What to expect on the next few Starship/Superheavy test launches

Superheavy/Starship lifting off on March 14, 2024
Superheavy/Starship lifting off on March 14, 2024

As noted last week by Eric Berger after the third orbital test launch of SpaceX’s Superheavy/Starship rocket on March 14, 2024, this rocket is presently only a few short steps to becoming an operational expendable rocket that can put 100 to 150 metric tons into orbit for about the cost of a Falcon Heavy launch.

To completely achieve this status SpaceX will still have to accomplish several additional engineering goals during the next few test flights, beyond what it has been done so far. This is what I predict therefore for the next test flight, number four:

Superheavy

SpaceX will once again attempt to softly bring Superheavy down over the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico, hovering the stage vertically over the surface for a few seconds to demonstrate it could do the same once it eventually comes down next to the launch tower so that the chopsticks can grab it. To do this the company will have to figure out what went wrong on last week’s flight, when the stage began to tumble as it dropped below 100 kilometers altitude. It also appeared to be unable to fire its engines as planned.

An even more important achievement on this third flight however will be a third straight successful hot fire stage separation, sending Starship on its way to orbit as planned. If Superheavy can do this for the third time, it will prove without doubt that the rocket stage is now capable of doing its number one job, launching payloads. Reusability can follow later.

Starship
» Read more

SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites

The beat goes on! SpaceX today launched another 23 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its 19th flight, tying the present record for the most reuses of a Falcon 9 booster. It landed safely on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 space race:

26 SpaceX
10 China
3 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 30 to 19, while SpaceX leads the entire world, including American companies, 26 to 23.

The payloads to be carried on the first Ariane-6 launch

With the first Ariane-6 rocket now being stacked for its first test flight sometime in the June-July timeframe, a European Space Agency (ESA) press release today touted the payloads the rocket will carry.

All told, the rocket will carry nine cubesats, two satellite deploy systems, two test re-entry capsules, and five experimental payloads. That only four are government payloads, with the rest from a variety of private companies, once again illustrates ESA’s shift from running everything. It is acting to encourage commercial operations that are establishing capabilities that it once would have demanded it do. Instead it will be the customer for these things in the future.

The two re-entry capsules might be the most interesting payloads of all. Both are private, from ArianeGroup and the French company The Exploration Company. The latter is developing its own Nyx cargo freighter, comparable to Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus capsule, aimed at providing cargo services to the many commercial space stations presently being built. This test flight is apparently designed to prove out some of the company’s re-entry technology.

Pushback: Judge rules again that awarding federal grants based on race is illegal

Modern segregation
Modern Democratic Party segregation

The only race or ethnic options offered by MBDA's Orlando office
The only race or ethnic options offered by
MBDA’s Orlando office

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” On March 5, 2024, federal judge Mark Pittman for the Northern District of Texas reiterated an earlier decision from June 2023 and once again ruled that the race-based awards issued by the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) violate numerous civil rights laws as well as the Constitution and are illegal.

Pittman then issued a permanent injunction that barred this federal agency from awarding any more benefits based on race. You can read his new ruling here [pdf].

Pittman had made an almost identical ruling in this case last year. At the time I noted that it appeared that at least one MBDA office in New Mexico was ignoring the ruling and continuing to give awards based on race. The graphic to the right, included in the judge’s ruling last week, shows a typical MBDA application form at the time. It literaly makes it impossible for a white person who is not Jewish or Hispanic from even applying.

One year later the New Mexico has changed the wording of its webpage to eliminate any mention of racial requirements. The application form [pdf] used by that office and others now includes an extra category, “Other (white),” so clearly whites can now apply.

I guarantee whites still won’t win any contracts, despite this ruling. As I predicted then,
» Read more

SpaceX’s Superheavy/Starship successfully launches

Superheavy/Starship lifting off today
Superheavy/Starship lifting off today

Early this morning SpaceX successfully launched its Superheavy/Starship heavy-lift rocket on its third orbital test flight.

The flight achieved almost all of its test goals, and far exceeded what was accomplished on the previous test launch in November.

First, Superheavy appeared to operate perfectly through launch, putting Starship into its correct near-orbit trajectory. The hot-fire stage separation, where Starship begins firing its engines before separation, worked as planned for the second straight time. Superheavy then refired some of its engines so as to target its correct landing zone in the Gulf of Mexico. As it approached the ocean surface, however, it started to tumble, and though some engines appeared to light for the landing burn, something went wrong and the stage was lost.

