Year: 2020

Rocket Lab completes new launchpad at Wallops

9:43 am

Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab has signaled the completion of new launchpad at Wallops Island in the U.S. by the first roll out of an Electron rocket.

The actual launch of a Space Force test satellite is set for sometime in the summer.

Meanwhile, the company is ready to resume launches in New Zealand, but is stymied by the Wuhan panic.

Beck tells the Herald that his company’s Mission Control centre in Auckland is now fully operational with NZ’s move to level 3.

However, its “Don’t Stop Me Now” mission from Launch Complex 1 on the Mahia Peninsula – originally planned for March 24 – is still on hold, with no estimated launch date. “We’re now ready to launch, but currently border restrictions are preventing specialists from entering the country, which is having a negative impact. Our team is on standby to launch as soon as those restrictions are eased,” Beck says.

I hope the company has the resources to weather these government-imposed delays.

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Arianespace to resume launches in June

9:34 am

Capitalism in space: Arianespace now plans to resume launches from French Guiana in mid-June with the first Vega launch since that rocket’s first failure in July 2019.

That launch will place 40+ cubesats in orbit. Arianespace hopes to follow with an Ariane 5 launch near the end of July. Of that mission’s three payloads is MEV-2, Northrop Grumman’s second Mission Extension Vehicle to launch, planned to dock with another defunct geosynchronous communications satellite and reactive it for five years.

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Ducey extends Arizona shut down two weeks

6:16 pm

Fascist: Republican Arizona governor Doug Ducey today announced a two week extension of his so-called “shelter-in-place” order, what is really a house arrest for the general population and a shut down of business that is putting one quarter of the population out of work.

Ducey’s new edicts call for some businesses to begin opening sooner, but with many restrictions. Restaurants however will be locked down until May 12. The edict also said that “no county, city, or town may issue orders, rules, or regulations that conflict with the executive order.”

I wonder if there might be some pushback from local authorities in some areas, as has been seen in other states, especially because of this minor detail:

One in four small businesses in Phoenix could be gone for good, according to the city’s economic director. It could take six years to recover all the jobs that have been lost. “Seeing that 20% to 25% of our small businesses won’t be here when this is over is terrifying for me,” said Christine Mackay, Director of Community and Economic Development for the City of Phoenix.

What does Ducey care if one in four people are out of work? He made himself look good, and now can preen himself as a hero.

To me, he looks like a jackbooted thug. May he roast in hell.

And I dare him to send some police storm troopers to my house to arrest me for saying so.

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Fascist America: Brought to you by our elected officials

11:43 am

This week brought another slew of arrests against ordinary Americans, some for daring to protest the house arrest orders imposed nationwide by most state and city elected officials, some for simply going about their lives, their “pursuit of happiness.”

These are just a sampling. If you have been paying any attention at all, you will have seen many many other similar stories.

Meanwhile, these same fascist thugs have been releasing convicted criminals onto the streets, including high risk sex offenders.

This pattern is not new during this madness. The ruling Democratic politicians in both New York and California have made it very clear that they consider freeing such criminals as their goal, even as they ramp up their efforts to arrest innocent citizens for the most innocuous behavior.

Where will this end? Never I fear. The original lie that justified the shut downs was an effort to ease the country into the epidemic so that the healthcare system would not be overwhelmed. This was a lie because the virus was never going to overwhelm the healthcare system, and the evidence since has not only proven this, it has shown that the shut downs actually did significant harm to that healthcare system.

Even so, the shut downs didn’t end when that it was clear the healthcare system could handle the virus. Instead, a new lie was propagated, calling the shut downs an effort to stop the spread of the virus.

This lie is more blatant and disgusting. Not only is it impossible to stop the spread of this virus, the lock downs will have no effect at all. Eventually, the virus will spread through the entire population, with most never even knowing they got it.

This however is a feature, not a bug to the fascist government officials imposing martial law on Americans while nullifying the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Because the infection can never be stopped, the justification for the lock downs, the house arrests, the arrests of protesters, the imposition of martial law, will never end. Whoopee!

Unless Americans begin defying these orders, we are faced with a fascist state. And I see no sign that most Americans are really willing to defy these orders. If anything, they support them.

Welcome to fascist America. The dark age is no longer coming. It has arrived.

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Perseverance’s helicopter named Ingenuity

9:15 am

After sifting through the 28,000 name suggestions submitted by K through 12 American students for naming the Mars rover Perseverance, NASA has chosen to use a suggestion from an Alabama high school student to name the rover’s prototype test helicopter Ingenuity.

As a technology demonstration, Ingenuity is a high-risk, high-reward experiment. The helicopter will ride to Mars attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover, which is preparing for launch in July or August. For several months following the rover’s landing, Ingenuity will remain encapsulated in a protective cover to shield it from debris during entry, descent and landing. When the timing in the rover mission is right, Ingenuity will be deployed to stand and operate on its own on the surface of the Red Planet. If the 4-pound (2-kilogram), solar-powered craft – a combination of specially designed components and off-the-shelf parts – survives the cold Martian nights during its pre-flight checkout, the team will proceed with testing.

If successful during its 30-Martian-day (31-Earth-day) experimental flight test window, the small craft will prove that powered flight can be achieved at Mars, enabling future Mars missions to better utilize second-generation helicopters to add an aerial dimension to their explorations.

The student, Vaneeza Rupani, had proposed the name for the rover. She instead is honored for the helicopter.

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US 1st quarter GDP crashes

8:53 am

Are you enraged yet? Due to the government-imposed shutdowns due to the Wuhan panic, the gross domestic product (GDP) shrank 4.8% in the first quarter of 2020, the most since 2008.

