Kermit the frog???? Oh it's Ted Cruz.....

Cruz aims to take on Obama if GOP wins Senate; won’t vow support for McConnell

By Sebastian Payne and Robert Costa

Sen. Ted Cruz spent the final weekend of the midterms on the far edge of the country trying to help fellow Republican Dan Sullivan win a race the GOP is counting on in its effort to retake the Senate.
It’s a team-player role the tea party firebrand from Texas has filled a handful of times this fall — but one he plans to abandon if Republicans win control of both congressional chambers.

In an interview at the Hotel Captain Cook here between campaign stops for Sullivan, Cruz made it clear he would push hard for a Republican-led Senate to be as conservative and confron­tational as the Republican-led House.

Piggybacking on what House leaders have done, Cruz said the first order of business should be a series of hearings on President Obama, “looking at the abuse of power, the executive abuse, the regulatory abuse, the lawlessness that sadly has pervaded this administration.”

Cruz also would like the Senate to be as aggressive in trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act as the House, which has voted more than 50 times to get rid of the law.

Republicans should “pursue every means possible to repeal Obamacare,” Cruz said, including forcing a vote through parliamentary procedures that would get around a possible filibuster by Democrats. If that leads to a veto by Obama, Cruz said, Republicans should then vote on provisions of the health law “one at a time.”

And when asked whether he would back Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky for Republican leader, Cruz would not pledge his support — an indication that there are limits to how much of a partner he’s willing to be.

At the heart of Cruz’s shift from the insular approach that defined his first year in office is a belief that he can use his popularity with conservatives to expand his influence in the Senate and improve his standing as he considers a 2016 presidential campaign.

Cruz’s desire to turn his party further right in the coming months is one of the challenges already facing McConnell should Republicans regain the Senate, with tea party leaders inside and outside the Capitol spoiling for a number of hard-line moves.

“Senator Cruz has been rather quiet over the past few months,” said Ron Bonjean, a spokesman for Trent Lott when the Mississippian was the Senate Republican leader. “That time seems to be coming to an end. I understand why he’s eager to go after Obamacare. But the reality is that it’ll take 60 votes to repeal it and Republicans will have nowhere near that amount. If Obamacare remains the focus, he will certainly get the base jazzed up about what he’s doing, but he won’t get rid of the law.”

Cruz has gained some traction in terms of shaping the contours of what a Republican Senate would do, in part because McConnell and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) have not offered their own definitive vision of what a Republican-led Congress would look like.

Two weeks ago, Cruz wrote an opinion piece in USA Today laying out 10 conservative priorities he thinks Republicans should pursue, including moving toward a flat tax and drawing a hard line on illegal immigrants. In the interview here, Cruz reiterated some of those points, such as approving the Keystone XL pipeline.

McConnell has mostly been coy about what he would like to accomplish other than adding amendments to curb federal regulations to spending bills as a means of putting pressure on the president.

“It’s never a good idea to tell the other side what the first play is going to be,” McConnell said at an event last month.

Cruz is not interested in adding amendments that may put indirect pressure on Obama. He favors direct political combat. That way, either the president gives in, or, Cruz said, “you have clear accountability. It becomes transparent to everyone that it is the Democrats blocking meaningful progress.”

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), a Long Island moderate, said Republicans should be wary of Cruz’s guidance. “He is the last one we should listen to,” King said in an interview Sunday. “Don’t forget — a year ago he brought Republicans over the cliff.”

Still, Cruz’s help on the trail has improved his image among some Republicans, while easing a measure of the anger aimed at him from some of the donors and colleagues he infuriated in October 2013 when he led a shutdown of the government.

Cruz should be able to count on a handful of new friends, if not allies, when the Senate convenes next year. In recent weeks, he has campaigned for Senate contenders who beat Cruz-admiring insurgents in Republican primaries, from businessman David Perdue in Georgia and state Sen. Joni Ernst in Iowa to Sullivan and Sen. Pat Roberts, Kansas’s embattled incumbent.

If she wins, Ernst is poised to be a powerful player in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses, the first nominating contest in the 2016 race for the GOP presidential nomination. Perdue, who has weak ties to his red state’s GOP base, could hew close to Cruz on some votes to keep conservatives in Georgia at bay. Sullivan, for similar reasons, could do the same.

Cruz is not the only conservative Republican with national ambitions who is working to show skeptical Republicans that they can do more than squabble. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has cut ads for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of the groups that opposed tea party candidates in Senate primaries, and stumped for moderate former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown, who is running for Senate in New Hampshire.

