Year: 2021

Texas power outages delay Starliner but not Starship

8:42 am

Boeing announced yesterday that due to the winter storms and power outages in Texas it has delayed the second unmanned demo flight of its Starliner manned capsule from March 25 to no earlier than April 2nd.

Meanwhile, SpaceX’s Starship operation in Boca Chica, Texas has been proceeding practically unaffected by the power outages.

At the southernmost fringes of Texas, SpaceX’s Boca Chica Starship factory hasn’t been insulated from the chaos, though a large Tesla Solar and Energy installation has almost certainly lessened the blow. Highly cognizant of Boca Chica’s shortcomings for industrial-grade power needs, SpaceX installed that solar array and Tesla-made Powerpacks almost three years ago and substantially expanded it in 2020.

As a result, despite major issues posed by freezing weather and power grid instability, SpaceX has managed to keep the lights on and continue work at its Starship factory, while also slowly but surely preparing Starship serial number 10 (SN10) for its first static fire and high-altitude launch.

The weather is clearly slowing the Starship test schedule, but at least the work seems insulated from loss of power.

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A historian’s memorial to Rush Limbaugh

5:46 pm

I originally posted the essay below a year ago when we first learned that Rush Limbaugh was seriously ill with lung cancer. With his passing today, I think it needs to be reread, with an addendum at the end.

A historian’s memorial to Rush Limbaugh (February 4, 2020)

It was very strange to me to hear yesterday’s sad announcement by Rush Limbaugh that he had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. In the last six months or so my mind had actually been contemplating the fact that Limbaugh had been doing his show for more than three decades, was in his late sixties, and was not immortal. I had been trying to imagine what it would be like when he was no longer a fixture in the daily news reporting cycle, and I had been failing. I couldn’t imagine it.

Now it appears we might all be finally facing it. As they say, reality bites.

For those who have listened to him regularly these past three decades, the loss will be immeasurable. Without question Rush Limbaugh has been the best political analyst, from a conservative perspective, for the past half century. You might disagree with his opinions, but no one has been as correct and as pertinent and as thoughtful, consistently getting to the heart of every political battle, and doing it in an amazingly entertaining manner.

I first heard Rush Limbaugh back in 1988, when I lived in New York and was starving for a different and refreshing perpective on the news.
» Read more

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Hungarian company awarded NASA contract to develop Moon mini-rover

4:49 pm

A Hungarian company has won a NASA contract worth $225K to develop what the company calls its Puli Moon mini-rover.

Named after a Hungarian breed of dog, the Puli rover is a low-cost platform designed to carry different payloads, including the ice water snooper, which won the 2020 “Honey, I Shrunk the NASA Payload” challenge, a competition organised by the U.S. space agency. Weighing less than 400 grammes (14 oz), its purpose is to probe for water ice by identifying and mapping the subsurface hydrogen content of the lunar soil.

The “news article” at the link appears to be a poorly researched article distributed by Reuters that has now been reprinted without changes by such stalwart American mainstream news outlets like the New York Post and MSN.com, to name two. Neither bothered to do any further research.

The article falsely claims that the airplane-based SOFIA telescope recently confirmed there is water on the Moon. It also claims that this rover will be on a lunar mission next year, something that does not seem likely at all.

A look at the company’s website clarifies things. The company competed in a NASA contest offering its design of a very tiny lightweight rover, won, and was then awarded a larger development contract of $225K. No launch is presently set, though if the company is successful in building it for this cost, they will likely get a berth on a later unmanned mission.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Biden sign language interpreter blackballed for also translating for conservative outlets

3:30 pm

The cancelled Bill of Rights

They’re coming for you next: In a news article soon after Biden became president, the Washington Post demanded that a sign language interpreter be blacklisted from working in the Biden administration simply because she previously translated for conservative and pro-Trump organizations.

From the Post’s article,

[The interpreter] who appeared in the White House coronavirus briefing on Monday beside press secretary Jen Psaki was identified by deaf and hard-of-hearing advocates and Time Magazine, fueling questions about the White House’s vetting process and what could have happened if [she] misinterpreted Biden officials or inserted her own bias. No one has publicly disputed her interpretation, but many questioned why the White House would legitimize her by giving [her] the national platform.

…More than 3,500 people have signed a petition to have [the interpreter] banned from interpreting for the White House. Some indicated they intended to report her.

That petition now has 9,000 signatures, and it appears that the Biden administration is now blackballing her, as she has not been given any work by them since the Washington Post story was published. It also appears that she has since been harassed and slandered online as well.

I have removed the interpreter’s name because I do not wish to help these storm-troopers in their two-minute hate campaign.

As noted at the first link above,

It’s a blacklist, and, in a sad devolution from the days when the press was the enemy of such things, now our national press is the very conduit. Here is a woman who has done nothing wrong. Her only sin was working. Even the reporter [Meryl Kornfield] admits that there is absolutely no evidence that this woman has done anything wrong — anything but her job. Her interpretations to this point seem to be deemed faultless.

All this woman did was take work from any who called her, from both sides of the political spectrum. That’s not good enough for our modern Democratic Party and its army of jack-booted thugs. They must always ask this paraphrased question from the worst of the McCarthy era : “Have ever been a member of or worked for the Republican Party or any pro-Trump organization?” If the answer is yes, then your life must be destroyed.

Welcome to the modern leftist paradise, brought to us by the supporters of the Democratic Party.

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Russia denies visa to NASA manager in retaliation for claimed similar denial by U.S.

3:29 pm

Russian officials revealed today that they denied and entrance visa to a NASA manager in retaliation for what they claim was a similar denial by U.S. government of another Russian individual.