Next, Starship continued on its coast phase, during which engineers apparently tested opening and closing the payload doors as well as demonstrating a propellant transfer between two tanks. It also appeared that the engineering team was testing a variety of orientation modes for Starship. First it flew oriented stable to the Earth’s horizon. Then it appeared they placed the spacecraft in barbeque mode, where a spacecraft is placed in a steady roll in order to evenly distribute the heat on its surface.

For reasons not yet explained, the team cancelled the refire test in orbit of its Raptor engines. As the orbit chosen was low, the atmosphere still slowed the spacecraft down so that its de-orbit would still occur over the Indian Ocean.

As Starship started to descend it appeared its flaps were working successfully to control its orientation. It also appeared the heat shield tiles were working, as shown in the picture below. As Starship entered the thicker part of the atmosphere however, some tiles could be seen flying away from the ship and the spacecraft began to tumble. At an altitude of about 65 kilometers signal was lost.
» Read more

Defiance: Blacklisted Portland professor joins New College in Florida

Bruce Gilley of Portland State University, willing to fight
Bruce Gilley of Portland State University

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Bruce Gilley, the Portland State University political scientist professor who was vilified, blacklisted, and threatened with death after writing a paper arguing that western colonialism was not all evil, that it also brought benefits to third world nations, has now taken a job as a scholar in residence at New College in Florida.

Left-leaning scholars have shown active disdain for both Gilley and New College, the latter of which is in the process of being remade from a poorly ranked campus heavily focused on social justice and critical race theory into one that prioritizes a classical liberal education.

“What they are doing there is of global significance, because this is a public university, it’s where the clearest democratic fight is,” Gilley told The College Fix in a telephone interview Friday discussing his new post. In a piece for the American Conservative, Gilley explained further: “New College is the first Reconquista of a publicly-funded venue. …Taking back power from the academic mullahs who have turned higher education in the West into little more than a madrassa system of leftist thought depends on storming the public institutions, not fleeing from them.”

Gilley’s paper on colonialism had made this quite reasonable historical statement:
» Read more

SpaceX announces launch time tomorrow for 3rd Superheavy/Starship launch

UPDATE: The FAA has now amended [pdf] SpaceX’s launch license to approve tomorrow’s Superheavy/Starship launch.

Original post:
————————-
SpaceX has sent out email notices and now revised its Starship/Superheavy webpage to reflect a target launch time for the third Superheavy/Starship launch tomorrow, March 14, 2024, at 7 am (Central).

The third flight test of Starship is targeted to launch Thursday, March 14. The 110-minute test window opens at 7:00 a.m. CT.

A live webcast of the flight test will begin about 30 minutes before liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. As is the case with all developmental testing, the schedule is dynamic and likely to change, so be sure to stay tuned to our X account for updates.

I have not yet received a notice from the FAA, announcing the approval of a launch license, but SpaceX’s announcement likely signals that the approval has been given. As I noted yesterday, this approval was likely given as close to the launch as possible to help preclude any legal action by the various leftist activist groups that want to stop Elon Musk, stop SpaceX, and stop any grand human achievement. Their dislike and alienation with success is so deep that such tactics are now necessary to stymie them and allow such achievements to proceed.

A youtube live stream will also be available here. If the flight succeeds in getting Starship into orbit, it will attempt to open and close its payload door, attempt a propellant transfer test, and then attempt the first in-space relight of a Raptor engine in order to bring it down controlled in the Indian Ocean.

The investors behind Space One, the Japanese commercial rocket company that had a launch failure yesterday

The explosion yesterday of the new Japanese-built Kairos-1 solid-fueded rocket shortly after lift-off immediately raised questions whether the new rocket company that built it, Space One, could survive that failure.

This story from CNBC suggests it will, based mainly on the nature of its principal investors.

Space One was set up in 2018 by a consortium of Japanese companies including Canon Electronics, IHI Aerospace and construction firm Shimizu, along with the government-owned Development Bank of Japan. Mitsubishi UFJ and Mizuho Financial Group, two of Japan’s biggest banks, also own minority stakes in Space One.

