Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
U.S.-UK MOVING TOWARD ANOTHER OCCUPATION
Saudi Arabia contagion triggers Gulf rout
Fears of sectarian uprisings in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have set off the first serious wave of investor flight from the Gulf, compounding market turmoil as civil war in Libya pushes Brent crude over $116 a barrel.
Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul stock index has tumbled 11pc in wild trading over the past two days, led by banks and insurers. Dubai’s bourse has hit a 7-year low.
The latest sell-off was triggered by the arrest of a Shi’ite cleric in the Kingdom’s Eastern Province after he called for democratic reforms and a constitutional monarchy. The province is home to Saudi Arabia’s aggrieved Shi’ite minority and also holds the country’s vast Ghawar oilfield, placing it at the epicentre of global crude supply.
“Unrest in this region can have fatal consequences for the world,” said JBC Energy. “The plunge on the Saudi stock exchange can be interpreted as a sign of waning trust.”
In Bahrain, the island nation’s Sunni elite holds sway over a Shi’ite majority that is denied key jobs and has a token political voice, making it a trial run for Saudi Arabia’s near-identical tensions in the Eastern Province.
Bahraini dissidents have so far been much bolder, prompting a bloody crackdown last month when at least seven people were shot by the military. The ruling family – under intense pressure from Washington to stop the killings – has since held out an olive branch to protesters and let the radical Haq leader Hassan Mushaima return from exile, yet the crisis is far from contained.
My Mushaima said on Wednesday that protesters have “the right to appeal for help from Iran” if Saudi military units interfere in the struggle. Tanks were seen crossing the 17-mile causeway from Saudi Arabia to Bahrain on Tuesday.
“These were supposed to be Bahrain’s tanks returning from Kuwait: that is not a credible story,” said Firas Abi Ali, a Gulf expert at the risk group Exclusive Analysis.
He said the outcome in Bahrain will set the template for events across the border. “There is no good outcome from this for Saudi Arabia. If Bahrain offers concessions, the Saudi Shia will demand similar concessions. If they crack down, they risk an uprising. These people do not want to live under the House of Saud,” he said.
Saudi activists have called on Facebook for a “Day of Rage” on March 11, despite the penalty of lashing for street protest. A similar call to arms in Syria fizzled because people were frightened, and the security forces nipped it in the bud. “We will be watching closely to see how many people turn up, and how far their demands go,” said Mr Abi Ali.
Saudi King Abdullah has scant leeway. His own legitimacy stems from Wahabi clerics, who refuse any compromise with the Shia. He is 87 and in poor health, raising the prospect of an imminent succession struggle that favours the hard-line interior minister Prince Nayef. He would undoubtedly crush any protests. The monarchy has sought to gain time by spending an extra $36bn (£22bn) on welfare and salaries, but patronage politics may strike the wrong note at this stage.
Whatever the hopes in the West, Mr Abi Ali said the Mid-East is now in the vortex of multiple uprisings that will create turmoil for years and destabilise oil supply for a long time. “The Arab world is not going to start behaving like the Swiss,” he said.
Libya’s slide into civil war has already cut oil shipments by 1m barrels per day (bpd), slicing into the world’s safety margin. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said the Saudis had covered the short-fall, though Saudi heavy oil is a poor substitute for Libya’s “sweet” crude.
However, analysts suspect the kingdom had already boosted output to 9m bpd before disruptions in Libya, and has not in fact added much net supply. There is a raging debate over whether the Saudi oil giant Aramco can raise output by 3m bpd if needed, as claimed. While two new fields have come on stream adding 2m bpd since the 2008 oil shock, “attrition” on old fields has offset much of this. “We think they’re close to full capacity,” said one analyst.
Global spare capacity may in reality be less than 4m bpd, and perhaps as low as 2m. Meanwhile, oil demand from China alone rose by 850,000 bpd last year.