The Russians did not reveal the names of either official, or even the work they were involved in. It appears however that that Russian blocked from entering the U.S. was not involved in space work. We also do not know if this was done during the Trump or Biden administration.

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Enigmatic channel on Mars

9:58 am

Enigmatic channel on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time. The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on October 26, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and labeled by the science team as simply an “Enigmatic Channel in Syrtis Major.”

It shows a channel going downhill to the northeast east in a series of steps, separated cliffs that in the southwest hikers call pour-offs, with the channel becoming initially deeper and then slowly becoming more shallow, until the next pour-off. On Earth the pour-offs would be waterfalls, with a deep pond at the base. On Mars?

Without doubt this channel poses mysteries, but maybe with a little research we can make it less enigmatic. Asl always, the overview map below gives context, and helps give a possible explanation for what created this channel.
» Read more

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SpaceX raises another $850 million in investment capital

8:10 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX last week successfully raised another $850 million in investment capital in order to fund both its Starlink and Starship projects.

The article does not detail how the company plans to use the money, though it does also indicate this was not all that was raised.

In addition to SpaceX further building a war chest for its ambitious plans, company insiders and existing investors were able to sell an additional $750 million in a secondary transaction, one of the people said.

If I understand this correctly (which I admit I might not), this means SpaceX now has an additional $1.6 billion on hand in addition to the $2 billion it has previously raised.

Even if it only raised $850 million, that gives it a war chest of almost three billion for both Starlink and Starship. With Starlink already bringing in some earnings, the company should have enough to get done what it aims to do.

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An update on coronavirus from an Arizona doctor

3:09 pm

My personal GP doctor in Arizona, Robert Lending, has for the last year sent out weekly detailed updates to his patients on the on-going COVID-19 epidemic. I thought I provide my readers his carefully researched doctor’s perspective, with his permission of course.

First he updates us on the state of the epidemic in Arizona:

The surge in AZ and in Pima County is over; with dramatic decreases in Cases, Case Fatality Rates (CFR), and Case Hospitalization Rates (CHR). The hospitalization utilizations including beds and ventilators, etc. are markedly decreased. {{{Tucson Medical Center is down to 10.5% Inpatient Covid-19, and they will resume elective surgeries.}}} The initial reductions began before vaccinations, but now may have been helped by the vaccinations. On the other hand, the virus acts as it will; independent of most of society’s attempts to control or modify it, no matter what the politicians and health department officials state. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted text matches what I have been saying for the past year, that the panicky effort to “stop the spread of COVID-19” was foolish, counterproductive, and entirely useless. And the evidence now a year later supports that conclusion. Nothing done by any government anywhere in the world has stopped the virus from spreading, whether it be lockdowns, masks, or quarantines. In the U.S. and Europe especially places that imposed fewer restrictions on their citizens seemed to fare about the same as places where the government stamped down hard. And those former places also had less negative consequences for their economies and for the freedoms of their citizens.

Meanwhile, the evidence is that the epidemic in Arizona is fading. And as far as I can see, during its height it affected almost no one in the general population. Like the flu it impacted the elderly sick the most, but everyone else either didn’t see it at all, or if they got sick they almost always recovered.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter that the epidemic is fading and that a vaccine is now available. The unreasonable rules imposed during the panic remain in force, and likely will never go away. And I speak from experience. For example, in trying to schedule an appointment with another doctor, I was told by his office that even if I had tested negative for COVID, received the vaccine, and quarantined myself between its receipt and my appearance at the office, I would still be required to wear a mask.

Think about that. I would be totally healthy and have no symptoms and could in no way transmit the virus, and yet the mask would still be required. We are now a society that irrationally sees all other humans as a threat to be avoided, at all times.

As for the flu, Lending noted some very intriguing data.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Ivy league students & teachers demand revocation of all degrees earned by Republican politicians

1:07 pm

The dead Constitution
The dead Constitution

They’re coming for you next: Both students and professors at a number of Ivy league colleges are petitioning their schools to revoke the degrees of numerous high-ranking Republican politicians, merely because they dared request an investigation into the many creditable allegations of voter fraud and election tampering during the November 3rd election.

The article outlines campaigns to blackball Republicans at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, among others. The Harvard campaign is typical, demanding that these Republicans be banned merely because they exercised not only their first amendment rights of free speech, but their duly elected responsibilities as elected officials.

Students and alumni of Harvard University are signing a letter, titled, “Revoke Their Degrees,” which asks Harvard’s leadership to take action against Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, and former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany by banning them from campus and stripping them of their degrees.

The Harvard petition argues that, by contesting Congress’ certification of the 2020 election results, these Republican officials “incited a violent attempt to overthrow the U.S. government.” Harvard University dropped Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) from her role on the university’s Kennedy School advisory committee because she contested the 2020 election results.

The article also notes that no such similar petitions have been instigated against any Democrats for challenging previous election results in 2000, 2004, and 2016. Nor have any petitions been put forth against the many Democrats who during the entire Trump adminstration were calling for a violent uprising against the government and Republicans.

The goal of these college brownshirts is therefore not to protect the election process or the Constitution. No, their goal is to dehumanize all Republicans and any positions they take on any subject. Make them appear evil so that no one will pay any attention to them. Then ban them so they have no power at all.

What I gather from this story however is the utter intellectual bankruptcy of these Ivy League schools. For any reasonable parent it would be insane to send your children there. Not only would these schools indoctrinate your child into leftist politics, it would also teach them to hate anyone who disagreed with them. Such an education is not something any parent should wish upon their children.

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