Evidence of Counter-Streaming Ions near the Inner Pole of the HERMeS Hall Thruster

NASA is continuing the development of a 12.5-kW Hall thruster system to support a phased exploration concept to expand human presence to cis-lunar space and eventually to Mars. The development team is transitioning knowledge gained from the testing of the government-built Technology Development Unit (TDU) to the contractor-built Engineering Test Unit (ETU). A new laser-induced fluorescence diagnostic was developed to obtain data for validating the Hall thruster models and for comparing the behavior of the ETU and TDU. Analysis of TDU LIF data obtained during initial deployment of the diagnostics revealed evidence of two streams of ions moving in opposite directions near the inner front pole. These two streams of ions were found to intersect the downstream surface of the front pole at large oblique angles. This data points to a possible explanation for why the erosion rate of polished pole covers were observed to decrease over the course of several hundred hours of thruster operation

Volume 1, Number 3 - October 2005

Congress Connect (formerly published as Congress Connection) was the print newsletter of the PC Student Congress. It offered information on class projects, upcoming events, and updates from Congress. (Volume 1, Number 3 - October 2005 - 4 pages in total.

Divided government and significant legislation: A History of Congress from 1789 to 2010

This article presents and analyzes the most comprehensive database to date of significant acts of Congress—from 1789 to 2010—to test whether divided party control of government affects the number of important acts Congress passes. We find that unified control corresponds with one additional significant act passed per Congress in the nineteenth century and four additional such acts in the twentieth century. However, party control of government cannot explain the broad historical trends in the rate at which Congress passes significant legislation. Nixon in 1969 was far more successful with a Democratic Congress than was McKinley in 1897 with a Republican one

Volume 2, Issue 1 - February 17, 2009

Congress Connect (formerly published as Congress Connection) was the print newsletter of the PC Student Congress. It offered information on class projects, upcoming events, and updates from Congress. (Volume 2, Number 1 - February 17, 2009 - 2 pages in total.

Women in the United States Congress: Historical Overview, Tables, and Discussion

A record 102 women currently serve in the 113th Congress: 82 in the House (63 Democrats and 19 Republicans) and 20 in the Senate (16 Democrats and 4 Republicans). One hundred one women were initially sworn in to the 113th Congress—1 female Republican House Member has since resigned, and 2 Democratic House Members have been elected. This is higher than the previous record number of 95 women who were initially elected to the 111th Congress. The first woman elected to Congress was Representative Jeannette Rankin (R- MT, 1917-1919, 1941-1943). The first woman to serve in the Senate was Rebecca Latimer Felton (D-GA). She was appointed in 1922 and served for only one day. Hattie Caraway (D-AR, 1931-1945) was the first Senator to succeed her husband and the first woman elected to a six-year Senate term. A total of 298 women have served in Congress, 194 Democrats and 104 Republicans. Of these women, 254 (165 Democrats, 89 Republicans) have served only in the House of Representatives; 34 (21 Democrats, 13 Republicans) have served only in the Senate; and 10 (8 Democrats, 2 Republicans) have served in both houses. These figures include 4 non-voting Delegates, 1 each from Guam, Hawaii, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. A total of 33 African American women have served in Congress (1 in the Senate, 32 in the House), including 17 serving in the 113th Congress. Ten Hispanic women have been elected to the House; nine serve in the 113th Congress. Nine Asian Pacific American women have served in Congress (8 in the House, 1 in both the House and Senate), including seven in the 113th Congress. Nineteen women in the House, and 10 women in the Senate, have chaired committees. In the 113th Congress, 1 woman chairs a House committee, and 5 women chair Senate committees, with 1 female Senator chairing two committees. This report includes a discussion of the impact of women in Congress as well as historical information, including the number and percentage of women in Congress over time, means of entry to Congress, comparisons to international and state legislatures, records for tenure, firsts for women in Congress, women in leadership, and African American and Asian Pacific American women in Congress. The report may reflect data at the beginning or end of each Congress, or changes during a Congress. See the notes throughout the report for information on the currency of the data

How to Un-Supplement a Tsunami of Fiscal Proportions: An Examination of the Supplemental Appropriations Process