Cruz declined to say whether he’s going to run for president, but was dismissive of moderates in his party, particularly those who may challenge him for the 2016 Republican nomination. Of Jeb Bush, for instance, Cruz said he likes and respects him, “but I think we have seen election after election that when Republicans fail to draw a clear distinction with the Democrats, when we run to the mushy middle, we lose.”

“At some point,” Cruz continued, “after Gerald Ford and Bob Dole and John McCain and Mitt Romney . . . we shouldn’t keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

“One of the reasons Republicans have lost elections recently is that we have failed to engage in a meaningful way on the great issues of the day,” Cruz said. “We’ve played a prevent defense. You don’t win elections that way.”

A Flood of Spending

A Flood of Late Spending on Midterm Elections, From Murky Sources

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and DEREK WILLIS

A stealthy coterie of difficult-to-trace outside groups is slipping tens of millions of dollars of attacks ads and negative automated telephone calls into the final days of the midterm campaign, helping fuel an unprecedented surge of last-minute spending on Senate races.

Much of the advertising is being timed to ensure that no voter will know who is paying for it until after the election on Tuesday. Some of the groups are “super PACs” that did not exist before Labor Day but have since spent heavily on political advertising, adding to the volatility of close Senate and House races.

Others formed earlier in the year but remained dormant until recently, reporting few or no contributions in recent filings with the Federal Election Commission, only to unleash six- and seven-figure advertising campaigns as Election Day draws near. Yet more spending is coming from nonprofit organizations with bland names that have popped up in recent weeks but appear to have no life beyond being a conduit for the ads.

The groups’ last-minute fusillade of attacks helped push outside spending in races around the country to an average of at least $20 million a day last week. Total spending on Senate races reached $200 million in October alone, significantly more than in the same period before the 2010 midterms.

One late-spending group, known only as B-PAC, registered with a Washington address in September and has spent at least $2.2 million on election advertising in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan and New Hampshire — hundreds of thousands of dollars more than the group has reported raising so far. Its golf-themed ads, suggesting that President Obama has lied about his foreign policy, urge voters to back Republican Senate candidates, including Representative Cory Gardner in Colorado and State Senator Joni Ernst in Iowa, and ask: “Do you feel safer than you did six years ago?”

In New Hampshire, a nonprofit known as the Council for American Job Growth, is spending at least $1 million defending Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, who is fending off a challenge from Scott P. Brown, a Republican and former Massachusetts senator. The group, which does not disclose its donors, is linked to the pro-immigration organization Fwd.us, but its ads make no mention of immigration. Instead, they praise Ms. Shaheen’s work on behalf of veterans.

The onslaught shows how fast and aggressive strategists and donors in both parties have become about using the array of tools now available for pouring a lot of late cash into races. The efforts are a byproduct of court rulings like Citizens United and lax enforcement by the election commission and the Internal Revenue Service.

“In an inexpensive market like Topeka or Joplin, an independent group with minimal resources can come in, own that market for three weeks and can have a major impact on a campaign,” said Chris LaCivita, a strategist for Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, who is seeking re-election and has been bolstered by millions of dollars in spending by groups formed in recent weeks.

At least 90 political nonprofits, super PACs and outside groups did not spend any money until the beginning of October, according to a New York Times analysis. Among them are 18 groups that did not exist in September, and that had collectively spent almost $9 million through Thursday.

Several are spending money they did not have on Oct. 15, the last day before Election Day for which super PACs must disclose contributions. One late-spending super PAC called Arkansas Horizon has spent more than $1 million in the last two weeks on ads attacking Senator Mark Pryor, a Democrat — far more than the cash on hand it reported as of mid-October.

In Kansas, a group called the Alliance for a Free Society has dumped almost half a million dollars into the Senate race there, attacking the independent candidate, Greg Orman. In one ad, a man identified only as a Kansas rancher named John attacks Mr. Orman as a closet Democrat who is “not being honest with us.”

The alliance, registered in Delaware as a nonprofit corporation, was formed in July, and until recently did not even have a website. Documents filed with the Federal Election Commission indicated that the group was connected to a former executive of Koch Industries, the Kansas-based conglomerate owned by the brothers Charles G. and David H. Kock.

Yet another new super PAC, American Future Fund Political Action, reported having just $56,000 in mid-October, according to election commission reports. But on Tuesday, the group announced that it would spend more than $300,000 on behalf of Representative Fred Upton, Republican of Michigan, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

The group has also purchased thousands of dollars in radio ads attacking Representative Bruce Braley, Democrat of Iowa, who is running for the Senate.

