An investigation of geometry and noise corrections to San Marco-C neutral atmospheric composition experiment data

The problem of the calculation of ambient densities from San Marco-C neutral atmospheric composition experiment data is considered. A brief description is given of the data measurement method, followed by a description of both the theoretical and experimental data curves. Geometry, electrometer distortions, and noise effects are then studied in terms of their effects on the ideal data form. From these considerations two data reduction methods are evolved. The first is an iterative integration technique that exploits the symmetry of the experimental data about the minimum angle of attack. For the analysis of geometry effects, a second method using interval averaging was developed and studied

Effects of argon ion injections in the plasmasphere

In lifting massive space power system payloads from low Earth orbit to geosynchronous Earth orbit, Cargo Orbit Transfer (COTV) using ion propulsion will inject energetic beams of argon ions into the plasmasphere. The relationship of the beam velocity to Alfven and thermal velocities as a function of radial distance in the plasmasphere is given for positions near the Earth's equatorial plane. A beam sheath loss model is used which results in a deposition of argon ions and hence energy in the plasmasphere which is much less than that in models calling for clouds or plasma instabilities to rapidly stop the beam. A comparison is given of the cumulative fractional mass loss of an ion beam injected at 1.5 R for the ion cloud and the ion beam sheath loss process. The integrated difference of these two deposition models is shown for the construction of one SPS

Historical Gloss, Madisonian Liquidation, and the Originalism Debate

The U.S. Constitution is old, relatively brief, and very difficult to amend. In its original form, the Constitution was primarily a framework for a new national government, and for 230 years the national government has operated under that framework even as conditions have changed in ways beyond the Founders’ conceivable imaginations. The framework has survived in no small part because government institutions have themselves played an important role in helping to fill in and clarify the framework through their practices and interactions, informed by the realities of governance. Courts, the political branches, and academic commentators commonly give weight to such post-Founding governmental practice in discerning the Constitution’s separation of powers. That approach has been referred to as the “historical gloss” method of constitutional interpretation, based on language that Justice Frankfurter used to describe the concept in his concurrence in the Youngstown steel seizure case. Some originalist commentators, however, have advanced a potentially competing approach to crediting post-Founding practice, which they refer to as “liquidation,” an idea that they ascribe to James Madison and certain other members of the Founding generation. To date, there has not been any systematic effort to compare gloss and liquidation, even though the differences between them bear on the constitutionality of a range of governmental practices relating to both domestic and foreign affairs in the fields of constitutional law and federal courts. This Article fills that gap in the literature. We first provide an account of what must be shown in order to establish historical gloss. Our account focuses on longstanding governmental practices that have proven to be stable—that is, practices that have operated for a significant amount of time without generating continued inter-branch contestation. We then consider the extent to which the liquidation concept differs from that of gloss and whether those differences render liquidation more or less normatively attractive than gloss. We argue that a narrow account of liquidation, offered by Professor Caleb Nelson, most clearly distinguishes liquidation from gloss, but that it does so in ways that are normatively problematic. We further argue that a broader account of liquidation, recently offered by Professor William Baude, responds to those normative concerns by diminishing the distinction between liquidation and gloss, but that significant differences remain that continue to raise normative problems for liquidation. Finally, we question whether either scholar’s account of liquidation is properly attributed to Madison

Historical Gloss, Madisonian Liquidation, and the Originalism Debate

The U.S. Constitution is old, relatively brief, and very difficult to amend. In its original form, the Constitution was primarily a framework for a new national government, and for 230 years the national government has operated under that framework even as conditions have changed in ways beyond the Founders’ conceivable imaginations. The framework has survived in no small part because government institutions have themselves played an important role in helping to fill in and clarify the framework through their practices and interactions, informed by the realities of governance. Courts, the political branches, and academic commentators commonly give weight to such post-Founding governmental practice in discerning the Constitution’s separation of powers. That approach has been referred to as the “historical gloss” method of constitutional interpretation, based on language that Justice Frankfurter used to describe the concept in his concurrence in the Youngstown steel seizure case. Some originalist commentators, however, have advanced a potentially competing approach to crediting post-Founding practice, which they refer to as “liquidation,” an idea that they ascribe to James Madison and certain other members of the Founding generation. To date, there has not been any systematic effort to compare gloss and liquidation, even though the differences between them bear on the constitutionality of a range of governmental practices relating to both domestic and foreign affairs in the fields of constitutional law and federal courts. This Article fills that gap in the literature. We first provide an account of what must be shown in order to establish historical gloss. Our account focuses on longstanding governmental practices that have proven to be stable—that is, practices that have operated for a significant amount of time without generating continued inter-branch contestation. We then consider the extent to which the liquidation concept differs from that of gloss and whether those differences render liquidation more or less normatively attractive than gloss. We argue that a narrow account of liquidation, offered by Professor Caleb Nelson, most clearly distinguishes liquidation from gloss, but that it does so in ways that are normatively problematic. We further argue that a broader account of liquidation, recently offered by Professor William Baude, responds to those normative concerns by diminishing the distinction between liquidation and gloss, but that significant differences remain that continue to raise normative problems for liquidation. Finally, we question whether either scholar’s account of liquidation is properly attributed to Madison

After Recess: Historical Practice, Textual Ambiguity, and Constitutional Adverse Possession

The Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Recess Appointments Clause in NLRB v. Noel Canning stands as one of the Supreme Court’s most significant endorsements of the relevance of “historical gloss” to the interpretation of the separation of powers. This Article uses the decision as a vehicle for examining the relationship between interpretive methodology and historical practice, and between historical practice and textual ambiguity. As the Article explains, Noel Canning exemplifies how the constitutional text, perceptions about clarity or ambiguity, and “extra-textual” considerations such as historical practice operate interactively rather than as separate elements of interpretation. The decision also provides a useful entry point into critically analyzing the concept of constitutional “liquidation,” which the majority in Noel Canning seemed to conflate with historical gloss but which seems more consistent with the approach to historical practice reflected in Justice Scalia’s concurrence in the judgment. Finally, this Article argues that the historical gloss approach, when applied cautiously and with sensitivity to the potential concerns raised by Justice Scalia and others, is not vulnerable to the charge of licensing executive aggrandizement by “adverse possession.

