Category: Points of Information

Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.

SpaceX donates $4.4 million to upgrade beach access at Boca Chica

10:31 am

Even as leftist politicians and anti-Musk haters rage incoherently against SpaceX’s growing facility at Boca Chica, the company this week donated $4.4 million to upgrade the beach access and facilities at South Padre Island, near Starbase at Boca Chica.

Beachgoers visiting South Padre Island will soon be able to enjoy a surfside park with a smorgasbord of family-friendly amenities paid for by a $4.4 million contribution from Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Previously, MySA reported that the project was expected to cost $4.5 million, according to Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation records.

Cameron County Beach Access #3, a currently undeveloped pedestrian beach access located just outside the South Padre Island city limits, will soon begin construction on the latest phase of a multimillion-dollar improvement project that will transform it into a destination beach access. To that end, Cameron County leaders celebrated with a groundbreaking ceremony on Monday, August 11, at the access, located at 28495 State Park Road 100-North, on South Padre Island.

In other words, SpaceX is paying almost the entire bill for this work. It might now have the power to close these beaches when necessary, but it is also acting like a good citizen, improving those beaches for everyone when they are open.

It is expected this work will be completed by next year.

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Webb: An Earth-sized exoplanet in habitable zone appears to lack an atmosphere

10:17 am

Scientists using the Webb Space Telescope have concluded that an Earth-sized exoplanet, orbiting the red dwarf star Trappist-1 in the habitable zone, does not appear to have an atmosphere, or if it does have one it is not like Earth’s.

The TRAPPIST-1 system is located 40 light-years away and was revealed as the record-holder for most Earth-sized rocky planets around a single star in 2017, thanks to data from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope and other observatories. Due to that star being a dim, relatively cold red dwarf, the “habitable zone” or “Goldilocks zone” – where the planet’s temperature may be just right, such that liquid surface water is possible – lies much closer to the star than in our solar system. TRAPPIST-1 d, the third planet from the red dwarf star, lies on the cusp of that temperate zone, yet its distance to its star is only 2 percent of Earth’s distance from the Sun. TRAPPIST-1 d completes an entire orbit around its star, its year, in only four Earth days.

Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument did not detect molecules from TRAPPIST-1 d that are common in Earth’s atmosphere, like water, methane, or carbon dioxide.

You can read the paper here [pdf].

The likelihood of life on this exoplanet has always been slim, simply because it orbits so close to the red dwarf, where it is vulnerable to the high energy flares the star periodically releases.

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Update on next Starship/Superheavy launch

10:06 am

Superheavy after its flight safely captured at Boca Chica
Superheavy after the October 2024 flight,
safely captured during the very first attempt

Link here.

SpaceX now appears to have completed the prelaunch testing of Starship prototype #37, having tested the ship again after swapping out an engine after the first static fire test. It is now moving to put Superheavy on the launchpad for its own static fire tests.

The bottom line is that SpaceX appears moving successfully towards a launch of the next test flight of Superheavy/Starship, its tenth, for sometime between August 22nd and August 28th.

The report also describes the company’s work to preserve Superheavy prototype #12, the first to be captured and recovered during the fifth orbital test flight in October 2024.

The picture to the right shows that Superheavy booster, hanging from the chopsticks just after it was captured.

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Trump orders the federal agencies regulating space to review and streamline regulations

9:47 am

Trump defiant after being shot
Trump’s war with the swamp continues

Fight! Fight! Fight! In a new executive order issued yesterday, President Trump tasked NASA and the Transportation, Commerce, and Defense departments to work together to review and streamline the present regulations that have been hindering the American space industry for the past four years.

A summary of the order can be found here.

The order specifically tasks Transportation secretary Sean Duffy to review and streamline the regulations related to launches and re-entry, as well as the environmental requirements that were imposed during the Biden administration requiring numerous environment impact statements for practically any new project and even when an established project gets revised slightly. It has been these new rules that squashed the efforts of almost all the new American rocket companies during the Biden administration.

