The final mission of the NASA Space Shuttle ended when Atlantis rolled to a stop at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 21, 2011. The International Space Station is currently being serviced by the Soyuz and Progress spacecraft from Russia, with the latest delivery of crew and supplies coming on December 23, 2011. But this year could bring a resurgence of American space flight, albeit with a twist. The first private, commercial, delivery by the American company, SpaceX, is scheduled for February 7, 2012.

Dragon on Falcon 9, Photo: Mike Sheehan / SpaceX.

The International Space Station (ISS) is a joint project between the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan, and Europe to build and maintain a modular, inhabited structure in earth orbit. The ISS was designed not only as a research laboratory but also as a testing site for spacecraft systems and equipment. Currently, six astronauts are in residence conducting numerous experiments and observations.

When the space shuttles were retired, NASA was left with no American option to bring either people or supplies to the ISS; the follow-on projects had missed both cost and delivery milestones and were cancelled or significantly delayed. To compensate, NASA started the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) in 2006 to bring a free market solution and private industry on line. The second round of financing in 2008 went to SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation.

Orbital Sciences is an established space firm, having engaged in satellite delivery to orbit since 1990. They have delivered over 100 spacecraft for commercial, military and civil customers worldwide. Orbital provides a complete set of reliable, cost-effective small- and medium-class space and rocket systems products. Their satellites include geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) satellites for communications and broadcasting, low Earth orbit (LEO) spacecraft that perform remote sensing and scientific research, spacecraft used for national security missions, and planetary probes to explore deep space. Working alone and with Boeing, they have been especially valuable in military applications. However, a delivery vehicle for the ISS, with its added weight and docking requirements, is something new for them, and return is not part of their current plan.

SpaceX, on the other hand, is relatively new to the space arena entirely. Established in 2002 by Elon Musk , the founder of PayPal, they have developed new launch vehicles from the ground up. They launched their first successful Falcon 1 rocket in 2006, and a larger Falcon 9 rocket with Dragon module combination in 2010. Further, the Dragon module was returned to earth in typical NASA fashion, drogue chute into the Pacific. Their video brings with it the excitement and danger of space flight. NASA was enthusiastic about this success. Now SpaceX and Dragon are poised to rendezvous with the ISS.

Dragon Approaching ISS, (Simulation). Courtesy NASA

Note: There is an email link embedded within this post, please visit this post to email it. ]]> http://www.stoneforge.com/2012/02/02/into-space-again/feed/ 0 http://www.stoneforge.com/2012/01/27/sixteen-concerned-scientists/ http://www.stoneforge.com/2012/01/27/sixteen-concerned-scientists/#comments Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:32:30 +0000 Editor http://www.stoneforge.com/?p=4719 A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about “global warming.” Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed.

A letter from distinguished scientists to the Wall Street Journal, see story.

The education of our children is an important local priority. Yet we currently measure its effectiveness using yearly standardized tests, as mandated by the federal government. In fact, Connecticut had such tests a decade prior to the intervention of the federal government. But do these tests actually aid in evaluating our schools? How do they measure the value added by our teachers?

Our local high school, Housatonic Valley Regional High School, provides a good case in point. Housy always, almost always, exceeds the state average for students meeting state testing goals. For instance, in reading, Housy exceeded the state average four of the last five years as shown.

This appears to be satisfactory performance, until one realizes that the state average is pulled down by the inner city schools. And this does provide a direct measure of student performance measured against state standards. But is it indicative of the school and its teaching? Does student performance depend on other factors besides the teaching environment?

One of the best ways of measuring the influence of teachers and the curriculum is to build a statistical comparison of the standardized tests, year to year. In that way, the effect of student performance is minimized; we assume that the same students perform the same way, year to year. The model we use, as shown in Meyer and Dokumaci[1], will make use of Connecticut standardized tests. In particular, we will use the Connecticut Mastery Tests (CMT) for the 8th grade and the Connecticut Achievement and Performance Tests (CAPT) for 10th grade. As in the data above, we use the Reading test results because Housy emphasizes the humanities in its curriculum.

CAPT = λ*CMT + [Student Effects] + [State Effects] + [Unknown Student Effects]

The school and district effects are not included; most small towns in Connecticut have only a single high school fed by one or more elementary/middle schools.

In order to evaluate this model, we used over 100 Connecticut schools that met those desired characteristic, and where good data existed at the state level.

As can be seen, the model fits reasonably well. From the R2, the high schools added about 46% of the value of the test on average; the elementary schools provided some of the base. The state effect was negative, but this could easily be due to a difference in the difficulty of the tests. The slope of the model exhibits diminishing returns from education at this level.

Of more interest is the ordered plot of all the schools:[2]

On this plot of reading enhancement, the ranking of the schools is obvious and indicates the value added of each school relative to the other schools. Our local high school was 109th out of 119 schools studied, a very poor ranking for a school concentrating in the humanities.

