Tag: bankruptcy

DeSantis: Put NASA headquarters in Florida

9:53 am

At an event yesterday Florida governor Ron DeSantis proposed moving NASA headquarters to Florida, saving the half a billion dollars NASA now wants to spend to build a brand new gold-plated new headquarters building in Washington.

[DeSantis:] “They have this massive building in Washington, D.C., and like nobody goes to it. So why not just shutter it and move everybody down here? I think they’re planning on spending like a half a billion to build a new building up in D.C. that no one will ever go to either. So hopefully with the new administration coming in, they’ll see a great opportunity to just headquarter NASA here on the Space Coast of Florida. I think that’d be very, very fitting.”

The NASA transition team for the Trump administration is already sent out a trial balloon about cutting the size of NASA headquarters considerably. That team has also proposed eliminating NASA centers in California and Maryland and consolidating their work into the Marshall Center in Alabama.

Note the trend: All these moves shifts money from decidedly Democratic states to Republican ones. The announced goal would be to reduce NASA’s overhead, but at the same time the moves would take money and power away from Democrat strongholds.

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The biggest members of ESA cut their annual contributions to the partnership

9:43 am

In a continuation of the recent trend to go their own way in space, most of the largest partners in the European Space Agency (ESA) have decided to cut back their annual contributions this year to the agency.

The European Space Agency’s 2025 budget has dropped below its 2024 level after Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom collectively cut their contributions by €430 million.

During his annual press briefing on 9 January, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher revealed that the ESA budget for 2025 would be €7.68 billion, down from €7.79 billion in 2024. The reduction in the agency’s budget could have been far worse, as all of the ‘big four’ countries, apart from France, significantly reduced their contributions.

Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Spain all reduced their contributions. Except for Belgium, all have instead been recently diverting such funds directly either to space startups in their own country (see here and here), or forgoing contributing to large ESA projects and instead buying the services from other private sources (see here).

In general, it appears the bigger nations in Europe have realized that ESA has not been providing them a good deal. It takes their money, but doesn’t deliver competitive goods. Consider the Ariane-6 rocket. Conceived by ESA and ArianeGroup in 2015, it was five years late in launching. Worse, it was conceived as an entirely expendable rocket — even though SpaceX had just proven in ’15 that re-usability was possible — so that it is now too expensive to compete in today’s rocket market.

ESA also requires its projects to distribute contracts among all the partners, which increases costs and slows development.

In the past five years these countries have been increasingly bypassing ESA, especially when it comes to rocketry. Instead of having all European rockets built and managed by ESA’s commercial arm, Arianespace, these nations are switching to the capitalism model, whereby they each purchase launches from independent competing rocket companies.

The ESA budget cuts reflect this continuing trend. No point in giving cash to this moribund bureaucracy when the money can be better spent elsewhere.

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Blue Origin fined by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for using its launch deluge system

9:43 am

Because it conducted a static fire test using its launchpad deluge system in September 2024, before the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) had issued it a permit, the department has now fined Blue Origin $3,250.

The actual permit was subsequently approved in November 2024.

The story is very reminiscent of the red tape treatment SpaceX has been getting at Boca Chica. I am certain Blue Origin’s deluge system uses potable water (confirmed in the comments below), which will do no harm to the environment — proven by decades of government launches at both Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. Yet, FDEP accuses the company of dumping “untreated industrial wastewater [in]to the environment.”

This story kind of proves that leftist politicians and activists can never stay bribed. Bezos for years has cozied up to the left with major donations to leftist organizations, including many many environmental groups. But when he finally gets ready to launch they are still ready and willing to make his life difficult.

It seems to me that Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida should have a conversation with the officials at FDEP that issued this fine, explaining to them that the real problem was likely that permitting was taking longer than it should, especially when everyone knows such deluge systems cause no harm. The permit should have been approved instantly.

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Japan identifies a Chinese hacker group as the source of 210 attacks since 2019

9:23 am

The Japanese government has now identified a Chinese hacker group — dubbed “MirrorFace” and likely working with government support and direction — as the source of 210 attacks from 2019 to 2024.

Investigations by the agency’s National Cyber Department and police nationwide found that the malware used by MirrorFace was similar to that employed by the “APT10 Group,” a hacker organization said to be associated with China’s Ministry of State Security.

The targets also aligned with China’s areas of interest and the attacks coincided with Chinese working hours, ceasing during the country’s long holidays, police noted.

Though Japan’s space agency JAXA was a major target, it appears the hackers had many successes with other government agencies, including those related to national security.

This story only adds weight to the previous reports [pdf] of Chinese hacks of JPL, whereby China got the plans of our Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers and used that information to design Zhurong, its first rover to go to Mars.

