NASA expected to launch CubeSat unit in 2018

Engineering and physics students at the University of Southern Indiana have embarked on a mission-of-a-lifetime project designing the University’s first spacecraft to be placed into orbit by NASA sometime in 2018. The unit is a CubeSat, a miniaturized satellite known as a U-class spacecraft.

The USI student-led project to design, build and then operate the CubeSat in orbit is funded by NASA’s (National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s) Undergraduate Student Instrument Project (USIP). USI’s project was one of 47 national projects competitively selected and funded by NASA to give undergraduate students a hands-on experience developing and flying research or technology experiments relevant to NASA missions. Twenty three of the 47 projects involve CubeSats.

“How often do you get to send something into space?” said Wyatt Helms, an engineering sophomore from Alfordsville, Indiana. “When I graduated high school, I wanted to go to school for aerospace engineering, but didn’t get the scholarships I was able to get here at USI. Now, it turns out I’m doing the same things I wanted to be doing.”

The USI CubeSat is known as the Undergraduate Nano Ionospheric Temperature Explorer (UNITE), and will target the least explored layer of the atmosphere, the lower ionosphere. While traveling through the ionosphere the UNITE CubeSat will probe plasma density, determine drag characteristics of the vehicle, and measure temperature on the skin and in the interior of the spacecraft. The satellite measures 10 cm x 10 cm x 30 cm and has a mass of just 4 kilograms.

To be able to work on a project of this magnitude at the undergraduate level is something the entire team is excited about. “I’m working on the command and data handling, one of the subsystems we’re going to provide,” said Colin Runnion, an engineering junior from Evansville. “I get to be part of a team that will basically design the command and data handling systems from the ground up. It will be one of the more critical parts, and one of the parts most likely to fail. It’s a lot of stress, since I haven’t designed something this complicated, but I’m really looking forward to that. Hopefully, if all goes well, someday, I’ll find myself working at a job at NASA.”

“We’re approaching this project with both exhilaration and trepidation,” said Dr. Glen Kissel, associate professor of engineering and project faculty mentor. “Exhilaration, because our students have been given this exciting opportunity to place the University’s first spacecraft into orbit, but also trepidation, knowing there are potential setbacks every step of the way.”

NASA requires that the USI team deliver a flight-ready CubeSat by early March 2018, with a launch expected sometime later that year. Launch services will be provided by NASA at no charge to the team. CubeSats are generally ejected from a rocket as a secondary payload, once the orbit has been achieved for the much larger primary payload. Alternatively, CubeSats can be sent to the International Space Station and loaded by astronauts into a deployer for ejection into orbit.

Jose Fregozo, an engineering and physics major from Evansville, is charged with monitoring the drag analysis and other key functions of the craft. Taking theory and putting it into practice is something he’s particularly excited about. “It combines both of my majors. I’m looking at things from a physics perspective, understanding the fundamental theories and getting to apply those things using my engineering know how.”

The USI team is still evaluating what orbits would be acceptable for its mission, in preparation for making a formal request to NASA later in the year for a rocket ride into space. Depending on the orbit NASA places the CubeSat in, the UNITE mission could be as short as 40 days, or as long as 400 days, before it burns up in the atmosphere.

The team first met this semester to begin the design and to plan the remaining phases to complete the unit, then integrate, test and operate the CubeSat using NASA Systems Engineering principles. Because the project is a multi-year endeavor, the team will fluctuate as students graduate. Adam Will, an engineering junior from Evansville, will take over as team leader in spring 2017. “Being a longtime admirer of NASA and private space companies like SpaceX, it’s exciting to be working on a satellite that’s going into space here at USI at an undergraduate level,” he said.

USI’s UNITE CubeSat team includes:

• Jose Fregozo, Engineering and Physics Senior, Evansville, IN
• Wyatt Helms, Engineering Sophomore, Alfordsville, IN
• Ryan Loehrlein, Engineering and Business Finance Sophomore, Evansville, IN
• Haley McConnell, Biophysics and Math Senior, Evansville, IN
• Kegan Miller, Engineering Senior, Frankfort, IN
• Bryan Mitchell, Engineering Junior, Evansville, IN
• Jonah Quirk, Physics Junior, Evansville, IN
• Colin Runnion, Engineering Junior, Evansville, IN
• John Siepierski, Outgoing Team Leader, Engineering Senior, Bradford, PA
• Adam Will, Incoming Team Leader, Engineering Junior, Evansville, IN
• Eric McCord, graduated from USI with a BS in Engineering in spring 2016 (He did preliminary design testing in spring 2016 in support of the CubeSat project.)