Helima Croft at Barclays Capital said the longer Libya’s crisis continues , the more damage it will do to long-term supply. Foreign companies have evacuated staff and may be reluctant to restart operations until the dust settles.
Rebel leaders in Benghazi are planning to investigate oil contracts, reserving the right to renegotiate terms in accordance with the “will of people in the street”.
Ms Croft said foreign oil companies will not sink large sums of money into Libya until it is clear what will emerge from the cauldron of tribal divisions. A plan for $10bn of oil investments by BP, Shell, Oasis and over others the next three years is in tatters. “With the disintegration of a stable political regime in Libya, we view the bulk of the projects as being extremely unlikely to proceed on time, if at all,” she said.
Fatih Birol, the IEA’schief economist, warned that investments in fresh fields across the Middle East “may be deferred for years. The age of cheap oil is over.”
The Libyan crisis has brought forward an oil crunch that was likely to happen within three years or so, given the relentless decline of non-OPEC output in the North Sea and Mexico.
While the world can cope with the loss of Libyan crude for now, the stakes will rise sharply if one more country succumbs, and explode off the charts if Gulf monarchies lose their grip.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/8358176/Saudi-Arabia-contagion-triggers-Gulf-rout.html
Soros: Iran will be overthrown in ‘bloodiest of revolutions’
Oil wealth 'must be shared' with citizens says Soros
George Soros: Middle East turmoil caused by 'revulsion against the corruption'
Citizens of oil producing nations must see more benefit from their country's national resources, billionaire investor George Soros has told the BBC.
Revolts in Libya were partly the result of "revulsion against a corruption" fed by the misuse of oil money, he added.
More "transparency and accountability" was needed from other producers such as Russia and Saudi Arabia he said.
Mr Soros also predicted the Iranian regime would be overthrown in the "bloodiest of the revolutions".
'Rebelled'
Libya produces 1.6 million barrels of oil per day and is the 17th largest producer in the world.
And Colonel Gaddafi's hold on power has been dependent on the billions of dollars in oil revenue that pour into the country.
Talking of the wave of governments being challenged in North Africa and the Middle East, Mr Soros said: "What has caused the revolutions is a revulsion against a corruption that is fed by the misuse of natural resources like for instance in Libya.
"Transparency and even more importantly accountability in the use of natural resources is what you need for people living in those countries to get the benefit of those national resources.
"Libya produced enormous wealth which Gaddafi took as his own and now the people rebelled against it."
'Tremendous improvement'
Asked whether there should be more transparency with what happened to oil incomes, Mr Soros said: "Very much so."
And he said the US and Europe needed to more actively support the revolutions in Libya and elsewhere so that the new regimes will co-operate with the West.
"What is happening today in the Middle East is very similar to what happened in the former Soviet Union in 1989-91. But then it was a regime hostile to the West that was destroyed by the revolution," he said.
"Now it is regimes supported by the West, so the West has to regain the allegiance of the people in those countries by actually supporting the transition to democracy.
"It's very important that Europe and the US should be in front of the revolution rather than behind it because if they are behind it, they are going to lose the allegiance of the new regimes that are emerging and if they are properly supported they will be democratic regimes and it will be a tremendous improvement."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12643419
Mexico to Cut 50% of Tariffs on U.S. Goods as Truck Border Dispute Ends
Mexico will cut tariffs on $2.4 billion worth of U.S. products after the United States agreed to end a ban on Mexican trucks crossing the border, Economy Minister Bruno Ferrari said.
The countries will likely sign a formal trucking agreement in June and some tariffs will immediately fall, Ferrari and Dionisio Perez-Jacome, the minister of communications and transportation, said yesterday at a news conference in Mexico City.
“We’ll lower 50 percent of tariffs to all the products once the agreement is signed,” Ferrari said. “The 50 percent remaining will be lifted once the U.S. grants the first authorization for a Mexican truck to operate” across the border, he said.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon and U.S. President Barack Obama announced an end to the truck ban after a meeting in Washington last week. The dispute between the nations, which have a $393 billion trading relationship annually, dates to the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1995. U.S. officials have promised on multiple occasions to resolve the standoff. The nation never allowed Mexican trucks full access to the U.S.