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Scientific American is looking for a new and “diverse” editor-in-chief!

1:15 pm

Scientific American, where discrimination and bigotry thrive!
Scientific American, where discrimination and
bigotry thrive!

Scientific American needs a new editor-in-chief, but right off the bat I must warn qualified white men they needn’t bother to apply. They won’t get the job.

More on why later. First we must give the background. In November Scientific American’s editor-in-chief, Laura Helmuth, resigned, claiming it was time for her “to take some time to think about what comes next (and go birdwatching).”

In truth, it was time for her to go. She had disgraced herself repeatedly by posting some very ugly posts condemning Trump and insulting his supporters in a most emotional and irrational manner. But those posts weren’t the real reason she need to leave.
» Read more

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FAA cancels one of three public meetings on the Starship/Superheavy environmental reassessment

9:38 am

The FAA today announced that it has canceled one of three meetings that it plans to hold in the Brownsville region next week to obtain public feedback on SpaceX’s request to increase its Starship/Superheavy launch rate at Boca Chica to 25 launches per year.

The FAA was scheduled to hold in-person public meetings on January 7th and 9th, 2025. However, due to the designation of January 9, 2025 as a National Day of Mourning to honor the late former President Jimmy Carter, the January 9th meetings are now cancelled.

The meeting schedule is now as follows:

  • In-person meeting: Tuesday, January 7, 2025; 1:00 PM–3:00 PM & 5:30 PM–7:30 PM CDT at the Texas Southmost College, Jacob Brown Auditorium, 600 International Boulevard, Brownsville, TX 78520
  • Virtual on-line meeting: Monday, January 13, 2025; 5:30 PM–7:30 PM CDT Registration Link here. Dial-in phone number: 888-788-0099 (Toll Free), Webinar ID: 879 9253 6128, Passcode: 900729

As I noted in November when the new environmental reassessment and these meetings were announced, it is practically certain that the fringe anti-Musk activists groups SaveRGV, Sierra Club, the Friends of Wildlife Corridor, and the fake Indian Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas (which never existed in Texas) are organizing to be there in force, demanding SpaceX’s Boca Chica operations be shut down.

If the rest of the public, which is the vast majority of the Brownsville community, does not show up to counter these fringe activists, it will make it much easier for the bureaucrats who hate Musk at the FAA to take action against SpaceX. It is essential that the business community at least make an appearance, as the arrival of SpaceX has brought billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs to Brownsville.

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Seventh Starship/Superheavy test launch now targeting January 10, 2025

9:55 am

Based on a single word tweet by Elon Musk as well as the FAA’s license approval, it now appears that SpaceX is targeting January 10, 2025 for the seventh Starship/Superheavy test orbital launch.

According to the FAA license, the launch window that day opens at 4 pm (Central), with backup launch opportunities each day through January 15th.

Reading that license is very illuminating. The depth in which the FAA now demands compliance from SpaceX is beyond daunting, and illustrates the mission creep the agency has used to grow its power. Based on a recent Supreme Court ruling, the company likely has grounds to sue and win, correctly claiming that Congress never gave it such power over so many things, and that its regulatory oversight is unconstitutional.

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Space Force starts environmental impact study of SpaceX’s launches at Vandenberg

3:35 pm

In mid-December the Space Force initiated a new environmental impact study (EIS), reviewing SpaceX’s request to significantly increasing the number of launches it would do out of Vandenberg, an increase that could climb to as much as a hundred launches per year.

The EIS will examine the environmental impacts from the redevelopment of Space Launch Complex (SLC) 6 for use by SpaceX for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches. The Space Force awarded SpaceX access to SLC-6, aka “Slick Six,” in 2023 after the final launch of United Launch Alliance’s Delta 4 from the site.

SLC-6 was built in the 1960s for the Air Force’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory program, which was canceled in 1969 before any launches took place. It was later converted to support Space Shuttle launches, but mothballed after the Challenger accident in 1986 before hosting a single launch. ULA took over the site in 2006.

The EIS would also allow SpaceX to conduct up to 100 launches annually between SLC-6 and its existing launch pad at Vandenberg, SLC-4. That includes booster landings at both launch sites as well as droneships downrange.

This is where we are are in the first quarter of the 21st century. Nothing new can be done anywhere without detailed environmental impact statements that take months, sometimes years, to complete, and almost always conclude that the proposed work can proceed without harm. Often however that conclusion can only come if the government and the private sector agree to funnel cash to environmental causes and organizations, if only to shut them up and prevent further lawsuits. (That’s exactly what happened in Boca Chica. Expect the same now in California.)

