Cecil Field Spaceport in Jacksonville, Florida Joins the CSF as Newest Executive Member

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Washington, D.C. – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is pleased to announce that Cecil Field Spaceport in Jacksonville, Florida, which received its spaceport license from the Federal Aviation Administration earlier this year, has joined the Federation as an Executive Member, having received unanimous approval by the Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s Board of Directors.

Cecil Field (airport code VQQ) is located approximately 15 miles west of downtown Jacksonville, Florida, and is one of five airports run by the Jacksonville Aviation Authority. As a decommissioned naval airbase, Cecil Field has four, 200-foot wide runways, three of which measure 8,000 feet. The fourth runway is 12,500 feet in length, one of the longest in Florida. Using this infrastructure, Cecil Field is preparing to become a base for suborbital commercial human spaceflight in Florida.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist visited Cecil Field Spaceport on January 13, shortly after Cecil Field received its FAA spaceport license on January 11. During the visit, Governor Crist stated, “It’s a wonderful accomplishment to have the opportunity to get into the commercial space industry and do it right here from the First Coast.”

Bretton Alexander, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, said, “We are proud to welcome Cecil Field Spaceport as our newest Executive Member. Cecil Field Spaceport is our second member headquartered in Florida, along with Space Florida at Kennedy Space Center.”

“We are honored to join the Commercial Spaceflight Federation,” said spaceport project lead Todd Lindner, the Jacksonville Aviation Authority’s Administrator of Planning. “The organization represents spaceports nationwide – as well as vehicle developers, operators, and suppliers – so Cecil Field joining was a natural fit. We are excited to work with the Commercial Spaceflight Federation and our fellow members on issues such as the newly funded STIM-Grants program for spaceports infrastructure, FAA regulations and permits, industry safety standards, public outreach and policy advocacy.”

When Cecil Field received its FAA spaceport license in January, Frank DiBello, President of Space Florida, stated, “I was thrilled to learn this week that Cecil Field was issued a Launch Site Operator’s License from the FAA. We are thrilled to have been able to work with Cecil Field representatives during this process, and look forward to continuing our relationship with them as the commercial space industry grows.”

As a member of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, Cecil Field Spaceport has also joined the CSF Spaceports Council, a broader group of ten spaceports that have come together under the aegis of the CSF to cooperate on issues of common interest such as airspace access, legal and regulatory frameworks, infrastructure, international policy migration, liability, and voluntary common operating standards.

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

About Cecil Field Spaceport
Cecil Field Spaceport (airport code VQQ) is located approximately 15 miles west of downtown Jacksonville, Florida, and is one of five airports run by the Jacksonville Aviation Authority. As a decommissioned naval airbase, Cecil Field has four, 200-foot wide runways, three of which measure 8,000 feet. The fourth runway is 12,500 feet in length, one of the longest in Florida. Using this infrastructure, Cecil Field is preparing to become a base for suborbital commercial human spaceflight in Florida. For more information please contact Todd Lindner, project lead and Jacksonville Aviation Authority Administrator of Planning, at tlindner@jaa.aero or at 904.741.2228.

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EPA Ready to Move on Climate and Emissions

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Horrified by the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico?  5,000 barrels of dirty oil a day now polluting the waters only a few miles off the U.S. coast.  Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana, has declared a State of Emergency, and the federal government is beginning to get involved in trying to stop the leak.  It’s an environmental catastrophe already and getting worse by the hour.  It’s unfortunate that we can’t declare the climate crisis as a “state of emergency”, because it is.

Some day these types of devastating spills will be impossible, because people will finally get fed up with them and they will learn more about climate change as it becomes more apparent.  Some day, there will be no more drilling for fossil fuels anywhere.  The U.S. EPA is ready to move on restricting CO2 emissions now, and that will reduce the use of fossil fuels and eventually stop it.  (that and a situation called “peak oil”)  The Obama administration is now taking a “wait and see” approach to offshore drilling, even after announcing that more offshore drilling was to be a part of our energy future.  (That is probably not likely at this point).

Lisa Jackson, EPA administrator

From the EPA Press Office –Statement of Lisa P. Jackson Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Legislative Hearing on Clean Energy Policies That Reduce Our Dependence on Oil, House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment

Released April 28, 2010–WASHINGTON – Chairmen Markey and Waxman, Ranking Members Upton and Barton, Chairman Emeritus Dingell, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify about the Environmental Protection Agency’s work to reduce America’s oil dependence and greenhouse gas emissions. That work stems from two seminal events.