The story is focused on the declines in the stock values of these companies, following the failure, with Canon’s stock falling the most, 12.7%.

My takeaways from the article however are different. First, these are not small investors. Space One is backed by some of Japan’s biggest corporations as well as indirectly by the Japanese government. One failure should not cause them to back out of the project.

Second, that the company was formed in 2018 by these Japanese heavy-hitters and only now was able to finally attempt a launch — that ended in failure — suggests Japan’s heavy-hitters continue to do things slowly and poorly. Not only have these big companies been working much too slow to build this relatively small rocket, Mitsubishi’s effort to build the much larger H3 rocket for Japan’s space agency JAXA has also been fraught with delays and problems, from engine cracks to launch failures. It appears Japan’s space industry is building things with the same lackadaisical attitude of America’s modern airline industry.

Third, that this “startup” was created by a team of old space large companies suggests Japan still doesn’t get the basics of capitalism. This new company isn’t creating any real competition. It was instead apparently formed to keep these heavy hitters in control of the Japanese launch market. This partnership reminds me of the many projects put together for decades by American consortiums of old space companies, such as Boeing teaming with Lockheed Martin to create ULA. All such partnerships were designed not to create new companies and new innovative products that would compete, but to maintain the control these old companies had on the industry.

Space One will likely fly again, but until we begin to see completely new companies from Japan, backed by independent new investors, this country is going to continue to lag behind everyone else.

First launch of Japanese rocket startup fails

The first launch attempt by the Japanese rocket startup Space One failed today, when its Kairos-1 rocket blew up mere seconds after launch.

The launch took place from the company’s own launchpad in the south of Japan. The live stream shows the rocket appear to lift off cleanly, moving upward out of frame. When the video then switches camera to a more distant view, the rocket fails to appear from behind a nearby hill. Instead, a white cloud explodes upward. Shortly thereafter the live stream switches back to the launchpad, where there is a fire and smoke. Fire hoses then begin working to put the fire out.

Space One is the first independent commercial rocket startup in Japan apparently not working with that country’s JAXA space agency. We will have to wait and see whether it can recover from this failure.

FAA lists possible launch windows for Starship/Superheavy launch

Though it as yet not issued a launch permit, the FAA has now released an advisory to the public, listing the possible launch windows for the next Starship/Superheavy launch, beginning on March 14, 2024 and including windows on each day through March 18th.

The advisory lists a primary date of Thursday, March 14, with the time 12:00Z-14:13Z (7 a.m. to 9:13 a.m. central). The plan also includes backup dates for the following four days, with the window closing at 8:01 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday before increasing to 9:13 a.m. again on Monday.

It is very possible this advisory is premature. It does strongly suggest however that the FAA is about to issue the launch licence. Based on past actions, expect that license to be announced as close to the launch date as reasonably possible, in order to make difficult or impossible any legal action to stop it by the various independent activist groups that have been suing both SpaceX and the FAA. (While the FAA has clearly been ordered by higher-ups in the Biden administration to slow-walk SpaceX’s effort, its people generally want SpaceX to succeed.)

If the first launch attempt will be on March 14th, two days hence, that license licence must be issued soon.

Rocket startup Phantom Space completes another investment capital funding round

The Tucson-based rocket startup Phantom Space has successfully completed another investment capital funding round, bringing the total funding it has raised to $37 million.

Balerion Space Ventures led the round, which also included participation from the Reaser Family Office, KOLH Capital, and a handful of existing and new investors.

The company hopes to do its first test launch of its Daytona rocket next year, lifting off from Vandenberg. The article at the link says the launch permits from Vandenberg have been obtained, but as of about a month ago my sources said the company was still awaiting approvals from various agencies.

ISS crew splashes down safely

SpaceX’s Endurance manned capsule yesterday safely splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, bringing home a crew of four astronauts from ISS after completing a six month mission.

NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov, returned to Earth splashing down at 5:47 a.m. EDT. Teams aboard SpaceX recovery vessels retrieved the spacecraft and its crew. After returning to shore, the crew will fly to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

…Moghbeli, Mogensen, Furukawa, and Borisov traveled 84,434,094 miles during their mission, spent 197 days aboard the space station, and completed 3,184 orbits around Earth. The Crew-7 mission was the first spaceflight for Moghbeli and Borisov. Mogensen has logged 209 days in space over his two flights, and Furukawa has logged 366 days in space over his two flights.