It must be noted again that we now have almost eight decades of empirical proof in both Florida and California that rocket launches do no significant harm to the environment, and that if anything they act to protect wildlife by creating large undeveloped refuges in the surrounding land. These new impact statements forced on SpaceX in California, in Florida, and in Boca Chica are therefore nothing more than a government power play, done in order to tell everyone who really is boss.

A new boss however takes over the executive branch of the federal government in only a few weeks. I suspect he will not look kindly at these games. Expect some quick changes almost immediately.

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Beware the DEI shell game

1:09 pm

Don't trust it to do the right thing
Don’t trust the leftists who run it to do the right thing

In the past few months the conservative has been repeatedly celebrating the retreat of the racist “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) movement. From corporations to universities DEI departments are being shut down.

Today I report on one of the most recent examples, but I do so as a warning. Just because a university or company announces plans to shut down a DEI department does not mean this racist policy is no longer being taught or used in hiring. In many cases, the shut down is merely a shell game to fool the general public while the policies continue, under the radar.

On December 17, 2024, the University of Iowa announced that was shuttering a number of programs, including its department of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies, and combining them into a new department dubbed the School of Social and Cultural Analysis. From the university’s press release:

Under the proposed plan, the college would close the departments of American Studies and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies, as well as the current majors in American Studies and in Social Justice, which have fewer than 60 students combined, and create a new major in Social and Cultural Analysis. The existing programs have limited faculty and overlapping curricula, causing challenges for faculty in sustaining teaching capacity. The new curricula will not only streamline operations but offer clarity and flexibility in students’ educational pathways.

“Right now, these programs are administered by multiple department chairs and multiple directors,” said Roland Racevskis, CLAS associate dean for the arts and humanities. “Under this proposed plan, the school would have a single leadership team dedicated to overseeing the operations of the programs. This new structure would provide better coordination of curriculum across these related programs, easier pathways for degree completion, and support for interdisciplinary research opportunities.”

Existing minors and certificates in associated areas would move into the new school. No changes to graduate programs are currently being proposed. [emphasis mine]

One of the reasons for this action is that the state legislature had recently passed an education appropriations bill [pdf] that specifically banned spending any money on DEI-type programs. From page 8 of the bill:
» Read more

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Roscosmos buys Earth observation data from private Russian satellite company

11:05 am

According to a report today by Russia’s state-run news agency TASS, Roscosmos has awarded a commercial contract to a private Russian satellite company, dubbed Sputnix, to purchase earth observation data its satellites have already collected.

“In 2024, up to 1.4 billion rubles [around $14.285 million] were allocated in budget funds to conclude forward contracts with private companies on buying out Earth’s remote sensing data obtained from their satellites and created under the federal project ‘Developing the Advanced Space Systems and Services High-Tech Sector.’ The first contract on buying out data has been concluded with the Sputnix Group of Companies,” Roscosmos said in a statement.

The Sputnix Group confirmed to TASS that the contract had been signed.

“Under the contract, the data already loaded into the database were bought out. We hope that next year we will be able to sign a forward contract as part of implementing the roadmap for the ‘Advanced Space Systems and Services’ project,” the company said, emphasizing that cooperation with Roscosmos remained a priority for Sputnix.

Sputnix was founded in 2011, and has so far launched 20 satellites into orbit, though many were short-lived cubesats. While on the surface this company appears real, it is not unlike the pseudo-companies in China. Its contracts appear to be almost all with the Russian government, all its work appears supervised by that government, and at any moment the Russian government can take it over, as it essentially did with the effort of the so-called private rocket startup S7 to launch from the Sea Launch ocean platform.

In other words, this news piece is simply the Russian government’s attempt to convince the world and its own people that there is a competitive and independent private sector in Russia, when in reality it doesn’t exist.

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Blue Origin finally gets FAA license to launch New Glenn, now targeting January 6, 2025

2:27 pm

The first completely assembled New Glenn, on the launchpad
The first completely assembled New Glenn,
on the launchpad

The FAA, after months of apparent delays, today finally issued Blue Origin a license to launch its New Glenn rocket for a period covering the next five years.

As has now become the FAA’s custom, in issuing this license it also brags about its success in issuing the license “well in advance of the statutory deadline” for doing so.

What a crock. Blue Origin and NASA were originally targeting an October launch of New Glenn carrying two Mars orbiters, but had to cancel when the rocket couldn’t lift off during the six-day launch window. Though delays at Blue Origin certainly contributed to this cancellation, I suspect the FAA’s red tape played a major factor as well.

According to another source, Blue Origin is now targeting a launch date of January 6, 2025. The company is presently doing a static fire test on the launchpad.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

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Post COVID data in the UK: Those who got the jab substantially increased their chances of death

12:43 pm

How health scientists determined policy against COVID
How health officials and governments determined
policy against COVID during the epidemic.

