Tag: bankruptcy

Blue Origin faces opposition renewing its permit to dump waste water at Florida launch facility

11:17 am

Chicken Little strikes again!
Chicken Little strikes again!

It appears several local politicians as well as the typical anti-everything activists are expressing opposition to Blue Origin’s request to renew its permit to dump waste water at its Florida launch facility.

Some county commissioners have concerns about the proposal because of how much money and effort has gone to cleaning up the Indian River. “That’s really troubling to me especially when we are spending so much money as a community on the half-cent sales tax and the save the Indian River Lagoon tax,” said Brevard County Commissioner Katie Delaney.

Space experts say large-scale companies don’t necessarily follow rules and regulations put on them. “There has been all sorts of industrial waste issues associated with the aerospace industry not just here in Florida but all across the country,” Florida Tech space professor, Don Platt, said.

The water is likely that used during launches to dampen the shock produced by the rocket’s engines, and like SpaceX’s systems, is almost certainly potable and harmless. This is also a permit that Blue Origin obtained five years ago and has used without harm during all its launchpad tests and launches.

None of this whining really matters, as it appears the county commission has no authority over the matter. The permit was issued by the state’s environmental department which will almost certainly approve the renewal. It is just unfortunate that these whiners almost always get positive coverage from our propaganda press. In this case the local Fox affiliate that reported the story clearly made no effort to research anything. It just simply spouted back the grumbles of these politicians and activists.

One comment

ESA’s member nations approve a major budget increase

9:28 am

The European Space Agency

At the council meeting of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) member nations taking place this week in Bremen, Germany, the council approved a major 32% budget increase for the agency over the next three years.

The largest contributions in the history of the European Space Agency, €22.1 bn, have been approved at its Council meeting at Ministerial level in Bremen, Germany.

Ministers and high-level representatives from the 23 Member States, Associate Members and Cooperating States confirmed support for key science, exploration and technology programmes alongside a significant increase in the budget of space applications – Earth observation, navigation and telecommunications. These three elements are also fundamental to the European Resilience from Space initiative, a joint response to critical space needs in security and resilience.

“This is a great success for Europe, and a really important moment for our autonomy and leadership in science and innovation. I’m grateful for the hard work and careful thought that has gone into the delivery of the new subscriptions from the Member States, amounting to a 32% increase, or 17% increase if corrected for inflation, on ESA’s 2022 Ministerial Council,” said ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher.

How ESA will use this money however remains somewhat unclear, based on a reading of the various resolutions released in connection with this announcement. As is typical for ESA, the language of every document is vague, byzantine, and jargon-filled, making it difficult to determine exactly what it plans to do. Overall it appears the agency will continue most of the various projects it has already started, and do them in the same manner it has always done them, taking years if not decades to bring them to fruition (if ever). It also appears the agency will devote a portion of this money to create new “centers” in Norway and Poland, which as far as I can tell are simply designed to provide pork jobs for those nations and ESA.

The resolutions also placed as the agency’s number one goal not space exploration but “protect[ing] our planet and climate” (see this pdf), a focus that seems off the mark at a very base level. While I could find nothing specifically approving the odious space law that attempted to impose European law globally (and has been vigorously opposed by the U.S.), the language in this document suggests the council still heartily wants to approve that law, and if it doesn’t do so in total it will do so incrementally, bit by bit, in the next few years.

The most hopeful item among these resolutions was the €4.4 billion the council reserved for space transportation, with the money to be used to pay for upgrades to both the Ariane-6 and Vega-C rockets and the facilities in French Guiana, as well as expand ESA’s program encouraging the new rocket startups from Germany, Spain, and France. If ESA uses this money wisely — mostly for the latter item — it will do much to create for itself a competitive launch industry, something it presently does not have.

It will take a bit of time to see how these decisions play out. It remains very unclear at this moment if Europe is choosing the Soviet or the capitalism model for its future in space.

4 comments

European Space Agency faces reality: Its partnerships with NASA are fading

10:48 am

The European Space Agency

It appears that the European Space Agency (ESA) is now recognizing that two of its major partnership deals with NASA are likely going to fall apart, and it has therefore begun putting forth new proposals to repurpose those projects during a meeting in Germany this week of its member states.

The two projects are ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter intended to bring Perseverance’s Mars samples back to Earth, and its service module for NASA’s Orion capsule. In the former case, NASA’s decision to cancel the Mars Sample Return Mission leaves that orbiter in limbo. NASA might still fly a sample return mission, but it will almost certainly not do it as originally planned, involving numerous different components from many different sources in a complex Rube-Goldberg arrangement. ESA is now considering repurposing this orbiter as a research spacecraft studying the Martian atmosphere while also being a Mars communications satellite for other missions.

As for the Orion service module, ESA is now recognizing that it is unlikely NASA will continue funding Orion after it completes its presently scheduled missions, totaling at most four. ESA has contracted to build six service modules, and is now studying options for using the last few in other ways, such as a cargo tug in low Earth orbit.

ESA officials are also reviewing its entire future at the conference, considering how private enterprise has completely outrun it in all ways. Its expendable Ariane-6 rocket is a long term financial bust, being too expensive to compete in the modern launch market of reusable rockets. Its proposed IRIS2 satellite constellation will cost too much and launch far too late to compete with the private constellations already in service or being launched by SpaceX, AST-SpaceMobile, Amazon, and China.

To counter this trends, ESA has already made some major changes, shifting ownership and control of its rockets back to the private companies that build them. However, its bureaucracy has appeared resistant to this change, and is apparently lobbying for more funding and control at this week’s meeting, asking the member nations to increase their funding to the agency, giving it a total budget of 22.2 billion euros. There has also been lobbying by ESA supporters for a new Space Law that would supersede the individual space laws of its member states, and also attempt to impose its regulations on non-member nations, beyond its sovereign authority. That law is strongly opposed by the U.S., the private sector, and even some of ESA’s member nations.

The bottom line however is that the nature of the European Space Agency is undergoing major changes, with its work increasingly shifting to its member nations instead of being part of a cooperative effort. While ESA bureaucrats continue to push to protect and strengthen their turf, ESA’s member nations have been increasingly pushing back, and winning that battle.