“It’s yet another way to hide money from the public,” said Kathy Kiely, managing editor for the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates more transparent campaign spending. “What’s particularly insidious is that these are the late contributions that can sometimes tip the balance in a close race. And because of the timing, it looks like people are deliberately trying to mask the source of the money until after Election Day. If money is free speech, why are you standing on a soap box in a burqa?”

The money is particularly hard to track when it is not spent on television or radio ads. A network of five super PACs, all registered in Virginia but with names like Alaska Priorities, Colorado Priorities and Iowa Priorities, was formed in early October, each listing as treasurer a former aide to Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the second-highest-ranking Republican in the Senate.

According to the Sunlight Foundation, some of the groups appear to be making automated phone calls targeting Democratic Senate candidates in their states. One call reportedly attacked Senator Kay Hagan of North Carolina as an “extreme liberal,” while another accused Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana of “printing money like there’s no tomorrow and making everything cost more for average people like me.”

Kansas did not even have a competitive Senate race until September, when the Democratic candidate pulled out as polls showed that Mr. Orman, the independent, had a chance to defeat Mr. Roberts. Now the race features a suite of competing super PACs and political nonprofits, with names like Visionary Leaders Fund and the Committee to Elect an Independent Senate; they have spent more than $14 million, putting the Senate race on track to be the most expensive in Kansas history. Nearly all of the money traceable to specific donors has come from out of state.

The Committee to Elect an Independent Senate, a pro-Orman group, has spent more than $2.6 million on the race but has disclosed only about $726,000 in contributions. Another PAC, Kansans Support Problem Solvers, has spent at least $628,000, almost all of it after the date on which super PACs make their final pre-election donor disclosures. (Earlier disclosures suggest that Kansans Support Problem Solvers does not include any actual Kansans: Funding came from hedge fund executives in Houston and Charlotte, N.C.) Another PAC, Now or Never, has spent $150,000 on the campaign to defeat Mr. Orman in the last two weeks. Most of that money also appears to have been raised since the most recent donor disclosure.

“It can force a campaign to redirect resources to offset that, to try to compete,” said Mr. LaCivita, who was not aware of Now or Never’s intervention until told by a reporter. “And if you don’t, then you’re playing with fire.”

Dismay

Disgust and Dismay at the Electoral Ballpark

by Dick Starkey

Let’s face it: Baseball, like most of the print media and all the major religions, is losing its fan base. In all three categories, it is mainly young people who have drifted away. The internet, Facebook, Twitter, etc. have replaced newspapers and magazines; aging clerics and hoary-sounding moralisms are causing once-responsive teenagers to flee. Baseball is just too stately – all right, slow – for the young and their fast-paced lives. Most of all, however, it is money that has pushed aside what once was the national pastime. The three-figure cost of attending the average game is one aspect of the problem; the determined drive of TV networks to recoup their investments by attracting prime-time audiences is another. For many observers, this accessibility factor is the key.
 

Raise your hands, East Coast fans, if you stayed up to the end of the seven World Series games. Until game seven, we made it once – game one – waiting for the type of Royals comeback that characterized their play throughout the playoffs. After that we joined the diaspora – the millions of fans who opted for sleep, and others who defected to competing NFL football games, or entertainment fluff like “The Big Bang Theory.”

Prof. Stephen Greyson, Harvard Business School specialist in sports management, presents the case simply: “If the premier part of your product starts after 8 Eastern time and it’s during the week, it’s really hard to develop young fans.”

The impact of money on US politics has been lamented for years; never more so than in this election when the 2010 Citizens United decision is being felt more broadly today than ever before. Under the heading, “The Disgust Election,” Lefty pitcher Timothy Egan, delivering for the NY Times, says Citizens United has generated “a sense that average people have lost control of one of the last things citizens should be able to control — the election itself.” The feeling is understandable, given the billion-dollar outlay by the Koch brothers and other outside groups to buy the support of congressional candidates in battleground states. Then there is the court approval allowing voter suppression in nearly half the states; in some of which (like Texas), Egan notes, “you can vote with a concealed handgun ID, but not one from a four-year college.”