Dr. Eric Greenwood, assistant professor of physics, and Dr. Art Chlebowski, assistant professor of engineering, also will assist the UNITE CubeSat team.

USI’s UNITE CubeSat project is funded through NASA’s Undergraduate Student Instrument Project with administrative assistance from the Indiana Space Grant Consortium at Purdue University. Near Space Launch Inc. of Upland, Indiana, will be the primary vendor for the UNITE project components.

A Republican Ban on Internet Gambling Would Repeat a Costly Democratic Mistake
Veronique de Rugy Veronique de Rugy for TOWNHALL

Many on the left have taken Donald Trump’s surprise victory poorly, responding with considerable hand-wringing and emotional outbursts. Instead of simply focusing on the many evils that they anticipate will take place under President Trump, they would do well to look in the mirror and recognize that there would be far less cause for concern had they not spent the past eight years cheering on the expansion of executive power under President Barack Obama.

Republicans, soon to control all elected branches for the first time in a decade, ignore this lesson at their peril.
A group of congressional Republicans has been trying to undo the Department of Justice’s acknowledgment in 2011 that the Wire Act — passed before the internet existed — never should have been interpreted to prevent all forms of online gambling (such as poker and lotteries), as opposed to the “bets or wagers on any sporting event or contest” that the statute explicitly addresses.
They’re worked up about it because billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson is a GOP megadonor and some states have begun authorizing online gambling within their borders. Adelson hates online gambling, as it competes with his bricks-and-mortar Las Vegas casinos for customers.

More than five years ago, on what has become known to the poker world as Black Friday, the federal government unleashed a legal jihad against online poker companies and their top executives. Online poker is not itself illegal — a fact clarified by the DOJ’s reinterpretation of the Wire Act — but the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act made it illegal for payment processors to transfer funds to and from gambling sites.

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The problem for Adelson and his allies is that the UIGEA and other federal statutes apply only when state borders are crossed. The 10th Amendment and the principles of federalism mean that federal lawmakers should have no say regarding activities that take place entirely within one state’s borders. So if state governments wish to authorize online gambling for their citizens, they are and should remain free to do so.
Adelson’s gang has been trying for some time to pass the Restoration of America’s Wire Act to stop states from setting their own gaming rules. Despite its misleading name, RAWA would go even further than the original and erroneous interpretation of the Wire Act, as even that dealt only with interstate activity.
RAWA has failed to muster enough support to move forward thus far, but another bill, SB 3376, was recently introduced by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., with very similar language, suggesting there may be an attempt to sneak it through during the lame-duck session. Trump’s campaign received significant support from Adelson, so Republicans might also try to take it up in the new Congress.
Doing so would mean ditching their oft-claimed support for the 10th Amendment and state sovereignty. It would also set a precedent for Democrats, who will eventually hold power again, to similarly prohibit the forms of online commerce they find distasteful, such as gun and ammunition sales.
Republicans should learn from today’s dismayed Democrats and resist the temptation — while in power — to operate beyond constitutional limits so that such limits might still be around to keep the other side in check once control of the federal government inevitably changes hands again.
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In 49 States, Income Boost Outpaces Economic Growth
September 27, 2016 By Tim Henderson

The sharp gain in median household income last year, one of largest increases on record, may also signal a turning point in the decades-old disconnect between middle-class earnings and overall economic growth.

In 49 states, median income increased at a faster rate than per capita gross domestic product, according to a Stateline analysis of census data and figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The one exception was New Jersey, which is feeling the effects of a slumping casino industry, declining interest in suburban office parks, and many communities’ slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy, in 2012.

Analysts across the ideological spectrum have noted the “great decoupling” between earnings and economic growth, which has existed nationally since the 1970s. The gap grew after the recession: Between 2009 and 2012, U.S. GDP grew by 4 percent, while inflation-adjusted median income fell by 4 percent. In 2010, the gap hit a single-year peak of 5 percentage points, as GDP grew 2.2 percent and income fell 2.8 percent.

“Economic abundance, as exemplified by GDP, has remained on an upward trajectory, but the income and job prospects for typical workers have faltered,” Erik Brynjolfsson of the MIT Sloan School of Management wrote last year.

