Trump lawyers detail extensive election fraud

The lawyers for the Trump campaign today held a press conference outlining in extensive detail the evidence they have gathered pointing to election fraud in multiple states, all designed to manufacture fake votes for Joe Biden or to disenfranchise Trump voters.

Yes, I know, it is a press conference. And yes I know, it is run by only one side. To simply dismiss what that side said however is to put one’s head in the sand. Two allegations struck me as particularly damning:

Giuliani offered evidence to show that 15,000 voters in Pittsburgh alone were disenfranchised of their vote, and forced to vote via provisional ballot when they arrived at their polling place. These voters allegedly were told that they had already voted by mail.

Giuliani alleged as well that ballots were trucked into Detroit at 4:30 am on election night to be counted after poll workers believed that Republican observers to the count had left. He claimed that workers said that these were Biden ballots, improperly packaged, and without votes for any of the additional races. He said that the votes were counted three times.

In the first case the allegations apparently came from the voters themselves. If based on actual legal affidavits, the allegations have real merit, and suggest massive fraud in Pittsburgh alone.

In the second case, more details are found here.

Guiliani went on to cite testimony from witnesses to bolster his case, ripped the media for falsely reporting there is “no evidence” of fraud and argued proper oversight was not executed while mail-in ballots were counted.

“Do you know how many affidavits were have in the Michigan case? Two hundred and twenty affidavits,” he said. “What they swear to is that at 4:30 in the morning, a truck pulled up to the Detroit center where they were counting ballots. The people thought it was food so they all ran to the truck. It wasn’t food, it was thousands and thousands of ballots and the ballots were in garbage cans, they were in paper bags, they were cardboard boxes and they were taken into the center. They were put on a number of tables. At that time they thought all of the Republican inspectors had left, all but two had.”

“Here’s what they jointly swear to: that every ballot that they could see, everything that they Ould hear, these were ballots for Biden. When they saw a ballot, these were ballots only for Biden, nothing down ticket,” Guiliani continued. “Many of them were triple counted.”

“Why would you not allow inspections of those ballots? Because you knew you were going to use those ballots to catch Biden up,” Guiliani said, adding that the recount in Georgia will be worthless due to a lack of signature [emphasis mine]

The highlighted text puts the lie to the claim that no evidence of election fraud exists. An affidavit is a legal document that carries I think penalties if found to be a lie. Moreover, when you begin to get a lot of them, all confirming each other, their reliability is strongly reinforced.

The election count in the disputed states needs to be completely reviewed, carefully, by going back to the actual ballots. The computer data is untrustworthy and must be put aside.

If that review finds Joe Biden won, so be it. It would mean the country favored the Republicans overall, but preferred a change in president.

If that review instead shows Trump did win, and that a large amount of voter fraud occurred, then major investigations are in order to find the perpetrators. It must also be the number one priority of Republicans in every one of these states (all controlled at the legislative level by Republicans) to overhaul the election system to prevent such fraud from reoccurring. Better to go back to simple paper ballots that are counted by hand, than the unreliable computer systems we have now.

Republicans in Wayne County rescind their votes certifying Detroit results

In a dramatic turn, the two Republicans on the Wayne County election board (which covers Detroit) last night rescinded their votes yesterday certifying the Detroit results, claiming in legal affidavits that these votes were obtained through coercion and false promises.

Their pronouncements come just 24 hours after a chaotic meeting in which the county’s election board initially failed to certify the Nov. 3 election results during a 2-2 deadlocked vote when both Palmer and Hartmann voted against certification. But after hours of contentious public comment and criticism — including Democratic allegations of racism and threats against their safety — the two GOP members struck a deal to certify the elections in return for a promise of a thorough audit.

Palmer and Hartmann said Wednesday they learned that state officials had reneged or would not honor the audit, leaving them no recourse but to oppose certification until more investigation could be performed.

It is now presently unclear what happens next, including which of their votes will be considered legal.

Note however how the Democrats appear totally opposed to even addressing the vote count concerns expressed by these two election board members. No, rather than in good will trying to show the concerns are unmerited, Democrats have instead threatened, slandered, and doxed the Republicans, while apparently reneging on an agreement that would have looked into the issues.

As I have written, if the problems with this election are not resolved, or the Democrats refuse to cooperate in fixing them, then it will strongly imply that a Biden victory is tainted and was stolen. The consequences to the country then will be quite bad.

The best course must be an aggressive effort by both parties to address and fix the concerns, with both parties accepting the results no matter what. It does not appear the Democrats desire this.

