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Efforts to boost space ventures fizzle out

Image: Blue Origin crew capsule
Engineers work on a crew capsule at Blue Origin’s factory in Kent, Wash. (Credit: Blue Origin)

Two measures that would have lent a hand to Washington state’s fledgling space industry have been stalled in committee and aren’t likely to win approval during the state Legislature’s current session, the bills’ sponsor said March 9.

“We’re having such a tough time with the budget” that the space-related measures appear likely to go by the wayside this year, even though they’ve enjoyed bipartisan support, said state Rep. Jeff Morris, D-Mount Vernon.

One of the bills, HB 2434, would have created a space exploration center to boost Washington industry. That bill is stuck in House Appropriations Committee.

The other bill, HB 2226, would have let spacecraft manufacturers enjoy tax incentives that are similar to those currently offered to Washington’s airplane manufacturers, as in the Boeing Co. That bill didn’t make it out of the House Finance Committee.

HB 2226’s fate could have an impact on where Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, decides to locate a future manufacturing facility for its BE-4 rocket engine.

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NASA tries to pack big vision in smaller budget

Image: SLS launch
NASA is developing a heavy-lift rocket known as the Space Launch System, shown in this artist’s conception. Spending in the category that includes the SLS and the Orion deep-space capsule would be trimmed in the budget proposed for the next fiscal year. (Credit: NASA)

Christmas has come and gone, and so has a bump in NASA’s spending plan: The agency’s proposed $19 billion budget for the next fiscal year, released today, represents a $300 million decline from this year’s level.

The money set aside for developing a new crew vehicle and heavy-lift rocket for deep-space exploration would be reduced by hundreds of millions of dollars, virtually guaranteeing a tussle with Congress.

Despite the reductions, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said the agency’s vision for space exploration and technology is undimmed.

“The state of our NASA is as strong as it’s ever been – and when I say ‘our,’ I really mean it,” Bolden told a gathering of agency employees at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia. He used that “strong” assessment as a frequent refrain for the last “State of NASA” address of the Obama administration.

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Iowa caucuses throw predictions into a tizzy

Image: Ted Cruz and family
Sen. Ted Cruz scores a victory in the Iowa GOP caucuses. (Credit: TedCruz.org)

The Iowans have spoken, and the GOP presidential caucuses confounded the prediction markets by giving Ted Cruz the edge over Donald Trump.

Trump had been favored by the markets – but when tonight’s results became clear, his stock tumbled to near zero while Cruz’s spiked to the top of the chart. What’s really interesting is what happened to the prognostication for the GOP nomination. The current favorite, according to Predictwise’s aggregation of prediction markets, is neither Trump nor Cruz: It’s Marco Rubio, who put in a strong third-place showing.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton was running neck-and-neck with Bernie Sanders in the caucus tally, but the market forecasters were putting their money on Clinton to prevail. Literally.

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Senators want to close the icebreaker gap

Image: Murkowski and Cantwell
U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., call on the White House to upgrade the Coast Guard’s icebreaker fleet. In the background are workers at Vigor Shipyards, where the icebreaker USCGS Healy is undergoing maintenance. (GeekWire photo by Alan Boyle)

Two U.S. senators from opposite sides of the aisle – Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell and Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski – teamed up on Friday to hold President Barack Obama to his word when it comes to beefing up the U.S. Coast Guard’s sagging fleet of polar icebreakers.

“We are falling behind in our icebreaking capacity,” Cantwell said during a news conference at Seattle’s Vigor Shipyards, where the medium icebreaker Healy is undergoing maintenance. She underscored her concern in a letter that was sent to Obama and released to journalists.

“There is a race to the Arctic – and the United States isn’t even in the game,” Cantwell said in the letter.

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Political markets sense disturbance in the force

Image: Rubio and Trump
GOP presidential hopefuls Mario Rubio and Donald Trump tangle at October debate. (Credit: CNBC)

Although Donald Trump has long dominated coverage of the GOP presidential campaign, electoral prediction markets have been favoring Marco Rubio instead. Until now.

The shift in support could be a significant signal, because over the years, prediction markets have chalked up at least as good a record as traditional political polling when it comes to handicapping elections.

The concept, pioneered by the Iowa Electronic Markets, involves letting “traders” buy shares in a given proposition. The proposition may be that the Seahawks will win the Super Bowl, or that Trump will win the GOP nomination.

In a winner-take-all market, the price of a share can rise or fall depending on the demand. If the prediction you’ve invested in comes true, you’re paid a specified amount – say, $1 per share. But if you’re wrong, you get nothing.

It may sound like Vegas betting, but economic researchers use the method to study how the “wisdom of crowds” can affect market movements. The concept has come into play in other settings as well, ranging from anticipating flu outbreaks topredicting whether a Microsoft project will stay on track.

For 20 years, presidential elections have provided valuable test cases for prediction markets. “It really does well in primaries, especially early,” said David Rothschild, an economist at Microsoft Research in New York City.