13 comments

Thirty Meter Telescope is finally considering a move to the Canary Islands

8:58 am

The consortium that has been trying to build the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) in Hawaii for more than two decades but has been blocked by native Hawaiian DEI activists, announced on November 11, 2025 that it has finally decided to consider seriously the $740 million offer by the Spanish government is to move the telescope to the Canary Islands.

TMT International Observatory LLC (TIO LLC) announced today that in response to the generous offer from the Spanish Ministry of Science, it is exploring a promising avenue for a new observatory based in Spain.

While the Members of TIO LLC continue discussions regarding the TMT site, this represents a prospective opportunity to allow TIO LLC to proceed with the TMT project. For this reason, TIO LLC will jointly develop with the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities a detailed roadmap toward the potential realization of the TMT at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (La Palma, Spain).

TMT was about to start construction in 2015, with a completion date expected by 2020. Instead, its construction was blocked by native Hawaiian leftist activists, aided by the support of the Democrats who control Hawaii’s government. Meanwhile, the astronomers in charge of TMT, being modern DEI-trained academics themselves, were generally unwilling to fight hard for their project. It has thus sat in limbo for a decade. Last year it was hit with a final blow within the U.S. when the National Science Foundation announced it would only fund the Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile, leaving TMT short of funds.

All of this remains the stuff of buggy-whips and horse-drawn carriages. Rather than spend billions on this giant ground-based telescope that will be seriously hampered first by the Earth’s atmosphere and second by the half-dozen-plus satellite constellations presently being launched, astronomers would be far smarter to spend that money on a new bigger replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope.

They aren’t, however, because their careers are grounded (literally) on this obsolete technology, and won’t change.

Meanwhile, the end of TMT in Hawaii signals the long-term end of astronomy in Hawaii. Those leftist activists are now in control, and they are outright hostile — to the point of bigotry — to any Western technology or any non-Hawaiians on their islands. They have been pushing to reduce the telescopes on Mauna Kea on the Big Island, and have had some success. Expect them to push harder to remove more in the coming years.

6 comments

A Midnight Repost: Farewell to America

12:29 am

I wrote the essay below the day before the November 2024 election, when it remained very uncertain whether it would be Donald Trump or Kamala Harris as our next president.

The essay itself did not get picked up at very many news aggregates. Nor did it garner as much traffic as would be expected, based on the aggregates that did pick it up. I believe the reason was the depressing title.

No matter, the point I made then still holds. The fundamental American culture — based on freedom, family, and the Judeo-Christian values of Western Civilization — that made this the most prosperous place ever created by humankind in its entire history no longer exists.

What will come remains unknown. We might see a resurgence of that culture, especially based on the public’s response following the murder of Charlie Kirk. Then again, we might not. As I said in the very first line of my history, Leaving Earth, societies change.

I repost this essay now, during Thanksgiving week, because I strongly believe it essential that we understand exactly where we stand, in order to make it possible for us to move forward, in the right direction. The essay is also another example of my never-ending and too often successful effort to look farther into the future than others. I think a year later this essay stands up quite well in this sense.

———————————–
Farewell to America

The Liberty Bell
“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all
the inhabitants thereof.” Photo credit: William Zhang

Despite my headline, this essay is not intended to be entirely pessimistic. Instead it is my effort to accept a reality that I think few people, including myself, have generally been able to process: The country we shall see after tomorrow’s election will not be the America as founded in 1776 and continued to prosper for the next quarter millennium.

The country can certainly be made great again. Elon Musk’s SpaceX proves it, time after time. The talent and creativity of free Americans is truly endless, and if Donald Trump wins it is very likely that energy will be unleashed again, in ways that no one can predict.

The country can certainly become free again. There is no law that prevents the elimination of bureaucracy and regulation, no matter how immortal government agencies appear to be. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 proves this. Though Russia has sadly retreated back to its top-down government-ruling ways, the country did wipe out almost all its bureaucracy in 1991, resulting in an exuberant restart that even today is nowhere near as oppressive as Soviet rule.

Should Donald Trump win, we should have every expectation that he will do the largest house-cleaning of the federal government ever. The benefits will be immeasurable, and magnificent.

What however will not change, even if Donald Trump wins resoundingly tomorrow, is the modern culture and political ethics that now exist. That modern culture is fundamentally different than the America that existed during the country’ s first 200 years, and it guarantees that America can never be the country it once was.
» Read more

12 comments

NASA trims $768 million from Boeing’s Starliner contract

9:08 pm

Starliner docked to ISS
Starliner docked to ISS in 2024.

According to one story late today, the modifications NASA announced today on its Starliner contract with Boeing will trim $768 million from the total contract, assuming the two later optional manned missions never fly.

Originally valued at $4.5 billion, Boeing’s contract under the Commercial Crew Program envisioned six operational astronaut flights. NASA’s latest modification cuts that number to four, including up to three crewed missions and an uncrewed cargo flight set for April 2026. Two additional flights remain optional. With the changes, the contract’s value has dropped by $768 million to $3.732 billion; NASA has already paid $2.2 billion to date.

Boeing can still earn that additional money if if somehow manages to convince NASA to do all six flights. It will have great difficult achieving this, however, since there probably won’t be enough time to get all six flights up before ISS is retired. That fact is partly why NASA has made this change.

This report however suggests that NASA is not paying Boeing extra money for the unmanned cargo mission in April 2026. Instead, it is treating it as if it were the first operational manned Starliner flight, paying Boeing its purchase price as if it had achieved all its milestones during the manned demo flight last year.

It really pays in today’s America to be a big giant corporation that does lots of business with our bloated and very corrupt federal government. That government is then quite willing to bend over backwards to help you, even if you are like Boeing and incompetent (Starliner), corrupt (737-MAX), or routinely go over-budget and fail to deliver on time (Air Force One). That certainly appears to be the case here with Boeing.

Hat tip BtB’s stringer Jay.

2 comments

Bigoted academia upset that Trump won’t allow them to push the racist DEI agenda

12:53 pm

Lysenko with Stalin
Trofim Lysenko (on the left), preaching to Stalin as he destroyed
Soviet plant research by persecuting anyone who disagreed with him,
thus causing famines that killed millions. He is now the role model for
today’s entire science community.