First, in April 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded in Massachusetts v. EPA that the Clean Air Act’s definition of air pollution includes greenhouse gases. The Court rejected then-Administrator Johnson’s refusal to determine whether that pollution from motor vehicles endangers public health or welfare.

In response to the Supreme Court’s decision, and based on the best available science and EPA’s review of thousands of public comments, I found in December 2009 that motor-vehicle greenhouse gas emissions do endanger Americans’ health and welfare.

I am not alone in reaching that conclusion. Scientists at the 13 federal agencies that make up the U.S. Global Change Research Program have reported that unchecked greenhouse gas emissions pose significant risks to the wellbeing of the American public. The National Academy of Sciences has stated that the climate is changing, that the changes are mainly caused by human interference with the atmosphere, and that those changes will transform the environmental conditions on Earth unless counter-measures are taken.

The second pivotal event was the agreement President Obama announced [...]

Climate Justice and Cochabamba Declarations

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The Cochabamba World People’s Conference on climate change ended last week in Bolivia, and most greeniacs agree it was a good boost  for the cause of environmental and climate justice and acknowledging peoples’ rights to their resources. The Copenhagen climate summit, by comparison, seemed mostly geared towards protecting corporations, economic systems, and preserving forms of governments,  and suggesting how much they should contribute to help those suffering from climate change,  that these big economic giants have mostly caused.    There was little serious talk of climate justice in Copenhagen among the big “capitalist” players (the U.S. and Europe), but it was very prevalent at the Cochabamba summit.

There is no doubt that most of those who will suffer the most from climate change are those with the least money.  They are also the people who will lose their way of life and even their land and resources first as climate change progresses.

What came out of the Cochabamba conference was not firm commitments from anyone, but it was a good starting point for environmental justice conversations and a framework to demand rights,  and it was a big push to a  movement based on ecosocialism,  instead of preserving capitalism (aka profits) for the richest corporations and countries who are doing most of the polluting. Exxon Mobile is just one example of what is wrong with capitalism butting heads with climate.  Exxon posted record profits again last year ($45.2 billion in profits) and paid no American taxes, so they aren’t even contributing to cleaning up the climate, or environmental disasters that the EPA needs to be involved in and pay for. That’s outrageous, but that will continue as long as corporations run our government and our govenrment worships capitalism.  (See below the declaration for more comments.)

Meanwhile, this Declaration came out of the People’s Climate summit. See more at Climate and Capitalism for their coverage of Cochabamba and related events. Also see the official website’s declaration here which starts out:

“Today, our Mother Earth is wounded and the future of humanity is in danger.

If global warming increases by more than 2 degrees Celsius, a situation that the “Copenhagen Accord” could lead to, there is a 50% probability that the damages caused to our Mother Earth will be completely irreversible. Between 20% and 30% of species would be in danger of disappearing. Large extensions of forest would be affected, droughts and floods would affect different regions of the planet, deserts would expand, and the melting of the polar ice caps and the glaciers in the Andes and Himalayas would worsen. Many island states would disappear, and Africa would suffer an increase in temperature of more than 3 degrees Celsius. Likewise, the production of food would diminish in the world, causing catastrophic impact on the survival of inhabitants from vast regions in the planet, and the number of people in the world suffering from [...]

2C19, Navigenics and Clinical Reality.

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Ok,

I would like to welcome Navigenics to the world of Clinical Utility. Just yesterday they announced their pharmacogenomics panel available to both consumers and physicians. It is about time!

However, the problem I see is threefold:

1. Where is the price of the test? Anything more than 200 won't work.

2. Is there a change in the terms of service, which allows me as the doctor to use it?

3. Will insurance pay for it?

Let's say that this is not intended for the doctor but instead just for the patient/consumer. Which Navigenics has agreed NOT To Do, At least in NY.
What exactly do you expect the consumer to do with this information?? Stop Plavix? Don't you Dare!

Write themselves a prescription? Ummmmm, OK.

Oh No, these tests are specifically for medical use.

Disagree? Merely the information itself is important? What good is information without ability to act on it? maybe you should ask Cassandra?

There are multiple companies out there offering PGX testing in one form or another. This makes the following questions of utmost importance

1. Which SNPs are tested?
2. Can you really trust a genetic counselor to give you advice on medications? How many have they prescribed? No offense, just reality.
3. Will the laboratory results and work in a clinical setting, integrated with clinical care?

