Until spring, anyway:
SpaceX launch put off until Tuesday
After I was so looking forward to it:
"SpaceX holds off on satellite launch" Associated Press February 09, 2015
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.— The SpaceX company called off Sunday’s planned launch of a deep-space observatory after a problem with a rocket-tracking system was detected.
The countdown was halted at the 2½-minute mark at Cape Canaveral. The next try could come as early as Monday.
Of course, these are the guys who can't even make it up to the space station (or so I've been told).
The company’s main objective is to launch the government’s Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite to monitor solar outbursts. The project is jointly sponsored by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Air Force.
Related:
"NASA has awarded $30 million to the “Human Missions to Mars.”
Old guys got MOXIE in this age of au$terity!
The spacecraft is refashioned from the Earth-gazing satellite conceived in the late 1990s by then-Vice President Al Gore.
Gore was on hand for the launch attempt and said he was grateful to all those who kept his dream alive....
The observatory measurements will help measure global warming, Gore noted, and its steady stream of pictures of Earth may help mobilize the public to pressure the world’s government leaders ‘‘to take action to save the future of human civilization.’’
That type of messianic hysteria is really frightening to me.
Related: Globalist Gore's Gas is Green
I hear the clock striking as I type.
The $340 million mission is meant to provide a heads-up on intense solar activity that can disrupt communications, power, and air travel.
Yeah, turns out solar flares have a lot more to do with temperature than "human-caused global warming" that isn't even happening, and look at this government just tossing millions here, millions there, as they cut services and increase taxes on the average citizen and taxpayer!
That is why the craft is to be stationed 1 million miles from Earth and 92 million miles from the sun, the so-called Lagrange point where the gravity fields are neutralized.
NOAA’s director of the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo., Tom Berger, likens it to a tsunami buoy....
Time to seek higher ground then, right?
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At this point I'm starting to seize up like a MBTA subway car:
"Record snowfall frustrates public and officials alike" by Peter Schworm, Globe Staff February 09, 2015
I'm sure it is frustrating for a certain fart-mi$ting crowd, too.
The latest in a wearying succession of winter storms punished a snowbound region yet again Monday, bringing everyday life to a near standstill, leading to a shutdown of the MBTA and plans to dump snow in the Boston Harbor in a season that shows little sign of mercy.
It's “unprecedented.”
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In Boston, vacant lots known as “snow farms” were nearly full, and melting machines could not keep up, prompting Walsh and other city officials to look toward the ocean as a last resort.
Did they fine anyone as they threatened to do? Just working for you, donchaknow?
Under normal circumstances, state law prohibits dumping snow in public waterways because it carries salt and other contaminants. But the state allows the practice in circumstances when public safety is at risk....
Don't drink the water, and don't be surprised by dead sea life washing ashore this spring and summer.
“Obviously, these are very much extraordinary circumstances,” said Edmund Coletta, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection....
Mayor Martin J. Walsh said that while he expected some concerns to be raised about dumping snow in the ocean, public safety was his leading priority. “We’re talking snow like we’ve never seen before,” he said.
Environmental advocates expressed support for using the waterways to dispose of snow given the extreme circumstances....
What frauds.
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Related: Residents, businesses warned to clear snow-laden roofs
Why does government always have to threaten people here in AmeriKa and Ma$$achu$etts?
I mean, I have been taught and told that we are all in this together, blah, blah, blah.
Piles of work for plow drivers, but fatigue, pay woes also mount
"The state budgets $50 million for snow removal and is authorized to spend $50 million more, and “The cost of snow and ice operations this winter is now about $75 million.”
And:
"More snow is in the forecast for later this week. Pawtucket, Mayor Donald Grebien said he is hoping and praying the meteorologists are wrong."
Meanwhile, the Globe is still blowing the same old fart mi$t (excuse me!) -- in a closed train car, no less:
"Commuters adrift as MBTA cancels Tuesday rail service" by Nicole Dungca, Globe Staff February 10, 2015
Overmatched and overwhelmed by a record-breaking onslaught of snow, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority on Monday evening canceled its rail service through the end of Tuesday, running up the white flag after Governor Charlie Baker called the struggling transit system’s performance unacceptable.
