Year: 2019

Branson seeks new capital for Virgin Galactic/Orbit

8:31 am

Capitalism in space: Apparently short of cash because of his cancellation of a $1 billion investment space deal with Saudi Arabia, Richard Branson has hired a finance firm to find him new capital for his two space companies Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbit.

Sources said this weekend that Sir Richard was seeking funding that would value Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbit, which launches satellites for commercial customers, at a combined sum of well over $2bn (£1.55bn).

The precise amount that he is looking to raise has yet to be determined, but people close to the process suggested it would be at least $250m (£193m), representing a minority stake.

The structure of a deal could see new shareholders injecting money into either, or both, Virgin-branded space companies.

I will not be surprised if Branson gets the investment capital for Virgin Orbit. I will also not be surprised if he has trouble finding anyone willing to invest a lot in Virgin Galactic. In fact, this shortage in capital might spell the end of this fourteen year effort at building a reusable spacecraft designed to provide suborbital tourism.

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Belarus willing to remerge with Russia

8:45 pm

The Russian empire resurgent: Belarus’s leader yesterday said his country is now willing to re-unite with Russia.

Putin has built his reputation as the man who added territory to the Russian Federation, not one who allows it to be taken away. However, there is a higher calling in a formal union of the two countries. It seems the Kremlin may believe that upon such a real union, the Russian constitution becomes ‘invalid’ and guess what, the new country needs a new president – none other than Vladimir Putin! Those pesky term limits of the old constitution will no longer be a problem.

“The two of us could unite tomorrow, no problem,” Lukashenko said in a video shared by a Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid Kremlin reporter on Twitter Friday, reported The Moscow Times.

Russia has been applying strong pressure to force Belarus back into its fold, and it appears that pressure is working. And as the article correctly notes, nations neighboring Russia should be prepared for the same treatment.

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Widespread Yellow Vest protests in France

5:13 pm

The “Yellow Vest” protests in France appear to be expanding, with numerous protests appearing to take place today throughout the country.

The reasons for these protests are complex, but they appear mostly rooted in a growing distrust of and contempt for the status quo French ruling class, which like the U.S. ruling class has not served its citizenry well in the past two decades, from either side of the political spectrum.

The response of the leftist Macron French government to these protests, which have been on-going for the past two months?

On February 5th the National Assembly passed a new law to restrict protests, a law pushed by President Macron and his party “La Republic En Marche”.

It would give local authorities the right to exclude specific people from protesting and allow judges to ban protests entirely.

I am not surprised that the protests have grown since this law was passed. It goes against every principle of western civilization, and can only spark outrage.

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Nigerian national elections postponed suddenly for a week

3:13 pm

Nigerian government officials today suddenly postponed Nigeria’s national elections, delaying them for a week.

Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission, said the election would now be held on Feb. 23, adding that the date was “sacrosanct” and that campaigning would be suspended until then.

Buhari, in power since 2015, faces a tight election contest against Atiku of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy and its top oil producer.

Not surprisingly, Atiku and his supporters accused Buhari of pushing this behind the scenes for political reasons. The electoral commission and Buhari’s people of course deny this.

We shall see what happens in a week.

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A good summary of the FBI coup attempt against Trump

1:28 pm

Link here. After more than two years of “Trump colluded with Russia!”, it is now been clearly documented that there was never anything to this, and that it was instead a ploy by the Democratic Party, the FBI, and the hostile Democratic mainstream press to overturn the legal election of an American president.

This article provides a concise and clear summary of the FBI’s illegal and criminal participation in this coup attempt, now admitted to by fired FBI official Andrew McCabe. It lists and details the following seven takeaways:

  • 1. McCabe Proves Trump Firing Comey Was Justified
  • 2. McCabe and His Co-conspirators Only Ever Had The Dossier to Go On
  • 3. Much Of This Seems Like A Cover-up
  • 4. The Conspirators Might Be Turning On Each Other
  • 5. McCabe Might Be Telling The Truth About Rosenstein
  • 6. The Whole Russia Probe Is Tainted And Corrupt
  • 7. Comey, McCabe, Clapper, And Brennan Are Unpatriotic Dopes

For emphasis, I want to quote this description of McCabe’s actions, from the start of the article:

Here we have a formerly powerful and unelected government official, for all the world to see, admitting that the FBI tried to launch a coup against the constitutionally elected president of the United States, in only the first few months of his tenure.

McCabe however was not alone. He was part of a cadre of upper FBI management that teamed up to try to overturn an election, many of whom are still in office. We shall see if the new attorney general, William Barr, is willing to clean house. If he isn’t, this kind of misbehavior will only get worse.

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Democratic LA City Council votes to blacklist NRA linked contractors

12:10 pm

They’re coming for you next: The Democratic LA City Council voted last week to require any contractor who works for the city to reveal if it has any ties to the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Los Angeles City Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell spearheaded the effort to pass the legislation, which still awaits Mayor Eric Garcetti’s signature.

“For the sake of transparency, the city’s residents and stakeholders deserve to know how the city’s public funds are being spent, and whether taxpayer funds are being spent on contractors that have contractual or sponsorship ties with the NRA,” the motion states, according to CBS News.

The ordinance comes on the heels of a number of gun measures taken up by the city council. In August, a motion was introduced making it a misdemeanor offense in the city to possess, download or distribute a blueprint for 3D firearms in the city of L.A.

Why does this remind me of that famous McCarthy era line, “Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” Then, liberals rightly screamed this was a direct attack on American freedom. It was no politician’s right to demand such information.

Now, the left thinks it good policy. And don’t think the information won’t be used to establish a blacklist. That is exactly what is intended. The left will not tolerate any opposition to its agenda. None. And if you try it, it intends to squash you like a bug.

