Tag: Houston

Texas grants $5 million grants to two spaceport regions

12:45 pm

Texas today awarded $5 million grants to two spaceport regions, one in Houston and the other in Cameron County where SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility is located.

Governor Greg Abbott today announced Spaceport Trust Fund grant awards of $5,000,000 to the Cameron County Spaceport Development Corporation and $5,000,000 to the Houston Spaceport Development Corporation. Administered by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development and Tourism, the Spaceport Trust Fund is a financial tool to support the development of infrastructure necessary for establishing a spaceport in the state of Texas. The 87th Legislature appropriated $10,000,000 in funds in fiscal year 2022 to provide grants, disbursed on a cost-reimbursement basis, to help support the creation of quality jobs and attract continuing investments that will strengthen the economic future of the state.

The money is obviously intended to help pay for things like roads and bridges and other various improvements required to handle the increased traffic and population brought to the locations because of the new spaceport activity.

One wonders, however, why Houston got as much as the Boca Chica area. As far as I know, there is no spaceport begin built near Houston. It houses the Johnson Space Center, but that handles activities prior to and after launch.

I suspect there was some politics involved. Abbott couldn’t award Boca Chica while ignoring Houston, especially because Houston’s importance in the space industry is presently declining as the industry moves from a government-run model (epitomized by the Johnson center) to a private commercial model (epitomized by SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility). Abbott probably felt obliged to send some support Houston’s way to avoid accusations that he is ignoring its increasingly problematic position.

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Axiom chooses Houston for its astronaut training and space station construction facility

8:58 am

Capitalism in space: Axiom, the company building the next private modules to be added to ISS, has chosen Houston as the location for its astronaut training and space station construction facility.

Axiom Space, based in Houston, plans to develop a 14-acre headquarters campus at the spaceport located at Ellington Airport. It will use this campus to train private astronauts and for production of its Axiom Station. Mayor Sylvester Turner announced the project on Tuesday.

…Terms of the deal, including how the development would be financed, are still being worked out and must be approved by City Council. The Houston Airport System, for instance, could help provide financing that Axiom Space would pay back.

Axiom said construction could begin in 2021, and it expects to have a functional headquarters campus in 2023. The company grew its workforce to 90 people this year and is looking to hire another 100 next year. Ultimately, it could add more than 1,000 jobs for the Houston area.

For Axiom, the most important event in the coming year will be its private manned mission to ISS, using SpaceX’s Dragon capsule. That flight, presently scheduled for the fall, will put it on the map.

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Houston restaurant chain faces leftist boycott

10:18 am

They’re coming for you next: A Houston restaurant chain has been forced to shut down its social media webpages because of leftist demands on those pages for a boycott.

And why is the fascist left calling for a boycott? The chain had showed a picture of them serving Attorney General Jeff Sessions at one of their restaurants, and this is unacceptable. At first the owner of the chain had released a statement saying that the picture was not an endorsement of the Trump administration, noting that the photo “does not represent us supporting (Sessions’) positions.”

This obviously wasn’t good enough for the fascist left. How dare this restaurant dare provide dinner to a Republican!?

Also notice the hypocrisy of the left. They want to force Christians to endorse homosexual weddings, but also force restaurants not to serve Republicans. Both reveal the tyrannical nature.of the left: They aren’t for equal rights, but an imposition of their agenda and the oppression of anyone who opposes them.

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Houston trying to steal land from two churches

2:09 pm

Fascists: Having failed to intimidate religious leaders when the city of Houston tried to subpoena their sermons, the city is now trying to use eminent domain procedures to shut down two churches.

The fifth ward is located just outside of downtown. Property values in the area have skyrocketed and continue to climb. The City of Houston offered to purchase the churches. When the churches refused, the city came back with threats of using eminent domain to acquire the property as part of an urban development plan.

More here. Texas state law, written and passed after the Supreme Court decision in Kelo v New London, expressly forbids this kind of eminent domain taking. Moreover, the taking appears to specifically violate the first amendment rights of these two churches.

Quick! Guess what to which political party the Houston mayor belongs!

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Houston mayor withdrews sermon subpoenas

10:22 am

A partial victory for free speech: The lesbian mayor of Houston has withdrawn the subpoenas her administration had issued demanding that conservative pastors turn over to the government any sermons or communications which had discussed politics.

I call this a partial victory because the mayor, Annise Parker, is still in office, and was still unapologetic about the subpoenas.

“The goal of the subpoenas is to defend against the lawsuit and not to provoke a public debate,” Parker said. She is ordering the subpoenas removed for the sake of Houston, not because the request were in any way illegal or intended to intrude on religious liberties, Parker said. “I didn’t do this to satisfy them,” Parker said of critics. “I did it because it was not serving Houston.”

She still thinks it was perfectly okay to make this demand against her opponents. Such a person should never be allowed the power of any political office, including dog-catcher.

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Send your sermons to Houston

9:05 am

This is good: Mike Huckabee on Saturday suggested that every pastor in America send their sermons to the mayor of Houston.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said pastors from across the United States should send “thousands and thousands” of Bibles and sermons to the Houston mayor who demanded pastors turn over their sermons to the government due to their objection to an LGBT discrimination city ordinance.”I hope she gets thousands and thousands of sermons and Bibles,” Huckabee said on his Fox News show Saturday, referring to Mayor Annise D. Parker.”It ought to make you mad that the mayor thinks she can turn in her pastors. And so I got an idea,” Huckabee explained. “If she wants a sermon, here is my suggestion. I would like to ask every pastor in America, not only the ones in Houston, to send her your sermons and go ahead. Obviously she could use a few. And everybody watching the show ought to send her a Bible.”

As always, the best answer to bad speech is more speech!

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Houston mayor says she will reduce scoop of pastor subpoenas

8:18 pm

How nice of her: The lesbian Democratic mayor of Houston has backtracked and promised to narrow the scope of the subpoenas her government issued to several pastors, demanding access to their sermons, speeches, and communications with church members.

She is still a fascist, as she is still going to go forward. She also has not yet specified exactly how she plans to narrow the scope of her demands, since as far as I can tell, none of her demands are constitutional or even reasonable.

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Houston demands that pastors hand in their sermons on homosexuality or be held in contempt of court.

3:36 pm

Fascists: The city of Houston has issued subpoenas demanding that pastors hand in any sermons on the subjects of homosexuality, gender identity or the city’s first openly gay mayor Annise Parker or be held in contempt of court.

Among those slapped with a subpoena is Steve Riggle, the senior pastor of Grace Community Church. He was ordered to produce all speeches and sermons related to Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality and gender identity. The mega-church pastor was also ordered to hand over “all communications with members of your congregation” regarding the non-discrimination law. “This is an attempt to chill pastors from speaking to the cultural issues of the day,” Riggle told me. “The mayor would like to silence our voice. She’s a bully.”

The only reason the city government and the mayor are demanding these sermons is to silence their opponents. Their actions are blatant violations of the first amendment and the freedom of speech, and are an effort to oppress any opposition to their own personal political agendas.

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Houston yesterday signed a letter of intent with Sierra Nevada to provide the company a home at that city’s proposed spaceport.

9:15 am

The competition heats up: Houston yesterday signed a letter of intent with Sierra Nevada to provide the company a home at that city’s proposed spaceport.

The competition here is not from the spaceship company but from the spaceport. Houston is in a race with Colorado and Florida for the launch business. In fact, it appears that a lot of American cities are scrambling to attract the new aerospace launch companies, suggesting that they all see a new industry aborning and want their share.

Another example: The California legislature has passed a ten year tax exemption for spaceflight companies.

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