Righthanders are unhappy about the upcoming election, too. But, unsurprisingly, their dismay has nothing to do with Citizens United and/suppression of young and/or powerless voters. The Wall Street Journal’s Janet Hook gives this view from the right-field stands:

“The GOP’s advantage springs more from intense anti-Obama feelings than from a wave of voters who believe Republicans will transform Washington. Indeed, disillusionment with politics may help explain why Republicans’ edge isn’t wider at a time when job approval ratings of the Democratic president have slid into the 40% range. The backdrop of this fall’s voting is a mood of voter anger over the status quo, polls suggest. (Days) before the Nov. 4 election, it isn’t even clear what exactly the midterm contests are about. No single issue dominates, except unhappiness with the established order.”

Dem disgust versus vague Team GOP unhappiness: it adds up to nervous scoreboard-watching on the left side of the national ballpark.

Second Chance

Does America Really Believe in Second Chances?

by Jeremy Haile

But private sector discrimination has been compounded by laws that erect barriers and cut services for people sent to prison. In the 1990s, Congress barred Pell grants for incarcerated individuals — ensuring that most could not receive a college education prior to release — and restricted access to public housing and financial aid for higher education for some former prisoners.

In America, we punish people for being poor. From predatory lending, to the criminalization of homelessness, to modern day debtors’ prisons, we make life expensive for individuals and families who are already struggling to make ends meet.

But we don’t just punish people for being poor. In some cases, we punish them for being punished.
Consider the felony drug ban, which imposes a lifetime restriction on welfare and food stamp benefits for anyone convicted of a state or federal drug felony. Passed in the “tough on crime” era of the mid-1990s, the ban denies basic assistance to people who may have sold a small amount of marijuana years or even decades ago and have been law-abiding citizens ever since.

Because the felony drug ban was adopted with little debate, it’s hard to know exactly what Congress intended. But we can measure the law’s effect. Last year, The Sentencing Project found that the legislation subjects an estimated 180,000 women in the 12 most impacted states to a lifetime ban on welfare benefits.

Given racial disparities throughout the criminal justice system — particularly related to the war on drugs — banning benefits based on a prior drug conviction has brutally unfair consequences for people of color. About 60 percent of people in America’s prisons are racial and ethnic minorities. Of those individuals serving time for drug offenses, about two-thirds are black or Latino. Further, blacks are three to four times more likely to be arrested for drug offenses than whites, even though they use and sell drugs at roughly the same rates.

People who cannot meet basic needs may be more likely to turn to dangerous activities. A study by researchers at Yale Medical School found that women who are denied food assistance due to a drug conviction are at greater risk of hunger. These women are also more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior such as prostitution in order to get money for food.

The felony drug ban is just one of many collateral consequences that formerly incarcerated individuals face as they strive to re-enter society. Some of these barriers are informal: an employer who will not hire a person with a criminal record; a university application that requires all applicants to “check the box” for a prior arrest or conviction.


Felony disenfranchisement laws – which date to colonial times but were tailored in the post-Reconstruction era to exclude black voters – place voting restrictions on an estimated 5.85 million Americans. In the upcoming elections, more than one in five black adults will be denied the right to vote in Florida, Kentucky and Virginia due to a criminal conviction.

Fortunately, as public attitudes about mass incarceration have changed, there is a growing recognition that fair sentencing can meet the mutual goals of punishment and rehabilitation. Imposing collateral consequences after a criminal conviction is not only vindictive but also counterproductive to building safe and healthy communities.

In recent months, federal lawmakers in both parties have introduced legislation to remove some of these barriers and promote a safer transition into society. The REDEEM Act, introduced by Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rand Paul (R-KY), would allow the sealing of criminal records and lift the ban on benefits for some people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. Though the bill should go much further — for example, by also lifting restrictions on housing and education benefits — it is a good first step toward restoring access to assistance for individuals who urgently need it.

Former President Bill Clinton — who signed the felony drug ban into law – recently told a group of mayors and law enforcement officials that some measures intended to address crime have been misguided and others have gone too far. Clinton predicted that criminal justice reform would be debated in the 2016 presidential race. If so, it will represent a major shift in our politics, which have too often focused on getting tough on crime rather than on promoting healthy communities. But for millions of people who are still being punished long after completing their sentences, 2016 is too long to wait.

It is an injustice to punish people for being poor. It is doubly unjust to punish them after they have already been punished.

Plutocrats

Forty-Two Plutocrats Have Funded More Than a Third of All Super PAC Spending

by Joshua Holland

With just four days to go until the 2014 midterms, here’s our final weekly roundup of news about this year’s money race.

Do you know where your polling place is, and what documents you’ll need to cast a ballot? If you have any questions, the nonpartisan League of Women Voters has answers at vote411.org. And if you encounter any problems at the polls, call the Election Protection hotline at 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683) or visit their website.