Mexico responded to the 2009 cancellation of a pilot program that allowed some Mexican trucks into the U.S. by imposing tariffs of 10 percent to 45 percent on U.S. goods including vegetables, wine, juices, sunglasses and toothpaste.
Tariffs
In August, Mexico applied a second round of tariffs of 5 percent on some cuts of pork and as much as 25 percent on fresh white cheese, according to a statement in the nation’s official gazette. Onions, apples, pears, oranges, cherries, soy sauce and mineral water are also on the list.
As part of the new trucking agreement, Mexico and the U.S. will initiate an 18-month program to allow trucks to bring goods across the border, Perez-Jacome said.
During that period, truck owners will receive a provisional permit to cross the border. Owners must register vehicles with the U.S. and agree to inspections each time a vehicle crosses during the first three months of the program.
Companies will then receive an “irrevocable” permit for U.S. access that can only be canceled if a truck fails to meet transportation regulations, according to Perez-Jacome. The new program will not limit the number of Mexican companies that can apply for authorization to cross the border, he said.
Mexico and the U.S. will create a monitoring group to ensure the agreement’s goals are met, Ferrari said.
Resolving Dispute
“We finally have found a clear path to resolve the dispute over trucking between our two countries,” Obama said March 3 at a White House news conference with Calderon.
Independent truckers said that allowing Mexican haulers into the U.S. may drive small trucking companies out of business.
“For all the president’s talk of helping small businesses survive, his administration is sure doing their best to destroy small trucking companies and the drivers they employ,” Todd Spencer, executive vice president of Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said in a statement.
The American Trucking Association said it welcomed the agreement.
“We hope this agreement will be a first step to increasing trade between our two countries, more than 70 percent of which crosses the border by truck,” Bill Graves, the Arlington, Virginia-based trade group’s president, said in a statement. Government rules should “ensure that carriers from both countries are treated equitably.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-07/mexico-to-cut-50-of-u-s-tariffs-as-truck-border-dispute-ends.html
****************************************
Ministry - New World Order- 1992
Mexico to Cut 50% of Tariffs on U.S. Goods as Truck Border Dispute Ends
Mexico will cut tariffs on $2.4 billion worth of U.S. products after the United States agreed to end a ban on Mexican trucks crossing the border, Economy Minister Bruno Ferrari said.
The countries will likely sign a formal trucking agreement in June and some tariffs will immediately fall, Ferrari and Dionisio Perez-Jacome, the minister of communications and transportation, said yesterday at a news conference in Mexico City.
“We’ll lower 50 percent of tariffs to all the products once the agreement is signed,” Ferrari said. “The 50 percent remaining will be lifted once the U.S. grants the first authorization for a Mexican truck to operate” across the border, he said.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon and U.S. President Barack Obama announced an end to the truck ban after a meeting in Washington last week. The dispute between the nations, which have a $393 billion trading relationship annually, dates to the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1995. U.S. officials have promised on multiple occasions to resolve the standoff. The nation never allowed Mexican trucks full access to the U.S.
Mexico responded to the 2009 cancellation of a pilot program that allowed some Mexican trucks into the U.S. by imposing tariffs of 10 percent to 45 percent on U.S. goods including vegetables, wine, juices, sunglasses and toothpaste.
Tariffs
In August, Mexico applied a second round of tariffs of 5 percent on some cuts of pork and as much as 25 percent on fresh white cheese, according to a statement in the nation’s official gazette. Onions, apples, pears, oranges, cherries, soy sauce and mineral water are also on the list.
As part of the new trucking agreement, Mexico and the U.S. will initiate an 18-month program to allow trucks to bring goods across the border, Perez-Jacome said.