Relativity raising $500 million in new search for investment capital

Capitalism in space: The new rocket company Relativity Space is in the process of raising another $500 million in new investment capital.

The new fundraise, expected to close in the coming days, would jump Relativity’s valuation to $2.3 billion, those people said. In addition to Tiger Global, Fidelity is also joining the round as a new Relativity investor. Existing investors in Relativity are also expected to be contributing — those include Social Capital, Playground Global, Y Combinator, Bond Capital, Tribe Capital, Jared Leto and Mark Cuban.

Tiger Global, the investment firm founded by Chase Coleman, has more than $43 billion in assets under management.

This new funding will supplement the almost $200 million Relativity raised previously.

The company has successfully completed engine tests, and plans its first orbital test launch of its Terran-1 rocket next year.

The SpaceX fleet of Dragons

The first manned Dragon capsule on the launchpad
The first manned Dragon capsule, on the launchpad

Capitalism in space: During the post-launch press briefing after launch of its second manned Dragon mission on November 15, SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell revealed the company’s plans to build and fly a fleet of Dragon cargo and crew capsules, and reuse them repeatedly over the coming years..

Specifically, Shotwell revealed that SpaceX intends to build three reusable Cargo Dragon 2 capsules, one of which is already completed and in Florida preparing for its December 2nd CRS-21 launch debut. On the crew side of things, SpaceX will build “three more” Crew Dragon capsules on top of the flight-proven Demo-2 and currently orbital Crew-1 capsules. It’s unclear if this means that the new Crew Dragon capsule flown on SpaceX’s January 2020 In-Flight Abort (IFA) test will be refurbished for additional flights.

Excluding IFA Crew Dragon capsule C205, SpaceX thus intends to operate a fleet of at least three Cargo Dragon 2 and five Crew Dragon capsules, representing eight reusable spacecraft each capable of at least five orbital missions.

She also hinted that the company has plans to fly its own missions, using these spacecraft, in addition to its contracted flights for NASA and the private company Axiom.

This private capability, which far exceeds anything ever built by NASA or any government worldwide, is entirely because Elon Musk had the freedom and the will to push for his particular vision. He had a bold idea, and with courage he pursued it.
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Sierra Nevada delays first Dream Chaser launch to ’22

Sierra Nevada officials revealed yesterday that they are delaying the first test flight of their Dream Chaser reusable cargo mini-shuttle from late 2021 to some unspecified time in 2022.

‘’COVID has definitely played a role” in that delay, said Steve Lindsey, senior vice president for strategy at SNC Space Systems. One example he gave involved structural testing of the spacecraft’s cargo module at a contractor’s facility in San Diego. COVID-related restrictions prevented SNC engineers from being on site at that facility to oversee the tests. SNC developed a workaround by using a mission control center it developed for Dream Chaser in Colorado so those engineers could remotely oversee those tests. “That worked great. Unfortunately, it took probably three or four times as long as it should have,” he said.

A related problem, he said, involves suppliers who have had to suspend operations because of COVID-19 outbreaks at their facilities. There have also been technical challenges with Dream Chaser, although he did not go into details about specific issues. [emphasis mine]

I underline the unspecified technical issues, because I suspect they might be the real issue. SpaceX has not been slowed in any significant way due to the Wuhan panic, even though it deals with NASA also. I would therefore not be surprised if they are using COVID-19 as a cover for other issues.

It is a new craft, and problems are expected. I’d just rather they didn’t hide it. It contributes to doubts about the company, which by the way has been much slower in its development than one should expect. NASA awarded this contract in January of 2016, with the first launch then planned for as early as October 2019. It is now 2020, and the launch is still now two years away.

If election issues are not fixed, elected state Republicans must refuse to certify

The Preamble to the Constitution

The Constitution is very clear: The actual decision on who should be elected President of the United States every four years is actually made by the state legislatures.

Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 2: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled to the Congress.

12th Amendment: The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President. … The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed.

In other words, the state legislatures choose the Electors, and only when they are chosen can they vote for President. Furthermore, the winner must win a majority from the expected number of total Electors from all the states, which is presently 270. If not, the vote then goes to the House of Representatives in Congress, which votes not by each representative but by state, with each state’s caucus voting separately to determine the state’s vote (as per the 12th Amendment).

American tradition however for almost two centuries has been for these legislatures to let the popular vote of the state guide them on who to pick as Electors. If their citizens choose the Republican candidate, they picked Republican Electors so their states Electoral votes go to that candidate. If the citizens choose a Democrat, they did the same.