Big Money: According to the Wesleyan Media Project, ad spending on congressional races has passed the $1 billion mark. Around 40 percent of it is dark money, with undisclosed donors. If you include spending on ads for ballot initiatives, judges and races for state offices, almost three million spots have aired during this election cycle at a cost of $1.67 billion.

The Times, They Are a Changin’: At Vox, Mark Schmitt, director of New America Foundation’s program on political reform, looks at three ways the 2014 midterms could permanently “transform money in politics.”

Republicans Still Dominate the Dark Money Game: Democratic-leaning donors like Tom Steyer have invested heavily in the 2014 race, but the Sunlight Foundation’s Peter Olsen-Phillips reports that when it comes to dark money, Republican-aligned groups have outspent their Democratic counterparts by around three-and-a-half to one.

Meet the Mega-Donors: Forty-two people have donated more than a third of what all Super PACs have spent this cycle. USA Today looks at who they are and where they’ve spent their money.
And at National Journal, Emma Roller and Stephanie Stamm introduce us to some of the Silicon Valley tech donors who are “dominating the midterms.”

Ghost Money: At The Center for Public Integrity, Michael Beckel reports that one out of every seven ads in this year’s hotly contested Kentucky US Senate race has been paid for by a group called The Kentucky Opportunity Coalition, which seems to exist onlt as a Post Office box located in a shopping center.
Speaking of Kentucky: Lee Fang reports for The Nation that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is bending every campaign finance rule on the books to defeat his Democratic challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes.

FaceTime: At The Washington Post, Matea Gold reports that big donors are sending hefty checks to the Republican Governors’ Association in order to get “special access” to GOP governors in the hope that one of them will emerge as the party’s 2016 presidential nominee.

Texas Takes on Dark Money: This week, the Texas Ethics Commission adopted strong disclosure rules that would effectively stamp out dark money in state races. But David Saleh Rauf reports for the San Antonio Express-News that conservative lawmakers are furious, and there may be a hard fight ahead.

Justice for Sale: Mother Jones reporter Andy Kroll looks at the explosion of campaign spending in state and municipal judicial races — and how it is turning judges into politicians.

And here at BillMoyers.com, I compared our process with how the French select their jurists, and ran down some research confirming that campaign cash has an effect on how judges will rule.

Speaking of Judges: Robert Faturechi reports for ProPublica that a previously unheard of group popped up in Kansas just three weeks before the election with the goal of getting rid of two state Supreme Court justices. The group is engaged in electoral politics but doesn’t have to disclose donors because in Kansas’ transparency laws judges aren’t included as “state officers”.

Where’s the SEC?: A New York Times editorial notes that the Securities and Exchange Commission could require companies to tell shareholders about their political spending but so far, the agency has remained stubbornly on the sidelines.

Working the Refs: An investigation by Eric Lipton for The New York Times revealed that state “attorneys general are now the object of aggressive pursuit by lobbyists and lawyers who use campaign contributions, personal appeals at lavish corporate-sponsored conferences and other means to push them to drop investigations, change policies, negotiate favorable settlements or pressure federal regulators.

The waste of a bridge....

Bay Bridge deficit expected, forcing officials to shift funds

By Jaxon Van Derbeken

The new Bay Bridge eastern span will likely end up at least $35 million in the red, and officials are shifting money from other completed Caltrans bridge projects to make up the difference, bridge managers say.

Caltrans and bridge officials boasted repeatedly in recent years that the mammoth eastern span project was going to come in on time and on budget. Until recently, they were optimistic that the bridge would actually cost less than the budgeted $6.4 billion and not consume all the $900 million set aside for cost overruns.

But there’s still as much as $110 million worth of unbudgeted work to be done on the span, according to Caltrans estimates to be presented to a bridge oversight panel Tuesday. And tearing down the old eastern span could end up costing $100 million more than originally estimated, Caltrans says.

Some of the predicted costs are covered by contingency funds, but not all of them. Caltrans’ analysis shows a likely deficit of $35 million.

The project is being paid for by Bay Area bridge toll payers, but officials say the overruns will not lead to a toll hike. That’s because they’re moving money from other bridge projects.
Discretionary projects cut

Recently, authorities with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s bridge toll authority moved $45 million of unspent money from the Antioch and Dumbarton bridge seismic retrofit projects to bolster the Bay Bridge’s budget reserve. Those projects are completed and came in under budget.

Still, if Caltrans analysts are right about the spending trends, the $45 million infusion would leave less than $10 million to cover unexpected costs. Recently, bridge officials have slashed funding for discretionary projects, including salvaging steel sections of the old span for use in art projects.

