November 11, 2010
Earlier this year it became clear the the son of Hubble the James Webb Space Telescope, was late and over budget. Costs had ballooned to 5 billion dollars (from the earlier 3.5 billion dollars) and launch was expected in 2014. It has now been acknowledged that costs will be not less than 6.5 billion dollars and launch even in 2015 is optimistic. The management is now being changed and reorganised.
The BBC has the story:
The scale of the delay and cost overrun blighting Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope has been laid bare by a panel called in to review the project. The successor to Hubble will probably cost at least $6.5bn to launch and operate, and may get into orbit by September 2015.
But even that assessment is optimistic, say the panel members. The head of the US space agency has accepted that “cost performance and coordination have been lacking”. Charles Bolden has ordered a reorganising of the project and has changed the management at its top. Estimates for JWST’s total cost to build, launch and operate have steadily increased over the years from $3.5bn to $5bn. Along with the cost growth, the schedule has also eroded.
The most recent projected launch of 2014 has looked under pressure for some time. The independent panel chaired by John Casani of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, believes it to be unrealistic. The group was convened to examine the root causes of JWST’s problems. It found the original budget for the project to be insufficient and poorly phased, and blamed the management for failing to pick up and deal with the issue.
“This is a very large complex project and to estimate something with any real degree of precision that’s never been done before is a tough job,” John Casani told reporters. “But the bottom line is that there was never enough money in the budget to execute the work that was required. The panel did however commend the technical success of the project. Mr Casani said the technology on JWST was in “very good shape”. The telescope was always regarded as major undertaking. Its primary mirror is 6.5m (21ft) across – close to three times wider than Hubble’s. The huge reflector will sit behind an even more expansive sun shield, the area of a tennis court. This structure will protect the observatory from radiation from the Sun and the Earth. Whereas Hubble sees the Universe mostly in visible light, JWST will observe the cosmos at longer wavelengths, in the infrared. It will see deeper into space and further back in time, to the very first population of stars.
When it is finally built, it will be launched on Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket and sent to an observing position 1.5 million km from Earth. It is expected to have a 10-year lifespan. Its distance from Earth means the telescope cannot be serviced by astronauts, as was the case with Hubble.
Tags: Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope, NASA, Project delays and cost over-runs
Posted in Astronomy, Engineering, Science, Space, Technology | Comments Off on Son of Hubble may not launch till after 2015
November 11, 2010
First flight of Boeing 787 No.2: Image via Wikipedia
An electrical fire could have a myriad of causes and does not necessarily have any fundamental design implications, but the Dreamliner does not need further delays even for fairly trivial faults.
The Press Association reports:
Boeing has grounded its test fleet of new 787 passenger jets while it investigates an electrical fire that forced one of the planes to make an emergency landing. On Tuesday, a 787 on a six-hour test flight had to make an emergency landing in Texas after the crew reported smoke in the rear of the plane.
Boeing said it would take several days to analyse flight data and stopped flights for all of its 787 test planes “until we better understand the cause of the incident”. Spokeswoman Loretta Gunter said it is not yet clear how long it will be until test flights resumed. “We don’t have a schedule in mind right now,” she said.
The company plans ground tests on the planes while they are not flying.
Ms Gunter said the fire started in a power control panel in a rear electronics bay on the test plane. Boeing is inspecting the power panel and the area around it to see if other repairs are needed. The fire cut the plane’s electrical power. Boeing said back-up systems including a ram air turbine – essentially a wind-powered generator – functioned as expected.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating Tuesday’s incident and the National Transportation Safety Board is monitoring the situation but has not sent investigators to the scene.
It is the latest setback for a plane that is already about three years behind schedule. Boeing had hoped to deliver the first 787, which it calls the Dreamliner, to Japan’s All Nippon Airways in the first quarter of next year.
“We are committed to finding the cause quickly but will not rush the technical team in its efforts,” the company said.
Tags: Boeing, Boeing 787, Dreamliner, Dreamliner delays, Electrical fire, Flight test
Posted in Aviation, Engineering, Technology | Comments Off on Now Boeing 787 Dreamliner delayed by fire on test flight
November 11, 2010
Sydney Morning Herald.
KPMG and regulators are too stupid to notice if an asset is overvalued and investment bankers are leeches, say the characters in an online video lampooning the working culture inside international investment banks.
I have seen how the Big 4 accounting firms behave over the last 30 years and this video thought to be made by employees of an investment bank is not so far away from reality.