Article I § 9 clause 7 of the United States Constitution makes it clear that “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” This single sentence provides Congress with the sole legislative authority to allocate money out of the federal treasury. Throughout the years, Congress has fleshed out this power through legislation governing how the appropriations and budgeting process should occur. Although Congress has been granted the constitutional authority to make appropriations, the President and the executive agencies that receive the funds appropriated by Congress have made themselves influential partners in this process, often through purely political means. Despite the processes that Congress has put in place, the United States is facing a fiscal tsunami should things continue at their current trajectory. One of these budgetary processes put in place by Congress, the supplemental appropriations process, has resulted in increased outlays that avoid the transparency provided through the normal budget process. This paper suggests that Congress should reform the supplemental appropriations process, and proposes a piece of legislation called the Transparency and Accountability in Supplemental Appropriations Act (TASA). TASA would provide increased transparency and political accountability to the supplemental appropriations process. It would do so by creating an Emergency Trust Fund to be included in the regular budget and by requiring that the President’s Budget and the Congressional Budget Resolution include Contingency Allowances representing the level of any supplemental appropriations used to pay for military conflicts during the prior fiscal year. These reforms would allow Congress to lower the impact of the upcoming fiscal tsunami by reducing overall budget costs

Congress' Wicked Problem: Seeking Knowledge Inside the Information Tsunami

The lack of shared expert knowledge capacity in the U.S. Congress has created a critical weakness in our democratic process. Along with bipartisan cooperation, many contemporary and urgent questions before our legislators require nuance, genuine deliberation and expert judgment. Congress, however, is missing adequate means for this purpose and depends on outdated and in some cases antiquated systems of information referral, sorting, communicating, and convening. Congress is held in record low esteem by the public today. Its failings have been widely analyzed and a multitude of root causes have been identified. This paper does not put forward a simple recipe to fix these ailments, but argues that the absence of basic knowledge management in our legislature is a critical weakness. Congress struggles to make policy on complex issues while it equally lacks the wherewithal to effectively compete on substance in today's 24 hour news cycle.This paper points out that Congress is not so much venal and corrupt as it is incapacitated and obsolete. And, in its present state, it cannot serve the needs of American democracy in the 21st Century.The audience for this paper is those who are working in the open government, civic technology and transparency movements as well as other foundations, think tanks and academic entities. It is also for individuals inside and outside of government who desire background about Congress' current institutional dilemmas, including lack of expertise

Retirement Benefits for Members of Congress

Prior to 1984, neither federal civil service employees nor Members of Congress paid Social Security taxes, nor were they eligible for Social Security benefits. Members of Congress and other federal employees were instead covered by a separate pension plan called the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). The 1983 amendments to the Social Security Act (P.L. 98-21) required federal employees first hired after 1983 to participate in Social Security. These amendments also required all Members of Congress to participate in Social Security as of January 1, 1984, regardless of when they first entered Congress. Because CSRS was not designed to coordinate with Social Security, Congress directed the development of a new retirement plan for federal workers. The result was the Federal Employees’ Retirement System Act of 1986 (P.L. 99-335). Members of Congress first elected in 1984 or later are covered automatically under the Federal Employees’ Retirement System (FERS). All Senators and those Representatives serving as Members prior to September 30, 2003, may decline this coverage. Representatives entering office on or after September 30, 2003, cannot elect to be excluded from such coverage. Members who were already in Congress when Social Security coverage went into effect could either remain in CSRS or change their coverage to FERS. Members are now covered under one of four different retirement arrangements: CSRS and Social Security; The “CSRS Offset” plan, which includes both CSRS and Social Security, but with CSRS contributions and benefits reduced by Social Security contributions and benefits; FERS; or Social Security alone

Congressional Control of the Courts: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Expansion of the Federal Judiciary

Congress has many available tools to influence the federal judiciary. In this article, we consider Congress\u27 ability to balance, or stack, the courts through the creation of federal judgeships. While caseload pressure often produces the need for more judgeships, we demonstrate that political party alignment between Congress and the president often determines the timing of the judicial expansion. The net effect of expanding during political alignment is to speed up changes in the political balance of the judiciary in favor of the current Congress. We also examine the determinants of expansion size and show that both political alignment and caseload pressure influence Congress\u27 decision regarding how many judgeships to add