Constructed Constraint and the Constitutional Text

In recent years, constitutional theorists have attended to the unwritten aspects of American constitutionalism and, relatedly, to the ways in which the constitutional text can be “constructed” upon by various materials. This Article takes a different approach. Instead of considering how various materials can supplement or implement the constitutional text, it focuses on how the text itself is often partially constructed in American constitutional practice. Although interpreters typically regard clear text as controlling, this Article contends that whether the text is perceived to be clear is often affected by various “modalities” of constitutional interpretation that are normally thought to come into play only after the text is found to be vague or ambiguous: the purpose of a constitutional provision, structural inferences, understandings of the national ethos, consequentialist considerations, customary practice, and judicial and nonjudicial precedent. The constraining effect of clear text, in other words, is partially constructed by considerations that are commonly regarded as extratextual. This phenomenon of constructed constraint unsettles certain distinctions drawn by modern theorists: between interpretation and construction, between the written and the unwritten constitutions, and between the Constitution and the “Constitution outside the Constitution.” Although primarily descriptive, this Article also suggests that constructed constraint produces benefits for the constitutional system by helping interpreters negotiate tensions within democratic constitutionalism

Historical Gloss, Constitutional Convention, and the Judicial Separation of Powers

Scholars have increasingly focused on the relevance of post-Founding historical practice to discern the separation of powers between Congress and the executive branch, and the Supreme Court has recently endorsed the relevance of such practice. Much less attention has been paid, however, to the relevance of historical practice to discerning the separation of powers between the political branches and the federal judiciary — what this Article calls the “judicial separation of powers.” As the Article explains, there are two ways that historical practice might be relevant to the judicial separation of powers. First, such practice might be invoked as an appeal to “historical gloss”— a claim that the practice informs the content of constitutional law. Second, historical practice might be invoked to support what Commonwealth theorists have termed “constitutional conventions.” To illustrate how both gloss and conventions enrich our understanding of the judicial separation of powers, the Article considers the authority of Congress to “pack” the Supreme Court, and the authority of Congress to “strip” the Court’s appellate jurisdiction. This Article shows that, although the defeat of Franklin Roosevelt’s Court-packing plan in 1937 has been studied almost exclusively from a political perspective, many criticisms of the plan involved claims about historical gloss; other criticisms involved appeals to non-legal but obligatory constitutional conventions; and still others blurred the line between those two categories or shifted back and forth between them. Strikingly similar themes emerge in debates in Congress in 1957-58, and within the Justice Department in the early 1980s, over the authority of Congress to prevent the Court from deciding constitutional issues by restricting its appellate jurisdiction. The Article also shows, based on internal executive branch documents that have not previously been discovered or discussed in the literature, how Chief Justice John Roberts, while working in the Justice Department and debating Office of Legal Counsel head Theodore Olson, failed to persuade Attorney General William French Smith that Congress has broad authority to strip the Court’s appellate jurisdiction. The Article then reflects on the implications of gloss and conventions for the judicial separation of powers more generally

Changes in the terrestrial atmosphere-ionosphere-magnetosphere system due to ion propulsion for solar power satellite placement

Preliminary estimates of the effects massive Ar(+) injections on the ionosphere-plasmasphere system with specific emphasis on potential communications disruptions are given. The effects stem from direct Ar(+) precipitation into the atmosphere and from Ar(+) beam induced precipitation of MeV radiation belt protons. These injections result from the construction of Solar Power Satellites using earth-based materials in which sections of a satellite must be lifted from low earth to geosynchronous orbit by means of ion propulsion based on the relatively abundant terrestrial atmospheric component, Ar. The total amount of Ar(+) injected in transporting the components for each Solar Power Satellite is comparable to the total ion content of the ionosphere-plasmasphere system while the total energy injected is larger than that of this system. It is suggested that such effects may be largely eliminated by using lunar-based rather than earth-based satellite construction materials

Wind enhanced planetary escape: Collisional modifications

The problem of thermal escape is considered in which both the effects of thermospheric winds at the exobase and collisions below the exobase are included in a Monte Carlo calculation. The collisions are included by means of a collisional relaxation layer of a background gas which models the transition region between the exosphere and the thermosphere. The wind effects are considered in the limiting cases of vertical and horizontal flows. Two species are considered: terrestrial hydrogen and terrestrial helium. In the cases of terrestrial hydrogen the escape fluxes were found to be strongly filtered or throttled by collisions at high exospheric temperatures. The model is applied to molecular hydrogen diffusing through a methane relaxation layer under conditions possible on Titan. The results are similar to the case of terrestrial hydrogen with wind enhanced escape being strongly suppressed by collisions. It is concluded that wind enhanced escape is not an important process on Titan

Production of Z' and W' via Drell-Yan processes in the 4D Composite Higgs Model at the LHC

We present an analysis of both the Neutral Current (NC) and Charged Current (CC) Drell-Yan processes at the LHC within a 4 Dimensional realization of a Composite Higgs model studying the cross sections and taking into account the possible impact of the extra fermions present in the spectrum.Comment: Conference proceeding, XII IFAE Edition, 3-5 April 2013, Cagliari. 2 pages, 2 figures; v2 typo correcte