SMH continues:
BusinessDay is not implying these events took place, but our source claims the videos were made as an in joke by current staff of a large multinational investment bank for former employees. Another video pokes fun at job descriptions in the corporate world after one of the characters meets a “business accelerator”, who was “somewhat vague in his description of his services, but he was very compelling”.
“Investment bankers are generally perceived to be sharks,” the man then says.
“We are also leeches, but we are leeches with a lot of smaller leeches clinging to our backs,” the lady responds.
The videos end with investment bankers heading out for a typical after-work activity – drinking beer and playing ping pong.
Tags: Big 4 accounting firms, Business, ethics, Investment Banks, KPMG, Valuations
Posted in Behaviour, Business, Ethics | Comments Off on “KPMG are stupid” – How valuations are made
November 10, 2010
A new paper published in PLoS Biology today uses “high precision ancient DNA methods” to create a detailed genetic picture of one of the first farming communities in Europe (from central Germany) which reveals that this ancient farming population was radically different to the nomadic populations already present in Europe.
Haak W, Balanovsky O, Sanchez JJ, Koshel S, Zaporozhchenko V, et al. (2010) Ancient DNA from European Early Neolithic Farmers Reveals Their Near Eastern Affinities. PLoS Biol 8(11): e1000536. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000536
The hunter-gatherers of Europe it seems did not change rapidly to become farmers. The farmers moved in (invaded?) from the near east and some 8,000 years ago gradually dominated the scene. From Science Daily:
A team of international researchers led by ancient DNA experts from the University of Adelaide has resolved the longstanding issue of the origins of the people who introduced farming to Europe some 8000 years ago. A detailed genetic study of one of the first farming communities in Europe, from central Germany, reveals marked similarities with populations living in the Ancient Near East (modern-day Turkey, Iraq and other countries) rather than those from Europe.
Project leader Professor Alan Cooper, Director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) at the University of Adelaide, says: “This overturns current thinking, which accepts that the first European farming populations were constructed largely from existing populations of hunter-gatherers, who had either rapidly learned to farm or interbred with the invaders.”
“We have finally resolved the question of who the first farmers in Europe were — invaders with revolutionary new ideas, rather than populations of Stone Age hunter-gatherers who already existed in the area,” says lead author Dr Wolfgang Haak, Senior Research Associate with ACAD at the University of Adelaide. “We have also been able to use genetic signatures to identify a potential route from the Near East and Anatolia, where farming evolved around 11,000 years ago, via south-eastern Europe and the Carpathian Basin (today’s Hungary) into Central Europe,” Dr Haak says.
The Author summary:
The transition from a hunter–gatherer existence to a sedentary farming-based lifestyle has had key consequences for human groups around the world and has profoundly shaped human societies. Originating in the Near East around 11,000 y ago, an agricultural lifestyle subsequently spread across Europe during the New Stone Age (Neolithic). Whether it was mediated by incoming farmers or driven by the transmission of innovative ideas and techniques remains a subject of continuing debate in archaeology, anthropology, and human population genetics. Ancient DNA from the earliest farmers can provide a direct view of the genetic diversity of these populations in the earliest Neolithic. Here, we compare Neolithic haplogroups and their diversity to a large database of extant European and Eurasian populations. We identified Neolithic haplotypes that left clear traces in modern populations, and the data suggest a route for the migrating farmers that extends from the Near East and Anatolia into Central Europe. When compared to indigenous hunter–gatherer populations, the unique and characteristic genetic signature of the early farmers suggests a significant demographic input from the Near East during the onset of farming in Europe.
Tags: Ancient DNA, Anthropology, Archaeology, Europe farming origins, History, hunter gatherers
Posted in Anthropology, Archeology, Evolution, History, Science | Comments Off on DNA evidence shows farming was not indigenous but was imported into Europe from the East
November 10, 2010
President Obama will cut short his visit to Indonesia by two hours to be able to meet a take-off window created by further ash eruptions from Mount Merapi volcano (431 km from Jakarta) last night and today. Some international flights to Jakarta on Wednesday and Thursday have been cancelled.
The Jakarta Globe.
