Author: Robert Zimmerman

Indian private company test fires its own solid rocket motor

9:00 am

Capitalism in space: Skyroot Aerospace, an Indian private company, has successfully test fired its own privately-built solid rocket motor, as part of an effort to develop its own private rocket dubbed Vikram, with its first launch set for December ’21.

The solid rocket motor is for either the rocket’s second stage or for strap-on boosters. The company has already successfully tested the first stage engines.

The most interesting quote from the story however is this:

Founded by former scientists of the Indian Space Research organization (ISRO), Skyroot has raised $4.3 million till now and is in process of raising another $15 mn in 2021. In the past the company has raised investments from: Mukesh Bansal (Founder Myntra, CureFit), Solar Industries (India’s largest explosives manufacturer and renowned Space & Defence Contactor), Vedanshu investments and a few other Angel investors.

The Modi government has been making a strong effort to mimic the transition that NASA has gone through in the past decade whereby it shifts from having all its spacecraft and rockets designed, built, and owned by the government to having the government act merely as the customer buying those products from privately-run and independent companies. Like NASA, there has been strong resistance to this change within India’s government bureaucracy. Skyroot’s success, including its foundation by former ISRO engineers, is a very good sign that they are overcoming that resistance.

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Starship #9 update: 1st flight targeted for shortly after the new year

8:47 am

Capitalism in space: According to this nasaspaceflight update, the first 10-mile-plus flight of the ninth Starship prototype is now targeted for shortly after January 1st.

Starship SN9 has been undergoing integration ops on the launch mount over the Christmas holiday, setting the stage for what will be a streamlined pre-launch test series when compared to that undertaken by SN8.

The first test will involve filling the vehicle with nitrogen, usually in a two-step fashion. Initially, the vehicle will be filled with gaseous nitrogen – called the ambient test, ahead of being loaded with super-cold liquid nitrogen (LN2) for the cryo test. This test sequence is expected early in the coming week, with preparations for testing already ongoing on Monday morning.

Providing all goes to plan with the proofing test, SN9 will be prepared for what is currently expected to be one Static Fire test involving all three Raptors. This is an expedited test schedule compared to SN8, which underwent several Static Fire tests ahead of launch. Two of SN9’s Raptors were installed on the vehicle inside the High Bay. Once the vehicle had made it to the pad, a third engine – SN49 – was installed, completing the trio.

Only after these tests have been completed will a launch date become known, likely via a notice to local air and sea traffic. This, in turn, will be pending acceptable weather conditions and vehicle preparedness going into prop loading tasks. Based on the best-case scenario test flow, the launch could realistically occur within January’s first two weeks.

The goal on this flight likely be will be twofold. First, to reaffirm the engineering and software for controlling the stage during its return to Earth. Second, to complete a successful landing, to prove they have corrected the pressure issue that caused the landing failure during Starship prototype #8’s flight.

The article also gives an update on the many additional Starship prototypes being readied for flight, along with the first Super Heavy prototype. It is expected that Super Heavy will make its first short 500 foot hop sometime in ’21.

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China’s Long March 4C rocket launches military reconnaissance satellite

12:36 am

In what is likely China’s last launch in 2020, a Long March 4C rocket today successfully launched what is thought to be a military reconnaissance satellite into orbit.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

35 China
25 SpaceX
15 Russia
6 ULA
6 Rocket Lab

The U.S. still leads China 40 to 35 in the national rankings. At the moment only one launch is publicly scheduled for the rest of the year, that by Europe’s Arianespace of a Soyuz rocket tomorrow from French Guiana.

My annual worldwide launch report will likely be posted on December 31st, as a New Year’s Eve gift to my readers.

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Georgia election officials predict senate election count will take weeks

9:35 pm

The fix is in: Georgia election officials are now predicting that a final count on the two senate runoff elections in early January will take weeks to complete.