Cue the world’s smallest violin! An article today in the journal Science proves once again that science has nothing to do with what that journal now publishes. The headline:

‘This is censorship.’ Conference requires abstracts to comply with Trump anti-DEI order

It seems scientists submitting abstracts to the annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in Texas are upset because the Trump administration will not allow any papers to include any mention of diversity, equity, or inclusion (DEI) as a topic.

The Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), hosted annually by the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) in Texas, last week announced a new requirement for the upcoming 2026 conference: All submitted abstracts must comply with executive orders from the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. His 20 January executive order called DEI “illegal and immoral discrimination programs” and terminated both federal DEI programs as well as grant funding for DEI initiatives. The conference policy follows moves earlier this year by LPI’s parent organization, the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), to scrub DEI-related content—including archived LPSC abstracts—from its websites.

Researchers are fuming, saying LPSC is doubling down on its previous decisions, and prioritizing avoiding trouble with the government over intellectual freedom. “This is censorship,” says planetary scientist Paul Byrne of Washington University in St. Louis. “Even if the percentage of people who would normally write a DEI abstract is small, a much larger percent are pissed off.”

In other words, the science community wants to support DEI racial discrimination, because it is designed to favor the racial and sexual groups they favor. To them it is more important to infuse these bigoted ideas into all science, rather than actually report real research about the solar system and planets.
» Read more

6 comments

The DC swamp proposes beating China in space by creating another bureaucracy here on Earth

1:02 pm

Gotta feed those DC pigs!
Gotta feed those DC pigs!

My heart be still: A bi-partisan group of senators, led by Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), yesterday introduced legislation they claim will help the U.S. beat China in space by creating a new government agency called the “National Institute for Space Research,” designed to encourage research in space tied to the proposed commercial space stations.

Reports indicate that China is launching new modules to its Tiangong space station to meet growing demands for science and to boost international cooperation and is developing a new-generation crew spacecraft with two variants: one for low Earth orbit (LEO) and one for crewed lunar missions. China has been actively promoting international cooperation through Tiangong, offering countries like Oman, Egypt, Pakistan, and others opportunities to participate in space research largely for free or at an extremely low cost. China has also offered to train foreign astronauts, garnering interest from countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the UAE to train engineers, scientists, and mission operators for satellite development, and to launch services in which Egypt, Algeria, and Argentina are actively involved. This is a part of China’s broader Belt and Road Initiative, where space cooperation is bundled with tech transfer, loans, development projects, and the like.

This underscores strategic and accelerating investment by foreign adversaries in space-based infrastructure, research, and exploration. China’s ability to offer space-based partnerships to other nations allows it to build soft power and potentially shift international norms in space governance and tech standards.

In response, the Space RACE Act would create a National Institute for Space Research, a federally controlled but independently operated entity designed to coordinate and advance U.S. microgravity research in LEO using next-generation space platforms after the retirement of the ISS.

The last thing this bill will achieve is a stronger American space industry. Rather than funding real research or development in space, this legislation simply creates another Washington government agency supposedly functioning independent of presidential or even congressional oversight (a legal structure the courts have increasingly declared unconstitutional).

This is just more pork. It is also symbolic of the stupidity of our elected officials, who still do not really understand the real reasons beyond the on-going renaissance in America’s space effort. It hasn’t been the government that made it happen. It has been the private dreams of competing companies and individuals, figuring out ways they could make money launching rockets, often with the government acting as a major obstacle. Rather than streamline our bloated government to get it out of the way of this new private sector, these senators want to create more government to dictate how that sector functions.

Ugh. There are times I wish I didn’t have to read the news from DC. It almost always depresses me.

25 comments

More criticism and opposition to Europe’s proposed space law

9:47 am

The European Union
This label would be more accurate if it read
“NOT made in the European Union”

At a conference in Germany this week, officials from the U.S. and several European countries expressed strong reservations about a proposed new European space law that would impose significant regulations on satellite and rocket companies, even if they are not European-based.

The objections by the American representative merely underlined the opposition already expressed by the State Department two weeks ago, when it said the law placed ““unacceptable regulatory burdens on U.S. providers of space services to European customers.”

Objections however were also expressed by officials from the United Kingdom and Liechtenstein. The latter’s comments also suggested further opposition should be expected from other European nations as well.

Liechtenstein is not a member of the EU but is part of the European Economic Area (EEA), said Bianca Lins, lead for space in the Liechtenstein Office for Communications. Since the EU Space Act covers issues like a single market for space services in Europe, “it’s going to be incorporated into the EEA agreement and also means we have to transpose it into national law.”

Her concern, she said, is that the act “does not really consider the international obligations that every sovereign state has,” including responsibilities under the Outer Space Treaty. She expected Liechtenstein, Iceland and Norway — the other EEA states outside the EU — to submit comments on those issues.

The law has also been condemned by companies in the U.S. as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

It is unclear however if the European Union is reconsidering the bill. If it passes it will do significant harm. One possibility is that American companies will pull much of their satellite and launch business out of Europe. And if they do not, it will likely cause them to defy the law, with State Department backing. The EU has no right to impose its rules on American companies.

If the latter occurs, it will thus set a significant legal precedent that suggests the European Union is a toothless non-entity with no real legal power. I suspect this threat above all will force the EU to reconsider the bill.

10 comments

Canada commits a half billion to European Space Agency projects

8:53 am

During a conference yesterday, Canada’s industry minister Mélanie Joly announced that her government has increased its budget for European Space Agency (ESA) projects to a total of $528 million over the next three to five years.

This funding increases is quite significant, approximately ten times greater than Canada’s previous budget commitments to ESA projects.

Few details were provided on how the money would be spent.

Joly said the investment would advance research and development of Canadian-made space technologies for both civilian and defence purposes. These include satellite communications, Earth observation, space exploration, positioning, navigation and timing, and space situational awareness, she said.

While most of the western world is shifting to the capitalism model, where the government buys what it needs from products owned by the private sector, it appears the present leftwing Canadian government under Mark Carney is moving instead in the direction of the Soviet model, whereby the government builds and owns the projects itself. This ESA commitment falls into that latter category, at least on the surface. Much however will depend on how ESA and Canada eventually decide to spend the cash.