Mount Merapi erupting again on Wednesday. Four airlines, including Qantas and Malaysia Air, have canceled flights to Jakarta. Some international flights to Bali have also been affected. (EPA Photo)
Indonesia’s Merapi volcano has forced a number of international airlines to cancel flights over concerns about air safety. The volcanic eruptions in central Java also forced United States President Barack Obama to cut short his visit to the country. Obama sliced several hours off his whirlwind 24-hour tour Wednesday.
Mount Merapi, hundreds of kilometers east of Jakarta, has been spewing massive clouds of ash and gas high into the air for more than two weeks, killing at least 153 people and causing travel chaos and forcing two nearby airports to shut down. Syaiful Bahri, who oversees operations at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, says that concerns about the ash also forced several international carriers to again cancel flights into and out of the capital. Among them were Cathay Pacific, Value Air, Qantas and Malaysia Air.
An Indonesian government volcanologist said the pace of the eruption had slowed, but Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific and Australia’s Qantas canceled flights because of the ash. Cathay said it had canceled flights to and from Jakarta on Wednesday and Thursday, while Qantas canceled a Sydney-Jakarta service on Wednesday. “Cathay Pacific will monitor and assess the situation and the possibility of operating flights,” the airline said on its website Wednesday. Jetstar, the low-cost offshoot of Qantas, has also changed its flight schedule for services to the Indonesian island of Bali, canceling flights that arrive at or depart from the popular holiday destination at night.
Officials said safety worries about the ash also meant Yogyakarta airport would stay closed until Monday next week at the earliest.
Tags: Central Java, flight cancellations, Indonesia, Mount Merapi ash, President's Obama's visit to Indonesia
Posted in Environment, Indonesia, Natural Disasters, Volcanos | Comments Off on New Merapi ash forces Obama to curtail visit, causes more flight cancellations
November 10, 2010
The Telegraph:
One of China’s leading credit rating agencies has downgraded United States of America government debt in response to what it sees as deliberate devaluation of the dollar by quantitative easing and other means.
If China, now the second biggest economy in the world, stops buying US government bonds this could have a very negative effect on the global recovery. The Dagong Global Credit Rating Company analysis is highly critical of American attempts to borrow their way out of debt. It criticises competitive currency devaluation and predicts a “long-term recession”.
Dagong Global Credit says: “In order to rescue the national crisis, the US government resorted to the extreme economic policy of depreciating the U.S. dollar at all costs and this fully exposes the deep-rooted problem in the development and the management model of national economy.
The analysis concludes: “The potential overall crisis in the world resulting from the US dollar depreciation will increase the uncertainty of the U.S. economic recovery. Under the circumstances that none of the economic factors influencing the U.S. economy has turned better explicitly it is possible that the US will continue to expand the use of its loose monetary policy, damaging the interests the creditors.
“Therefore, given the current situation, the United States may face much unpredictable risks in solvency in the coming one to two years. Accordingly, Dagong assigns negative outlook on both local and foreign currency sovereign credit ratings of the United States.”
Max King, global investment strategist at Investec Asset Management, said: “Dagong is well respected as an independent credit rating agency which takes a more conservative view than better-known American credit rating agencies.
“It is interesting to see what people with money outside the American sphere of influence think. Until recently, the US had been regarded as beyond reproach but now independent analysts say the position is deteriorating and likely to deteriorate further.
Meanwhile Xinhua reports the trade figures for October:
China’s exports rose 22.9 percent in October from a year earlier to 135.98 billion U.S. dollars, while imports increased 25.3 percent to 108.83 billion U.S. dollars, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said Wednesday.
China’s trade surplus expanded sharply to 27.15 billion U.S. dollars last month from 16.88 billion U.S. dollars in September, making the October figure the second highest this year after July’s 28.73 billion U.S. dollars.
The higher-than-expected trade surplus would add pressure for the yuan’s appreciation and exacerbate the already grave inflation problem in China, said ANZ Bank economist Liu Ligang.
In the first 10 months, China’s trade surplus totaled 147.77 billion U.S. dollars, down 6.7 percent compared with the same period last year.
Foreign trade with the European Union, China’s largest trade partner, grew 32.9 percent year on year to 388.42 billion U.S. dollars in the first 10 months.
Trade with the United States climbed 29.8 percent to 310.71 billion U.S. dollars during the January-October period. China-Japan trade totaled 239.28 billion U.S. dollars, up 31.3 percent year on year.
Tags: China, Currency wars, Trade surplus, US, US bonds
Posted in China, Currency, Economy, International Trade, US | Comments Off on China downgrades US bonds as trade surplus expands
November 10, 2010
It seems that Rolls Royce are facing issues with three different engines; the Trent 900 for the A380s, the RB211-524s having Trent features and the Trent 1000.