Cumulative economic growth, as measured by the change in GDP, outpaced median income growth in every state from 2000 to 2014. Some states, in some years, bucked the trend, but 2015 marked the first time that median income had outpaced GDP in as many as 49 states, since state-by-state numbers became available, in the 1980s.

Lane Kenworthy, a University of California at San Diego economist who has studied the gap between income and GDP, said the one-year change was heartening but likely not the start of a new trend.

“It’s good news, to be sure,” Kenworthy said. “But I don’t see any sign that the deep-seated obstacles to shared prosperity have abated. So I’m not optimistic.”

In 2015, a tightening labor market gave workers more bargaining power and thus higher pay, Kenworthy said. But he predicted that deeper economic trends, such as the diminishing power of labor unions and the rise in new technology that could replace workers with machines, would continue to erode pay over the long term.

Mark Perry, a University of Michigan economist who is affiliated with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, agreed that it’s too soon to determine whether 2015 was “a change in direction or a one-time blip.”

Perry also pointed out that the median income measure may be misleading, because it doesn’t capture other forms of compensation, such as health insurance and stock options.

“Even during the years when median household income was stagnant, I’m sure the median household compensation was rising,” Perry said.
Dramatic Gains in Montana, Tennessee
Montana and Tennessee had the largest increases in median household income in 2015, and in both states median income gains easily outpaced GDP growth.

William Fox, director of the University of Tennessee’s Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research, said his state had seen a tightening job market, as more people flock to Nashville, Knoxville and Memphis.

“People go where there’s jobs, and we’ve had a lot of job creation,” Fox said, pointing out that Tennessee had surpassed its 2008 pre-recession jobs peak, in 2014, and gained another 94,100 jobs in 2015.

Much of Tennessee’s job growth has been in business and professional services, he said. Some companies, like Bridgestone, in Nashville, and FedEx, in Memphis, have expanded corporate operations in Tennessee over the past several years, attracted by a relatively low cost of living and the central locations.

The state’s 2014 offer of free community college tuition, which drew 58,000 applications that first year, also might have attracted employers, Fox said.

Montana has benefited from wage growth in all industries, said Barbara Wagner, the state’s chief economist. Technology and research companies around Bozeman, home of Montana State University, are doing particularly well, she said.

At the other end of the spectrum, New Jersey’s median income increased less than half a percent in 2015, the lowest rate of any state, even as the state’s GDP increased by 2 percent.

Last year, New Jersey still had fewer jobs than it did before the recession, despite adding 69,200 of them. James Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, said the state’s economy is still suffering from the effects of Superstorm Sandy, in 2012, and from the consolidation of the casino industry, in 2014.

Another factor, Hughes said, is that many businesses no longer want to be in suburban office parks, and New Jersey has plenty of them.

“The office growth is now in the 24/7 cities, like Manhattan, Boston and Washington, D.C., on the East Coast,” Hughes said. “That suburban stock is languishing. It used to be the driving force that made New Jersey a regional economic powerhouse.”

In some states, however, surging income growth in relation to GDP was not a sign of good times. In North Dakota, GDP declined by 4.4 percent, largely because of falling oil prices. But median income grew by 2.5 percent, creating a 6.8 point gap, the largest among the states. (The changes in GDP and in median income have been rounded.) Because of the way the U.S. Census Bureau asks about income, the North Dakota income data may reflect relatively high energy prices in late 2014.

A Sign of Inequality?
When economic growth outpaces median income, it indicates that the fruits of prosperity are not being distributed widely, said Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution.

“It might be that a lot of the extra income went to the top 1 percent or the top 20 percent, and the middle didn’t get as much of the gain. They didn’t get their fair share. That’s usually how it’s interpreted,” Burtless said.

Growing income inequality has spurred many cities and states to raise the minimum wage. But the largest planned increases are still being phased in and were unlikely to have had an effect on median income so soon, said Dean Baker, an economist at the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research.

“The story of most states has been a modest shift back to wages, from profits, in the last couple of years,” Baker said. “The median [income] will be moved by more jobs per family, more hours per job and higher wages. All of those things were going the right way in 2015.”

No One Hacked The Election; ‘The Will of the American People’ Was Reflected

by  MATT VESPA of TOWNHALL

As Green Party candidate Jill Stein plans to file petition to recount the votes in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, the Obama administration has come out to say unequivocally that the election was no hacked, and that the “will of the American people” was reflected in the results, according to The New York Times. Stein’s recount effort is grounded in allegations, very shoddy ones to be exact, that machines were hacked, which was exacerbated by an article in NY Magazine. Keep in mind, there’s zero evidence that any hacking occurred as well.