4 comments

Mexican anti-Musk activists whine about SpaceX’s Boca Chica launch operations

1:27 pm

Chicken Little is once again panicking
Chicken Little is once again panicking

Mexican anti-Musk activists have now announced new complaints against SpaceX’s Boca Chica launch operations, claiming the soft-splash down of its Superheavy boosters in the Gulf of Mexico is damaging marine life, and the company’s effort to remove its stage and debris is further damaging the ocean floor.

Conibio Global A.C., a marine biodiversity organization in Mexico, launched “Expedition Booster 2025” this summer in partnership with the state of Tamaulipas and the Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas. The group is studying how booster landings near Playa Bagdad may be affecting wildlife and nearby communities. “We have 20 kilometers of space debris, which amounts to tons,” said Jesus Elias Ibarra Rodriguez, president of Conibio Global A.C. “If you go right now, you’ll find three or five pieces of plastic or metal or electrical parts from the thruster, even tanks—there is already a lot of debris.”

Researchers report that sea turtles and dolphins often mistake smaller debris for food, which can lead to deadly ingestion. They also documented debris fragments measuring between two and 10 meters long. According to the group, 3-D sonar imaging shows that a platform used in July to remove debris may have caused additional damage to the seafloor. “This platform has three structures that were sunk and anchored to the seafloor,” Rodriguez said. “During the investigation, we realized that it caused damage and holes when its structures were wedged in while removing the engines, and the engines were damaging the seabed and the species that live in the area.”

In other words, SpaceX is evil for dropping Superheavy in the Gulf, and it is also evil for removing it. Or to put this in real terms, these activists simply don’t want SpaceX to do anything. Their goal is to shut the company down entirely.

Moreover, their research is clearly bogus and overwrought. The entire world has been dropping lower stages in the oceans for more than three-quarters of a century, with no documented harm to marine life or the oceans. These faux scientists are simply puffing up their work to use this as a hammer against SpaceX.

Their complaint meanwhile appears somewhat bogus as well. They are “in communication” with Mexican authorities, and only “plan to present [their] findings” to that government eventually. In other words, their complaint hasn’t been filed with the government, but with our compliant propaganda press (in this case a local Texas news outlet), who are always glad to push the leftist agenda, no matter how idiotic.

Hat tip to Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas.

19 comments

The crippling effect of “woke” on historians

1:17 pm

As a historian who likes to read (from real books that I can pick up and feel, not digital versions that make true understanding and absorption difficult), I am routinely reading at least two histories about America’s past at any one time.

For example, I previously had read two great biographies of T.E. Lawrence (of Lawrence of Arabia fame) and Cornelius Vanderbilt (who dominated the American transportation industry in the first half of the 1800s). More about each in future essays, as I think I will start reviewing these books as I finish them.

An amazingly accurate rendering of the first Thanksgiving
Believe it or not, this is actually an amazingly
accurate rendering of the first Thanksgiving

Today’s essay however is about two books I finished yesterday, both about two very different periods in American history. Both however had the exact same flaws, typical of the early 2000s when they were written, despite being very detailed and accurate efforts. The books:

The first was published in 2006, and was an attempt to describe in detail the story behind the settlement of Pilgrims in New England in first half century after they arrived in 1620.

The second was published in 2003, and was an attempt to tell the story of the defeat of Japan in World War II, achieved mostly because of the advent of the airplane in reshaping warfare. While ground troops took island after island in the Pacific, in the end it was the air war against Japan itself that eventually forced its surrender. Bradley focuses on telling us the story of the pilots and crews in that air war.

As I already noted, both books do excellent jobs detailing very accurately in vivid terms the events involved. For anyone who wishes to learn something about these significant events of our nation’s history, I recommend them highly.

However, that recommendation comes with one major caveat. In both cases, the authors were handicapped by certain modern academic paradigms that crippled their ability to see the larger context of events. Those paradigms demanded that both historians treat all the cultures involved as morally equivalent, and because of this both writers miss entirely the greater moral fundamentals that moved the Western side of both stories.

For example, let’s take Philbrick’s fascinating history of the Pilgrims.
» Read more

64 comments

SpaceX launches 29 more Starlink satellites

8:47 pm

Note: My original post mistated the time of launch. Below is a corrected text:

SpaceX tonight at 10:21 pm (Eastern) successfully launched another 29 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its third flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

I specify the launch time because it occurred just outside the FAA’s so-called curfew banning all launches from 6 am to 10 pm local time, due to the government shutdown and a shortage of air traffic controllers to coordinate aviation and rocket launches. Though the Senate today voted to end the shutdown, that shutdown has not yet ended, and won’t until the House passes the Senate budget version and Trump signs it.

Thus, it appears Blue Origin has negotiated an exemption for its now planned launch of New Glenn on November 12, 2025 in the afternoon.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

147 SpaceX (a new record)
70 China
14 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 147 to 115.

Note that I had made an error in entering my numbers earlier this week in regards to China, and have now corrected the mistake, thus revising the numbers in the last few launch reports.

2 comments

Profits for Luxembourg satellite company SES drop due to U.S. budget cuts and shutdown

10:10 am

According to its third quarter report, the profits of Luxembourg satellite company SES were impacted negatively because of the budget cuts of the Trump administration, and were then further impacted because of the extended government shutdown.

Revenue over the first nine months of this year rose 20% to €1.75 billion while losses mounted to €55 million so far in 2025. Part of the problem was the Trump administration reassessment of spending that had been decided last year, including the delay of contract renewals and decisions on new awards, Chief Executive Officer Adel Al-Saleh said. Large contracts have also been delayed by the longest congressional budget standoff in US history, now in its sixth week, he said. “We’re experiencing timing delays in some contract awards due to the continuing resolution and subsequent government shutdown,” Al-Saleh said on a conference call with stock analysts.

The company remains in the black, and it expects to make up these losses from other customers. It is also in the process of completing its purchase of the satellite company Intelsat, which has also impacted its profits.

The article notes one interesting aspect of this Luxembourg company, that reflects the unique approach to tax dollars by that nation’s government: “Luxembourg taxpayers own one-sixth of SES shares, but wield a third of the voting power after underwriting its creation four decades ago.” The government doesn’t simply spend its tax revenue, like most governments. It treats that revenue as investment capital, and uses it to make money for the benefit of its citizens.

