Today’s blacklisted American: UCLA threatens to expell remote student for not revealing his COVID shot status

11:49 am

Dictatorial clowns are running UCLA
Dictatorial clowns are running UCLA.

They’re coming for you next: Christian Walker, an online student who never comes on campus was threatened with expulsion by UCLA if he did not reveal whether he had gotten his COVID shots or not.

“You are calling to tell me you will drop my classes after we’ve already paid $70,000 for the year if I don’t upload something about my vaccine status when all of my classes are online,” Walker is heard saying in his video. A UCLA official responded, “Correct.” “Got it.” responded Walker.

“All of my classes are online. I don’t step onto campus. I’ve already paid. We’re a week into classes. My university just called to tell me they are dropping my classes if I don’t report to them about my vaccination.” Walker commented on Twitter.

You can listen to Walker’s recording of this conversation at the link.
» Read more

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Viewing tonight’s Endurance launch with four astronauts

9:25 am

NASA has published an updated schedule for the launch tonight of four astronauts to ISS in SpaceX’s new Endurance Dragon capsule.

The launch now is targeted for no earlier than 9:03 p.m. EST Wednesday, Nov. 10, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch follows a successful return of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission.

The Crew Dragon Endurance is scheduled to dock to the space station at 7:10 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 11. Launch and docking coverage will air live on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.

You can also watch it on SpaceX’s website, as well as the embedded live stream below, which begins around 4 pm (Eastern).

This will be the fourth manned flight SpaceX has launched for NASA, the fifth overall using three spacecraft.
» Read more

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Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

Spinlaunch conducts first prototype test launch

9:18 am

Spinlaunch prototype suborbital launcher

Capitalism in space: Spinlaunch on October 22, 2021 successfully completed the first launch of a prototype using its radical spin technology that spins the payload to high speeds and then releases it upward.

On October 22, the company completed its first test flight at its Spaceport America base in New Mexico, successfully launching a prototype vehicle from its Suborbital Accelerator which reached supersonic speeds and was recovered for reuse thereafter. It plans to conduct further test flights across 2022 with different vehicles and at different launch velocities, as it plans for its first customer launches in late 2024.

In the photo to the right, note the vehicles and cherry-pickers in the lower right corner. They provide some scale. There is also a video showing this test flight on the company’s webpage. Lots of music, few details, but the video does show the prototype rocket-shaped payload rising upward after release.

If this technology becomes viable, it offers the possibility of an incredibly cheap method for putting bulk payloads into space, such as water, fuel, and other resources that will not be harmed by the initial high accelerations.

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History Unplugged – The Age of Discovery 2.0: Episode 3

10:57 pm

Episode three of the six part series, The Age of Discovery 2.0, from the podcast, History Unplugged, is now available here.

This episode features Robert Zubrin. From the description:

A new space race has begun. But the rivals, in this case, are not superpowers but competing entrepreneurs. These daring pioneers are creating a revolution in spaceflight that promises to transform the near future. Astronautical engineer Robert Zubrin spells out the potential of these new developments in an engrossing narrative that is visionary yet grounded by a deep understanding of the practical challenges.

Fueled by the combined expertise of the old aerospace industry and the talents of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, spaceflight is becoming cheaper. The new generation of space explorers has already achieved a major breakthrough by creating reusable rockets. Zubrin foresees more rapid innovation, including global travel from any point on Earth to another in an hour or less; orbital hotels; moon bases with incredible space observatories; human settlements on Mars, the asteroids, and the moons of the outer planets; and then, breaking all limits, pushing onward to the stars.

Zubrin shows how projects that sound like science fiction can actually become reality. But beyond the how, he makes an even more compelling case for why we need to do this—to increase our knowledge of the universe, to make unforeseen discoveries on new frontiers, to harness the natural resources of other planets, to safeguard Earth from stray asteroids, to ensure the future of humanity by expanding beyond its home base, and to protect us from being catastrophically set against each other by the false belief that there isn’t enough for all.

Listen to it. It is definitely worth your time.

The next episode is mine.

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Conscious Choice cover

Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!

From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.

 

All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.

New space tug to launch in January ’22

3:45 pm

Capitalism in space: A ew space tug, designed and built by the company Spaceflight, is set to launch in January ’22 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and deploy 13 satellites in two different orbits.

In a mission Spaceflight dubs SXRS-6, the OTV [orbital transfer vehicle] will first place four microsatellites and five cubesats in Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO) at 525 kilometers altitude, after being deployed from SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.

About a month later, following various commissioning and system tests, Sherpa-LTC1 will use its bipropellant, green propulsion subsystem from Benchmark Space Systems to maneuver to 500 kilometers, where it will deploy its remaining four cubesats.

This technology gives cubesat owners greater flexibility. Even if they launch as a secondary payload that is not placed in the right orbit, the tug can still get them to their preferred orbit.

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Leaving Earth cover

Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.

If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.

 
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke

NASA admits manned lunar landing can’t happen before ’25

3:37 pm

NASA administrator Bill Nelson admitted today that the goal of landing Americans back on the Moon by 2024 was impossible, and that the agency has now delayed that target date one year to 2025.

Nelson attempted to blame the delay on Blue Origin’s lawsuit against NASA for its award of the manned lunar lander contract to SpaceX.