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Space ventures get political shout-outs

Image: Astronaut on moon
Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan salutes the U.S. flag during his 1972 mission to the moon. The photo was shown during President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address. (Credit: NASA)

Even though they happened far from the Evergreen State, last year’s Pluto flyby and the rocket landings accomplished by Blue Origin and SpaceX were among the “big moments” mentioned today in Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s State of the State Address.

Hours later, President Barack Obama invoked America’s space effort as a model for innovation in his own State of the Union Address to Congress.

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Hillary Clinton goes after the ‘X-Files’ vote

Image: Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton addressed the UFO issue during a meeting with editors. (Credit: @HillaryClinton)

If the truth about UFOs is out there, Hillary Clinton says she’ll be on it as president.

When the Democratic presidential front-runner vowed to “get to the bottom” of the alien-visitation issue, she just might have locked up the “X-Files” vote – while giving her critics one more thing to taunt her with.

Clinton’s comment came at the end of a recent chat with the editorial board of the Conway Daily Sun in New Hampshire, which holds its first-in-the-nation presidential primary on Feb. 9. Reporter Daymond Steer reminded her about a conversation they had about UFOs in 2007, and that perked up the candidate.

“Yes, I’m going to get to the bottom of it,” Clinton reportedly replied.

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Quake warning system gets a boost

A portion of Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct was demolished in 2011 to reduce the road’s vulnerability to earthquake damage. Scientists say the Pacific Northwest could experience a magnitude-9 quake and tsunami like the one that hit Japan in 2011. (Credit: WSDOT)
A portion of Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct was demolished in 2011 to reduce the road’s vulnerability to earthquake damage. Scientists say the Pacific Northwest could experience a magnitude-9 quake and tsunami like the one that hit Japan in 2011. (Credit: WSDOT)

The omnibus spending bill that was approved by Congress today includes another $8.2 million for a quake-monitoring system that could provide early warning if we’re hit by “the Really Big One” that everyone’s been freaked out about.

Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Derek Kilmer, both D-Wash., had pushed for the additional support and issued a statement applauding the legislative follow-through.

“An updated and operational Earthquake Early Warning System is essential to serve as eyes and ears for folks on the West Coast,” Kilmer said. “A few crucial seconds can make all the difference to help Washingtonians get out of harm’s way if a large quake strikes.”

The omnibus bill was signed into law by President Barack Obama.

Researchers have long been concerned about the potential for the Cascadia Subduction Zone to unleash a magnitude-9.0 quake off the coast of Washington and Oregon. The concern was heightened in July by a scary report in The New Yorker, headlined “The Really Big One.”

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Congress gives NASA a bigger budget

Image: Europa orbiter
An artist’s conception shows an orbiter at Europa, a moon of Jupiter. (Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech)

The 2,009-page omnibus bill that’s been crafted by Congress for the current fiscal year boosts NASA’s budget to $19.3 billion, which is $756 million more than the White House asked for.

The big winners include NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System and its planetary science projects – particularly a mission to Europa, a mysterious ice-covered moon of Jupiter. The measure also provides as much as the Obama administration requested – $1.24 billion – for NASA’s commercial crew program. That suggests the space taxis that are being built for NASA by the Boeing Co. and SpaceX will remain on track for their debut in 2017.

The long-delayed spending plan for the budget year that started in October, released overnight, isn’t totally a done deal. The House and Senate still have to vote their approval, and that’s not expected to happen until Friday. Then President Barack Obama has to sign it into law. But all the pieces are in place, and on Wednesday the White House gave the deal its thumbs-up.

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Lawmakers geek out over space industry

Image: Blue Origin celebration
Employees at Blue Origin’s headquarters in Kent, Wash., cheer as they watch the landing of the company’s New Shepard test spaceship on Nov. 23. “How do we steal that video?” Lt. Gov. Brad Owen joked after watching a clip showing the celebration. (Credit: Blue Origin)

Washington state legislators got an introduction to the state’s space industry today at Seattle’s Museum of Flight – and voiced amazement at how much is going on.

“I feel so illiterate in this field, it’s unbelievable,” state Sen. Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla, remarked at one point during today’s meeting of the Legislative Committee on Economic Development and International Relations. Afterward, Hewitt said he knew “100 percent” more about the field than he did at the start of the hearing.

State Sen. Maralyn Chase, D-Shoreline, marveled when she heard Aerojet Rocketdyne executive Roger Myers list all the missions his company in which his company has played a part, ranging from the Apollo missions to the moon, to the space shuttle program, to robotic missions that have visited every planet (yes, including Pluto).

“I would wager that most of the people in this state do not know what you’re doing in Redmond,” Chase told Myers.

That was the point of today’s hearing, presided over by Lt. Gov. Brad Owen: to let legislators know that there’s much more than Boeing to the state’s profile in the aerospace industry.

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