Just because you're a great product backed by venture capital, with with analytical validity and the plan to get to market doesn't mean you will succeed in the market. Why? Most consumers still trust genetic testing decisions to be made by the doctors.

How do I know this? I'm the doctor. I am licensed to give clinical advice.

The Sherpa says: Why these DTC companies try to cut out the doctor is beyond me.

Affordable Freehold Island in Thailand

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koh-som-thailand-2Freehold islands are rare in Asia, and finding an affordable, freehold island in this region is even more rare. This is why I am please do share with you all Koh Som Island.

Koh Som Island is a pristine three acre island located in the Gulf of Thailand located just 2000 feet of the shores of the famous Koh Samui Island, this freehold property offers incredible sunrise and sunset views, and, unusually, offers sea access at two points. Stunning white sand beaches dust the south and east of Koh Som—“Orange Island.” The first beach looks toward Koh Samui; the second gazes over open sea to Koh Phangan.

Suitable for an island resort or private residence, Koh Som offers incredible development opportunities. Already on the map, courtesy of famed neighbor, Koh Samui, this property offers privacy and seclusion combined with access to tourist infrastructure. Conceptual plans for a five-star resort have been drawn up and are available to Koh Som’s future owners.

For more information on this property or to make an inquiry visit Private Islands Online.

Bolden: "Jeff does exactly what I ask him to do"

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Charlie Bolden's stand on NASA, Constellation and Ares I tests, Orlando Sentinel

"Bolden: Who? Jeff Hanley? I talk to Jeff quite a bit. As far as I am concerned, Jeff does exactly what I asked him to do, to be quite honest. And Jeff and NASA, we are in a tough situation in that we have to comply with the 2010 provision in law that says we cannot terminate [Constellation], we cannot do this.  Everybody knows that the language is and yet we have to be responsive to my desire to move forward. You know my challenge for you is to work with Congress and get them to understand that the vision that we have is good for the nation and is the right way to get us beyond low Earth orbit. So we are constantly walking this tightrope of not offending anyone or breaking the law and yet being very responsive to what the president wants us to do and aggressively going forward."

Jeff Hanley Openly Defies White House Policy, earlier post

Other Jeff Hanley news

Oil Disaster in Gulf Gets Worse

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There was no remote-control backup switch on the oil rig that exploded and sank, according to the WSJ.  Why not?  Probably to save money.

Graphic from the Wall Street Journal

“The oil well spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico didn’t have a remote-control shut-off switch used in two other major oil-producing nations as last-resort protection against underwater spills.  The lack of the device, called an acoustic switch, could amplify concerns over the environmental impact of offshore drilling after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig, hired by oil giant BP PLC, last week.

The accident has led to one of the largest ever oil spills in U.S. water and the loss of 11 lives. On Wednesday federal investigators said the disaster is now releasing 5,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf, up from original estimates of 1,000 barrels a day.

The scale and complexity of the operation highlights the titanic struggles faced by the modern oil industry. Locked out of easier-to-exploit oil reservoirs by governments in developing countries, international oil companies such as BP invest billions of dollars every year in scouring the depths of the sea for oil and gas. But when problems arise, they are equally difficult to conquer.

On Tuesday, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) and Rep. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.) sent letters to BP and Transocean asking the companies to explain what they knew about the risks of drilling at the site.”

Source: Wall Street Journal

“Easier to exploit” is perfect wording for this WSJ article. Exploitation is what fossil fuel companies are best at.

In an astonishing comment today, facing this devastating environmental disaster, some of the more ignorant Republicans in the U.S. said this should not deter anyone from offshore oil drilling.

“At almost the exact moment that Reuters broke the news (on Twitter) that a second oil drilling rig had overturned off the coast of Louisiana, Sarah Palin posted her latest Facebook “note.” The headline: “Domestic Drilling: Why We Can Still Believe.”

Apparently no non-natural disaster caused by drilling or sucking up fossil fuels in any manner will ever stop the profit-based, anti-science approach to energy and the unlimited greed of Republicans like Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney, Michele Bachmann, and their fossil fuel energy friends.  No disaster is too great to try another more progressive way forward, to stop using these destructive, polluting forms of energy.  What will ever deter these people? We don’t need to use fossil fuels.

“No human endeavor is ever without risk,” Palin’s ghostwriter adds later, comparing dangerous and pointless off-shore domestic drilling to the moon landing.”