Consumer expenditures, which comprise 67% of total GDP, plunged 7.6% in the quarter as all nonessential stores were closed and the cornerstone of the U.S. economy was taken almost completely out of commission. Durable goods spending tumbled 16.1% while expenditures on services were down 10.2%.

Exports dropped 8.7% while imports fell 15.3%, including a 30% drop in services.

The count of all goods and services produced in the U.S. shows that even though the first quarter saw only two weeks of shutdown, the impact was pronounced and set the stage for a second-quarter picture will be the worst in the post-World War II era.

As the article notes, we ain’t seen nothing yet. And it will only get even worse should our all-wise supreme leaders continue to stretch out this shut down, initially imposed under the big lie that it was merely intended to “flatten the curve” during the epidemic’s onset so that the healthcare system would not be overwhelmed.

It was not overwhelmed. In fact, it never would have been overwhelmed. As I said, it was a big lie.

Now the big lie is that these fascist government lock downs must be maintained in order to prevent the spread of the disease, a goal that is infinitely impossible but if accepted by the public will allow these petty dictators to keep their jackboots on our necks for the rest of time.

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ICE & FBI agents took bribes

8:43 am

Agents of both ICE and the FBI took bribes to provide protection as well as cook the records for an indicted Los Angeles lawyer.

We only know this because conviction of the lawyer says so. The FBI agent is named and has been charged. The ICE agent however remains a mystery, for unknown reasons.

But don’t worry. The government is wise and all-knowing. The best thing we can do during this Wuhan panic is give them a lot of power!

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Long March 5B moved to launchpad

8:32 am

The new colonial movement: China’s first Long March 5B rocket has been rolled to its launchpad in advance of its first launch, now expected around May 5th.

The launch was originally scheduled for mid-April, but it appears two recent Chinese launch failures, plus the Wuhan flu, caused the two-three week delay.

The payload is a test prototype of China’s still unnamed next generation manned capsule, which according to the article, will come in two variants:

The spacecraft has two variants of around 14 and 20 metric tons respectively. The mission will test the latter, which is designed for deep space. The mission will be uncrewed and will not include life support systems.

The spacecraft will be able to carry up to six astronauts, or three astronauts and 500 kilograms of cargo to LEO. The three-module Shenzhou can carry three astronauts to LEO and has been used for all six of the country’s crewed missions. The new spacecraft also features improved heat shielding than that used by the Shenzhou. The advanced shielding is required to survive the higher-energy reentries involved deep space missions.

Once in low Earth orbit, the two-module, 8.8-meter-long, 21.6-ton uncrewed spacecraft will use its own propulsion to raise its orbit to an apogee of around 8,000 kilometers. It will then attempt a high-speed reentry to test new heat shielding. The mission also will test avionics, performance in orbit, parachute deployment, a cushioned airbag landing, and recovery. Planned partial reusability — by replacing the heat shielding — will also be tested.

China’s entire manned and planetary program depends on the success of this launch. Should it fail, as did the early launches of the Long March 5, the program will likely experience a one to two year delay.

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Freedom rallies planned nationwide for May 1st

11:18 am

The growing movement to force governors to end their nationwide house arrest of the American citizenry is now coalescing into a swelling number of freedom rallies set for May 1st:

The “drive-in” rallies for freedom encourage participants to head to their state capitol or local government building to protest the nationwide lockdowns and demand independence from China, not allowing the country to “control trade, supply chains, or anything else that affects the daily life, health, happiness of American citizens.”

A schedule shows events slated to pop up in Honolulu, Hawaii; Phoenix, Arizona; Northampton, Massachusetts; Los Angeles, California; Huntington Beach, California; San Diego, California; San Francisco, California; Ventura, California; Louisville, Kentucky; Salem, Oregon; Chicago, Illinois; Springfield, Illinois; Atlanta, Georgia; Morehead City, North Carolina; Smithfield, North Carolina; Brookfield, Wisconsin; Carson City, Nevada; Boise, Idaho; and Limerick, Pennsylvania.

“It shouldn’t need to be said that the US Constitution will not be infringed upon, but it is under attack by local and state government tyrants across the country,” the event’s page reads:

This slate of protests is a warning. Right now the demonstrators are trying to be peaceful and law-abiding, but if the Constitution-nullifying restrictions are not removed soon, we should not be surprised if things turn violent. Americans were raised with the expectation that they will be free to follow their pursuit of happiness, and these fascist shut down orders by state governors are preventing that pursuit.

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Hubble photographs break-up of Comet ATLAS

10:53 am

The break-up of Comet ATLAS
For the full images go to April 20 and April 23.

Cool image time! Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have captured the break-up of Comet ATLAS over a period of several days. The two images to the right, cropped and annotated to post here, were taken on April 20th and April 23rd respectively.

Hubble identified about 30 fragments on April 20, and 25 pieces on April 23. They are all enveloped in a sunlight-swept tail of cometary dust. “Their appearance changes substantially between the two days, so much so that it’s quite difficult to connect the dots,” said David Jewitt, professor of planetary science and astronomy at UCLA, Los Angeles, California, leader of one of two teams who photographed the doomed comet with Hubble. “I don’t know whether this is because the individual pieces are flashing on and off as they reflect sunlight, acting like twinkling lights on a Christmas tree, or because different fragments appear on different days.”

That there are fewer pieces in the later image could also be because the smaller fragments had crumbled even more during the three days between photos, and thus were simply too small to see any longer.

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