During that period, truck owners will receive a provisional permit to cross the border. Owners must register vehicles with the U.S. and agree to inspections each time a vehicle crosses during the first three months of the program.
Companies will then receive an “irrevocable” permit for U.S. access that can only be canceled if a truck fails to meet transportation regulations, according to Perez-Jacome. The new program will not limit the number of Mexican companies that can apply for authorization to cross the border, he said.
Mexico and the U.S. will create a monitoring group to ensure the agreement’s goals are met, Ferrari said.
Resolving Dispute
“We finally have found a clear path to resolve the dispute over trucking between our two countries,” Obama said March 3 at a White House news conference with Calderon.
Independent truckers said that allowing Mexican haulers into the U.S. may drive small trucking companies out of business.
“For all the president’s talk of helping small businesses survive, his administration is sure doing their best to destroy small trucking companies and the drivers they employ,” Todd Spencer, executive vice president of Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said in a statement.
The American Trucking Association said it welcomed the agreement.
“We hope this agreement will be a first step to increasing trade between our two countries, more than 70 percent of which crosses the border by truck,” Bill Graves, the Arlington, Virginia-based trade group’s president, said in a statement. Government rules should “ensure that carriers from both countries are treated equitably.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-07/mexico-to-cut-50-of-u-s-tariffs-as-truck-border-dispute-ends.html
****************************************
Ministry - New World Order- 1992
I see the rights of corps and the rights of individuals being two very different things, I really do not like corporate person-hood at all. While I realize I may often sound Libertarian, I consider myself politically agnostic.
Different points of view are essential to understanding, evolution, and the strengths of one's own convictions. FWIW, I enjoy the back and forth debates.
Rumsfeld has been lying last few times Ive seen his clips, out there plugging his book lately. "Building 7? Whats that?" Judge gets credit for asking, in my book, but agree he should have pushed back harder on the responses. I liked Nap's little speech at the end of the episode.
Fighting erupts in Ivory Coast
Heavy fighting erupted in western Ivory Coast between rebels and forces loyal to incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo, sources along the Liberian border told Reuters on Sunday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/06/us-ivorycoast-border-idUSTRE7251B820110306
Barack Obama raises pressure on Gaddafi as no-fly zone gains support
Scientists are sounding the alarm: the mysterious cracks appear across the planet
Scientists do not know what to think about: South America is bursting at the seams. In southern Peru, suddenly appeared a huge crack length of 3 km and a width of about 100 meters.
Anomaly occurred in the district Huakullani Chukuito province near the famous Lake Titicaca. A crack has appeared almost immediately: the earth like a burst at the site of a large tension, the far scattered huge chunks of soil.
Interestingly, the crack did not appear in the earthquake. In general, there was no catastrophe, the earth simply gone. The crack occurred on level ground and is not associated with any disasters. Scientists are confused with this fact. Cracks also appear in neighboring Bolivia. And not so long ago, the crack happened in Africa – Ethiopia. Maybe these phenomena is common nature: the continents literally split in front of mankind.
US ATF Secretly Arming Mexican Drug Cartels
Hard times generation: homeless kids
Agree, I'll have to pick up his book
Schiff: March 4th 2011 Labor force, Greenspan, National Debt
"at least with a chicken we´d have a 50:50 chance of being right, bernanke is always wrong"
Arizona Considers Bill to Create State Army
SB 1495 would give Republican Governor Jan Brewer the authority to establish “an armed force” that would be entirely separate from the National Guard. Brewer would be able to call up this state militia if a “major portion” of the Guard is away on service or “for any other reason the governor considers to be necessary.”
http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/50leg/1r/bills/sb1495p.htm
Friday, March 4th, 2011 edition of Freedom Watch with Judge Napolitano. In this episode the Judge goes head to head with Donald Rumsfeld
Zbigniew Brzezinski is calling for warships off their coast, so high probability of US military involvement.