The closure, while not unprecedented — a blizzard in 2013 shut the T for nearly two days — essentially shuts down the main form of transportation for hundreds of thousands of workers across the region on the same day the governor encouraged commuters to stay off the roads. The agency said bus service would be available on an “extremely limited” basis on Tuesday.
The announcement shocked commuters, and also laid bare the new governor’s discontent with the transit system’s response to the recent snow emergencies. On Monday, before the T announced the shutdown for Monday evening and Tuesday, Baker struck a strident tone as he blasted the MBTA’s dismal performance.
*************
Baker said later in the day that he learned about the T closure “probably just around the same time everybody else did.” He said he had spoken to Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack about the closure, but not T officials.
Baker has proposed $40 million in cuts to the state’s transportation system, but has expressed confidence the cuts will not undermine MBTA service.
MBTA’s performance during storm ‘unacceptable,’ Baker says
In an interview before Baker’s comments, Beverly A. Scott, the general manager of the T, had defended the call to operate the service on Monday, saying it had taken into account information from many areas of government, including the transportation secretary and the governor’s office.
“At the end of the day, if we don’t think we can operate safely, we won’t do it,” she said. “Everyone has been thoughtful and nobody is operating in a silo.”
Scott could not be reached for comment after the announced closures.
Joe Pesaturo, a T spokesman, responded to the governor’s comments with a one-sentence e-mail. “Confronted with extraordinarily difficult weather conditions, the MBTA will continue to do everything possible to keep its aging trains moving,” he wrote.
Also see:
"Joe Pesaturo, a T spokesman, said the agency used to offer free rides for bad service, but stopped doing so about five years ago because of budgetary restrictions. “There were many fraudulent claims,” Pesaturo said in an e-mail. “The process of verifying the claims was a costly and time-consuming strain on our limited resources.” That answer doesn’t sit well with Susan Pearson of Charlestown — and probably the thousands of others who had difficult rides throughout a week of extended MBTA troubles because of the snow. “It makes you feel insulted and that your time is not valuable,” she said. “It’s just awful.”
Like I have been typing for years, government, business, and authority do not give a damn about you. Maybe they once did, but that was long ago.
The MBTA’s failure to run reliable service hit the area hard. Even though the agency had hoped to run a reduced schedule on Monday, Pesaturo said that the accumulating snow was making it “virtually impossible” to keep rail lines open through the night.
“The MBTA is concerned about the risk of multiple disabled trains that would require evacuations on the tracks, potentially in the dark,” Pesaturo wrote, announcing the evening closures.
Not long after, the T said the rail system would remain closed all day Tuesday as workers cleared snow and ice from cars, tracks, and switches, and “assess the damage done to subway cars, trolleys, locomotives, and passenger coaches,” Pesaturo wrote in a statement.
The plan to keep the T in operation Monday was scuttled after a snow-covered third rail left about 50 passengers stranded on a Red Line car during the morning commute, a mishap similar to an event a week ago near the Braintree station, where passengers were stranded during the evening commute because of ice on the third rail.
“We are disappointed, we are apologetic, we are sorry, it is all of it in spades,” Scott said Monday. “We’re trying to do the best we can.”
By midmorning, the agency had suspended subway rides on large portions of its Red and Orange lines. Shortly before 4 p.m., T officials said they would suspend all subway, trolley and commuter rail trains departing Boston after 7 p.m. The T continued running limited bus service but advised customers that connections to subway and commuter rail lines were not available.
Scott called the amount of snow facing the transit system “unbelievable,” saying the duration and excessive accumulation has presented a challenge for experienced MBTA workers.
“I haven’t been through one like this for 40 years,” she said.
The National Weather Service reported on Monday that by 7 a.m., it had recorded more than five feet of snow over the past month, breaking a record set by the Blizzard of 1978.