Singapore Airlines are grounding three of their A380s for engine change-outs as a precautionary measure.
AFP:
Singapore Airlines (SIA) said Wednesday it had grounded three Airbus A380 planes to carry out “precautionary” engine changes following a mid-air engine failure on a Qantas-operated superjumbo. “Based on further analysis of inspection findings as the investigation into last week’s incident involving another operator’s Airbus A380 is progressing, Singapore Airlines will be carrying out precautionary engine changes on three A380s,” the carrier said in a statement.
An SIA spokeswoman told AFP that Rolls Royce had advised the carrier to change the engines after tests showed oil stains on them. “We were advised by Rolls-Royce in particular that these three engines had signs of oil stains,” she said, stressing the issue was different from the problem that affected the Qantas A380 plane last week.
The three planes are now in London, Sydney and Melbourne pending the engine changes, and SIA could not confirm the duration of their grounding nor the cost of replacing the engines.
My simplistic view of what is certainly a very complicated picture is that there are certain operating conditions at which the Trent 900 is subject to oil leaks (possibly because some oil carrying pipes are susceptible to vibration based cracks). These operating conditions are probably when the Trent 900 is being “pushed” close to maximum thrust conditions and Qantas’ method of operation has these engines operating at these conditions for more of the time than other airlines. This mode of operation probably occurs more often at or soon after take-off.
Even though Rolls Royce has said that the issues with the Trent 1000 are entirely different and have been fixed, there remains the issue of whether the Trent based improvements when introduced into the RB211-524 engine also creates a “dangerous” operating zone.
It seems to me that Rolls Royce is wrestling with at least 3 different engine issues:
- with the Trent 900 for the A 380’s, especially at high-thrust conditions which Qantas uses more than other airlines,
- with the RB211-524 (xT) where the (T) represents the use of Trent features and used mainly in Boeing 747-400’s, and
- with the Trent 1000 for the Boeing Dreamliner where some issues have been fixed but where delays are still in the air.
I have no doubt that they are going to get fixed but the direct cost will be high and my guess is that Rolls Royce will have to bear the brunt of the cost with some costs incurred by Qantas for their own fleet. It will need the sale of many Trent 900s before Rolls Royce can amortise all the development and “teething” costs for this engine. It is of some small comfort that the number of engines to be “fixed in the field” is relatively small. The costs for Airbus will be mainly indirect for the loss of reputation and for some lost opportunities. But the A 380’s ability to land safely even after one wing was heavily damaged is not unimpressive.
Tags: Airbus, Airbus A380, Qantas, RB 211, Rolls Royce, Singapore Airlines, Trent 1000, Trent 900
Posted in Aviation, Engineering, Technology | Comments Off on Rolls Royce faces 3 different engine issues as Singapore Airlines changes engines on 3 A 380s
November 9, 2010
Bloomberg:
Air France-KLM Group and British Airways Plc were among 11 carriers fined a total of 799.4 million euros ($1.1 billion) by European Union regulators for coordinating fuel and security fees following the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Air France and its units got the biggest fine of 339.6 million euros. British Airways was fined 104 million euros and SAS Group AB got a 70.2 million-euros penalty, the European Commission said. Cargolux Airlines International SA, Europe’s third-biggest air-freight carrier, was fined 79.9 million euros.
“It is deplorable that so many major airlines coordinated their pricing,” EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almuniasaid. The extra costs in the aftermath of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, weren’t “an acceptable reason to stop competing,” Almunia told reporters.
U.S. authorities have already fined 18 airlines at least $1.6 billion and filed criminal charges against 14 executives for price-fixing.
Under EU rules, companies can be fined 10 percent of annual sales for antitrust violations. The commission typically opts for a penalty of from 2 percent to 3 percent of sales in cartel cases. Companies may appeal to EU courts.
The Journal of Commerce:
Air France KLM and British Airways, which were fined $350 million and $300 million respectively in the U.S., are among airlines facing substantial fines from the EU. Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, Alitalia and All Nippon Airways have earlier confirmed they have been investigated.
Lufthansa, Europe’s largest cargo carrier, is not facing a fine as it informed the Commission about the cartel’s activities.
