Autonomous space shuttle’s successful test flight
BRITAIN: Britain’s Parliament will be given a ‘‘take-it or leave-it’’ vote on Brexit after ministers agreed to enshrine the deal in law, in a significant government concession.
David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, yesterday announced that MPs and peers will be given a binding vote on the final deal with Brussels.
However, the climbdown has prompted fears that pro-European Union MPs will attempt to frustrate Brexit with amendments in the hope of delaying or even postponing Britain’s departure.
Davis warned yesterday that Britain will leave the EU without a deal in March 2019 if MPs vote down the government’s final agreement with Brussels.
Davis’s concession came less than 24 hours before the House of Commons was due to begin debating the next stage of the EU Withdrawal Bill, which transfers thousands of European laws and regulations on to the United Kingdom’s statute books.
The government is facing a huge rebellion over the proposed move, with more than 400 amendments tabled by MPs.
His intervention was an attempt to avert the crisis, and comes after the government was forced earlier this year to get Parliament’s support for invoking Article 50 after a legal challenge.
Tory rebels said the vote was ‘‘pointless’’ because it means Parliament cannot change the terms of the final deal.
Davis told the Commons the new law, which will cover areas including citizens’ rights, the socalled divorce bill and a transition period, would provide ‘‘certainty and clarity’’ as Britain left the EU.
He was asked by Owen Paterson, a Eurosceptic Tory MP, if Britain would leave ‘‘without an agreement’’ if MPs voted down the deal. He replied: ‘‘Yes.’’
He later added: ‘‘It’s a meaningful vote, but not meaningful in the sense that some believe meaningful [to be], which is that you can reverse the whole thing.’’
Davis said that while he was prepared to go back and talk to Brussels if the Commons tried to make changes to the deal, he was doubtful the timetable would allow any changes at that stage.
He was backed by European sources who warned that the deal would not be changed at the 11th hour. One source said: ‘‘If the UK Government comes back at 11pm on March 29, 2019 saying the House of Commons has amended ‘x, y and z’, then we would need to go back to council and Parliament.
‘‘But it is extremely difficult to imagine member states will start this whole process again once it has been ratified, particularly given how challenging the time is already.’’
The move infuriated proEuropean Tories, who are preparing to rebel against government plans to enshrine the date that Britain leaves the EU in law.
Heidi Allen, a Tory rebel, said the vote would be ‘‘pointless’’ if Britain failed to secure a deal with Brussels until the 11th hour. ‘‘There’d be no time,’’ she said.
– Telegraph Group UNITED STATES: It only lasted a minute, and it flew from just 12,500 feet (3800 metres). But Sunday’s first-ever successful test flight of a miniature, new-generation space shuttle was something of a coup for the Sierra Nevada Corp, which had been waiting years to fly.
The company is under contract from Nasa to fly its Dream Chaser spaceplane to the International Space Station by 2020.
Unlike other spacecraft - the capsules that look like the vehicles that flew in the Apollo era - the Dream Chaser has wings and wheels that allow it to land on a runway.
On Sunday, it was dropped from a helicopter over the Mojave Desert in California, and then glided to a runway at Edwards Air Force Base.
The successful flight had no passengers on board, and the vehicle flew itself instead of being controlled remotely.
‘‘It was a really good day. We had a full flight. We met all our goals. The vehicle landed safely, and there were absolutely no issues,’’ said Mark Sirangelo, the head of Sierra Nevada Corp’s Space Systems Division.
He said the fully autonomous vehicle ‘‘flew itself from the drop to the ground through the landing’’.
Along with SpaceX and Orbital ATK, Sierra Nevada is under contract from Nasa for as many as six cargo flights to the ISS. The Dream Chaser, which looks like a smaller version of the Space Shuttle, would initially be launched on an Atlas V rocket. It is being designed to land on runways and then allow crews to access the materials flown back to Earth soon after landing.
The company is also developing a version of its shuttle that could carry as many as seven passengers to low Earth orbit.
– Washington Post