It is because of this tradition that we all assume the popular vote makes the choice. It really does not.

For two centuries, this system worked because everyone trusted the election process. While some fraud has always occurred at some level, at the federal level the counts have generally been carefully done and reliably tabulated. Even in the difficult election battle in 2000 it was clear that the effort was to get the actual count right, by both sides.

This trust is now gone. The number of errors, suspicious actions, and indications of fraud, all designed to steal votes from Donald Trump and give extra votes to Joe Biden, makes every single one of the contested elections in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin unreliable. Let’s take a look a just a small sampling of recent stories from each state, detailing rampant election fraud.
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Virgin Galactic cancels its announced November suborbital flight

Capitalism in space: Virgin Galactic announced yesterday that it has canceled its announced November suborbital flight, claiming the cause were new COVID-19 guidelines imposed by the New Mexico Department of Health.

The flight had been scheduled for the November 19-23 time period. It had been announced with the typical hype that comes from Richard Branson.

Personally, I don’t believe Branson or Virgin Galactic as to the cause of this flight cancellation. I think they either never intended to fly, or have known for some time that new technical problems would prevent its launch as scheduled. I think they hyped the launch despite this, which conveniently pumped up the stock price at a time Branson was selling stock. They now announce the cancellation, the stock drops, but Branson has already pocketed his profits.

The timing of this announcement is also most ironic, as it occurred on the same day SpaceX docked four astronauts on ISS. Branson’s company began building its suborbital spacecraft in 2004, promising that it would soon fly hundreds, even thousands of private passengers into space. Sixteen years later it has never flown one passenger, and very few manned test flights. In the interim SpaceX built its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule, and is now launching passengers to orbit, with its first entirely private launch scheduled less than a year from now.

The comparison is quite stark. Why anyone would invest real money in this fake company at this point baffles me.

Resilience has docked with ISS

SpaceX’s Resilience Dragon capsule successfully docked with ISS tonight.

They are in the process of checking the seal of the docking, and the opening of the hatch.

As much as I have been critical of Boeing in recent years, I truly hope they can get their management and engineering problems worked out so they can accomplish the same thing with their Starliner capsule. The competition with SpaceX will be healthy for both companies, the nation, and the future of the human race.

The Apollo 12 crew’s excursions on the Moon, 51 years ago

In celebration of the anniversary this week of the Apollo 12 mission to the Moon in November 1969, the science team for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) have created a wonderful animation showing step-by-step where and when Pete Conrad and Alan Bean walked during their two EVAs on the lunar surface.

That video is below. It highlights strongly the need of any future short-term mission to any planetary landing to have a vehicle on board. Conrad and Bean accomplished a lot during their two four-hour walks, but nowhere near as much as they could have accomplished if they could have driven about on their EVAs. In fact, in the 1960s NASA had already recognized this, and was to put a rover on the last three Apollo lunar landings.

SpaceX successfully launches four astronauts to ISS

Falcon 9 launch on November 15, 2020 with four astronauts

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight successfully launched four astronauts to ISS on its Dragon capsule Resilience, using its Falcon 9 rocket.

They also recovered the first stage, landing it on its drone ship in the Atlantic. The routine manner in which SpaceX ran this launch is truly admirable. They make landing and reuse of the first stage so expected it is hard to believe that for fifty years rocket managers and engineers insisted it wasn’t doable.

They had one issue today, a failure of the capsule hatch to hold air pressure after closure. They calmly reopened the hatch, cleared the issue, added some lubricant, and closed the hatch, all in less than ten minutes.

Resilience will dock with ISS tomorrow evening.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

30 China
20 SpaceX
5 ULA
4 Europe (Arianespace)
4 Rocket Lab

The U.S. now leads China 32 to 30 in the national rankings.

First US Rocket Lab launch delayed until ’21

Because of issues in Rocket Lab’s flight termination system (used to destroy the rocket should it go out of control during launch), the company has announced that its first U.S. launch will be delayed until 2021.

One reason for the delay, Rocket Lab said, was that it was waiting on NASA to certify the autonomous flight termination system (AFTS) that will be used on the rocket to provide range safety. NASA controls the launch range at the Wallops Flight Facility, where LC-2 is located. “There’s a very long certification process that, quite frankly, we probably underestimated how long it would take,” Peter Beck, chief executive of Rocket Lab, said in an interview in August.