The Commission’s decision will have an impact on several pending legal actions by shippers seeking damages they suffered due to the cartel’s activities. Several hundred European shippers, led by Swedish telecoms group Ericsson and Dutch electronics giant Philips, are suing Air France-KLM and its Martinair subsidiary for $560 million.
Tags: cartel, European Commissioner for Competition, European Union, freight, Price fixing
Posted in Aviation, Business, European Union, Fraud | Comments Off on EU Fines 11 Airlines for running a freight cartel
November 9, 2010
The Australian:
New suggestions have emerged that a spectacular engine failure near Singapore last week caused more damage to the plane involved than first thought. The No 2 engine’s violent disintegration ripped a hole through the Airbus A380’s left wing, destroying wiring that prevented the pilots from turning off the No 1 engine and causing a fuel leak. Suggestions have now emerged that there was also significant damage to hydraulic systems that prevented spoilers, panels on the wing that create drag to slow the plane down, from deploying.
The wrecked engine after the plane landed in Singapore.
The suggestions came as the Australian Transport Safety Bureau yesterday interviewed the flight crew of the stricken A380 and performed the first boroscope inspection of the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine. Investigators are continuing their search for the rest of a turbine disc that broke up in the incident and have set up a schedule for examining a recovered piece that has been sent to Britain for forensic tests.
Inspections of the grounded planes continued yesterday amid suggestions European regulators were poised to issue an airworthiness directive on the checks.
With this amount of damage to the wing it is a tribute to the pilots and to the Airbus A380 aircraft that the landing in Singapore was as smooth as it was and with no injuries at all.
Rolls Royce has said that the issues are specific to the Trent 900 and there are further indications that the issues may be specific to the engines as used by Qantas.
Meanwhile
Rolls-Royce says that the uncontained engine failure on a Qantas Airbus A380 en route from Singapore to Sydney on November 4 “is specific to the Trent 900. We can be certain that the separate Trent 1000 event which occurred in August 2010 on a test bed in Derby is unconnected,” Rolls-Royce said in a statement yesterday. “This incident happened during a development program with an engine operating outside normal parameters. We understand the cause and a solution has been implemented.”
The engine maker added that it would provide a further update on the investigation with its interim management statement on November 12.
Tags: Airbus A380, Qantas, Trent 1000, Trent 900, Trent 900 failures, Uncontained failure
Posted in Australia, Aviation, Engineering, Technology | 1 Comment »
November 9, 2010
From Asahi News:
Japanese companies posted huge increases in sales and profits in the first half of fiscal 2010, but the “China risks” coupled with the strong yen threaten to pummel performances in the second half.
Toyota Motor Executive Vice President Satoshi Ozawa releases business results in Tokyo on Friday. (The Asahi Shimbun)
Aggregate sales rose 11.6 percent from a year ago, while pretax profits increased 131.7 percent and net profits soared 179.8 percent, according to Nikko Cordial Securities Inc.’s survey of 650 companies listed in the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange that had released their half-year results by Thursday.
But the companies say the business turnaround could be short-lived depending on what happens in China. Chinese exports of rare earth minerals, vital ingredients in high-tech production, were stalled in September when Beijing demanded the release of a Chinese captain whose fishing boat rammed Japan Coast Guard vessels near the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. The de facto ban on rare earth exports to Japan came on top of China’s increasingly tight export quotas on the materials.
Chinese imports account for more than 80 percent of clothes sold in supermarkets and other stores operated by Aeon.
Many manufacturers say they have secured rare earth supplies for the short term, but a prolonged delay in delivery would inevitably hit them hard.
Japan is pursuing alternative supply sources in India and elsewhere to reduce Japan’s reliance on China, which accounts for 97 percent of the world’s supply. But such development will take time.
While trading firm Toyota Tsusho Corp. is developing rare earth mines in Vietnam, Executive Vice President Kenji Takanashi said the work “will take at least two to three years.”
Meanwhile, export-oriented companies say their efforts to fend off the impact from the yen’s appreciation are reaching their limits. Toyota Motor Corp., for example, expects currency exchange losses to total 320 billion yen ($3.94 billion) for the year ending in March, which will more than offset its estimated profit rise from sales increases totaling 280 billion yen.
Tags: China risks, Chinese rare earth supply, half year results, Japan, strong yen, Tokyo Stock Exchange
Posted in Business, Economy, Japan, Management, Materials | Comments Off on In spite of strong yen, Japan Inc’s sales and profits soar
