Posted By Kedar Pavgi Share

When space programs have some sort of setback, it's usually tied to an arithmetic error, or because of the sheer complexity of launching something into outer space. For Russian Federal Space Agency Director Vladimir Popovkin, however, the problems facing Roskosmos lie with the intrigues of his rivals. In an article published by the AFP, Popovkin hinted that the space agency's recent failures are due to foreign interference. From the AFP:

Roskosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin told the Izvestia daily he could not understand why several launches went awry at precisely the moment the spacecraft were travelling through areas invisible to Russian radar.

"It is unclear why our setbacks often occur when the vessels are travelling through what for Russia is the 'dark' side of the Earth -- in areas where we do not see the craft and do not receive its telemetry readings," he said.

"I do not want to blame anyone, but today there are some very powerful countermeasures that can be used against spacecraft whose use we cannot exclude," Popovkin told the daily.

Of course, Popovkin may simply be trying to distract the Kremlin as his space agency comes under greater scrutiny after a rough 2011. In April, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin fired the agency's director after a defense satellite was sent into the wrong orbit. Several months later, a Mars probe got stuck in Earth's orbit (fragments of the probe are expected to hit Earth on Sunday). The humiliations come as Roskosmos' importance increases after the retirement of NASA's space shuttle program. The agency has also been working to launch GLONASS, Russia's competitor to the GPS used by the U.S. military and consumers. 

While there has been some space rivalry in recent years, there haven't been any known  instances of countries directly sabotaging space flights, as Popovkin claims. Once we reach that point, it won't be long before we hit Moonraker status.

EXPLORE:EASTERN EUROPE
 

SCOOP

4:20 PM ET

January 10, 2012

Hindsight is always 20/20...

The decision to retire the Space Shuttle by Dwayne A. Day, The Space Review, July 18, 2011

"The 2010 date was not selected based upon an expectation of the material condition of the orbiters seven years after the CAIB report was released. It was selected because that was when Board members believed that construction of the International Space Station would be complete. Soon after, NASA established 2010 as the retirement date for the shuttle. However, without a replacement in the works, and not having begun a parallel commercial-based path years earlier, the government had made a de facto choice regarding an interim replacement—the Russian Soyuz."

 
 

MUSARASHEED

5:49 AM ET

January 11, 2012

This is all due to Obama.

This is all due to Obama. Obama is making failure of these indutries :@
Anatomy of a Government Shutdown

“Of course a shutdown is possible because that's what the Republicans are threatening us with on national TV, Meet the Press or one of those dandies or whatever the show was. The Republican leader was asked, and I'm paraphrasing, 'is there going to be a government shutdown?' and he wouldn't respond to the question. So, this isn't Schumer or Reid or Hoyer. Of course it's a possibility. That's what we're trying to avoid."

-- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid talking to reporters about House Speaker John Boehner

President Obama warned of stopped Social Security checks and issued a formal veto threat Tuesday to the Republican spending plan currently being debated in the House, setting the stage for a potential government shutdown next month.

Democrats in the last congress did not pass a budget at all, so the government has run on a series of stopgap spending extensions since October. The current one expires March 4.

Republicans, now in control of the House, have worked up a plan to fund the government to the end of the year that reduces spending $61 billion from 2010 levels and $100 billion from what Obama has requested. The House will have a second day of contentious debate on the spending plan as hard-line deficit hawks and pro-spending liberals take turns trying to amend the bill.

Despite all the falderal, final passage is anticipated Thursday, and attention is already shifting to the Senate.

There, the 47-member Republican minority is suggesting that their cuts will look different than the ones made by their friends in the House, but that they will try to match the volume of reductions. That provides a chance for the Senate GOP to start working on a compromise with moderate Democrats to find the 13 votes needed to push through a plan (more if ultra hawks like Sen. Rand Paul fly away).

Knowing the way the Senate operates, Power Play predicts that the final Senate legislation will be halfway between the Obama proposal and the House bill. That’s just how they roll.

Then, the House has to decide whether it can accept the compromise legislation. This would be the first chance for a government shutdown.