Of course, we must consider unknown student effects. In particular, a significant number of students in Region 1’s six elementary schools go to private school. This leaves the perception that the remaining students are less capable than those who left, a “brain drain”. Consider the following flow of students:

While it is very difficult to account for the students coming into Housy, we can compare the CMT scores of all students in 8th grade, and the subset that go to Housy. When we do that for reading we find that there is no statistical difference between the two groups; there is no “brain drain”. Private school attendees, on average, are no more capable than those who remain in the public school system.

In summary, we can compare the effects of different schools on a good relative scale. The value added of teaching can be measured. However, we cannot determine the cause of any differences; say the teachers, the curriculum, or the school environment. And measuring individual teachers is likely to be more difficult, not impossible if the subject matter is well tested, just more difficult.[3]

[1] “Value-Added Models and the Next Generation of Assessments”, Meyer and Dokumaci, Value-Added Research Center, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2011

[2] For the mathematically curious, this data fits a Weibull distribution, not a Normal, so relative separation by standard deviations cannot be used.

[3] http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/teacher-assessment/should-test-scores-be-used-at.htm

Dear Ms. Kirby

Thank you for your letter inquiring about my membership. I did not renew it because I can not live with the statement below:

Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes.  The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.  If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.

In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period.

Best regards,

Ivar Giaever

In essence, this is similar to the previous resignation of Physicist Hal Lewis in October, 2010.  Dr. Lewis had complained to the APS about their political stance, and noted “the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave.”

At a September political rally, the President of the Teamsters Union, James Hoffa, attacked the Tea Party with rather forceful language. Other than the coarseness of his words, the militaristic references were not dissimilar to other political discourse from all sides. However, is it fair to ask whether his Teamsters really follow up with violent behavior, is the meaning of the words different in this case?

First, Hoffa was speaking at a labor rally in Detroit for Barack Obama, candidate. This was not an introduction for a Presidential speech, but a warm-up at a political rally for the reelection of a staunch supporter of labor union leaders. Hoffa said, “We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: a war on workers. And you see it everywhere. It is the Tea Party. And you know, there’s only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They got a war, they got a war with us, and there’s only gonna be one winner. President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. … Everybody here has got to vote. If we go back, and we keep the eye on the prize, let’s take these son of a bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong.”

In terms of heated rhetoric, this was not dissimilar to the rhetoric from Obama’s previous minister, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Wright, in profanity laced sermons, preached hatred of white America, and radical politics where violence was acceptable. Following criticism of Wright’s language, Obama said, “He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years. I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.”

Yet later Obama distanced himself from Wright. In contrast, Obama has refused to distance himself from the heated rhetoric of Hoffa. In fact, in his own speech 20 minutes later, Obama said that he was proud of Hoffa. Both Obama and Hoffa conveniently forget that many members of the Tea Party are union members as well.

But does any of this really matter? Words are just words, after all, unless they are followed up by actions. What actions do the Teamsters Union bosses encourage? One good reference should suffice.

However, one series of NLRB cases in 1999 stands out. The legal stipulation from these cases was published in 2003, and required the Teamster Union to cease and desist from certain violent activities as well as monitor that such restrictions were followed. (see below and the full stipulation).

Just the verbs are enough to conjure up nefarious activities of union thugs: brandishing weapons, threatening to kill, damaging, disabling, endangering, impeding, battering, assaulting, spitting on, etc.. Note that in order that the union to be required to cease and desist, they must have engaged in such activities. And these are the union thugs that Obama coddles and supports.

So, this is the difference between the militaristic language that many use in the political arena, and the language of James Hoffa; he means it literally. His thugs really do engage in violent activities. This is not an incitement of others, but an unvarnished promise of known Teamster thugery. And we now have a President who threatens others by association.

Ah, the dreaded value-added tax (VAT). The typical socialist response to taxation: hide an enormous sales tax from public view, burden all small business with increased administrative costs, create 100,000 new unproductive public jobs to regulate it, and build an onerous barrier for innovation. VAT is also a nice regressive tax to increase poverty as well as dependence on the state handouts.

Democrats in Washington are, once again, considering a national VAT as a means to raise revenue, ahem …taxes. Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said, “"There is a growing awareness of the need for fundamental tax reform. I think a VAT and a high-end income tax have got to be on the table.” Yet, the National Retail Federation, testifying before Congress and citing a 2010 Ernst and Young study, said that a VAT would cause a loss of 850,000 jobs in the first year alone, and severely reduce both the GDP and retail spending.

There also appears to be considerable confusion about VAT. Quite simply, it is a tax levied at every stage of the production of a product or service but is not shown to the consumer as extra cost.(1) Every entity involved in production is taxed according to their value added, and must account, in detail, to government auditors. Sound complicated? The VAT is an accountant’s dream.

The VAT is widely used in socialist countries, and is especially ubiquitous in the Europe Union. Yet some believe that the VAT is not a socialist concept; that socialism is when government owns business. Further, they believe that the VAT would reduce administrative costs and bring simplicity to taxation. Nothing could be further from the facts.