This was the third flight of Endurance. As always, it is important to note that though the passengers were government employees from the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Russia, the entire splashdown crew and capsule were private employees of SpaceX. This was a private mission, purchased by those governments.

Rocket Lab launches radar satellite

Rocket Lab today successfully launched the fourth radar satellite for the commercial company Synspective, its Electron rocket lifting off from its spaceport in New Zealand.

On this flight Rocket Labt did not attempt to recover its first stage.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

24 SpaceX
10 China
3 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 28 to 19. SpaceX by itself leads the rest of the world combined 24 to 23.

Two SpaceX launches yesterday evening, on opposite coasts and only five hours apart

SpaceX yesterday completed two different Starlink launches, placing 46 satellites total into orbit from opposite coasts and only five hours apart.

First, at 7:05 pm (Eastern) a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, carrying 23 Starlink satellites, with its the first stage successfully completing its seventeenth flight.

Next, just over five hours later, a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg, carrying its own cargo of 23 Starlink satellites, with its first stage also completing its seventeenth flight.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

24 SpaceX
10 China
3 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world in successful launches 27 to 19. SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including other American companies, 24 to 22.

Stratolaunch completes first flight of its Talon-A hypersonic test vehicle

Stratolaunch yesterday successfully completed the first flight of its Talon-A hypersonic test vehicle, released from its giant Roc airplane.

Primary objectives for the flight test included accomplishing safe air-launch release of the TA-1 vehicle, engine ignition, acceleration, sustained climb in altitude, and a controlled water landing.

“While I can’t share the specific altitude and speed TA-1 reached due to proprietary agreements with our customers, we are pleased to share that in addition to meeting all primary and customer objectives of the flight, we reached high supersonic speeds approaching Mach 5 and collected a great amount of data at an incredible value to our customers,” said [Dr. Zachary Krevor President and CEO of Stratolaunch]. “Our goal with this flight was to continue our risk reduction approach for TA-2’s first reusable flight and be steadfast on our commitment of delivering maximum value to our customers. We are excited to review the data from today’s test and use it as we plan our next steps toward TA-2’s first flight later this year.”

Stratolaunch’s main customer is the Air Force, which wishes to use this testbed to test hypersonic flight in a number of ways, both for missiles and possibly aircraft. Those military goals explain the required secrecy.

Stratolaunch is under competitive pressure from Rocket Lab, which has already demonstrated that the first stage of its Electron rocket can provide a similar testbed. Stratolaunch is reusable, however, which potentially makes it cheaper with a faster turnaround. Rocket Lab in turn is already capable of test flights. This Stratolaunch success will likely spur Rocket Lab to complete its program to recover and reuse those first stages, while Rocket Lab’s succes is likely spurring Stratolaunch to accelerate its own program.

Ain’t competition wonderful?

Japanese rocket startup scrubs first launch attempt

The first Japanese rocket commercial rocket company, Space One, today scrubbed the first launch attempt of its Kairos rocket, scheduled to take off from its own launchpad in the south of Japan.

“We informed the public in advance that we wanted to make the area free of people, but even 10 minutes before the launch, a vessel remained in the area, so we decided to cancel the launch because it would have been impossible for them to leave promptly,” Space One executive Kozo Abe told a news conference in the afternoon.

Abe said there were no technical problems with the launch and that the next attempt could come as soon as Wednesday, with the company likely to give a more detailed schedule at least two days before the new date.

The rocket has four-stages, the first three solid-fueled and the last liquid-fueled. Its capacity is comparable to Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket, and the company hopes to eventually ramp up to as many as twenty launches per year.

First manned Starliner mission slips to May

The first manned mission of Boeing’s Starliner capsule has now been delayed another few weeks, to early May, due to scheduling conflicts at ISS.

The delay was revealed as an aside in a NASA press release detailing the schedule of press briefings related to the mission. There appears to be no technical reasons for the delay. The quiet way NASA revealed it probably just indicates the agency’s embarrassment at Boeing’s overall problems with this spacecraft that have caused a four year delay in its first manned mission.