Data assembled by the government of the United Kingdom now proves unequivocally that getting the jab during the COVID panic was a very bad idea. It did less than nothing to prevent you from getting the virus, and in fact significantly increased your chances of dying.

[T]he data show that 30 percent of the UK population remained completely unvaccinated as of July 2022. 34 percent were not double vaccinated, and 50 percent were not triple vaccinated.

However, the vaccinated population accounted for 95 percent of all COVID-19 deaths between January and May 2023.

The unvaccinated population, meanwhile, accounted for just five percent of Covid deaths.

Perhaps the most troubling information revealed in the data is the fact that deaths increased among the groups who received more “vaccine” doses. The vast majority of the deaths are among those vaccinated four times. This quad-vaxxed population accounts for 80 percent of all COVID-19 deaths, and 83 percent of all Covid deaths among the vaccinated.

The numbers for many other time periods following the introduction of the jab are comparable.
» Read more

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Liechtenstein signs the Artemis Accords

10:16 am

The tiny nation of Liechtenstein in Europe yesterday became the 52nd nation to sign the Artemis Accords.

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

There has been a flurry of new nations signing the accords since the November election of Trump. I suspect his coming encouraged these nations to sign, knowing the moribund leadership of Biden will soon be replaced with something more robust. It is also likely that these nations see a renewal of Trump’s original goals for the Artemis Accords, to create an international alliance, led by the United States, with the goal of overcoming the Outer Space Treaty’s limitations on private property.

I hope this turns out to be true. This alliance gives Trump a powerful lobby he can wield to force change.

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Enrollment in colleges nationwide dropped 5% in 2024

4:47 pm


Modern college education: “But Brawndo’s got
what plants crave. It’s got electrolytes!”

According to a report by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, college enrollment in 2023 dropped by 5% from the previous year, suggesting that high school students are beginning to question the value of attending colleges where anti-Semitism and bigotry is promoted and white and Asian students are treated like dirt.

It could also be because they are beginning to realize that — at least in the soft sciences like history, sociology, literature, etc — all they will get is leftist/Marxist indoctrination, not a true education.

The statistics point in this direction:

Enrollment declined across racial groups for 18-year-old freshmen, though white students saw the steepest decline, the analysis found. White 18-year-old enrollment dropped 10 percent between fall 2023 and 2024, compared to 8.4 percent for multiracial students, 8.2 percent for Black students, 5.7 percent for Asian students and 2.1 percent for Hispanic students.
» Read more

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Oh no! The sonic booms of SpaceX are coming!

10:00 am

Superheavy after its flight safely captured at Boca Chica
Superheavy after its flight, safely captured at Boca Chica
on October 13, 2024.

When the current (but soon to step down) administrator of the FAA Mike Whitaker testified before Congress in September 2024 and attempted to explain his agency’s red tape that have significantly slowed development of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy rocket, he claimed that the sonic booms produced when Superheavy returned to land at the launchpad posed a “safety issue” that needed a detailed review.

“I think the sonic boom analysis [related to returning Superheavy back to Boca Chica] is a safety related incident.”

The sudden introduction of this issue was somewhat out of the blue. While loud, the sonic boom of a rocket launch is hardly a concern. The space shuttle produced the same for decades when it landed, and that was always considered a fun plus to watching the landing. And even if SpaceX begins launching its rockets once a day from any spaceport, that added noise does nothing to hurt anyone. In fact, it is a local signal of a thriving economy.

Since then it appears the leftist “intellectual elitists” that don’t like it when they don’t run everything — which is one reason they now hate Elon Musk — have run a full court press trying to make these rocket sonic booms a cause celebre that can be used to block SpaceX launches.
» Read more

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More evidence SLS and Orion are on the way out

11:12 am

An article today by a local Fox station in Orlando calling NASA’s decision to fly the next Artemis mission using the Orion capsule as a return to the bad culture that caused both shuttle accidents is strong evidence that the political winds are now definitely blowing against the future of both NASA’s SLS rocket and its Orion capsule.

The article interviews former NASA astronaut Charles Camarda, who expressed strong reservations about NASA’s willingness to make believe the failures of the Orion heat shield on its only test flight could be dismissed.

“The way they’re attacking the problem is echoes of Challenger and Columbia, using exactly the same bad behaviors to understand the physics of the problem,” [former astronaut Charles Camarda] said. “They’re not using a research-based approach.” Camarda worries NASA is pressing ahead with the current heat shields because he says “a lot of the engineers are afraid to speak up, and that’s a serious problem.”

The point is not the article itself, but that a mainstream propaganda news outlet is publishing this perspective. This fact suggests that there is a growing willingness within the political community to end both SLS and Orion, and articles such as this are used to strengthen that narrative. Politicos in DC have a great fear of canceling big projects, and for them to agree to do so requires a great deal of groundwork to make sure the public will accept the decision. Articles such as this one are thus published in the propaganda press for exactly this reason.

