled, but I’m very concerned about the source of that money. I can do that math. All things being equal, a $150M increase with $530M dedicated to JWST means NASA will have to cut other programs to the tune of $380 million. The Congressional summary even says this explicitly:

The agreement accommodates cost growth in the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) by making commensurate reductions in other programs, and institutes several new oversight measures for JWST’s continuing development.

[Emphasis mine.]
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[UPDATE (20:00 Eastern time): Sigh. The bill passed.]

[UPDATE 2 (23:00 Eastern time): I have been told that this bill, even when passed, does not have the force of law. It's what's called a House Concurrent Resolution, and basically is used to express a sentiment of the legislature. I might then argue it's not unconstitutional, but then why did several House members say it would be (see the link provided in the post below)? Making law really is like making sausages. Anyway, even if the argument about it being unconstitutional is not a good one, this bill was still a colossal waste of time, and meaningless. There is simply no good, real reason to have done this, and the fact that so many thought it was a good expenditure of time, and that so many signed it, makes me sad.]

I found out about this too late to do much about it, but just in case you hadn’t heard, The US House of Representatives is voting tonight on a bill to make reaffirm "In God We Trust" the official motto of the US.

This is pretty shocking. Well, it’s not shocking in that everything the Republican-majority House has done in the past few months has been pretty antireality, but this is such a clear violation of the First Amendment that it’s, well, shocking. That Amemndent to the US Constitution says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

There are many cases where the interpretation of this simple statement is not terribly clear, but this ain’t one of them. Passing a bill saying the official motto of this country is a religious one is clearly making a law about the establishing of religion. It is putting a religious belief above non-religion, for one. It is also putting a monotheistic belief above pantheism, for another. While some people might think pantheism is silly, that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that this bill violates the Establishment Clause.

And it’s not just me saying that; several dissenters in the House feel that way as well.

This country, you may have noticed, is a mess. A lot of this is due to the government itself, but we’re at the point that we need the government to fix it. There are ways they could help: jobs bills, increasing science funding, and so on. Instead, they’re wasting time and making us look foolish by violating the very principles upon which this country was founded.

We are not a Christian nation. The majority of this country may be religious, but that is all the more reason to make very, very sure our laws are free from religion. The immediate reason is that we want everyone to be free to practice religion or not according to their own beliefs or lack thereof. But also, remember, just because one religion has the majority now doesn’t mean it always will. There could come a time when some other religion, or some other version of it, has control. Making laws based on religion now will make it easier to make laws based on some other religion then.

It’s a bad, bad idea.

I know that the current House has no clue about this sort of thinking, but we the voters do. Any Congressperson who is inclined to vote YES on this bill should first remember the very first thing they did when sworn in as a Representative of the American people: uphold and defend the Constitution. This bill is the antithesis of that oath, in spirit if not in letter.

[UPDATE: Note that I originally said this bill would make this the official motto; it is actually to "reaffirm" it. Either way, it's a waste of time and still a violation of the Establishment Clause, as the dissenters pointed out.]

Tip o’ the quill to Tim Lloyd on Google+.