Some new costs, they say, will be needed to maintain the bridge for its expected life span of 150 years, including a $10million, two-year pilot project to create a computer database to model potential maintenance trouble spots.

The eastern span project has been dogged by overruns for everything from leaks in its deck to problems with its paint. An engineering fix for steel rods on seismic-support structures that failed last year cost $25million, and tests on the bridge’s remaining bolts and rods cost another $20 million.

On the old span, costs have soared because bridge officials have had difficulty getting state-protected cormorants and other birds that nest there to leave.

“There’s extra costs associated with permitting agencies, wildlife agencies and specifically the issue of the birds that won’t leave the old span,” said Randy Rentschler, spokesman for Metropolitan Transportation Commission. “The costs to keep them away from it are significant.”
'Many problems we’ve had’

Rentschler said the new span’s overruns stem from “the many problems we’ve had since the bridge opened.” The problems have meant that the bridge contractor, the joint venture American Bridge/Fluor, has remained on the job, adding more costs to the tab.

“This thing should have been closed out months ago,” Rentschler said. “Because we still have a big construction project going on, we still are putting out money.”

State Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, who has faulted Caltrans’ management of the project and chairs the Senate’s transportation committee, said he is not surprised by the predicted deficit.

“It’s just another chapter in the most disastrous public works project in the history of the state of California,” DeSaulnier said.

Virgin Galactic

Virgin spaceship's descent system deployed early

By BRIAN MELLEY

A space tourism rocket broke apart in flight over California's Mojave Desert after a device to slow the experimental spaceship's descent deployed too soon, federal investigators said.

The cause of Friday's crash of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo has not been determined, but investigators found the "feathering" system — which rotates the tail to create drag — was activated before the craft reached the appropriate speed,National Transportation Safety Board Acting ChairmanChristopher Hart said.

The system requires a two-step process to deploy. The co-pilot unlocked the system, but Hart said the second step occurred "without being commanded."

"What we know is that after it was unlocked, the feathers moved into the deploy position, and two seconds later we saw disintegration," Hart said.

The finding moves away from initial speculation that an explosion brought down the craft but still doesn't fully explain why the disaster occurred.

The investigation is months from being completed, and officials are looking possible factors including pilot error, mechanical failure, design and whether pressure existed to continue testing, Hart said.

"We are not edging toward anything, we're not ruling anything out," he said. "We are looking at all these issues to determine the root cause of this accident."

The co-pilot, Michael Alsbury, 39, was killed, while pilot Peter Siebold, 43, parachuted to the ground and is receiving treatment at a hospital for serious injuries.

Investigators have not interviewed the pilot because of his medical condition, Hart said.

Virgin Galactic — owned by billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Aabar Investments PJS of Abu Dhabi — plans to fly passengers more than 62 miles above Earth. The company sells seats on each prospective journey for $250,000.

Branson told Sky News on Monday that the company will move forward despite the crash. He said there would be a "whole massive series of test flights" before he and his family would fly into space, followed by the company's customers.

"We need to be absolutely certain our spaceship has been thoroughly tested — and that it will be — and once it's thoroughly tested, and we can go to space — we will go to space," Branson said.

"We must push on. There are incredible things that can happen through mankind being able to explore space properly," he said.

Branson, who had hoped to begin commercial flights next year, dismissed British newspaper reports about a midair explosion as insulting and untrue.

SpaceShipTwo tore apart Friday about 11 seconds after it detached from the underside of its jet-powered mother ship and fired its rocket engine for the test flight. Initial speculation was that an explosion occurred, but the fuel and oxidizer tanks and rocket engine were found and showed no sign of being burned or breached, the NTSB said.

A review of footage from a camera mounted to the ceiling of the spaceship's cockpit shows the co-pilot moving the feathering lever to the unlock position, Hart said.

The feathering is a feature unique to the craft to help it slow as it re-enters the atmosphere. After being unlocked, a lever must be pulled to rotate the tail section toward a nearly vertical position to act as a rudder. After decelerating, the pilots reconfigure the tail section to its normal position so the craft can glide to Earth.

The feathers activated at Mach 1.0, the speed of sound, or 760 mph, Hart said. They shouldn't have deployed until the craft had at least reached a speed of Mach 1.4, or more than 1,000 mph.

Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides issued a statement Sunday to tamp down on conjecture about the cause of the crash.