In other words, the Washington swamp has now begun its own campaign to cancel SLS and Orion.

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Alabama Republican congressman introduces spaceport funding bill to help a non-spaceport

10:00 am

In an example of the typically corrupt behavior of the Washington swamp, Alabama Republican congressman Dale Strong yesterday introduced a bill dubbed the Spaceport Project Opportunities for Resilient Transportation (SPACEPORT) act that has a lot of high-minded goals, but is mainly designed to funnel federal money to local regions. To quote Strong himself:

“The U.S. is the global leader in space, and North Alabama is at the forefront of that effort,” Strong said. “As former Chairman of the Madison County Commission, I worked closely with local city officials and commercial space stakeholders to secure Huntsville International Airport’s designation as the first entry site for space vehicle landings. I understand the preparation, coordination, and support required to safely and efficiently manage space launches and reentries. North Alabama is ready to leverage our unparalleled civil, commercial, and national security space expertise to support space infrastructure projects and the future of space exploration.” [emphasis mine]

Huntsville International Airport is not a spaceport. Giving it cash for this is nothing more than pork and a waste of the taxpayer’s money.

Strong’s bill is merely a proposal, and has been announced I think mostly to give this guy a photo-op. Nonetheless, it shows that we cannot trust any politician to do what they say. The Republicans always run on cutting the budget, but here we have a Republican eagerly proposing we spend money we don’t have in order to provide pork to his district. It is essential that his own constituents tell him in no uncertain terms that this kind of legislation is not what they hired him for. If they don’t, then things in Washington will only continue to do downhill.

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Activists sue Texas commission for allowing SpaceX to use its Superheavy deluge launch system

9:45 am

The same activist groups that have repeatedly used lawfare to try to block SpaceX’s operations at Boca Chica have now sued the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for allowing SpaceX to use its deluge launch system during Starship/Superheavy launches, claiming that dumping potable drinking water into the ground somehow damages the environment.

The groups — the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, along with the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, and Save RGV — filed the lawsuit Monday after the agency decided last month to allow SpaceX to continue its operations for 300 days or until the company obtained the appropriate permit.

These three groups represent only a very tiny handful of people in the Rio Grande Valley. The people the media interviews from Save RGV always includes the same persons, suggesting that few people in south Texas support it. The “Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas” in turn is a fake Indian tribe. It no longer exists, and when it did it existed in Mexico, not Texas. Finally, the “South Texas Environmental Justice Network” is simply an umbrella organization created on top of other two to make it appear they have more support than they do.

The real question that local journalists should be asking is where are these groups getting their money for all their lawsuits? I suspect it comes from outside the region, from leftist political organizations whose goals have nothing to do with the environment.

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FAA eliminates a stupid licensing requirement imposed when it “streamlined” its launch licensing regulations

9:18 am

We’re from the government and we’re here to help! The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced last week that it will stop demanding rocket companies redo a flight safety analysis that have already been done by the rocket’s spaceports, a new bit of red tape that was apparently added when the agency introduced its Part 450 “streamlined” licensing regulations in 2021.

The FAA announced Dec. 13 that it will accept flight safety analyses performed by federal launch ranges in California, Florida and Virginia in applications for launch licenses under regulations known as Part 450. That decision means that companies will no longer have to perform similar analyses specifically for the FAA as part of the licensing process. Launch companies had complained of the duplication of work needed to carry out FAA analyses in addition to those required by the ranges they were launching from.

The FAA’s own bureaucracy had recognized the stupidity of this requirement (as well as many others) in July 2023 report [pdf], but the agency’s management did nothing. Apparently the political appointees who ran the agency during the Biden administration either liked this red tape — slowing American business — or were too dense to take action.

Trump’s election victory has now obviously forced some action. Not only has the agency suddenly recognized this particular problem, one week after Trump’s victory it announced the formation of an independent committee of industry and academia to review, once again, its Part 450 regulations.

It seems this committee is largely a Potemkin Village to make the Trump leadership think the agency is doing something. Instead, the FAA should do what it did last week, and adopt the many recommendations of the July 2023 report, now. The committee can then move forward cleaning up Part 450 in other areas instead of simply repeating that past work.

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Boeing to take more than a decade to refit two 747s for Air Force One

7:30 pm

Utter incompetence: According to recent news reports, Boeing will not be able to deliver the two 747s it is refitting to be the president’s Air Force One fleet until 2029, even though it signed a $3.9 billion contract to do so in 2018.