The hidden tyranny: children diagnosed and drugged for profit
Snippet:
"Children are known to be compliant patients and that makes them a highly desirable market for drugs," says former drug company sales rep Gwen Olsen, author of Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher. "Children are forced by school personnel to take their drugs, they are forced by their parents to take their drugs, and they are forced by their doctors to take their drugs. So, children are the ideal patient-type because they represent refilled prescription compliance and 'longevity.' In other words, they will be lifelong patients and repeat customers for Pharma."
http://www.naturalnews.com/031585_children_psychiatric_drugs.html
This Time We’re Taking the Whole Planet With Us
Chris Hedges
Another outstanding piece by CH, Just a Snippet;
"The unrest in the Middle East, the implosion of national economies such as those of Ireland and Greece, the increasing anger of a beleaguered working class at home and abroad, the growing desperate human migrations and the refusal to halt our relentless destruction of the ecosystem on which life depends are the harbingers of our own collapse and the consequences of the idiocy of our elite and the folly of globalization. Protests that are not built around a complete reconfiguration of American society, including a rapid dismantling of empire and the corporate state, can only forestall the inevitable. We will be saved only with the birth of a new and militant radicalism which seeks to dethrone our corrupt elite from power, not negotiate for better terms."
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/this_time_were_taking_the_whole_planet_with_us_20110307
Nice summation on the state of inflation.
Lots of interesting posts on the the board over the weekend..
Funny to hear MSM calling Ben 'the bernak'. Hope they can somehow effectively pump the real estate market again like they have the Dow.
Sorry no, don't know where to find it here in the land of the free. You can probably find a case of whiskey, cartons of cigarettes, and a chainsaw in nearly any strip mall, but not a plant that might your life.
I believe high doses of Vitamin D are also good cancer preventatives. Check out this article; http://www.naturalnews.com/031577_vitamin_D_scientific_research.html
RUN FROM THE CURE - Rick Simpson
If you havent seen this, it's worth the time
Since we've evolved from small farming villages into larger towns and cites, people have gained access to more information through technology. We've gone from believing only in what local church and local newspaper purpose to us as truth, to getting more opinions from which to make our own determinations.
If the US media hadn't turned into such fast-food special-interest corporate garbage, maybe they've have some trace of credibility left with those of us who have woken-up. I never thought Id see the day where I trust Russia Today more than our own media, but now American media has re-branded propaganda as spin, and lies as 'misstatements' when caught red-handed. All the money in the world doesn't buy honesty, or repair broken trust.
This is why net-neutrality is so important, as well as the internet kill-switch, internet 2, even google changing how search results are displayed and filtered. Google/Youtube/Facebook/Twitter/and the major ISPs are mainly owned by the same plutocracy, and are just as subject to censorship and manipulation. Clinton's 'blunt assesment' is a stark reminder of how we must remain vigilant that we are not ushered into a Chinese model of censorship and repression, as our leaders seem to want for us.
Rep Alan Grayson Introduces the War Is Making You Poor Act
Geminoid robot Clips
Libya: Heavy fighting has been reported at a desert oil installation near in the northern city of Raslanuf
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/afp/libya-live-report/426811
Hourly Oil Chart
Free Lakota Bank (cant say I know much of it)
"At the Free Lakota Bank, we issue, circulate and accept for deposit only AOCS Approved Silver currencies and other .999 fine silver bullion. Silver is a store of value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Since we deal only in real money, we do not participate in any central bank looting schemes.