If only more governments would take this approach!

8 comments

FAA issues a launch curfew due to the shutdown

10:31 pm

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today issued a launch curfew that will ban all launches and re-entries from 6:00 am to 10:00 pm local time.

Accordingly, with respect to commercial space launches and reentries, under the authority provided to the FAA Administrator by 49 U.S.C. §§ 40103, 40113, and 46105(c), and authority delegated to the FAA Administrator under 51 U.S.C. § 50909(a), it is hereby ordered that, beginning at 6:00 a.m. EST on November 10, 2025, and until this Order is cancelled, Commercial space launches and reentries will only be permitted between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. local time.

It appears the curfew has been imposed because of a shortage of air traffic controllers due to the government shutdown. Each launch needs to be coordinated with air traffic control, and it appears the FAA won’t have the people it needs to do this during the day. This is part of the overall 10% reduction in flights at forty of the busiest airports nationwide imposed at the same time, also due to the shutdown.

This order is going to probably impact planned launches by SpaceX, Rocket Lab, and others, with SpaceX likely affected the most.

Note: I got the curfew times backwards initially, and was corrected by my readers. Post is now correct.

14 comments

Judge approves plea deal related to Boeing’s malfeasance that caused two 737-Max crashes killing 346

3:03 pm

Boeing Logo

After further hearings during this past month, a judge ruled today to accept the plea deal worked out between Boeing and the Justice Department that allows the companyto avoid a criminal prosecution for its malfeasance and fraud that led to two 737-Max airplane crashes that killed a total of 346 people, thus dismissing the pending criminal charges.

A criminal conspiracy case was held against Boeing following the two fatal crashes of its 737 MAX 8 aircraft. The Department of Justice had initially accused Boeing of deceiving the federal regulators in relation to flight control system issues. Following the dismissal, Boeing has agreed that it would pay and or invest up to $1.1 billion in compensation to victims’ families, alongside other fines.

This dismissal comes almost a year after Boeing had reached an agreement with the DOJ, under which it would see the American plane manufacturer plead guilty and serve a term of probation. In a report by CNBC, the dismissal order acknowledged the victims’ families, many of whom opposed the dismissal, that the agreement could fail to secure the necessary accountability to ensure the safety of the flying public, and that the dismissal did not acknowledge that the manufacturer needed to be subject to independent monitoring.

It should be noted that Boeing has not only admitted to its corrupt behavior, it has already thumbed its nose at the Justice Department. As I noted in March,

In 2021 Boeing admitted to these charges as part of a plea deal with Justice, whereby prosecution would be deferred for three years if Boeing took certain actions to clean up its act. When that deal expired in 2024, Justice determined that Boeing had failed to live up to its agreement. Rather than go to criminal trial however government lawyers instead attempted twice to settle the case by having Boeing pay a big fine, first $243 million and then $455 million. In both cases the deals fell through when lawyers for the victims’ families objected.

The families still object, for the very rational reasons listed above. Boeing remains a very untrustworthy company, with a corporate culture that does not appear to require high standards, or even low standards, while allowing corruption and fraud to run rampant. This deal in many ways lets it off the hook.

At the same time, the deal is clearly an effort by Justice to give Boeing another opportunity to reform itself. We shall see if it works. Skepticism is certainly called for.

16 comments

State Department blasts the European Union’s proposed Space Act

9:06 am

The European Union
This label would be more accurate if it read
“NOT made in the European Union”

In a comment the State Department posted on November 4, 2025 on the European Commission’s website for public comment in connection with the European Union’s proposed Space Act, the Trump administration lambasted that law as imposing “unacceptable regulatory burdens on U.S. providers of space services to European customers.”

As a general matter, the United States expresses deep concern regarding measures in the proposed Act that would impose unacceptable regulatory burdens on U.S. providers of space services to European customers.

As close partners in civil, commercial, and security aspects of space cooperation for decades, the EU should proceed cautiously when developing and refining the proposed EU Space Act to ensure it provides a permissive and adaptable framework that promotes innovation, investment, and fair competition for the U.S., EU, and EU member states commercial sectors, while respecting each other’s sovereignty. Otherwise, the ability of the United States, the EU, and EU members to maintain government-to-government burden-sharing partnerships could be threatened. These non-tariff barriers would introduce challenges in the areas of space weather, remote sensing, space exploration, spaceflight safety, space debris mitigation and remediation, communications, as well as cooperations with the European Space Agency.

No one should be surprised by this response. Trump has always been aggressive in his desire to limit regulation. He has also been passionate about defending U.S. sovereignty. As I noted in June 2025 when the law was first released,
» Read more

One comment

More Washington shenanigans over who will be NASA’s next administrator

12:17 pm

Two news outlets in the past day (Politico and Ars Technica) have posted stories about a 62-page plan — supposedly written by Jared Isaacman while he was still the nominee to become NASA administrator — that was recently leaked to them as well as others inside and outside NASA.

The plan itself, dubbed “Project Athena”, has not been made available, though the descriptions at both sources suggest it matches closely with the overall Trump effort to cancel SLS and Orion and shift space operations out of NASA and more into the private sector.

The nature of this plan of course threatens NASA’s established work force and the big space contractors who have worked hand-in-glove with NASA for decades, producing little but distributing a lot of money and jobs to these groups. Not surprisingly, both news sources quote extensively from anonymous sources within that NASA work force and those big space contractors, lambasting the plan and blasting Isaacman for proposing it. From the Politic article:

Sean Duffy
Sean Duffy: “Pick me! Pick me!”

Putting all of these plans into writing is a “rookie move,” and “presumptuous,” said an industry insider who has seen the document and thought it would stoke congressional skepticism around his nomination. Many of these ideas would need congressional approval to enact, and Congress could always block them.

The Ars Techica article speculates that interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy was the source of the leak, in his effort to become NASA’s official administrator. If the plan is Isaacman’s, it generates opposition to renewing Isaacman’s nomination as NASA administrator while garnering support for Duffy from NASA’s workforce and those big space contractors.

All of this is pure Washington swamp, however, which really matters little in the long run. First of all, none of this is real. We are talking about an unreleased plan that no one has seen publicly, and the reactions of anonymous sources criticizing that unseen plan. It is all the stuff of ghosts and fantasy. For we know, it is all made up, just like the Russian collusion hoax was manufactured against Trump.