The flight will dock with ISS, last two weeks, and carry two astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Its goal is to complete the final check out of Starliner prior to the initiation of operational missions. Once done, Boeing will not only begin to fly paid flights to ISS for NASA, it will be free to offer this capsule to others, including commercial tourists. Don’t expect customers to flock to buy seats, considering the many problems both Boeing and Starliner have had. Instead, it will likely take Boeing several years of NASA missions to reassure customers the spacecraft is reliable.

A No Labels third party 2024 presidential ticket will give Americans a chance to replace the failed Democratic Party

The Democratic Party: Fostering election tampering everywhere
This party has got to be replaced

With the announcement today that the No Labels third party, made up of disaffected moderates from both parties (with the majority from the Democratic Party side), will field a 2024 presidential ticket in November, most news reports are doing what this AP report does, focus on the impact that candidacy will have on the Trump-Biden match-up.

Biden supporters worry No Labels will pull votes away from the president in battleground states and are critical of how the group won’t disclose its donors or much of its decision-making.

The executive director of the group MoveOn, which is aligned with Democrats, said a No Labels ticket would help Trump win. “Any candidates who join the No Labels presidential ticket will be complicit in making it easier for Donald Trump and MAGA extremists to win a second term in the White House,” Executive Director Rahna Epting said in a written statement.

Third Way, another group that is aligned with Democrats and opposes a No Labels ticket, noted No Labels was moving forward without having first found a candidate.

Americans need to look at this a different way. » Read more

Update on rocket startup Stoke Space’s effort to make completely reusable rocket

Link here. This Nasaspaceflight.com article provides an excellent update on the status of the development of Stoke’s Nova rocket, which will have a radical new engine design in its upper stage, using a ring of small nozzles rather than one single central one. That design will allow the upper stage to return to Earth for reuse, something that no other rocket now in use at present can do.

Stoke Space recently carried out the first test of the full-size 30-thruster version of the innovative engine that the company is producing for its in-development second stage. This will be an integral part of its future Nova rocket, which aims to be a fully reusable medium lifter.

The engine test took place on Feb. 26 and follows the engine’s first test flight on its prototype vehicle, Hopper 2, in September 2023. Although fitted with only 15 chambers for that flight, Hopper 2 flew for 15 seconds, achieved a maximum altitude of 30 feet, traversed to a landing site, and touched down softly.

The article includes a lot of interesting technical details about this upper stage and what engineers are learning about this radical engine design. Worth reading. At present Stoke is the only company other than SpaceX attempting to make its upper stage fully reusable. If successful it will jump ahead of everyone else.

No launch schedule however for its new rocket was revealed in this report, so it might be awhile, if ever, before any of this bears fruit.

Two Democrats in Congress go after SpaceX for the alleged Russian theft of Starlink terminals

Two of the more radical Democrats in Congress, Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) and Robert Garcia (D-California), have issued a public letter [pdf] to SpaceX, accusing the company of not having the “appropriate guardrails and policies in place to ensure your technology is neither acquired nor used illegally by Russia.”

The letter then demands SpaceX answer a number of detailed questions, such as the number of thefts SpaceX has detected, what does the company do to prevent such thefts, and how the company is acting to adhere to the present federal sanctions against Russia. It demands answers by March 20, 2024.

SpaceX has made it very clear it is doing what it can to prevent the use of stolen Starlink terminals, not only in the war situation in the Ukraine but elsewhere. It is not in the company’s interest to allow such thefts.

This letter therefore is just another effort by the Democrats to harass Elon Musk, because Musk has also made it clear he personally no longer supports the agenda of today’s Democratic Party. These two politicians likely intend to use whatever answer they get from SpaceX to further attack the company, and even institute sanctions against it.

Welcome to the new America, where politicians can routinely abuse their power to harass any private citizen who disagrees with them.

Budget bill includes very short extension of commercial space “learning period”

The budget bill that Congress has just passed and awaits signature by the president included a very short extension of commercial space “learning period” that supposedly prevents heavy safety regulation by the FAA of the new commercial space industry.

That learning period was first established in 2004, and has been extended several times since. This new bill extends that period until May 11, 2024, only two months, supposedly to allow Congress time to pass a new commercial space act.