"Now is the time to focus on all those affected by this tragic accident and to work with the experts at the NTSB, to get to the bottom of what happened on that tragic day, and to learn from it so that we can move forward safely with this important mission," he said.

SpaceShipTwo has been under development for years and, like all space projects, has suffered setbacks. In 2007, an explosion killed three people on the ground and critically injured three others during a ground test in the development of a rocket engine.

Comet Siding Spring

October 31, 1938 was the day after Martians encountered planet Earth, and everything was calm. Reports of the invasion were revealed to be part of a Halloween radio drama, the now famous broadcast based on H.G. Wells' scifi novel War of the Worlds. On Mars October 20, 2014 was calm too, the day after its close encounter with Comet Siding Spring. Not a hoax, this comet really did come within 86,700 miles or so of Mars, about 1/3 the Earth-Moon distance.Earth's spacecraft and rovers in Mars orbit and on the surface reported no ill effects though, and had a ringside seat as a visitor from the outer solar system passed by. Spanning over 2 degrees against stars of the constellation Ophiuchus, this colorful telescopic snapshot captures our view of Mars on the day after. Bluish star 51 Ophiuchi is at the upper right and the comet is just emerging from the Red Planet's bright glare.

Interstellar Space

NASA Reveals Mysteries of 'Interstellar' Space

The new Paramount film "Interstellar" imagines a future where astronauts must find a new planet suitable for human life after climate change destroys the Earth's ability to sustain us. Multiple NASA missions are helping avoid this dystopian future by providing critical data necessary to protect Earth. Yet the cosmos beckons us to explore farther from home, expanding human presence deeper into the solar system and beyond. For thousands of years we've wondered if we could find another home among the stars. We're right on the cusp of answering that question.

If you step outside on a very dark night you may be lucky enough to see many of the 2,000 stars visible to the human eye. They're but a fraction of the billions of stars in our galaxy and the innumerable galaxies surrounding us. Multiple NASA missions are helping us extend humanity's senses and capture starlight to help us better understand our place in the universe.

Largely visible light telescopes like Hubble show us the ancient light permeating the cosmos, leading to groundbreaking discoveries like the accelerating expansion of the universe. Through infrared missions like Spitzer, SOFIA and WISE, we've peered deeply through cosmic dust, into stellar nurseries where gases form new stars. With missions like Chandra, Fermi and NuSTAR, we've detected the death throes of massive stars, which can release enormous energy through supernovas and form the exotic phenomenon of black holes.

Yet it was only in the last few years that we could fully grasp how many other planets there might be beyond our solar system. Some 64 million miles (104 kilometers) from Earth, the Kepler Space Telescope stared at a small window of the sky for four years. As planets passed in front of a star in Kepler's line of view, the spacecraft measured the change in brightness. Kepler was designed to determine the likelihood that other planets orbit stars. Because of the mission, we now know it's possible every star has at least one planet. Solar systems surround us in our galaxy and are strewn throughout the myriad galaxies we see. Though we have not yet found a planet exactly like Earth, the implications of the Kepler findings are staggering—there may very well be many worlds much like our own for future generations to explore.

NASA also is developing its next exoplanet mission, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which will search 200,000 nearby stars for the presence of Earth-size planets.

As of now, the distance between stars is too great for spacecraft to traverse using existing propulsion. Only one spacecraft is poised to leave the solar system in the near future. Voyager 1, launched in 1977, made the historic entry into interstellar space in August of 2012, reaching the region between stars, filled with material ejected by the death of nearby stars millions of years ago. It won't encounter another star for at least 40,000 years.

The near-term future of exploration should be cause for much excitement, though, as humans and robotic spacecraft pioneer the path Voyager traveled, deeper into our solar system, where extra-terrestrial life may exist, and where humans could one day thrive.

Life as we know it requires water and heat. On our watery planet, we find life teeming at even the most extreme temperatures. Scientists are eager to know if evidence of microbial life exists on other planets and moons within our reach. On Jupiter's moon Europa, for example, there is a temperate ocean caught between a volcanic core and icy surface. Just as life exists in the dark, hot reaches of Earth's ocean, so too could it exist on Europa, waiting to be discovered. NASA is studying a future mission to the watery moon next decade.

Called the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope contains about 5,500 galaxies. Some span back 13.2 billion years in time -- nearly to the Big Bang, and are the most distant galaxies ever seen.

Many scientists question if Earth formed with the water it has now. Comets and asteroid impacts early in the planet's history may have brought the water and help transform our atmosphere. Upcoming missions to capture samples of asteroids, like OSIRIS-REx, could reveal the building blocks of life embedded in the rock, which could lead to new insights about the origins of life.