What they are actually doing is preparing the public for a suspicious vote count that will give victories to both Democratic Party candidates, similar to the suspicious vote count that gave the state victory to Joe Biden in the presidential election. Expect more allegations of fake ballots, blocked poll watchers in Fulton County districts dominated by Democrats, and the misuse of Dominion machines whose trustworthiness is very suspect. Those allegations, the same as seen from the November 3rd vote, will result in legal battles because the election board and the quisling Republican governor Kemp will fight any effort to investigate the allegations.

If those allegations carried no weight, these crooks would not fight a full investigation. That they are resisting strongly suggests they are hiding something. And any Democrat victories, with polls showing both Republicans in the lead, will reinforce that suggestion.

Note too that these crooks have also done nothing to make sure these allegations do not get repeated. Nothing.

The fix is in. This is the Republicans last hill to fight on. If they don’t fight here, and win, there will be no more fights. They will never win another election ever. The Democrats will use their majority in the House and Senate, combined with the fake President Biden, to pass laws that will make political opposition impossible, as they have done in California and New York and Chicago and anywhere where they had the power to do so.

And since it appears the Republicans are not fighting, the war is over. Freedom and democracy in America is about to die.

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James Doohan’s ashes have been on ISS for the past dozen years

3:34 pm

Video game developer Richard Garriott admitted in an interview this week that when he flew to ISS as a space tourist in 2008 he smuggled some of the ashes of the late James Doohan, who played Scotty on Star Trek, to hide there.

[Garriott] printed three cards with Doohan’s photo on them, sprinkling ashes inside and then laminating them. He then hid the cards within the flight data file, which was cleared for the flight (the cards were not). “Everything that officially goes on board is logged, inspected and bagged — there’s a process, but there was no time to put it through that process,” he said.

…According to Garriott, one of the cards is on display in Chris Doohan’s home, while another was sent floating in space, where it would have inevitably burned up when re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

The third card, however, remains in the ISS, hidden beneath the cladding on the floor of the space station’s Columbus module, where Garriott hid it. “As far as I know, no one has ever seen it there and no one has moved it,” he said. “James Doohan got his resting place among the stars.” Since being hidden in the ISS, Doohan’s ashes have travelled nearly 1.7 billion miles through space, orbiting Earth more than 70,000 times.

I hope that now that Garriott has revealed the location of that third card, the petty dictators at NASA and Roscosmos won’t insist that it be removed. For ISS having the ashes of the world’s best space engineer on board can only be good luck.

And it might encourage the government workers at NASA and Roscomos to follow Scotty’s most sage advice, which to paraphrase is “Always under-predict and over-perform. It keeps their expectations low.”

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Thailand government proposes space program

3:22 pm

The new colonial movement: In an effort to stimulate and diversify their economy, the Thailand government has proposed a space program whose long term goal will be sending an unmanned spacecraft to the Moon.

[The Minister for Education, Science, Research and Innovation Anek Laothamatas] on Thursday outlined a plan to develop, first of all, advanced satellites in the 50 kg to 100 kg range which the kingdom will launch into orbit. This will take five years.

He then explained that Thailand will aim to build a spacecraft which can travel to the moon and enter into lunar orbit. This will take a further three years. ‘The new economy of space travel will be a way for Thailand to overcome the economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and then to escape the middle-income trap, and the ministry will embrace creativity and innovation,’ Minister Anek disclosed.

The plan is expected to be based on the use of a xenon ion thruster rocket used by NASA and a 300 kg spacecraft which can be launched effectively out of the earth’s orbit. It would then travel to the moon at 11km per hour. Once there, it would slow to 2km per hour and enter the moon’s orbit.

The article is essentially a propaganda puff piece for this minister and his proposal. Whether it actually flies is unknown, as it appears right now to mostly be a vehicle for this guy to build his own government empire rather than actually accomplish anything. I was especially amused by this quote from the article, based on this education minister’s goals:

So this is why Thailand is keen to develop its credentials in the race to space as well as other social reforms currently being introduced by the government such as greater rights for the LGBT community, welfare schemes, a move this week to liberalise the kingdom’s abortion laws and radical plans to update the education system with an emphasis on English. [emphasis mine]

Yeah, right, space technology falls right in line with LGBT rights. Forgive me if I am skeptical.