Senators are working up a short-term spending measure to provide more time for negotiations, but even that will be controversial among the most conservative members of the House. But there would likely be enough moderate Republicans and Democrats to back a very short-term extension – perhaps three weeks – to finish the negotiations.

It will then be up to a similar coalition of Blue Dog Democrats and most Republicans to put through the Senate plan over Tea Party protests. This is when things will get very dicey for the House leadership. There are many in their caucus who would much rather see the government shut down than yield in their pledge to slash spending.

But, some legislation will emerge from Congress, with cuts likely a little deeper than those passed by the Senate – a compromise of the compromise. Then it’s up to Obama to decide if he will accept.

Remember, because Democrats failed to pass a budget last year, the responsibility falls to Obama for any potential government shutdown. Unlike 1995 when the battle was over President Bill Clinton refusing to sign a Republican-passed budget, Obama will be put in the position of refusing to sign a stopgap spending proposal necessary because his party didn’t act in the previous year. This is not a long-term priority issue. This is an emergency appropriation.

Another major difference from 1995 is that with a Democratic Senate, Obama will have his chance to work his will before the legislation gets to his desk.

Hanging over all of this is the administration’s demand that Congress increase the federal debt limit from the current $14.3 trillion. Speaker John Boehner’s team has enhanced the Republican bargaining position here by detaching the debt limit issue from the budget. The House previously made such increases a part of spending bills, but the GOP is setting the issue aside for consideration.

That gives Republicans more time to pressure Obama for cuts – potentially as late as May.

Sen. Pat Toomey today will defend in a speech the Republican position that not increasing the debt limit does not necessarily mean defaulting on U.S. obligations. In 1995, President Bill Clinton used the default trigger as his reason for shutting down the government.

In Obama’s press conference Tuesday, he warned of an end to Social Security checks and veterans pension payments if Republicans didn’t produce a “responsible” spending plan.

But despite Democratic confidence that another shutdown would be a repeat of 1995 when then-Speaker Newt Gingrich lost his showdown with Bill Clinton, Obama seems unlikely to veto a spending plan and shut down the government rather than sign a measure produced with some bipartisan support and relating to only 15 percent of the budget for half of one year.

Boehner Goes Jersey on Government Workers

“To the extent that people are finding any type of attraction to what I’m doing, it’s mostly because I’m being straight with them. It’s not a bunch of prepared hooey, read off a teleprompter.”

-- Gov. Chris Christe, R-N.J., to Politico

Democrats are wailing with outrage over House Speaker John Boehner’s statement Tuesday that if Republican spending plans mean the loss of some of the 200,000 federal jobs added in the past two years then “so be it.”

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her team are denouncing Republican callousness on the issue of unemployment at a moment of economic fragility, and suggesting that those government jobs are helping to turn the economy around.

It should be helpful to Boehner that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is in town today to give a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. The pugnacious Republican has made a political virtue of his war with public employees in New Jersey. His battle with government unions was once forecast as political doom in a state so heavily dominated by public employee labor groups.

Of course, Christie also has the advantage that over-taxed New Jerseyans had reached a point of great desperation and were willing to consider drastic measures after the disastrous term of Gov. Jon Corzine (D).

But national frustration with public workers and government unions has grown too. The wide disparities in salary and benefits between government and private-sector workers have caused deep irritation.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated that in 2009 federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 while private workers made $61,051. The gap was double what it had been in 2000.

Christie has shown that pushing back against privileged government workers with high pay and tremendous job security can have popular appeal, even in a state as dependent on government employment as New Jersey.

Democrats may find that other Republicans, including Boehner, have success in embracing the Christie approach.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/16/obama-issues-government-shutdown-threat/#ixzz1j8qVkon0
Anatomy of a Government Shutdown

“Of course a shutdown is possible because that's what the Republicans are threatening us with on national TV, Meet the Press or one of those dandies or whatever the show was. The Republican leader was asked, and I'm paraphrasing, 'is there going to be a government shutdown?' and he wouldn't respond to the question. So, this isn't Schumer or Reid or Hoyer. Of course it's a possibility. That's what we're trying to avoid."

-- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid talking to reporters about House Speaker John Boehner

President Obama warned of stopped Social Security checks and issued a formal veto threat Tuesday to the Republican spending plan currently being debated in the House, setting the stage for a potential government shutdown next month.

Democrats in the last congress did not pass a budget at all, so the government has run on a series of stopgap spending extensions since October. The current one expires March 4.

Republicans, now in control of the House, have worked up a plan to fund the government to the end of the year that reduces spending $61 billion from 2010 levels and $100 billion from what Obama has requested. The House will have a second day of contentious debate on the spending plan as hard-line deficit hawks and pro-spending liberals take turns trying to amend the bill.

Despite all the falderal, final passage is anticipated Thursday, and attention is already shifting to the Senate.

There, the 47-member Republican minority is suggesting that their cuts will look different than the ones made by their friends in the House, but that they will try to match the volume of reductions. That provides a chance for the Senate GOP to start working on a compromise with moderate Democrats to find the 13 votes needed to push through a plan (more if ultra hawks like Sen. Rand Paul fly away).

Knowing the way the Senate operates, Power Play predicts that the final Senate legislation will be halfway between the Obama proposal and the House bill. That’s just how they roll.

Then, the House has to decide whether it can accept the compromise legislation. This would be the first chance for a government shutdown.

Senators are working up a short-term spending measure to provide more time for negotiations, but even that will be controversial among the most conservative members of the House. But there would likely be enough moderate Republicans and Democrats to back a very short-term extension – perhaps three weeks – to finish the negotiations.

It will then be up to a similar coalition of Blue Dog Democrats and most Republicans to put through the Senate plan over Tea Party protests. This is when things will get very dicey for the House leadership. There are many in their caucus who would much rather see the government shut down than yield in their pledge to slash spending.

But, some legislation will emerge from Congress, with cuts likely a little deeper than those passed by the Senate – a compromise of the compromise. Then it’s up to Obama to decide if he will accept.

Remember, because Democrats failed to pass a budget last year, the responsibility falls to Obama for any potential government shutdown. Unlike 1995 when the battle was over President Bill Clinton refusing to sign a Republican-passed budget, Obama will be put in the position of refusing to sign a stopgap spending proposal necessary because his party didn’t act in the previous year. This is not a long-term priority issue. This is an emergency appropriation.

Another major difference from 1995 is that with a Democratic Senate, Obama will have his chance to work his will before the legislation gets to his desk.

Hanging over all of this is the administration’s demand that Congress increase the federal debt limit from the current $14.3 trillion. Speaker John Boehner’s team has enhanced the Republican bargaining position here by detaching the debt limit issue from the budget. The House previously made such increases a part of spending bills, but the GOP is setting the issue aside for consideration.

That gives Republicans more time to pressure Obama for cuts – potentially as late as May.

Sen. Pat Toomey today will defend in a speech the Republican position that not increasing the debt limit does not necessarily mean defaulting on U.S. obligations. In 1995, President Bill Clinton used the default trigger as his reason for shutting down the government.

In Obama’s press conference Tuesday, he warned of an end to Social Security checks and veterans pension payments if Republicans didn’t produce a “responsible” spending plan.

But despite Democratic confidence that another shutdown would be a repeat of 1995 when then-Speaker Newt Gingrich lost his showdown with Bill Clinton, Obama seems unlikely to veto a spending plan and shut down the government rather than sign a measure produced with some bipartisan support and relating to only 15 percent of the budget for half of one year.

Boehner Goes Jersey on Government Workers

“To the extent that people are finding any type of attraction to what I’m doing, it’s mostly because I’m being straight with them. It’s not a bunch of prepared hooey, read off a teleprompter.”

-- Gov. Chris Christe, R-N.J., to Politico

Democrats are wailing with outrage over House Speaker John Boehner’s statement Tuesday that if Republican spending plans mean the loss of some of the 200,000 federal jobs added in the past two years then “so be it.”