Money is made possible only by those who produce. Paper is not money, instead merely a promise to pay. We hope that some day the rest of the world will awaken from the American Dream: the dream that a person can sustain life by consuming more than producing."
http://www.freelakotabank.com/aboutfreelakotabank.php
Nice one UTAH! Currency bill backers want alternative to ‘paper dollar'
HB317, A bill that recognizes U.S. gold and silver coins as legal tender and exempts their sale from the state capital gains tax passed the Utah House Government Operations Committee Wednesday.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/51349269-76/bill-tax-currency-alternative.html.csp
Components of the Gasoline Price
Constructed the following chart from a U.S. Energy Information Agency (E.I.A.) time series
http://macromon.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/chart-of-the-day-components-of-gasoline-prices/
NASA's Glory mission fails to reach orbit
NASA reports that the Glory spacecraft failed to reach orbit after lifting off aboard a Taurus rocket at 2:09 a.m. PT. "Telemetry indicated the fairing, the protective shell atop the Taurus XL rocket, did not separate as expected about three minutes after launch," NASA said.
More at link
http://news.cnet.com/2300-11386_3-10006797.html
The Assumption Song
Wisconsin Senate Democrats found in contempt, ordered taken into custody
The Wisconsin Senate has passed a resolution calling for police to take 14 Democrats into custody for contempt after they fled to Illinois to avoid voting on a union rights bill.
The vote taken Thursday comes two weeks after the Democrats left, effectively delaying the vote on Gov. Scott Walker's proposal taking away most collective bargaining rights from public workers.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald says the action is legally different from an arrest, but "definitely a shift from asking them politely."
The resolution says the absent Democrats are determined to be guilty of contempt and disorderly content. It gives the sergeant at arms the authority to take any and all steps, with or without force and assistance from police, to bring the senators back.
Democratic senators said they have no plans to return for a session day on Thursday.
Sen. Chris Larson of Milwaukee says the 14 AWOL senators remain unified in their plans to stay away until Walker is willing to compromise.
Walker and Republican legislative leaders have repeatedly said they are unwilling to compromise on the bill, even though unions say they are willing to accept the part forcing them to pay more for benefits. That amounts to an 8 percent pay cut for the average worker.
The bill has passed the Assembly but is stalled in the Senate because of the Democrats’ absence.
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20110303/GPG0101/110303075/Missing-Senate-Dems-found-contempt-ordered-taken-into-custody
Layoffs at 11 Month High
Challenger, Gray & Christmas released their February 2011 layoff report which shows layoffs surged 32% in February to 50,702.
The 50,702 job cuts announced last month was up 32 percent from January’s 38,519. It was 20 percent higher than the 42,090 planned layoffs announced in February 2010. This marks the first year-over-year increase in monthly job cuts since May 2009 when job cuts totaling 111,182 surpassed the 103,522 layoffs announced the same month a year earlier by seven percent.
While Challenger, Gray & Christmas seem to be blaming high gas prices, the details in the layoffs paint a different picture:
The largest portion of layoffs last month came from government and non-profit employers, which announced 16,380 job cuts, up 154 percent from 6,450 in January and 196 percent higher than a year ago when 5,528 job cuts were announced in February. While most of the cuts occurred at the state and local level, the United States Postal Service announced that it reduced its headcount by 5,600 in recent months.
This is your government at work, with a 154% increase in government and non-profit layoffs. Government layoffs are directly attributable to the never ending state budget deficit malaise and the claims one must stiff Federal Workers in order to reduce them (which is false).
Retail sector layoffs increased 44% and we've seen a slowdown in consumer spending, with more money going to gas and food.
Challenger also releases the reasons for the layoffs. Cost cutting was the highest with 15,225 jobs lost, more interesting are the closings and bankruptcies of businesses. Those job losses for February totaled 15,996. Going out of business topped the reason people lost their jobs.
Hey, can't be all bad, Home Depot is going to hire 60,000 lowly paid, part-time temporary workers. Yippee, assuredly one can raise a family on that paycheck.
This is in stark contrast, what a surprise, to the ADP employment report claiming February had an increase of 217,000 jobs. Last month, being thoroughly disgusted with the divergence between ADP and BLS, we decided to not cover ADP due to the BLS being the official unemployment tally.
The BLS released their layoff statistics for January last week. In January the BLS claims 149,799 people lost their jobs in mass layoffs. This is in comparison to the Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported 38,519 January layoffs.