The order also demands that Commerce, Transportation, Defense, and NASA review the laws relating to coastal management that have allowed the states to block “spaceport infrastructure development.” All these agencies are also required to review their licensing rules to eliminate duplication while also eliminating rules that impede “novel space activities (missions not clearly or straightforwardly governed by existing regulatory frameworks).”

Finally, the order establishes a new position at the FAA but reporting directly to the Transportation secretary who will be expressly focused in following through on these regulatory reforms, with the primary goal to aid the commercial space industry.

While this order changes no specific regulations, it now forces the bureaucracy toward change, with deadlines set for action ranging from two to six months. Expect whole swathes of regulations and licensing requirements to disappear in the coming months. We might even see new rocket companies finally resume launches, something that ceased during the Biden years.

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SpaceX completes two launches, reaching 100 successful orbital launches in 2025

9:15 am

Having successfully completed two Starlink launches last night, putting a total of 52 satellites into orbit, SpaceX has now accomplished 100 successful orbital launches in 2025.

First, in the early evening last night the company launched 24 satellites from Vandenberg in California, its Falcon 9 rocket first stage completing its fifth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

Seven hours later it placed another 28 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage on this flight completed its tenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

100 SpaceX
44 China
11 Rocket Lab
9 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 100 to 77.

SpaceX’s launch rate has become so routine that it is important to note the truly amazing nature of its achievement. Until 2018, the entire world had trouble completing 100 launches in a year. In fact, prior to SpaceX’s arrival it only happened because the Soviet Union in the ’70s and ’80s launched many short term small reconnaissance satellites that only stayed in orbit for a few months. When the Soviet Union fell the launch rate fell below 100 and did not recover until SpaceX began increasing its launch rate.

In other words, this one American private company has fueled a renaissance in space exploration. And it has done so by being efficient, innovative, and most important of all, profitable. And it all happened under the banner of freedom.

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August 13, 2025 Quick space links

3:04 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

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New study: Both PR departments and the press love to speculate wildly about science, even when the scientists don’t

1:28 pm

The attitude of our modern press about science
The attitude of our modern press about science

A new study looking at 630 articles in popular press about the study of astrobiology (the possibility of life on other worlds) found that the press frequently exaggerated the findings, often taking relatively minor results that only vaguely and with great uncertainty suggested the presence of biology to speculate wildly that life had been found.

The research also found that university public relations departments tended to encourage this behavior with their own speculations in press releases. From the paper’s abstract:

Findings reveal that speculations and promises/expectations are more frequent in news articles and press releases compared to academic papers. Speculations about conditions for life and the existence of life beyond Earth are common, particularly in news articles covering exoplanet research, while promises of life detection are rare. Press releases tend to emphasize the significance of research findings and the progress of the field. Speculations and promises/expectations in news articles often occur without attribution to scientists and in quotes of authors of the studies, and slightly less so in quotes of outside experts. [emphasis mine]

The study looked at articles from the New York Times in the U.S., the Guardian in the United Kingdom, Folha and Estadão in Brazil, Público in Portugal, and El País in Spain. It consistently found these news sources consistently exaggerated the discoveries, often speculating with little evidence that the research had found evidence of life.

This paper merely confirms what I have reported repeatedly in the past few years. When scientists report that they may have detected a molecule in Venus’s atmosphere that on Earth is associated with life, the press immediately screams “Life found on Venus!” Or if scientists detect with great uncertainty similar life-related molecules in an exoplanet’s atmosphere and gently suggest it might mean life, the press screams “Exoplanet has life!”

In both these examples the research was very uncertain, and in both later research failed to confirm these conclusions.

Sadly this pattern now applies to almost every scientific result. Uncertain results based not even on observations but on theories are routinely touted these days by both press departments and news outlets as big discoveries, even if they are only describing uncertain theories that may prove true.

In fact, words like “may”, “might,” or “could” in headlines are always a give-away. They tell you that the story is not about an actual discovery, but a speculation that remains unproven. Such stories rarely get linked to here at Behind the Black, and if I do link to them, I spend a lot of time noting the uncertainties and weakness of the research.

If only all news outlets did the same.