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her team are denouncing Republican callousness on the issue of unemployment at a moment of economic fragility, and suggesting that those government jobs are helping to turn the economy around.

It should be helpful to Boehner that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is in town today to give a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. The pugnacious Republican has made a political virtue of his war with public employees in New Jersey. His battle with government unions was once forecast as political doom in a state so heavily dominated by public employee labor groups.

Of course, Christie also has the advantage that over-taxed New Jerseyans had reached a point of great desperation and were willing to consider drastic measures after the disastrous term of Gov. Jon Corzine (D).

But national frustration with public workers and government unions has grown too. The wide disparities in salary and benefits between government and private-sector workers have caused deep irritation.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated that in 2009 federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 while private workers made $61,051. The gap was double what it had been in 2000.

Christie has shown that pushing back against privileged government workers with high pay and tremendous job security can have popular appeal, even in a state as dependent on government employment as New Jersey.

Democrats may find that other Republicans, including Boehner, have success in embracing the Christie approach.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/16/obama-issues-government-shutdown-threat/#ixzz1j8qVkon0

Thanks

Admin of wall clocks | tea kettles

 

MIKERAMSEY

1:10 PM ET

January 13, 2012

Good reply

This is all due to Obama. Obama is making failure of these indutries :@
Anatomy of a Government Shutdown

“Of course a shutdown is possible because that's what the Republicans are threatening us with on national TV, Meet the Press or one of those dandies or whatever the show was. The Republican leader was asked, and I'm paraphrasing, 'is there going to be a government shutdown?' and he wouldn't respond to the question. So, this isn't Schumer or Reid or Hoyer. Of course it's a possibility. That's what we're trying to avoid."

-- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid talking to reporters about House Speaker John Boehner

President Obama warned of stopped Social Security checks and issued a formal veto threat Tuesday to the Republican spending plan currently being debated in the House, setting the stage for a potential government shutdown next month.

Democrats in the last congress did not pass a budget at all, so the government has run on a series of stopgap spending extensions since October. The current one expires March 4.

Republicans, now in control of the House, have worked up a plan to fund the government to the end of the year that reduces spending $61 billion from 2010 levels and $100 billion from what Obama has requested. The House will have a second day of contentious debate on the spending plan as hard-line deficit hawks and pro-spending liberals take turns trying to amend the bill.

Despite all the falderal, final passage is anticipated Thursday, and attention is already shifting to the Senate.

There, the 47-member Republican minority is suggesting that their cuts will look different than the ones made by their friends in the House, but that they will try to match the volume of reductions. That provides a chance for the Senate GOP to start working on a compromise with moderate Democrats to find the 13 votes needed to push through a plan (more if ultra hawks like Sen. Rand Paul fly away).

Knowing the way the Senate operates, Power Play predicts that the final Senate legislation will be halfway between the Obama proposal and the House bill. That’s just how they roll.

Then, the House has to decide whether it can accept the compromise legislation. This would be the first chance for a government shutdown.

Senators are working up a short-term spending measure to provide more time for negotiations, but even that will be controversial among the most conservative members of the House. But there would likely be enough moderate Republicans and Democrats to back a very short-term extension – perhaps three weeks – to finish the negotiations.

It will then be up to a similar coalition of Blue Dog Democrats and most Republicans to put through the Senate plan over Tea Party protests. This is when things will get very dicey for the House leadership. There are many in their caucus who would much rather see the government shut down than yield in their pledge to slash spending.

But, some legislation will emerge from Congress, with cuts likely a little deeper than those passed by the Senate – a compromise of the compromise. Then it’s up to Obama to decide if he will accept.

Remember, because Democrats failed to pass a budget last year, the responsibility falls to Obama for any potential government shutdown. Unlike 1995 when the battle was over President Bill Clinton refusing to sign a Republican-passed budget, Obama will be put in the position of refusing to sign a stopgap spending proposal necessary because his party didn’t act in the previous year. This is not a long-term priority issue. This is an emergency appropriation.

Another major difference from 1995 is that with a Democratic Senate, Obama will have his chance to work his will before the legislation gets to his desk.