The delay is startling given that Boeing isn’t building the planes from scratch. During Trump’s first term, Boeing started to overhaul two 747s that were built for a Russian airline that never took the jets.

This is more than absurd, it is obscene. Boeing is handed two flightworthy 747s and almost $4 billion, and it can’t refit the two planes in less than a decade? It seems one of the first things Trump should do once he returns to office next month is cancel this contract entirely, demand a refund from Boeing, and simply convert his present fleet of “Trump Force One” airplanes that he has been using since 2020 for use as president. Cheaper, faster, and certainly a wiser use of taxpayer money.

As for Boeing, this story illustrates once again how far this company has fallen. Remember, it was Boeing that conceived, designed, and built the 747. Moreover, its 747 has been used for decades for Air Force One. For its engineers now to be incapable to refitting another two 747s for this purpose seems inconceivable, and suggests those same engineers should not be trusted on any new planes they build.

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Head of FAA resigns

1:32 pm

You could leave now for all I care: Mike Whitaker, who has been director of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) under the Biden administration and who has apparently been the main source of that agency’s increased red tape that has almost destroyed the new rocket industry that had been emerging during the first Trump administration, announced today that he is stepping down next month.

Mike Whitaker announced his pending resignation in a message to employees of the FAA, which regulates airlines and aircraft manufacturers and manages the nation’s airspace. He became the agency’s administrator in October 2023.

Since then, the challenges confronting Whitaker have included a surge in close calls between planes, a need for stricter oversight of Boeing. antiquated equipment and a shortage of air traffic controllers at a time of high consumer demand for air travel.

The article at the link is from PBS, so of course it makes this federal bureaucrat appear a hero. Instead, he was a disaster for America’s space industry, forcing unnecessary delays in SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy program, imposing new regulations that claimed to streamline the launch licensing process but did exactly the opposite, and generally forcing FAA regulators to take a fearful attitude to any new technology, so much so that it became almost impossible for that new technology to launch.

As for the aviation industry, Whitaker’s term did little to change things. For example, he did nothing to shut down the DEI programs at major airline and airplane companies that were causing the hiring of unqualified people.

All I can say is good riddance.

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ESA continues to dither about building a heavy lift rocket

10:47 am

In what almost appears to be a clown show, the European Space Agency (ESA) has three times issued and then retracted and then reissued a request for proposals for studying possible designs to possibly build a heavy lift rocket to both replace Ariane-6 as well as compete with SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy.

ESA published an initial call for its European 60T LEO Reusable Launch System Pathfinder Study initiative on 20 November. The call was, however, deleted later that day. On 3 December, a second version of the call was published and then removed, once again, on the same day. On 10 December, ESA published a third iteration of the call, with this one being the first to remain published overnight.

The second version put more emphasis on “time and cost efficiency.” The third version added details noting the limitations of Ariane-6 (its cost, limited payload capacity, and non-re-usability).

When ESA issued the second version, I noted its lack of urgency. “This is ‘call’ for a ‘study’ to ‘explore’ the ‘options’ for development. Hell will freeze over before ESA starts construction.” The new version doesn’t change this in the slightest. It only recognizes more fully the bad decisions that ESA made in 2015 when it approved the expendable design of Ariane-6, making it too expense then to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9.

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Part 2 of 2: De-emphasize a fast Moon landing and build a real American space industry instead

10:41 am

In part one yesterday of this two-part essay, I described the likelihood that Jared Isaacman, Trump’s appointment to be NASA’s next administrator, will push to cancel NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and its Orion capsule, deeming them too expensive, too unsafe, and too cumbersome to use for any viable effort to colonize the solar system.

I then described how the Artemis lunar landings could still be done, more or less as planned, by replacing SLS with Starship/Superheavy, and Orion with Starship. Such a change would entail some delay, but it could be done.

This plan however I think is short-sighted. The Artemis lunar landings as proposed are really nothing more than another Apollo-like plant-the-flag-on-the-Moon stunt. As designed they do little to establish a permanent sustainable human presence on the Moon or elsewhere in the solar system.

Isaacman however has another option that can create a permanent sustainable American presence in space, and that option is staring us all in the face.

And now for something entire different

Capitalism in space: I think Isaacman should shift the gears of Artemis entirely, and put a manned Moon landing on the back burner. Let China do its one or two lunar landing stunts, comparable to Apollo but incapable of doing much else.
» Read more

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NSF punts on its two big telescope projects

10:50 am

Because it presently does not have sufficient funds to build both the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) in Chile and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) in Hawaii, the National Science Foundation (NSF) asked an independent panel to look at both projects and give recommendations on which project it should go with.