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When Martian lava meets a Martian mountain

12:17 pm

When Martian lava meets a Martian mountain
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on April 24, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and was posted yesterday by the science team to illustrate the vast lava flows that cover much of Mars. From the caption:

This image captures the edge of a lava flow that partially buries older terrain in the Martian Southern Highlands. Where the edge of the lava flow made contact with the higher-standing topography, it formed a rumpled and ridged surface.

This lava flow is one of many massive flows that extend southwest from Arsia Mons, one of the largest shield volcanoes on Mars.

The mountain to the south rises about 3,700 feet above that rumpled lava ocean at its base.
» Read more

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Starlink expands in the Ukraine, starts in Kazakhstan, but hits roadblock in Lebanon

10:36 am

Access to SpaceX’s Starlink internet constellation to customers worldwide continues to expand.

First. Kazakhstan announced that Starlink is now available in that country, beginning today.

Next, the Ukraine government announced it is beginning beta testing of SpaceX’s direct-to-phone Starlink capability, with the product to launch to its citizens later this year.

With Starlink’s Direct to Cell system, Ukrainians will be able to send SMS messages in remote or hard-to-reach areas—such as in the mountains, during severe weather, or blackouts—without the need for expensive satellite equipment. The only requirements: a standard 4G smartphone with a SIM or eSIM card, and a clear view of the sky.

These actions by both Kazakhstan and the Ukraine underlines the negative consequences of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. Its former Soviet provinces, now independent, have become much more willing to forge alliances and deals with western nations and companies, in order to better protect themselves from possible attack.

In Lebanon however things have not gone so well. SpaceX’s request to offer Starlink has met with opposition in that nation’s parliament.

Lebanon’s parliamentary Media and Communications Committee raised serious legal and procedural concerns over a proposed license for SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service. Committee chair MP Ibrahim Mousawi and rapporteur MP Yassine Yassine said discussions with the telecom minister and officials from regulatory and oversight bodies revealed “major constitutional and legal violations.” These include bypassing Parliament’s authority to grant natural resource concessions, ignoring public procurement laws, sidelining the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, and failing to ensure data sovereignty.

The committee recommended against Starlink, demanding a new and expanded review of the proposal. I suspect these ministers are either upset because they didn’t get their own kickbacks in the deal, or are worried that giving Lebanese citizens Starlink — thus bypassing all government censorship — might threaten their hold on power.

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Axiom completes first set of underwater tests of its commercial spacesuit

10:19 am

Axiom's moonsuit
Click for original image.

Axiom, in partnership with the company KBR, has successfully now completed its first set of manned underwater tests of its commercial spacesuit, being built for NASA but owned by Axiom and available for use by others.

These initial crewed tests involved an astronaut being fully submerged in the NBL’s 6.2-million-gallon pool while wearing Axiom Space’s next-generation spacesuit, the AxEMU, which is being developed for use on NASA’s Artemis III mission. The goal was to evaluate the suit’s integrity in an environment that closely simulates the weightlessness of space.

Throughout the tests, the suit remained completely sealed and airtight, signifying it’s ready for more advanced evaluations, and ultimately, future missions.

For Axiom, having its own spacesuit makes its space station project more viable. None of the other proposed stations presently have suits, though Vast’s Haven project is closely tied with SpaceX, and thus would likely work with that company to upgrade SpaceX’s spacesuit used on Jared Isaacman’s last private orbital mission.

The four commercial stations under development, ranked by me based on their present level of progress:
» Read more

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Founder of SaxaVord spaceport passes away

10:04 am

Frank Strang, who first proposed the SaxaVord spaceport on the island of Unst in the Shetland Islands in 2017, died yesterday at 67 from cancer, having never seen a single launch from the spaceport almost entirely due to the odious red tape of the United Kingdom.

When Strang announced last month that he had cancer, he also said he hoped to live long enough to see the first launch. The German rocket startup Rocket Factory Augsburg plans its first launch later this year, though this schedule is not firm. Its launch attempt last year was cancelled when the first stage failed during its last static fire test on the launchpad. Whether the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority will issue a launch permit on time remains decidedly unclear.

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