The publication added that no increased cyber activity was detected on Election Day, and that Stein’s recount challenge has to wait until Monday to be filed, so be on the lookout for that development. In Pennsylvania, Stein will have challenge the Pennsylvania result I court, as the deadline for a recount in the Keystone State has passed:

The Obama administration said on Friday that despite Russian attempts to undermine the presidential election, it has concluded that the results “accurately reflect the will of the American people.”

The statement came as liberal opponents of Donald J. Trump, some citing fears of vote hacking, are seeking recounts in three states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — where his margin of victory was extremely thin.

In Michigan, Ms. Stein must wait for a Monday meeting of the state’s Board of Canvassers to certify the results of the Nov. 8 balloting before filing for a recount. In Pennsylvania, where paper ballots are used only in some areas, election officials said that the deadline to petition for a recount had passed, but that a candidate could challenge the result in court before a Monday deadline.
The recount efforts have generated pushback by experts who said it would be enormously difficult to hack voting machines on a large scale. The administration, in its statement, confirmed reports from the Department of Homeland Security and intelligence officials that they did not see “any increased level of malicious cyberactivity aimed at disrupting our electoral process on Election Day.”

Again, folks; Trump won the election. There’s no way recounting the votes will determine voter fraud. It’s incredibly difficult to rig an election in the manner liberals are hypothesizing. And it doesn’t negate that fact that Clinton lost because Trump drive up the margins in the rural counties, millions of Obama supporters flipped for Trump, and that Clinton couldn’t get the Obama coalition that dominates the urban areas excited enough for them to turnout in droves like in 2008 and 2012. Why? Because Hillary Clinton isn’t Barack Obama and Democrats learned the hard way that their eight-year honeymoon was only made possible because they had a solid candidate. Clinton is one of the worst candidates to ever be nominated by a major party; she was under FBI investigation when she won the primary contest. Going from a charismatic, vibrant black president to…Clinton? Yeah, SNL had it right for that opening skit with host Dave Chappelle. Of course, no one was excited for Clinton. That’s why they stayed home in Flint, Detroit, and Milwaukee. It seems we’re still months away from the “Clinton sucked and that’s why she lost” stage of the grief process on the Left.

NRCS SNRCS Seeks Applications for $25 Million in Conservation Innovation Grants

Indianapolis, IN, November 8, 2016 – Indiana State Conservationist Jane Hardisty today announced that USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is seeking new proposals for cutting-edge projects that will provide new conservation opportunities through its competitive Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) program. NRCS will invest up to $25 million for projects that spark the development and adoption of innovative conservation technologies and approaches in areas like conservation finance, data analytics, and precision conservation to benefit producers on private agricultural and forest lands.

“Conservation Innovation Grants have played a critical role in developing and implementing creative new methods to conserve the nation’s private agricultural lands and strengthening rural communities,” said Hardisty. “Today’s announcement builds on our support of technologies and approaches that help producers increase resiliency to extreme weather such as drought and floods.”

CIG is authorized and funded under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and fosters innovative conservation projects that accelerate the transfer and adoption of promising technologies that benefit natural resources, agricultural production and forest management. The 2017 focus areas for project proposals include the following:

Innovative approaches that benefit historically underserved and veteran farmers, beginning farmers and those with limited resources;
Natural resources data analytics tools—such as software and mobile apps—that increase producer knowledge of conservation benefits and alternatives;
Precision conservation tools that uncover opportunities for better input management (for example, nutrient management addressing source, timing, rate and placement), or address in-field vulnerabilities;
Conservation finance approaches that demonstrate the potential for new investment strategies to accelerate and expand private lands conservation;
Demonstration, evaluation and quantification of the effects of water management and soil health practices to minimize off-site impacts of natural resource challenges, such as excess sediment and nutrient runoff;
Pay-for-success models that stimulate conservation adoption and achievement of measurable outcomes.
Potential applicants should review the announcement for program funding that is available on www.grants.gov. Proposals are due by Jan. 9, 2017, and final CIG funding is subject to fiscal year 2017 funding actions. American Indian tribes, state and local units of government, non-governmental organizations and individuals are eligible to submit proposals.

To learn more about CIG in Indiana, visit: http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/in/programs/financial/cig/.

For more information about NRCS and other technical and financial assistance available through conservation programs, visit www.nrcs.usda.gov/GetStarted or contact your District Conservationist http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/in/contact/local/.