Socialism is, among others things, the control of production in a planned economic system. Government ownership of business is the most draconian form of socialism, but certainly not the only means of controlling production. The VAT is an indirect means of controlling production through the size and variation of tax rates, and, as such, is very much a socialist concept.

The VAT is an enormous sales tax, but it is hidden from the consumer; the manufacturer, distributor, and retailer each pay a portion and pass it on the consumer as an increase in price, not as a visible tax. There is no feedback to the consumer, and therefore no check on government’s ability to raise rates. In the European Union, the VAT is required of all member states and is between 15% and 25%. Can you imagine the public response to a 20% national sales tax in this country? The proper check and balance of government action, absent in socialism, is a very important concept and one on which our country was founded.

The VAT adds a considerable burden to businesses, especially small business where the cost of compliance does not scale. As a small businessman, I can say that a VAT would double my administrative costs because I would be forced to hire an accountant to process the necessary forms. I would not be able to afford the time or accounting software myself. Even large firms would be burdened, because the national VAT would not, and could not, remove state and local sales taxes. Those other governments must be served as well.

The VAT also would create over 100,000 new government jobs to administer the tax, all of them unproductive jobs that add nothing to the well-being of our nation. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would not increase one iota; it actually would decrease due to the decreased economic activity as well as the administrative burden on business.

The Government Accounting Office (GAO) prepared a report for Congress in 1993 on the VAT. Their estimate of staffing for a simple VAT was over 30,000 man years per year, mostly in auditing the accounts of business. (They did not estimate the costs and manpower for business of such audits.) They also reported that the government offices responsible for the VAT implementation (IRS, Customs, and the Federal Reserve System) had indicated that this staffing was grossly underestimated. And this was for a simple, all inclusive, single rate VAT, implanted at the federal level. When has the federal government ever done taxation simply?

The VAT would also create a barrier to innovation in two ways. First, although patent applications are usually zero-rated (0% VAT), patent attorneys are not. And patent attorneys account for most of the cost of patents. Second, research costs are also taxable when they are apportioned to the initial product costs. Research becomes the equivalent of raw material; the tax is not recoverable. In both cases that extra 20% adds up for small business, especially those just starting out. A VAT is an extra barrier to entry in any innovative market.

Finally, the VAT is regressive, in that is it raises prices for everyone on all products including those least able to pay. Some countries currently offset this by zero-rating products (0% VAT) like food or shelter, but this does not accomplish the socialist ideal of wealth redistribution. To compensate for this, most socialist implementations use either a tax credit or a transfer payment (or both) to low income individuals. Naturally, this makes low income individuals increasingly dependent on the government for their sustenance. The higher the tax, the more politically dependent this class of people becomes, without any real increase in income.

Providing essential products with zero-rating (0% VAT) has another deleterious side effect: an extreme sensitivity to recession. The elasticity of revenue and revenue collection to bad economies is very non-linear.(2) Government revenue decreases faster than the economy, leaving government to borrow in the worst of times. (This effect is not dissimilar to over taxation of high incomes as several states, such as California, have found recently.)

As a tax idea for the U.S., the value-added tax appeared as a European transplant during hard economic times. For instance, at the start of World War II, Paul Studenski, a Russian émigré, wrote one of the most cogent papers on the VAT in 1940.(2) In it, he described the rational for such a tax:

Government would be treated as an agent of production in private enterprise, just as the entrepreneur, the lender of capital, management, and labor. It would share in the earnings of the enterprise together with the other agents of production, in proportion to its contribution thereto and, moreover, would share in them at the same time as they do.

This is the basis for much of the early socialist involvement in the control of production, as a first step toward total planning of economic activity. That is, society has created the market for business use, and government should be compensated for the maintenance of that market. This argument is fallacious, ignoring as it does the true origins of wealth involved in capitalism and risk taking.(3) Entrepreneurs create markets and only in a free society. Further they maintain them through their agency; government tends to distort and destroy markets through regulatory interference.

Ah, the dreaded value-added tax.

1. For instance, a producer of raw materials pays tax on all sales. The manufacturer, who buys the raw material and produces a product, pays tax on all sales, but recovers the tax paid on raw materials. The distributor, who buys from the manufacturer, pays tax on all sales, but recovers the tax paid to the manufacturer. The retailer, who buys from the distributor, pays tax on all sales, but recovers the tax paid to the distributor. The consumer pays the price charged by the retailer, but never sees the tax as a separate charge. That’s four times the accounting for the same tax revenue as a sales tax, even in this simple example.
2. Cemile Sancak, Ricardo Velloso, and Jing Xing, “Tax Revenue Response to the Business Cycle”, IMF Working Paper, 2009
3. Paul Studenski, "Toward a Theory of Business Taxation," Journal of Political Economy 48, no. 5 (1940), 646
4. Eric D. Beinhocker, “The Origin of Wealth”, Harvard Business School Press, 2006