The truth is that, at present, the Biden administration has long since abandoned that learning period exemption, and has been applying a much stricter safety regulatory framework from space companies than required by law, as best illustrated by its treatment of SpaceX’s Superheavy/Starship launches. The FAA now expects all launches to function perfectly, even if testing a prototype, and should anything not go perfectly it treats the failure the same as an airplane mishap that requres any investigation to get full government approval before further launches can resume.

Unless there is a change in leadership in Washington, it is very likely we shall see few new American rocket companies from here on out. The existing companies with lots of money and power will survive, but under this heavy regulatory atmosphere it will be hard if not impossible for new companies to get established.

Astra’s board agrees to deal to take the company private

The board of directors of the rocket startup Astra have finally agreed to a cut-right price offer from the company’s two founders to buy the company and take it private once again, rather than declare bankruptcy.

The company announced Thursday that its board had accepted an offer from its CEO, Chris Kemp, and its CTO, Adam London, to purchase the remaining Astra stock at a price of $0.50 per share. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2024, at which time Astra will cease trading on the Nasdaq.

This offer was significantly less than their first offer in November, when Kemp and London offered to buy the company for $1.50 per share, suggesting the company’s value has declined significantly in the interim as its cash assets declined. This decline suggests that any recovery will be difficult and long, and could easily fail.

Freedom is wonderful in that it allows for the greatest amount of creativity, competition, and achievement, from everyone. It also carries great risk that everyone must face. Astra has now illustrated the risk. Not all creative gambles are going to succeed.

Sierra Space confirms its Tenacity spacecraft successfully completed vibration testing

Sierra Space yesterday confirmed that its first Dream Chaser reusable mini-shuttle Tenacity, being readied for a hoped-for April launch, successfully completed vibration testing last month.

Key accomplishments in this first critical phase of pre-flight testing included: the completion of Sine Vibration Testing (in all three axes or directions), a Separation Shock Test that simulates the separation of the Dream Chaser from Shooting Star and a test that involved deploying the spaceplane’s wings. These tests evaluated Dream Chaser’s performance under the stresses of launch, operation in orbit and ability to communicate with the International Space Station (ISS).

What I find revealing about the press release at the link is that it really adds nothing from a NASA press release from a month ago. Then NASA said that Tenacity was about to move to a vacuum chamber for environmental testing. According to this new press release, that move has still not occurred and the environmental test still must begin.

That engineers didn’t move Tenacity to environmental testing while they were reviewing the vibration test data suggests there was something in that test data that prevented it. It appears that unstated issue is resolved, but it caused a pause in testing.

As a result, it appears that an April launch is unlikely delayed by a month or more, assuming my attempt to read between the lines is correct.

Hamas anti-Semitic bullies shut down physics class because the professor was Israeli

The seal of UNLV. The motto means
The seal of UNLV. The motto means “All
things for god’s country,” a motto UNLV
no longer follows.

Last month a group of Hamas anti-Semitic bullies invaded a classroom at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas (UNLV) and shut down the lecture about black holes by a physics professor, simply because that professor, Asaf Peer, happened to be Israeli.

Peer, from Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, actually invited the activists to remain to learn about black holes and then discuss “unrelated issues” after his lecture. But the demonstrators continued their antics, leading to the UNLV police to be called in.

When the police arrived, they refused to remove or silence the protesters so the lecture could continue. Instead, they decided that the First Amendment gave this mob the right to silence whomever they wanted. The police further decided that for Peer’s “safety,” his lecture must end and they would “escort” him off campus.

This led Professor Asaf Peer … to ask “What about my freedom of speech?”

How naive of Peer. Doesn’t he know that in today’s America, the First Amendment only guarantees the left the right to speak and shout and harass and riot and even kill? It also gives the left, and only the left, the right to silence and blacklist and ban any other speech, and if that doesn’t work it gives the left to right to use force and violence to shut up any dissent.

Or to put it more simply, their violence is speech, your speech is violence.

At the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, it is very clear this is how university officials and the police interpret the Bill of Rights.
» Read more

Another woman sues SpaceX for sexual discrimination and retaliation

On March 5, 2024 Michelle Dopak filed a lawsuit against SpaceX for sexual discrimination and retaliation, claiming the company paid her less than male workers, refused to promote her, and ignored her complaints about sexual abuse by her married manager that eventually led to a pregnancy.