Hanging over all of this is the administration’s demand that Congress increase the federal debt limit from the current $14.3 trillion. Speaker John Boehner’s team has enhanced the Republican bargaining position here by detaching the debt limit issue from the budget. The House previously made such increases a part of spending bills, but the GOP is setting the issue aside for consideration.

That gives Republicans more time to pressure Obama for cuts – potentially as late as May.

Sen. Pat Toomey today will defend in a speech the Republican position that not increasing the debt limit does not necessarily mean defaulting on U.S. obligations. In 1995, President Bill Clinton used the default trigger as his reason for shutting down the government.

In Obama’s press conference Tuesday, he warned of an end to Social Security checks and veterans pension payments if Republicans didn’t produce a “responsible” spending plan.

But despite Democratic confidence that another shutdown would be a repeat of 1995 when then-Speaker Newt Gingrich lost his showdown with Bill Clinton, Obama seems unlikely to veto a spending plan and shut down the government rather than sign a measure produced with some bipartisan support and relating to only 15 percent of the budget for half of one year.

Boehner Goes Jersey on Government Workers

“To the extent that people are finding any type of attraction to what I’m doing, it’s mostly because I’m being straight with them. It’s not a bunch of prepared hooey, read off a teleprompter.”

-- Gov. Chris Christe, R-N.J., to Politico

Democrats are wailing with outrage over House Speaker John Boehner’s statement Tuesday that if Republican spending plans mean the loss of some of the 200,000 federal jobs added in the past two years then “so be it.”

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her team are denouncing Republican callousness on the issue of unemployment at a moment of economic fragility, and suggesting that those government jobs are helping to turn the economy around.

It should be helpful to Boehner that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is in town today to give a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. The pugnacious Republican has made a political virtue of his war with public employees in New Jersey. His battle with government unions was once forecast as political doom in a state so heavily dominated by public employee labor groups.

Of course, Christie also has the advantage that over-taxed New Jerseyans had reached a point of great desperation and were willing to consider drastic measures after the disastrous term of Gov. Jon Corzine (D).

But national frustration with public workers and government unions has grown too. The wide disparities in salary and benefits between government and private-sector workers have caused deep irritation.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated that in 2009 federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 while private workers made $61,051. The gap was double what it had been in 2000.

Christie has shown that pushing back against privileged government workers with high pay and tremendous job security can have popular appeal, even in a state as dependent on government employment as New Jersey.

Democrats may find that other Republicans, including Boehner, have success in embracing the Christie approach.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/16/obama-issues-government-shutdown-threat/#ixzz1j8qVkon0
Anatomy of a Government Shutdown

“Of course a shutdown is possible because that's what the Republicans are threatening us with on national TV, Meet the Press or one of those dandies or whatever the show was. The Republican leader was asked, and I'm paraphrasing, 'is there going to be a government shutdown?' and he wouldn't respond to the question. So, this isn't Schumer or Reid or Hoyer. Of course it's a possibility. That's what we're trying to avoid."

-- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid talking to reporters about House Speaker John Boehner

President Obama warned of stopped Social Security checks and issued a formal veto threat Tuesday to the Republican spending plan currently being debated in the House, setting the stage for a potential government shutdown next month.

Democrats in the last congress did not pass a budget at all, so the government has run on a series of stopgap spending extensions since October. The current one expires March 4.

Republicans, now in control of the House, have worked up a plan to fund the government to the end of the year that reduces spending $61 billion from 2010 levels and $100 billion from what Obama has requested. The House will have a second day of contentious debate on the spending plan as hard-line deficit hawks and pro-spending liberals take turns trying to amend the bill.

Despite all the falderal, final passage is anticipated Thursday, and attention is already shifting to the Senate.

There, the 47-member Republican minority is suggesting that their cuts will look different than the ones made by their friends in the House, but that they will try to match the volume of reductions. That provides a chance for the Senate GOP to start working on a compromise with moderate Democrats to find the 13 votes needed to push through a plan (more if ultra hawks like Sen. Rand Paul fly away).