That certification process is ongoing. In a Nov. 10 talk at a Maryland Space Business Roundtable webinar, David Pierce, director of NASA Wallops, mentioned preparations for Rocket Lab’s first launch as part of an overview of the facility’s activities. “We’re really proud of our work with Rocket Lab,” he said. “We’re working really hard to support Rocket Lab with a launch in ’21.”

Asked later about the certification of the AFTS, Pierce said that engineers had kept on schedule with the development of the system into the summer despite the pandemic. “When they sent the unit out for review of the software, we found some errors,” he said. That review involved teams at NASA’s Katherine Johnson Independent Verification and Validation Facility, the Federal Aviation Administration, Vandenberg Air Force Base and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

While I have no evidence of this, I cannot help being suspicious of these various government agencies. For years numerous people in the government put fake roadblocks up to slow or stop SpaceX’s first manned launch, merely because it threatened their turfs. This autonomous termination system will make the ground crews at Vandenberg and at Cape Canaveral irrelevant, and I would not be surprised if some of these issues were drummed up to delay or block this system because of that.

I know I am being cynical, but based on history it is not unreasonable to be so.

Most recent engine test on eighth Starship prototype had issues

Capitalism in space: The most recent engine test on November 12th of SpaceX’s eighth Starship prototype had a problem that will delay its planned 50,000 foot test hop.

The Starship SN8 vehicle performed its third brief “static fire” — a test in which engines are ignited while a rocket remains tethered to the ground — at SpaceX’s South Texas facility on Thursday, near the village of Boca Chica.

Shortly after the test, which several outside organizations webcast live, material could be seen apparently dripping from SN8’s base. This looked odd, and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk soon confirmed that something off-nominal had happened. “We lost vehicle pneumatics. Reason unknown at present. Liquid oxygen header tank pressure is rising. Hopefully triggers burst disk to relieve pressure, otherwise it’s going to pop the cork,” Musk said via Twitter on Thursday night. (Burst disks are single-use devices that, like valves, seal off different sections or systems of a vehicle. They relieve pressure when they open, as Musk noted.)

The cause of the problem is unknown at the moment, Musk said in another Thursday tweet: “Maybe melted an engine preburner or fuel hot gas manifold. Whatever it is caused pneumatics loss. We need to design out this problem.”

The decision to pin down the cause and redesign things so it won’t happen again makes perfect sense, but it also means that the hop will not occur in the next week or so, as hoped for by the company. Expect a delay. Based on the pace that SpaceX works, that delay however should not be longer than one or two months.

Elon Musk gets contradictory COVID-19 test results

The uncertainty of science: Because SpaceX’s founder Elon Musk had had some minor cold-like symptoms, he decided to get tested for COVID-19, and discovered that after four tests, he still had no idea whether he had it or not.

The Tesla boss and fifth-richest man in the world had initially tweeted Thursday night that “Something extremely bogus is going on” regarding COVID-19 testing. “Two tests came back negative, two came back positive. Same machine, same test, same nurse.”

…Though Musk had initially tweeted that his symptoms were “nothing unusual” and those “of a typical cold,” he gave more detail Friday morning. “Mild sniffles & cough & slight fever past few days,” he told one Twitter user who asked how he was feeling. “Right now, no symptoms, although I did take NyQuil.”

First, the results tell us that the so-called surge going on in new coronavirus cases that is panicking our Democratic Party lords and masters might very well be bogus. At a minimum we should all be more skeptical of the numbers.

Second, assuming Musk does have COVID-19, his symptoms illustrate once again how relatively harmless the virus is to healthy people. In fact, no one seems to notice that of the numbers of people diagnosed with COVID-19 in the general populace, no one seems ever to die from it. Like the flu, they are sick for a week or so, and then recover.

Weather forces one day delay in launch of Resilience with four astronauts

Because of high winds and ocean weather interfering with the recovery of the first stage, NASA and SpaceX today decided to delay the launch of SpaceX’s second manned Dragon mission, the capsule Resilience carrying four astronauts, to Sunday, November 15.

NASA and SpaceX are now targeting 7:27 p.m. EST Sunday, Nov. 15, for liftoff of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission to fly astronauts from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the International Space Station.

Teams moved the launch by one day because of onshore winds and to enable recovery of the first stage booster, which is planned to be reused to launch the Crew-2 mission next year. The booster is expected to land on the recovery ship about nine minutes after launch.

They now plan to dock with ISS at 11 am (eastern) on November 16th.

ULA successfully launches reconnaissance satellite with Atlas 5

Capitalism in space: ULA today successfully launched a military reconnaissance satellite using its Atlas 5 rocket.