He blamed the shifting timeline on a lawsuit over the agency’s moon lander, to be built by SpaceX, and delays with NASA’s Orion capsule, which is to fly astronauts to lunar orbit. “We’ve lost nearly seven months in litigation, and that likely has pushed the first human landing likely to no earlier than 2025,” Mr. Nelson said, adding that NASA will need to have more detailed discussions with SpaceX to set a more specific timeline.

This however is a bald-faced lie. The Trump 2024 deadline was never realistic. Moreover, delays in SLS and Orion have been continuous and ongoing for years, all of which made a ’24 landing quite difficult and if attempted extremely unsafe. Even as it is, trying this mission by ’25 is risky, especially if it depends on SLS. Moreover, as the article notes, how SLS, Orion, and SpaceX’s Starship will team up to get this mission — designed by a committee — to and from the Moon remains exceedingly unclear.

With great confidence I predict that if the lunar mission depends on SLS in any manner, it will not launch in ’25 either.

9 comments

Today’s blacklisted Americans: Hiring white men a sin at major investment firm

11:27 am

Discriminated against in Seattle
Eagerly discriminated against at
State Street Global Advisors

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” Not only has the investment firm State Street Global Advisor, one of the largest in the world, decided that white men must be considered last in any hiring decision, the company has installed a race- and sex-based apartheid system designed to favor those groups in all matters.

The company aims to triple the number of Black, Asian and other minority staff in senior positions by 2023, the Sunday Times reported. If executives don’t meet the target, they will face lowered bonuses.

Recruiters will now have to establish panels of four or five employees, including a woman and a person with a minority background, when hiring middle management staff. The firm will still hire white men, [said Jess McNicholas, the bank’s head of inclusion, diversity and corporate citizenship in London,] but recruiters are required to show that women and minority applicants were interviewed by the panels.

The company is pledging to “hold ourselves accountable for strengthening black and Latinx owned businesses.”

The comments to this policy at the link are astonishing in their almost uniform hostility to this discriminatory policy. This is a typical comment:
» Read more

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Viasat to buy Inmarsat for $7.3 billion

9:35 am

Two long time traditional communication satellite companies today announced a merger, with the U.S.-based Viasat to buy the UK-based Inmarsat for $7.3 billion.

In a surprise move, California-based Viasat this morning announced a plan to acquire UK-based Inmarsat for a cost of some $7.3 billion — potentially creating a commercial satellite communications behemoth worth $4.1 billion in 2021 revenue, of which 40% is in government sales, including to the Defense Department.

While the acquisition will require approval from regulators, the combined company already is planning an expansion of its on-orbit assets, including two polar orbiting satellites that can bring capacity to the Arctic.

The bulk of business for both companies has in recent years been government military contracts, launching geosynchronous communications satellites. Both however have been under strong competitive pressure from the newer satellite constellations in lower orbit. Additionally, the push within the Space Force to shift from single large satellites to many redundant smallsats has put pressure on both companies.

This merger suggests a consolidation is occurring in these big old satellite companies as they struggle to adjust to a changing satellite market. Viasat for example was founded in 1986, while Inmarsat began in 1979, with both companies exclusively launching the traditional geosynchronous communications satellites. Both now are faced with new technologies in low Earth orbit, which has many advantages over high geosynchronous orbits. They need to adapt and change, or die.

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Lucy’s solar panel problem could be due to strap

9:20 am

According to the engineering team for the Lucy asteroid mission, they now think the incomplete deployment of one of the probe’s solar panels was caused by a strap.

The joint Anomaly Response Team has been studying the array using an engineering model. Initial tests indicate that the lanyard that pulls out the solar array may not have completed the process successfully; however, it is still uncertain what caused this condition. The team is conducting more tests to determine if this is indeed the case, and what the root cause might be.

An attempt to characterize the array deployment by attempting to move it would occur no earlier than Nov. 16.

Meanwhile, they have been turning on Lucy’s instruments one by one, with everything functioning as planned, except for that one solar panel. The panel however is a serious concern, as the spacecraft is heading out to the orbit of Jupiter, where it will need every inch of solar panel surface area to get enough power to operate. At the moment it appears the panel is deployed somewhere between 75% to 95%.

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Japan’s Epsilon rocket launches nine smallsats

9:07 am

Japan today successfully launched nine small satellites into orbit using its smallsat Epsilon rocket.

The article at the link provides a detailed description of all the satellites, which are either testing new technology or were built by college students for educational purposes, including a satellite built by Vietnamese engineers.

Epsilon itself has only flown five times since its first launch in 2013, which suggests its price is high and thus it does not attract many customers.

This was Japan’s second launch in 2021, which means it does not make the leader board. The leaders in the 2021 launch race remains as follows:

41 China
23 SpaceX
18 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman
4 ULA
4 Europe (Arianespace)

China still leads the U.S. 41 to 36 in the national rankings.

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Endeavour safely splashes down in the Gulf of Mexico

8:38 pm

A crew of four astronauts has successfully splashed down in SpaceX’s Endeavour capsule, landing in the Gulf of Mexico.

One of the four chutes appeared to inflate late, though the capsule is designed to land with only three chutes. It eventually inflated prior to landing.

Recovery efforts are now proceeding. It is expected that they will be on board ship in about an hour.

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