Dopak said in the suit that in 2020, her manager offered her $100,000 to have an abortion, which she declined. She is suing the company for an unspecified amount of damages. Reuters was first to report the existence of the lawsuit. Dopak accused SpaceX of colluding with her former manager by allowing him to transfer $3.7 million in SpaceX stock out of his name to evade child support payments, according to the lawsuit obtained by Business Insider.

This suit is one now of several discrimination suits against the company. Unlike the others, however, if Dopak’s accusations prove true it would be the most damaging of all, since she claims the company itself took action against her to protect this manager. The other suits appear more frivolous on their face, issued by individuals claiming to have been fired by SpaceX for their opinions, when the facts strongly suggest they were more interested in causing trouble at the company then doing their job, and thus deserved to be fired.

NJ man arrested for trafficking 675 Starlink terminals illegally

A New Jersey man was arrested on December 4, 2023 while driving a vehicle carrying more than two hundred Starlink terminals, and later charged with trafficking 675 Starlink terminals that he obtained illegally using “stolen credit card accounts or hacked Starlink billing accounts.”

The man, 35-year-old Kelvin Rodriguez-Moya, was stopped by police Dec. 4 while driving 223 Starlink terminals in a pickup truck and trailer after leaving a residence in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, a criminal complaint said. The terminals had shipping labels addressed to multiple different names at the same address.

Lawrence Township police had been tipped off about a suspiciously large number of Starlink terminals being shipped to that home, the complaint said. Detectives then witnessed Rodriguez-Moya loading a FedEx shipment of terminals onto the truck and trailer.

SpaceX is working with the police to determine how Rodriguez-Moya obtained so many terminals. I suspect it was because so much of Starlink operations are automated. The computer programs that issue terminals to new customers aren’t smart enough to notice such things.

This case might also help explain the stories in both Russia and Botswana of unauthorized terminals being sold.

Blue Origin completes first round of launchpad/New Glenn tanking tests

Link here. In the past week or so Blue Origin has done three tanking tests of its assembled engineering test rocket, simulating fueling of a New Glenn rocket on the launchpad, and now intends to roll that test vehicle back to its rocket assembly building.

From here, it is most likely that the rocket will be prepared for the next round of testing, which will include a static fire of the seven first-stage BE-4 engines. This test will mark the first time that Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines will ignite while integrated with a New Glenn first stage. It will also be the first time that the new launch pad supports an engine firing.

The company continues to aim for a first test launch of New Glenn before the end of the year, and these tests strengthen the likelihood that this schedule is realistic.

UK government to invest £10 million in Saxavord spaceport

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea.

The government of the United Kingdom announced yesterday that it will directly invest £10 million in the Saxavord spaceport being built on one of the Shetland Islands, as shown on the map to the right.

Coming in addition to around £40 million of private investment, the government funding will allow SaxaVord to accelerate its capital works programme to ensure it is ready to support the first orbital launch.

That capital works program was forced to shut down last year when red tape at the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) delayed the licensing of Saxavord. It could be this grant has been issued partly to repay the losses the spaceport company experienced due to those bureaucratic delays. The timing kind of reinforces this speculation, as only yesterday Saxavord got its spaceport license approved, though other approvals remain pending.

All this news suggests strongly that the first test flight at Saxavord by the German rocket startup Rocket Factory Augsburg will occur later this year, as promised.

Meanwhile, the other spaceport in Sutherland must be wondering if it can get similar government aid, or if the government is now playing favorites.

Irish company wants to establish spaceport in Ireland

An Irish company, SUAS Aerospace, has announced a investment capital round to raise €5 million in order to establish a spaceport in Ireland by 2027.

The company has been lobbying for this spaceport since at least May 2023. It is based on the southern coast of Ireland at a facility dubbed the National Space Centre. This would likely be close to where the spaceport would be located, though this is unconfirmed.

SUAS Aerospace was founded in 2019 and is supported by the Enterprise Ireland. With initial investment of €1.1 million to date, SUAS has secured significant partnerships with major European Companies including Skyrora, T Minus Engineering, Pangea Aerospace and is part of a successful consortium awarded a €5m grant from Horizon Europe to develop interoperable (plug and play) rocket engine testing infrastructure for Europe.

I wonder if Ireland’s bureaucracy will be easier to work with than Great Britain’s.

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