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New LRO image of Chang’e-4 and Yutu-2

10:05 am

Chang'e-4 and Yutu-2

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) science team has released its third and best image of the Chinese Chang’e-4 lander and Yutu-2 rover. The image on the right is a full resolution cropped section, with the lander on the bottom and the rover above and to the left.

Just after midnight (UTC) on 1 February 2019 LRO passed nearly overhead the Chang’e 4 landing site. From an altitude of 82 kilometers the LROC Narrow Angle Camera pixel scale was 0.85 meters (33 inches), allowing a sharper view of the lander and Yutu-2 rover. At the time the rover was 29 meters northwest of the lander, but the rover has likely moved since the image was acquired. This view has close to the smallest pixel size possible in the current LRO orbit. In the future however, LROC will continue to image the site as the lighting changes and the rover roves!

These future LRO images will allow us to track Yutu-2 and get an idea of its research, even if the Chinese do not release any information.

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Progressive group harasses, demands firing of professor, because of his religion and his political beliefs

10:47 pm

They’re coming for you next: An administrator and teacher at Kingsborough Community College in New York now requires full time security to protect him from harassment by a leftist group that wants him fired, because he is Jewish, conservative, and is a supporter of Israel.

As he wrote at the link:

The vandals defaced a photo of my father with anti-Semitic graffiti, including the words “F–k Trump Goldstein, Kill the Zionist Entity.” I later learned the incident came one day after Kingsborough Professor Katia Perea apparently told an administrator who refused her request to fire me, “I guess I will have to handle this myself.”

Perea, whom I have never met or spoken to, is a member of the Progressive Faculty Caucus, a radical faculty group at Kingsborough.

…In May, more than 1,000 flyers were distributed around campus calling for my firing and attributing vile, false allegations of racism, sexism and anti-Muslim sentiments to me.

I’ve never promoted any of my private or religious opinions in the classroom — or anywhere else on campus. Nor have I held any of the hateful views the flyers attached to me. In her earlier attempt to get me fired, Perea went from office to office showing staff my private Facebook photos as her “evidence” that I’m racist and sexist. The PFC’s efforts then escalated into what the flyers described as an imperative to “build a movement” against me.

And that’s exactly what it has been — an orchestrated, aggressive movement to destroy me. May’s flyers included a picture of my 13-year-old daughter. I’ve chaired a food committee at Kingsborough for eight years, and suddenly, a PFC member new to the committee began investigating my activity. [emphasis mine]

Up until now, it was perfectly legal and proper in this once free nation for a person to be Jewish, conservative, and a supporter of Israel. Now such individuals apparently must be hunted down and destroyed, by any means necessary. Worse, this 2-minute hate now includes his children.

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Harpoon concept for removing space junk tested in orbit

10:20 pm

A harpoon, the second of three engineering experiments for capturing space junk, was successfully fired last week.

A British satellite released from the International Space Station last year has successfully demonstrated a harpoon that could be used on future missions to clean up space debris, officials announced Friday.

The harpoon fired out of the RemoveDebris spacecraft Feb. 8, striking a target plate extended from the satellite on a 4.9-foot (1.5-meter) boom. The experiment was one of the main objectives of the $17 million (15.2-million-euro) RemoveDebris mission, conceived as a testbed for technologies engineers hope will allow future satellites to tidy up busy orbital traffic lanes by collecting dead satellites and rockets and driving them back into Earth’s atmosphere to burn up.

In a dramatic video released by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd., the harpoon is seen catapulting out of the RemoveDebris spacecraft at a velocity of about 45 mph — 20 meters per second — and spearing its target. A cable attached to the harpoon kept the device from flying off and becoming its own piece of space junk.

The first experiment was a test of a net, tested successfully in September. The last of the three experiments, scheduled in a month, will test a sail designed to slow the satellite’s speed so that it gets de-orbited quickly.

I have embedded the video of the harpoon test below the fold.
» Read more

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NASA to put humans on the Moon soon!

3:11 pm

Wanna bet? According to NASA officials, the agency is accelerating its manned effort and expects to return to the Moon with humans by 2028 at the latest!

Jim Bridenstine, NASA’s administrator, told reporters Thursday that the agency plans to speed up plans backed by President Donald Trump to return to the moon, using private companies.

“It’s important that we get back to the moon as fast as possible,” said Bridenstine in a meeting at NASA’s Washington headquarters, adding he hoped to have astronauts back there by 2028.

“This time, when we go to the Moon, we’re actually going to stay. We’re not going to leave flags and footprints and then come home to not go back for another 50 years” he said.

Why does this announcement remind me of similar enthusiastic predictions made by Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, all of which have never come true? In fact, why does Bridenstine’s prediction remind me of many past NASA predictions since the 1980s, all of which either never happened, or happened decades behind schedule and in a manner that was far from grand?

If NASA is the agency to run this program, this prediction will not happen, period. For NASA to get back to the Moon by 2028 would require them to somehow build Gateway (which Bridenstine labels as a key component in this program) while also accelerating the launch schedule of SLS, a rocket NASA has spent fifteen years building that it doesn’t expect to launch for at least two more years, and will not put humans on it until 2024, at the earliest.

Gateway has not even been funded. It provides no way to get to the lunar surface. If it is funded it will cost billions, and likely take as long to build as SLS. SLS itself is expensive, unwieldy, and incapable of providing launch services for such an ambitious program.

Bridenstine’s announcement though did contain a ray of hope. He and his associates made a big deal about how they wish to hire many different private companies to achieve their goals. If the agency gets out of the way and lets free Americans do the job, then maybe it will happen.

We shall see. NASA’s track record when it comes to letting privately-built manned commercial spacecraft do the job is dismal, and that’s being kind.

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