Second, and more important, who runs NASA next is becoming increasingly unimportant. » Read more

16 comments

A think tank releases its detailed review of the American satellite communications industry

11:09 am

The state of the satellite constellation industry
Go here and here for originals.

Link to the press release is here. To read the actual report go here.

The report was issued by the LEO Policy Working Group, which calls itself “an independent body dedicated to providing forward-looking, data-driven analysis and policy recommendations to ensure the successful and sustainable deployment of next-generation Low Earth Orbit satellite systems.” In reviewing the membership of this group, I noticed that only one member appeared drawn from the industry itself (a former OneWeb advisor). The rest of the members were from lobbying groups, government agencies, academia, or DC think tanks.

Thus, I immediately wondered if this report was aimed against SpaceX and its present dominance, designed to justify further government regulation against it.

In reviewing the report however it does not seem so, at least on the surface. The report very accurately and detail describes the present state of the industry and all the players, including all the present constellations in orbit or under construction. It also describes the state of the launch industry on which they depend, including the risks entailed by SpaceX’s present dominance. At the same time it also notes at length that there is no evidence that SpaceX is doing anything to take advantage of that dominance.

Its recommendations are generally vague, and can be summed up simply as “Government should remain vigilant but do nothing drastic at this time.”

The report’s main benefit however its overall summary of the industry, as well as its detailed description of how the spectrum is regulated by government agencies.
» Read more

6 comments

Is the German government holding up Rocket Lab’s purchase of German space communications company Mynaric?

10:08 am

Even though Rocket Lab announced in March that it was acquiring the German laser communications company Mynaric for $150 million, and entered into the stock purchase agreement in September, the company has not yet gotten approval for the purchase from the German government, raising questions that approval might be denied.

A central question for regulators and industry observers is whether Mynaric, once owned by Rocket Lab, would still be deemed a European entity — a status that could determine its eligibility to compete for Europe’s planned sovereign communications network, known as IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite). The multibillion-euro program, backed by the European Union, is designed to strengthen Europe’s independence in secure satellite communications and may restrict participation to European-controlled firms.

Those regulators however also have to consider whether IRIS will even fly. Designed to provide a government option to the internet constellations being operated or built by Starlink, Kuiper, and several Chinese projects, it is significantly delayed, vastly over budget, and unlikely to compete very successfully. There have been rumors several EU nations are even balking at building it at all.

If Rocket Labs’ purchase of Mynaric is denied, it will likely not harm that company significantly. It will however be another example of Europe cutting off its nose to spite its face. It will block this American company from providing business to Europe, even as its own government projects wither on the vine.

One comment

Two former NASA administrators express wildly different opinions on NASA’s Artemis lunar program

1:07 pm

At a symposium yesterday in Alabama, former NASA administrators Charles Bolden and Jim Bridenstine expressed strong opinions about the state of NASA’s Artemis lunar program and the chances of it getting humans back to Moon before the end of Trump’s term in office and before China.

What was surprising was how different those opinions were, and who said what. Strangely, the two men took positions that appeared to be fundamentally different than the presidents they represented.

Charles Bolden
Charles Bolden

Charles Bolden was administrator during Barack Obama’s presidency. Though that administration supported the transition to capitalism, it also was generally unenthusiastic about space exploration. Obama tasked Bolden with making NASA a Muslim outreach program, and in proposing a new goal for NASA he picked going to an asteroid, something no one in NASA or the space industry thought sensible. Not surprisingly, it never happened.

Bolden’s comments about Artemis however was surprisingly in line with what I have been proposing since December 2024, de-emphasize any effort to get back to the Moon and instead work to build up a thriving and very robust competitive space industry in low Earth orbit:

Duffy’s current messaging is insisting it’ll be accomplished before Trump’s term ends in January 2029, but Bolden isn’t buying it. “We cannot make it if we say we’ve got to do it by the end of the term or we’re going to do it before the Chinese. That doesn’t help industry.”

Instead the focus needs to be on what we’re trying to accomplish. “We may not make it by 2030, but that’s okay with me as long as we get there in 2031 better than they are with what they have. That’s what’s most important. That we live up to what we said we were going to do and we deliver for the rest of the world. Because the Chinese are not going to bring the rest of the world with them to the Moon. They don’t operate that way.” [emphasis mine]

In other words, the federal government should focus on helping that space industry grow, because a vibrant space industry will make colonizing the Moon and Mars far easier. And forget about fake deadlines. They don’t happen, and only act to distort what you are trying to accomplish.

Meanwhile, Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator during Trump’s first term, continued to lambast SpaceX’s Starship lunar lander contract, saying it wasn’t getting the job done on time, and in order to beat the Chinese he demanded instead that the government begin a big government-controlled project to build a lander instead.
» Read more

25 comments

Colorado sues the Trump administration over its decision to move Space Force headquarters to Alabama

11:47 am

The Democratic Party attorney general of Colorado yesterday announced he is suing the Trump administration over its decision to relocate the headquarters of the Space Force from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser is suing President Donald Trump’s administration over its “retaliatory” decision to relocate U.S. Space Command from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama.

In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Colorado on Wednesday, Weiser wrote that the president “could not have been clearer about his motivations” for the move, citing Trump’s comments during the Oval Office announcement last month acknowledging that Colorado’s elections, which he falsely described as “crooked,” were a “big factor” in his decision.

That admission makes Trump’s decision to vacate Space Command’s temporary location in Colorado — the latest twist in a years-long battle over the permanent home of Space Force headquarters — an unconstitutional violation of state sovereignty, Weiser said in a press conference. “The executive branch isn’t allowed to punish, retaliate, or seek to coerce states who lawfully exercise powers that are reserved to them,” Weiser said. “And that includes the power to oversee the time, place and manner of elections.”

Weiser’s lawsuit has little chance of winning in court. No state can tell the federal government where to place its facilities, no matter what the reason. The suit is mainly a crumb Weiser is throwing to his local Democratic Party supporters, showing them he as is equally controlled by Trump Derangement Syndrome as they are.