Perhaps the most enticing target to search for evidence of life, however, is Mars. A fleet of spacecraft on the surface and orbiting Mars have revealed the Red Planet once had conditions suitable for life. While the planet's flowing water and atmosphere have significantly diminished, evidence of past life could still be discovered by future exploration. It could even be a home for future human pioneers.
Martian natural resources like water ice embedded in rock could be extracted to create breathable air, drinkable water, and even components for spacecraft propellant. An ability to live off the land will greatly enable multiple human missions to Mars and forever change the history of humankind.

This Journey to Mars begins aboard the International Space Station where astronauts 250 miles above Earth are learning how to live in space for long durations—key knowledge needed for round trips to Mars, which could take 500 days or more. A new generation of U.S. commercial spacecraft and rockets are supplying the space station and will soon launch astronauts once again from U.S. soil. As these 21st century spaceflight innovations open low-Earth Orbit in new ways, NASA is building the capabilities to send humans farther from Earth than even before. In December, we'll conduct the first flight test of the Orion Spacecraft, which will carry astronauts next decade on missions beyond the moon to an asteroid and Mars, launched on the giant Space Launch System rocket.

Many other missions in the near future will expand the frontier of exploration in our solar system. In 2015, New Horizons will fly by Pluto and see the icy world up close for the first time. In 2016, NASA will launch the InSight mission to Mars and asteroid sample return mission OSIRIS-REx. In 2018, Hubble's successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, will see light from the universe's first stars. In about 2019, we'll launch a robotic spacecraft to capture and redirect an asteroid. In 2020, we'll send a new rover to Mars, to follow in the footsteps of Curiosity, search for ancient Martian life, and pave the way for future human explorers. In 2021, SLS and Orion will launch humans on the first crewed mission of the combined system. In the mid-2020s, astronauts will explore an asteroid redirected to an orbit around the moon, and return home with samples that could hold clues to the origins of the solar system and life on Earth. In doing so, those astronauts will travel farther into the solar system than anyone has ever been. 

LLRV First Flight

NASA Armstrong Celebrates 50th Anniversary of LLRV First Flight

 

Before the Apollo astronauts landed on the moon, they first had to practice on Earth. A colloquium at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center on Oct. 29 marked the 50th anniversary of the first flight of a most unusual vehicle that was used to train the first humans to visit another world – the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle, or LLRV. Guest speakers included former project manager Gene Matranga, engineer Wayne Ottinger, pilot Donald Mallick, and Rocket Shop supervisor Dave Stoddard. Other original LLRV team members present included Glenn Angle and Adam Mello.


In the early 1960s, NASA studied several techniques for simulating descent to the lunar surface. Electronic simulators and a tethered mockup provided valuable training but only a free-flying vehicle could provide a truly high-fidelity simulation. Hubert Drake at NASA’s Flight Research Center (known today as the Armstrong Flight Research Center) conceived a concept that became the LLRV.

Built of aluminum alloy trusses and shaped like a giant four-legged bedstead, the vehicle simulated a lunar landing profile with the help of a 4,200-pound-thrust turbofan engine mounted vertically in a gimbal. Upon reaching the maximum test altitude, the pilot then throttled back until the jet supported just five-sixths of the vehicle's weight, simulating the moon’s reduced gravity. Two variable-thrust hydrogen peroxide rockets controlled the LLRV's rate of descent and horizontal movement. Sixteen smaller hydrogen peroxide thrusters gave the pilot control in pitch, yaw, and roll.

For the initial flights on Oct. 30, 1964, research pilot Joe Walker flew the LLRV three times for a total of just under 60 seconds, reaching a modest peak altitude of 10 feet. Later flights were shared between Walker; Donald Mallick; the Army's Jack Kleuver; and Joseph Algranti and H.E. "Bud" Ream of NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center (now the Johnson Space Center) in Houston, Texas.

The first LLRV was shipped to Houston in December 1966, followed a month later by its nearly identical twin. Three slightly larger craft joined the training fleet, and all were re-designated Lunar Landing Training Vehicles. Three of the five were later destroyed in non-fatal accidents. Fittingly, the two surviving vehicles are currently displayed at Armstrong and Johnson.


All prime and backup commanders assigned to Apollo lunar landing missions practiced in the craft and later acknowledged the benefits. Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong, first human to step onto the moon's surface, said the mission would not have been successful without the quality of simulation that resulted from the LLRV's. Other astronauts echoed these feelings.