Wow.
The frustrations expressed by the governor were also evident at many T stations throughout the day....
They've "never seen this much snow," and I really don't want to hear it.
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"T’s woes are bigger than any general manager" by Joan Vennochi, Globe Columnist February 09, 2015
General Manager Beverly A. Scott was a controversial pick for GM, because of management issues that came to light when she headed the Metropolitan Atlanta Transit Authority. But Governor Deval Patrick wanted her for the job, and a governor, generally, gets what he wants.
See: Great Scott Takes Over as GM of MBTA
Appointed by the Department of Transportation’s board of directors, Scott is the first African-American woman to head the T, and a newcomer to the Bay State political stage. She shook up the system, and the old-boy network that traditionally runs it, when she recommended that the MBTA drop its longtime, politically wired commuter rail operation — the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad — in favor of a French firm, Keolis Commuter Services. This winter, Keolis has also had problems relating to weather and outmoded equipment.
I feel sorry for them, and haven't seen much of the reverends in the Globe lately.
Baker can push Scott out and probably will. But ultimately, the T’s problems are bigger than any general manager can solve. So what’s Baker going to do about them?
There’s some karma in having the public transit system fall apart on this governor’s watch. The last time Baker served in state government — during the era of Governors Bill Weld and Paul Cellucci — the state’s transportation energies were directed at finishing up the over-budget, over-deadline Big Dig. Baker played a major role in coming up with the borrowing scheme to fund the largest public works project in the country. And while Boston did end up with an engineering marvel — albeit one that sometimes leaks — the Big Dig incurred huge debt and other transportation needs suffered. The T absorbed some of that debt.
According to public policy consultant Charles Chieppo, the MBTA owes nearly $9 billion in debt and interest and faces a $3 billion maintenance backlog. Today, the T needs huge public investment, at the same time Baker is dealing with a $786 million state budget deficit, while promising no new taxes and more disciplined spending.
To deal with the state budget crunch, Baker proposed a plan that includes cutting $26 million in state funding for the Department of Transportation and $14 million for the MBTA.
The proposed MBTA cuts, Baker insists, would not affect service, because they mostly come from a hiring freeze and administrative cuts. But against the ongoing backdrop of an outmoded transit system stopped cold by snow, any plan to slice away at the T budget does not warm a commuter’s heart.
As Chieppo observes, the governor “is definitely under pressure to invest more than cut.” The $14 million, he said, is “just a way to get from here to June 30 (the end of the fiscal year). I think the real issue is what he does beginning with the next fiscal year.”
Passengers want T service they can count on and there’s pressure to expand late-night service.
Of course, those applying the pre$$ure are failing to foot the bill!
Meanwhile, the organizers behind Boston 2024 are pitching public transit as an essential feature of the city’s Olympic bid. The good news for Olympic promoters is that Boston is a contender for the summer, not winter, games.
Actually, some are calling for those, too!
Great cities need great public transit. The long, sad story of why we don’t have that in Massachusetts can be found in the 2009 MBTA review done by former John Hancock president and CEO David D’Alessandro. After detailing growing costs, falling revenue, and the T’s “Faustian bargain” with debt, it concludes: “There is no question that the MBTA is an expensive and complex system. It requires large expenditures just to continue operating. Any thought that these problems can be addressed primarily through expense reductions is misguided.”
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Of course, the big worry is can late-night T service be saved?
Maybe the dream hasn't been deferred at all:
"What has changed that suddenly a snow storm produces a political response comparable to a declaration of martial law? What will the next excuse be? Are Americans being trained to accept arbitrary curtailments on their freedom of movement? Pay attention. The likelihood is that you are being conditioned for narrowing the dimensions of your freedom."
I'm going to be deferring on some posting for a while as I still have some clean-up and other work to do after yesterday. Sorry.
UPDATE: Satellite looking out for solar storms finally lifts off
The dream lives, and look at the size of the carbon footprint to get it there!