That report [pdf] has now been released, and its conclusions essentially take the advice of former Yankee catcher Yogi Berra, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” From the report’s executive summary:

Both GMT and TMT have strong leadership, partnership and financial commitments but require $1.6 billion in NSF funding to proceed. Without this support, significant delays or project cancellations may result. The panel emphasized the critical need for congressional support, noting that without additional appropriations, NSF may face challenges balancing these projects with other national priorities, risking U.S. competitiveness in fundamental research. [emphasis mine]

If you dig into the report however you find that TMT is a far more uncertain project. GMT is already being built, while TMT is stalled because it has been unable to get political approval to build in Hawaii on Mauna Kea, even though it initially wanted to start construction almost a decade ago.

Clearly, this report was created simply as a lobbying ploy by the NSF to Congress. NSF didn’t want the report to make a choice. It wanted it to endorse both telescopes so that — rather than bite the bullet and fund one telescope with the money it has already been given by Congress — NSF could use the report to demand more funding so that it can fund both.

Though Congress is now controlled by more fiscally-minded Republicans, don’t expect them to be anymore responsible on this issue than Democrats. These guys really don’t understand basic economics, and think they have a blank check for anything they wish to do. I anticipate Congress will give NSF the extra cash for both telescopes.

The problems for TMT remain, however, and even with that cash it remains very doubtful the telescope will be built. But gee, that won’t be a problem for NSF. Who wouldn’t like getting an extra billion or two to spend as one wishes?

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Two congressmen demand FAA streamline its launch licensing process

10:22 am

In a letter [pdf] sent to the FAA on December 6, 2024, two congressmen have called for the FAA to fix what it calls its Part 450 launch licensing process, established in 2021, that has been choking off rocket development in the U.S.

The congressmen, Sam Graves (R-Missouri) and Rob Wittman (R-Virginia), specifically focused on the problems these new regulations have imposed during what the FAA calls its “pre-application review.” From the letter:

In November of 2024, the FAA indicated that 98 percent of applications are met within the statutory 180 day timeline. However, this timeframe does not include the months, and oftentimes years, of pre–application review that create extensive delays for companies seeking a launch and reentry license. [emphasis mine]

Consider the implications of this one quote. The FAA is proud of the fact that it approves license applications within six months — an ungodly long time for a startup — but doesn’t mention that the approval process is actually far longer because it requires new applications to be reviewed at length, before they can even be submitted.

In November, a week after Trump’s election victory, the FAA announced that it was forming a committee made up of people from the launch industry as well as academia to review Part 450. In their letter the congressmen approved of this new committee, but noted its work would not be completed until mid-2025, and that “the system is broken and must be fixed” immediately.

We, however, urge the FAA to act now and ensure that all actions short of rulemaking that can help mitigate the deficiencies of the part 450 regulation are taken in advance of any necessary regulatory changes to ensure that the commercial space industry does not have to wait years for relief.

I suspect we shall see some real action at the FAA come January 20, 2025, after Trump takes office.

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Ten stupid academic studies funded by the federal government

9:18 am

Campus Reform last week posted a list of ten academic studies funded by federal government that any sane person would not only consider stupid, but an utter waste of money.

Number 1 on the list was a grant of almost a half million dollars to researchers at Reed College in Oregon to study the gambling habits of pigeons. The researchers claimed the study would shed light on human gambling behaviors, but if you believe that then you would likely also fork over your life savings to buy the Brooklyn Bridge.

Of the ten studies listed, the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded four each, while the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Cancer Institute funded one each.

National Cancer Institute’s study is surely going to help cure cancer, as it gave $7 million to the con artists faking as researchers at Stanford University to build an AI toilet equipped with cameras to scan the user’s waste and backside.

The studies were done at a range of other major universities, including Cornell, the University of California, the University of Illinois, and the University of Connecticut. Most are publicly funded institutions.

This list demonstrates clearly the bankruptcy of the government agencies involved and justifies any effort to slash their budgets by significant amounts. It does more however. It shows us the bankruptcy of the academic community as well. If scientists at major universities think this drivel is valid research, then we know they are teaching their students garbage as well. The public funding to these colleges should be slashed also.

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Why Orion’s heat shield problems give Jared Isaacman the perfect justification to cancel all of SLS/Orion

9:43 am

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”

In yesterday’s press conference announcing new delays in NASA’s next two SLS/Orion Artemis missions to the Moon, agency officials were remarkably terse in providing details on why large chunks of Orion’s heat shield material broke off during its return to Earth in 2022 during the first Artemis mission. That damage, shown to the right, is one of the main reasons for the newly announced launch delays.

All they really said was that the damage was caused during re-entry, the atmosphere causing more stress than expected on the heat shield.

Today NASA finally released a more detailed explanation.