I should note that I also strongly disagree with Trump’s decision in this case. It will cost a lot of money, and will gain us nothing. The military’s space operations have been based in Colorado for more than a half century. Though a major reorganization of this bureaucratic structure is warranted, it would be far better to reorganize it there, rather than try to recreate it elsewhere.

10 comments

Lockheed Martin completes first flight of X-59 supersonic test plane

8:32 am

My heart be still: Lockheed Martin yesterday completed the first flight for NASA of the X-59 supersonic test plane, designed to produce a much quieter sonic boom.

The X-59 took off from Skunk Works’ facility at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, before landing near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. The X-59 performed exactly as planned, verifying initial flying qualities and air data performance on the way to a safe landing at its new home.

The plane did NOT yet fly at supersonic speeds. It needs to do more flight tests before it attempts that feat. A somewhat uninteresting video of the flight can be seen here. (Hat tip to Jay.)

This NASA program is another example of government waste. NASA issued the company a $247.5 million the contract for this test plane in 2018, after two years of preliminary design work. Seven years later it finally flies once, but not at supersonic speeds.

Meanwhile, the commercial startup Boom Supersonic started at about the same time, raised far less investment capital, and successfully flew a supersonic flight in January 2025 in which it broke that sound barrier three times, with no audible sonic boom.

Boom has already obtained numerous contracts with the airline companies United and Japan Airlines to provide them planes. It is in the process of manufacturing its Overture commercial passenger jet for sale.

Lockheed Martin’s NASA project has no investors and no airlines interested in the test plane. Lockheed Martin itself is not marketing it and has no plans to use the technology commercially. In fact, NASA likely forbids it from doing so.

I am sure these tests will provide data helpful to Boom and the handful of other commercial supersonic startups. At the same time, the entire project is another example of a poor use of taxpayer funds.

10 comments

The base of the Democratic Party has truly become nightmare to behold

12:25 pm

They aren't just mindless, they are driven by hate
They aren’t just mindless, they are driven by hate

I always say it is the audience that counts. No matter what idiocy the leaders on both sides of the political spectrum might propose, the real future is determined by what their base wants.

It is now very clear that the base of the Democratic Party is driven entirely by hate, envy, and a lust for power, based on an ignorance of history that is appalling. And my saying this not simply an opinion. It is founded on what that base itself has said repeatedly in the past year. First that base has increasingly thrown its support behind Hamas and its anti-Semitic hate of Israel and Jews. Next, it mourned the failed assassination attempts against Donald Trump, then celebrated the murder of Charlie Kirk, a man whose primary goal was to foster free debate.

In this election season now that base is supporting a candidate in Maine, Graham Platner, who got a Nazi tattoo placed on his chest, and has made numerous hateful posts online over the years against anyone who disagreed with him.
In Virginia that base is excited to support a candidate for attorney general, Jay Jones, who enthusiastically called for the murder of his political opponents as well as the death of their kids.

And finally, in New York that base is rallying with great joy around an anti-Semitic Muslim, Zohran Mamdani, who hates the police and wishes to impose communism on that city. And the base showed its envy of the success of others at a big Mandani rally this past weekend, chanting without prompting over and over again that Mandani and New York’s Democratic Party governor Kathy Hochul should “Tax the rich!”

It was very clear that they weren’t chanting this to simply to re-distribute wealth, or to improve New York. No, it was very clear they wished to tax the rich because they wanted to destroy the rich. How dare such people have success when I don’t!
» Read more

11 comments

European think tank pushes passage of proposed and very Byzantine space law

10:51 am

The European Union
This label would be more accurate if it read
“NOT made in the European Union”

A European think tank, the Centres for European Policy Networks (CEP), today released its analysis of a proposed space law it wants the European Union to adopt during its on-going fall session.

The Commission’s draft seeks to harmonize national regulations and establish common safety standards. According to the CEP, this is necessary to ensure a level playing field for space activities in the European single market.

This law was first released in June 2025. In reviewing it then, I concluded it would be a disaster for Europe should it be approved.

It imposes new environmental, safety, and cybersecurity regulations on the design of satellites and spacecraft in a manner that will likely slow development and competition in Europe significantly. And it applies these regulations not only to European companies but to the rest of the world’s space industry, should it do any operations at all in Europe.

CEP’s policy analysis [pdf] confirms my assessment, but thinks it is a great idea, especially its provisions that impose its rules on other countries.

In this context, the EU Space Act aims to extend the EU’s jurisdiction to space service providers based outside the EU who offer space-based data or services within the Union. This approach would ensure that no space operator is given an advantage by being exempt from the rules and prevents the circumvention of EU regulations. [emphasis mine]

In other words, the EU must rule everyone! What will instead happen if this law is passed is that American companies will simply refuse to do business with Europe. I can guarantee that SpaceX will pull its Starlink business from Europe if the EU tries to impose these regulations on it.

Europe meanwhile will find its own space industry hobbled trying to meet the law’s many odious regulations.

That the EU is still considering this law is remarkable in itself. The law was first proposed in 2024, but the vote on it was delayed a year when a number of EU members opposed it vehemently. Those nations all want their own nascent home-grown space industries to prosper, and see this law as bad policy that will kill them.

Whether that opposition can stand up to the globalist desires of the EU and Europe’s bureaucratic culture however remains very uncertain.

9 comments

SpaceX settles Cards Against Humanity lawsuit against it

9:26 am

Though no monetary numbers have been released, its appears Cards Against Humanity (CAH) has settled its $15 million lawsuit with SpaceX, instigated when the company illegally stored equipment on a piece of land CAH had purchased in 2017 in an effort to block Trump’s border wall.

Per AP, according to Texas court records, a settlement was finalized last month, prior to the upcoming Nov. 3 jury trial marked on the calendar. SpaceX owns other land plots in the Brownsville, Texas area in Cameron County, but apparently had no right to use this patch.

“The upside is that SpaceX has removed their construction equipment from our land and we’re able to work with a local landscaping company to restore the land to its natural state: devoid of space garbage and pointless border walls,” CAH wrote in a recent message to customers. “Were we hoping to be able to pay all our fans? Sure. But we did warn them they would probably only be able to get like $2 or most likely nothing.”