The Challenger survey also has it's own problems with methodology. While not listed in the report, back in 2001 the Wall Street Journal reported Challenger used public corporate announcement press releases for their layoff tallies. We all know Corporations do not want it known they offshore outsourced jobs and very often announced layoffs are much lower than the actual number of firings.
The real answer is to demand businesses in the United States more accurately report hirings, firings, offshore outsourcings and jobs created offshore. Maybe then we would not be playing guess what the statistic indicates games monthly.
http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/layoffs-11-month-high
Agree 100%
Pure speculation of course, but if aliens can switch off our Nukes (according to the testimony in the disclosure project), there's probably a good chance they could also switch off HAARP. I fall into the camp of thinking that disclosure has not happened on a large scale because the powers that be dont want people to know how defenseless we really are against beings much more technically advanced than us. Protection or Defense is the government's traditional trump card after all, "you need us to protect you from terrorists, drugs, illiteracy, etc..."
Air Force's X-37B Space Plane Launching on Secret Mission Friday
The U.S. Air Force's secretive X-37B space plane is poised to launch on its second mission Friday (March 4), though what exactly it will be doing once it leaves the ground remains a mystery.
The robotic X-37B mini-shuttle is slated to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Friday atop an Atlas 5 rocket, weather permitting. Its launch window opens at 3:39 p.m. EST (2039 GMT), according to the launch provider United Launch Alliance, which is overseeing the flight.
This will mark the second space mission for the Air Force's X-37B space plane program — but the first for this particular plane. It is the second X-37B spacecraft built for the Air Force by Boeing and carries the name Orbital Test Vehicle 2, or OTV-2.
The first X-37B spacecraft launched in April 2010 and returned to Earth in December after an apparently successful test flight, though the details of that mission – like this upcoming flight – are classified. The first X-37B mission lasted 225 days.
Current forecasts for Friday's X-37B launch try predict a 70 percent chance that bad weather may delay the flight, Air Force official have said.
A small robotic space shuttle
With its blunt nose and stubby wings, the unmanned X-37B spacecraft resembles a miniature version of NASA's space shuttles. The vehicle was originally developed as part of a NASA project that was shifted to the military when funding ran dry.
The spacecraft is about 29 feet (almost 9 meters) long and 14 feet wide (nearly 4.5 meters), with a payload bay about the size of a pickup truck bed. It is designed to launch vertically inside the nose cone of a rocket, stay in orbit for months at a time, and then land horizontally on a runway like a space shuttle.
But unlike NASA's shuttles, the X-37B space plane does everything autonomously. It also has a solar array that is deployed from its payload bay to generate power during its months-long stay in orbit
"There is no one on the ground with a joystick flying it," Lt. Col. Troy Giese, X-37B program manager in the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, said before the first X-37B mission blasted off last year.
The Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office oversees the X-37B space plane program for the U.S. military.
Secret second test flight
Air Force officials have not said much about first X-37B mission, and they're been similarly tight-lipped about the upcoming second flight with the OTV-2 vehicle.
But the Air Force has said that the X-37B spacecraft should help the Air Force test and demonstrate new technologies — such as guidance, navigation and control systems — that could be used on future satellites.
The secrecy surrounding the X-37B has led to some speculation that the plane could be a space weapon of some sort. But Air Force officials have repeatedly denied that charge, and some experts have postulated that it is a platform for space reconnaissance.
The X-37B was built by Boeing's Phantom Works Division in Seal Beach, Calif., and can fly long, extended missions because of its solar array power system, which allows it to stay in orbit for up to 270 days, Air Force officials have said.
Originally, NASA used the space plane as an experimental test bed until funding for the project ran out in 2004.
The vehicle then passed to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and was ultimately turned over to the Air Force in 2006.
http://www.space.com/11006-air-force-x37b-space-plane-secret-launch.html