Engineers determined as Orion was returning from its uncrewed mission around the Moon, gases generated inside the heat shield’s ablative outer material called Avcoat were not able to vent and dissipate as expected. This allowed pressure to build up and cracking to occur, causing some charred material to break off in several locations.

…During Artemis I, engineers used the skip guidance entry technique to return Orion to Earth. … Using this maneuver, Orion dipped into the upper part of Earth’s atmosphere and used atmospheric drag to slow down. Orion then used the aerodynamic lift of the capsule to skip back out of the atmosphere, then reenter for final descent under parachutes to splashdown.

[Ground testing during the investigation showed] that during the period between dips into the atmosphere, heating rates decreased, and thermal energy accumulated inside the heat shield’s Avcoat material. This led to the accumulation of gases that are part of the expected ablation process. Because the Avcoat did not have “permeability,” internal pressure built up, and led to cracking and uneven shedding of the outer layer.

In other words, instead of ablating off in small layers, the gas build-up caused the Avcoat to break off in large chunks, with the breakage tending to occur at the seams between sections of the heat shield.
» Read more

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Next two Artemis missions delayed again, with the future of SLS/Orion hanging by a thread

1:22 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”

In a press conference today, NASA officials admitted that their present schedule for the next two Artemis missions will not be possible, and have delayed the next mission (sending four astronauts around the Moon) from the end of 2025 to April 2026, and the next mission (landing astronauts on the Moon) to a year later.

It must be noted that when first proposed by George Bush Jr in 2004, he targeted 2015 for this manned landing. Should the present schedule take place as planned, that landing will now occur more a dozen years late, and almost a quarter century after it was proposed. We could have fought World War II six times over during that time.

Several technical details revealed during the conference:

  • It appears a redesign of Orion’s heat shield will take place, but not until the lunar landing mission. For Artemis-2 (the next flight), engineers have determined they can make the shield work safely by changing the re-entry path. They have also determined that the design itself is still insufficient, and will require redesign before Artemis-3.
  • Though Orion’s life support system will still be flown for the first time on Artemis-2, the first to carry humans, they have been doing extensive ground testing and have resolved a number of issues. They are thus confident that it will be safe to fly with people on its first flight.
  • Though SLS’s two solid-fueled strap-on boosters will be stacked for more than one year when Artemis-2 launches in April 2026, they are confident based on data from Artemis-1 that both will still be safe to use.

The political ramifications that lurked behind everything however are more significant.
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Republican California state legislator introduces bill to overturn California Coastal Commission’s effort to block SpaceX

9:46 am

Wants to be a dictator
Wants to be a dictator

Republican state assemblyman Bill Essayli has now introduced a bill that would overturn the decision by the California Coastal Commission to reject SpaceX’s request to increase its launch rate at Vandenberg spaceport, a decision the commissioners readily and publicly stated was made not to protect the state’s beaches (the commission’s prime function) but because they did not like Musk’s political positions.

“AB 10 will reverse the politically-motivated decision by the California Coastal Commission to restrict SpaceX launches for the Space Force due to their hatred of Elon Musk. This dangerous and illegal decision threatens our national security and erodes the public trust we place in our officials to act in the best interest of the people — not politics,” Essayli said in a statement this week.

SpaceX has already sued the commission and its commissioners for violating Musk’s first amendment rights as well as exceeding their statutory authority.

The bottom line however is that the commission’s decision carries no legal weight. Vandenberg is an federally operated military base, and thus this state commission has no authority to dictate what happens there. The Space Force has simply tried to work with it in the past.

Thus, if the commission’s fangs are not pulled by Essayli’s legislation as well as SpaceX’s lawsuit, the military will likely just ignore it.

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The real proof that the American political scene is about to experience a new revolution

10:27 am

The Democratic Party for the past half century
The Democratic Party for the past half century

While the conservative press is today going ga-ga over Joe Biden’s pardoning of his son Hunter yesterday — noting accurately that Biden’s action proved himself once again to be a liar and a fraud, having spent the last four years insisting he would never do such a thing while also insisting that “no one is above the law” — I think it more instructive to look at what some of the most rabid partisan leftists have been saying, before and after the election of Donald Trump.

You see, some of these partisan leftists are actually doing something I have not seen a partisan leftist do since before Bill Clinton was president — they are showing an ability to have an open mind.

Let’s begin with two members of a leftist podcast group dubbed the Young Turks that for years saw nothing good about any Republican and considering Donald Trump the epitomization of the devil himself. Anything Trump did was wrong. Everything Trump and the Republicans represented was evil and must be opposed blindly. During and after this presidential election campaign however two of the more noted members of this podcast, Ann Kasparian and Cenk Uygar, changed their tune, and did so in an astonishing way.

First there was Kasparian’s announcement in October that she has left the Democratic Party. Watch:
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