Based on a somewhat childish and obscene statement from CAH describing the settlement, it got little additional money from SpaceX. The company admitted its trespass, agreed to pay for the restoration, but agreed to nothing else. In response, CAH says it will issue a free new set of cards “all about Musk” to those who donated to buy the land. The tone of CAH suggests the cards will be equally childish and obscene.

As for the border wall, if the Trump administration decides it wants to build it across this piece of land, CAH’s ownership won’t make any difference. The Trump administration will simply initiate eminent domain proceedings to take the land.

2 comments

The Philippines and Malaysia sign Artemis Accords

8:55 am

As part of a number of diplomatic agreements signed during President Trump’s visit to Malaysia this week, the State Department announced that both the Philippines and Malaysia have also added their names to Artemis Accords, bringing the number of nations in the American space alliance now to 59.

The full list of nations who have signed the accords: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

The State Department tweet announcing this agreement says it the nations “are committed to principles of safe and transparent space exploration,” a relatively meaningless statement. It remains unknown whether Trump will use this alliance to get around the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions on private property in space, as the original goal of the accords appeared to be during Trump’s first administration. So far it appears Trump is largely uninterested in this subject in his second term.

If this is so, then it is possible this alliance in future years would actually act to limit freedom in space. Despite its founding under the concept of constitutional limited rule, the culture of the American government has been quite hostile to this concept in recent decades. We cannot be confident it will support freedom and limited government in the future, on Earth or in space. And because future colonists will have less leverage on Earth, expect that government to be more abusive to those distant space-farers.

It is up to Trump to fix this. He has the opportunity to set precedents that could shape the future in space significantly. It remains very unclear whether he realizes this.

Leave a comment

Hungary becomes the 57th nation to sign the Artemis Accords

8:01 am

NASA’s acting administrator, Sean Duffy, announced yesterday in a tweet that Hungary has now signed the Artemis Accords.

There was no NASA press release because of the government shutdown.

Hungary is now the 57th nation to sign the accords. The full list of nations now part of this American space alliance: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

The addition of Hungary means that almost the entire European portion of the former Soviet bloc has now joined the alliance. I suspect the desire of these nations to ally with the U.S. and the west is a reflection of their fear of Russia, which has not been kind to its neighbors, both during the Cold War as well as recently.

It still remains to be seen if this alliance will be used by the American government to encourage property rights in space, something that the Outer Space Treaty presently outlaws. That appeared to be its original goal when the accords were created during the first Trump administration. That goal however was abandoned during the Biden administration, making the accords alliance more of a globalist collective in support of the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions.

So far during Trump’s second administration no action has been taken to reassert those original goals.

One comment

What bad news is NASA hiding about the heat shield it will use on the next Orion/SLS manned mission around the Moon?

3:59 pm

Orion's damage heat shield
Damage to Orion heat shield caused during re-entry in 2022,
including “cavities resulting from the loss of large chunks”

Even as our uneducated media goes bonkers over another Musk kerfuffle, this time with interim NASA administration Sean Duffy, it is ignoring what now appears to be a strong effort by NASA to cover up some serious issues with the Orion capsule’s heat shield, issues that might be far more serious than outlined in a May 2024 inspector general (IG) report.

That IG report [pdf] found the following:

Specifically, portions of the char layer wore away differently than NASA engineers predicted, cracking and breaking off the spacecraft in fragments that created a trail of debris rather than melting away as designed (see Figure 3 [shown to the right]). The unexpected behavior of the Avcoat creates a risk that the heat shield may not sufficiently protect the capsule’s systems and crew from the extreme heat of reentry on future missions. Moreover, while there was no evidence of impact with the Crew Module, the quantity and size of the debris could have caused enough structural damage to cause one of Orion’s parachutes to fail. Should the same issue occur on future Artemis missions, it could lead to the loss of the vehicle or crew.

In our judgment, the unexpected behavior of the heat shield poses a significant risk to the safety of
future crewed missions. [emphasis mine]

NASA spent the next few months reviewing the situation, and decided in December 2024 that it did not have the time or funding to redesign and replace the heat shield before the next flight. Instead, it chose to fly the next manned Orion mission — dubbed Artemis-2 and scheduled for the spring of 2026 carrying four astronauts around the Moon — using this same heat shield design but change the flight path during reentry to reduce stress on the shield.

NASA also admitted then that this heat shield design is defective, and that it will replace it beginning with the next mission, Artemis-3, the one that the agency hopes will land people back on the Moon.

The decision to fly humans in a capsule with such a known untrustworthy heat shield design is bad enough. Any rational person would not do this (as the inspector general above concluded). Yet NASA is going ahead, because it has determined that meeting its schedule, getting Americans back to the lunar surface ahead of China and during Trump’s present term of office, is more important than rational engineering and testing.

What now makes this decision even more worrisome is that it appears NASA is covering up the findings of its own engineers, completed in August 2024 but not made public until now.
» Read more

43 comments

Duffy’s shiny object worked

9:21 am

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

As expected, Elon Musk responded yesterday with anger and insults to the announcement by interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy that he will consider other manned lunar landers besides Starship for the first Artemis landing on the Moon.

And as expected, our brainless and generally uneducated propaganda press grabbed the shiny object that Duffy had put out with this announcement to focus entirely on the public spat. Here is just a sampling of the typical reports:

Not one of these articles reported the fact that Duffy’s announcement also included an admission that NASA is now delaying this manned Moon mission until 2028. Not one went into any depth as to why this program is delayed, if they discussed it at all. And any articles that did discuss the program’s overall slow pace, the focus was always entirely on SpaceX, as if its Starship program was the sole cause of all the problems. Essentially, they picked up Duffy’s talking points and ran with them, blindly. In fact, for almost all of these articles, it appeared as if the reporter was writing about NASA’s Artemis program for the first time, and really knew nothing about it.

Only the Ars Technica story attempted some thoughtful analysis, but it focused on the office politics of choosing NASA’s next administrator, missing entirely the fundamentals of this story, that the Artemis program is and has always been a mess, and that Duffy’s decision will do nothing to fix the problem.

Musk of course foolishly played into Duffy’s hands by reacting so violently, with insults, helping Duffy distract from the real issues. At the same time, Musk also spoke truth with this one tweet:
» Read more

25 comments
1 2 3 … 93