Even the news that another oil rig has overturned has had no impact on the worst of them.   We know from hurricanes of the past how oil rigs do overturn during storms and apparently, even without storms.  They also explode, [...]

Anthem of CT Denies $600 Until “Subscriber Responds to our Coordination of Benefits Questionnaire”

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Question: How does your “family of trusted happy healthcare partners who love you and love working for you and humbly wish you’d simply love them in return” make their “Affordable Health Insurance” “Affordable”?

SOLUTION: PURE DISTILLED GENIUS:

Anthem shall now present the GREATLY ANTICIPATED SOLUTION of the world famous Universal Gnomish Business Plan:

  1. Take your money now.
  2. Promise to pay other people with your money in exchange for valuable goods and services.
  3. ??? Don’t do that.
  4. Profit! Make it a crime to not participate!

Health care solved! Now available at a low, low subscription fee of “all your money we can collect” from “all the money we think you might have” from “anybody who could give you money.”

Please allow me to reframe this presentation less as “you’re going to die” and more so that you —the masses— may more fully savor the finer intellectual sophistication of Anthem of Connecticut’s fiscal genius in theory without the distracting inconveniences of uncontrolled diabetes with complications and a suboptimal FICO score in practice.

Imagine you go to Best Buy. You buy $600 television with your credit card.

One month later, the merchant bank informs Best Buy that they’ve successfully settled this transaction as follows:

  • You get $0.00.
  • NOT NEGOTIABLE
  • By “selling” this “television” to our “member” (whom we love and cherish as a trusted member of the Anthem family), per our “contract,” we now own your “credit” of this television.
  • You cannot recover this television.
  • You cannot recover this credit of a television.
  • We possibly dispute the existence of this television. Please call our toll-free number at ***.
  • Even if this television existed, we dispute that it’s appropriate that you gave our member this television —should it exist. Please call our toll-free number at ***.
  • You cannot bill our beloved and cherished Anthem family member or we will be very disappointed and we may not invite you to our birthday party next year.
  • It “might” “help” if you “help” the patient by “reminding” him that he “should” complete our “survey” about “his benefits” “in your office at your expense and liability and sole responsibility and we’ll still probably not pay you anyways but have you called our toll-free number? Also, we’ll audit you. Also, we’ll sue you.
  • We are here to help. Call us toll-free at *** and spend an hour fighting our phone tree IBM-designed to extract the maximum cost from you without disabusing you of our systems’ legitimacy and have several operators read back to you several contradictory versions of this same paper remittance to you like disappointed school marms scolding you for sloppy homework.
  • Would you like to speak to a sales representative about our health information technology cost savings initiatives can add an additional justification for us not to pay you at your expense while still forcing you to use all other means of communications including phone, mail, and fax to conduct business with us and while automatically disclosing all you and your patients’ valuable demographics to us for our exclusive benefit and which we have hosted on our “partner’s partner’s partner’s” computer servers? Call us toll-free at… to schedule an interactive live demo in which our healthcare information technology representatives will harass you at your office indefinitely to install “stuff” on your all your desktop computers which “magically” collects all your operational demographics (the “magic” part is where you must manually enter the demographics of your entire business operation into our system at your expense… on your own computer! Isn’t that just magical?) to “help” you “provide” the most advanced information technology to our members without actually submitting any billing to us for us to process which of course is a completely different system which we certainly aren’t going provide to you directly! AND NOW: you can buy our UPGRADED SUPER SAVVY version of our software which purports the even more magic ability to disclosure other people’s credit cards and ACH-enabled checking accounts to us for us to bill for ourselves at your transactional liability… over the Internet! (that’s the “even more magic” part)
  • We’re still going to randomly send you and your patients surveys by telephone and paper mail and then still refuse to pay you for not completing the survey in addition to demanding penalties for not using our computer systems. Have you called our toll-free number?
  • It’s your fault when full grown man calls back almost in tears because he can’t afford a $600.00 bill this month and he’s dying and scared and now he’s getting angry calls and letters that he doesn’t understand. Have you called our toll free number?
  • You know… maybe this all would just go away if you just forgot about this silly little bill in the first place. What’s $600.00 between super best friend bro pals just trying to get the best healthcare to patients together as a team?
  • Have you completed our Coordination of Benefits Questionnaire? Please call our toll free number at *** for more information regarding Anthem member benefit policies and procedures.

Free televisions! For everybody! Forever! Welcome to the Anthem of Connecticut family. We love you! (please do not actually try to collect your television)