Knowing the way the Senate operates, Power Play predicts that the final Senate legislation will be halfway between the Obama proposal and the House bill. That’s just how they roll.

Then, the House has to decide whether it can accept the compromise legislation. This would be the first chance for a government shutdown.

Senators are working up a short-term spending measure to provide more time for negotiations, but even that will be controversial among the most conservative members of the House. But there would likely be enough moderate Republicans and Democrats to back a very short-term extension – perhaps three weeks – to finish the negotiations.

It will then be up to a similar coalition of Blue Dog Democrats and most Republicans to put through the Senate plan over Tea Party protests. This is when things will get very dicey for the House leadership. There are many in their caucus who would much rather see the government shut down than yield in their pledge to slash spending.

But, some legislation will emerge from Congress, with cuts likely a little deeper than those passed by the Senate – a compromise of the compromise. Then it’s up to Obama to decide if he will accept.

Remember, because Democrats failed to pass a budget last year, the responsibility falls to Obama for any potential government shutdown. Unlike 1995 when the battle was over President Bill Clinton refusing to sign a Republican-passed budget, Obama will be put in the position of refusing to sign a stopgap spending proposal necessary because his party didn’t act in the previous year. This is not a long-term priority issue. This is an emergency appropriation.

Another major difference from 1995 is that with a Democratic Senate, Obama will have his chance to work his will before the legislation gets to his desk.

Hanging over all of this is the administration’s demand that Congress increase the federal debt limit from the current $14.3 trillion. Speaker John Boehner’s team has enhanced the Republican bargaining position here by detaching the debt limit issue from the budget. The House previously made such increases a part of spending bills, but the GOP is setting the issue aside for consideration.

That gives Republicans more time to pressure Obama for cuts – potentially as late as May.

Sen. Pat Toomey today will defend in a speech the Republican position that not increasing the debt limit does not necessarily mean defaulting on U.S. obligations. In 1995, President Bill Clinton used the default trigger as his reason for shutting down the government.

In Obama’s press conference Tuesday, he warned of an end to Social Security checks and veterans pension payments if Republicans didn’t produce a “responsible” spending plan.

But despite Democratic confidence that another shutdown would be a repeat of 1995 when then-Speaker Newt Gingrich lost his showdown with Bill Clinton, Obama seems unlikely to veto a spending plan and shut down the government rather than sign a measure produced with some bipartisan support and relating to only 15 percent of the budget for half of one year.

Boehner Goes Jersey on Government Workers

“To the extent that people are finding any type of attraction to what I’m doing, it’s mostly because I’m being straight with them. It’s not a bunch of prepared hooey, read off a teleprompter.”

-- Gov. Chris Christe, R-N.J., to Politico

Democrats are wailing with outrage over House Speaker John Boehner’s statement Tuesday that if Republican spending plans mean the loss of some of the 200,000 federal jobs added in the past two years then “so be it.”

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her team are denouncing Republican callousness on the issue of unemployment at a moment of economic fragility, and suggesting that those government jobs are helping to turn the economy around.

It should be helpful to Boehner that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is in town today to give a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. The pugnacious Republican has made a political virtue of his war with public employees in New Jersey. His battle with government unions was once forecast as political doom in a state so heavily dominated by public employee labor groups.

Of course, Christie also has the advantage that over-taxed New Jerseyans had reached a point of great desperation and were willing to consider drastic measures after the disastrous term of Gov. Jon Corzine (D).

But national frustration with public workers and government unions has grown too. The wide disparities in salary and benefits between government and private-sector workers have caused deep irritation.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated that in 2009 federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 while private workers made $61,051. The gap was double what it had been in 2000.

Christie has shown that pushing back against privileged government workers with high pay and tremendous job security can have popular appeal, even in a state as dependent on government employment as New Jersey.

Democrats may find that other Republicans, including Boehner, have success in embracing the Christie approach.

Thanks

you should run a Travel agency to learn new things.

 

Passport, FP’s flagship blog, brings you news and hidden angles on the biggest stories of the day, as well as insights and under-the-radar gems from around the world.

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