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Kathy Mattea – Mary did you know

6:01 pm

An evening pause: This song honoring Jesus I think really speaks of every child born on Earth, and how every parent should see them. As Wordsworth said, they come “trailing clouds of glory.”

Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
When you kissed your little baby then you kissed the face of god.

Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.

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Nationwide analysis suggests masks increased the spread of COVID-19

2:44 pm

WHO's do's and don't's for mask use
For the full images, go here and here.

A analysis of all fifty states suggests the mandate to wear masks might have actually increased the spread of COVID-19 rather than reduced it.

They studied the number of cases over a 229-day period from May 1 through Dec. 15 and divided the results of the two study groups by days with mask mandates and days without mask mandates. The non-mandate data group includes both states that never had a mandate and those that did at some point, but data set included only the days they did not have a mask mandate.

The results: When comparing states with mandates vs. those without, or periods of times within a state with a mandate vs. without, there is absolutely no evidence the mask mandate worked to slow the spread one iota. In total, in the states that had a mandate in effect, there were 9,605,256 confirmed COVID cases over 5,907 total days, an average of 27 cases per 100,000 per day. When states did not have a statewide order (which includes the states that never had them and the period of time masking states did not have the mandate in place) there were 5,781,716 cases over 5,772 total days, averaging 17 cases per 100,000 people per day.

The reverse correlation between periods of masking and non-masking is remarkable.

That’s right. With mandates in place states say 10 more cases per 100K population. [emphasis mine]

It is very important to make it clear that this result has many uncertainties. It also is probably telling us more about the widespread improper use of masks that the mandates encourage and in fact literally require than the usefulness of masks when used properly.

Under the mandates, everyone uses and reuses the same mask, wearing it continuously for hours, or if not, putting it on and off and storing it in an unsanitary manner in-between. People also touch the mask continuously, and allow it to get wet and dirty without a second thought.

As the above WHO graph (that I have repeatedly posted) bluntly notes, doing this actually makes the mask a pathogen bomb that you wear on your face. The data of the above report reinforces this fact. That this reality has also been documented by scientific research and common sense for more than a century should also carry some weight as well. Sadly, in today’s society it does not.

I have repeatedly agreed that it is likely true that if everyone wore the right kind of masks, and wore them properly, for short periods and only when exposed to a symptomatic individual or when symptomatic themselves and in the presence of others, than maybe, maybe, masks would have a benefit. (Note that the data now confirms that only symptomatic individuals can infect others, and that if you have no symptoms you are almost certainly not going to spread the disease to others.)

Right now, mask mandates are likely causing more harm than good, and are really nothing more than feel-good nonsense that are being imposed by the petty dictators and control freaks of our society not to reduce the spread of disease but to increase the spread of their totalitarian power. If you go along, than you deserve the oppression you are certainly going to experience in the coming years.

As well as the increased likelihood that you will also get sick.

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First look at Ryugu samples

8:55 am

Japanese scientists have taken their first look at the Ryugu sample material brought back by Hayabusa-2 and found they resemble charcoal.

The samples Japanese space officials described Thursday are as big as 1 centimeter (0.4 inch) and rock hard, not breaking when picked up or poured into another container. Smaller black, sandy granules the spacecraft collected and returned separately were described last week.

…The sandy granules the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency described last week were from the spacecraft’s first touchdown in April 2019.

The larger fragments were from the compartment allocated for the second touchdown on Ryugu, said Tomohiro Usui, space materials scientist. To get the second set of samples in July last year, Hayabusa2 dropped an impactor to blast below the asteroid’s surface, collecting material from the crafter so it would be unaffected by space radiation and other environmental factors.

Usui said the size differences suggest different hardness of the bedrock on the asteroid. “One possibility is that the place of the second touchdown was a hard bedrock and larger particles broke and entered the compartment.”

The analysis of these samples has only just begun. Dating them is likely next, and that will probably reveal some startling results.

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