This launch was the first Atlas 5 using these particular Northrop Grumman solid rocket boosters.

Because this was a military launch, the live broadcast ended at the moment the fairings were released, exposing the satellite. Final announcement of the satellite’s successful deployment will come later, assuming all goes well.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

30 China
19 SpaceX
5 ULA
4 Russia
4 Europe (Arianespace)
4 Rocket Lab

The U.S. now leads China 31 to 30 in the national rankings, with two more launches scheduled for the next two day. SpaceX is first with its second manned Dragon mission tomorrow, followed by Rocket Lab’s next launch from New Zealand on November 15.

Ukraine signs Artemis Accords

Ukraine has becomed the ninth nation to sign the Artemis Accords, designed to encourage private enterprise in space.

The article at the link provides little information, other than claiming that ” Ukraine has all the scientific and technical capabilities and experience that allow it to become one of NASA’s important partners in the implementation of the Artemis program.”

Russia and the Ukraine are on opposite sides of a war, with Russia attempting to steal territory, with some success. Russia has also boycotted all Ukrainian space technology, ending a half century of business dealings.

It seems that the Ukrainian government looked at this political landscape, and decided to align itself with the United States. By signing the accords, it now has the opportunity to sell its space technology to NASA, as well as participate in any American effort to get to the Moon and elsewhere. That it chose to pick an ally halfway around the world instead of its big and powerful neighbor, tells us a great deal about the Ukrainian’s opinion of Russia.

I expect there will be a NASA press release in the next day or so that will provide us additional information.

Private space company announces new upgraded tug for moving satellites in orbit

Capitalism in space: The private space company Spaceflight yesterday announced the development of a new upgraded tug for moving small satellites from their launched orbit to their operational locations, including locations in orbit around the Moon.

Spaceflight announced the first flight of its Sherpa-LTE orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) will take place in mid-2021. The vehicle is based on the next-generation Sherpa-FX tug announced in the summer, but equipped with the Apollo Constellation Engine, a Hall effect thruster provided by Apollo Fusion.

With that propulsion system, Sherpa-LTE will be able to generate a change in velocity, or delta-V, of more than 6 kilometers per second. That will allow the vehicle to deliver smallsats to geostationary Earth orbit, cislunar space, or Earth-escape trajectories after a launch into low Earth orbit.

Spaceflight is a direct competitor with Momentus, which already has contracts with several satellite companies for its in-space tug services. Nor is this competition bad. This new cottage industry of tugs helps focus innovation. Satellite companies can focus on improving their satellites, while buying the propulsion from tug companies who can provide that technology best.

Update on continuing engine testing of Starship prototype #8

Link here. The article provides details on the on-going engine tests of SpaceX’s eighth prototype of its Starship reusuable upper stage.

As should be expected, the testing has not gone exactly as planned, though clear progress is being made, especially in the testing of the header tanks in the nosecone..

After several days of test windows come and gone and an aborted attempt on November 9th, Starship SN8 finally ignited one of its three Raptor engines, feeding the engine with liquid methane and oxygen stored in two separate header tanks. Oddly, a second or two after startup and ignition, Raptor’s usual exhaust plume was joined by a burst of shiny firework-like debris. A relatively normal five seconds later, the Raptor cut off, though the engine appeared to remain partially on fire for another ten or so seconds – also somewhat unusual.

It appears that fire was from nearby debris, not the engine itself.

Another engine test is likely later this week. The actual 50,000 foot hop will not happen until they have completed all these engine tests.

NASA officially approves operational Dragon manned missions

Capitalism in space: NASA yesterday officially certified SpaceX’s Dragon capsule for future operational manned missions to ISS.

NASA officials gave approval Tuesday for SpaceX to begin regular crew rotation flights to the International Space Station with the launch of four astronauts set for Saturday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, signaling a transition from development to operations for the human-rated Dragon spacecraft.

Mission managers completed a two-day Flight Readiness Review Tuesday and issued a preliminary go-ahead for the launch of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon “Resilience” spacecraft Saturday at 7:49 p.m. EST (0049 GMT Sunday) with NASA commander Mike Hopkins, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi, a veteran Japanese space flier.

The decision means that SpaceX will now be rotating crews for NASA at ISS every six months. It will also be reusing both the first stages and the capsules. Endeavour, the capsule used on the demo flight earlier this year, will be reused in the spring. Resilience, the capsule scheduled for launch on November 14th, will be reused next fall.

Since SpaceX also has a commercial manned flight planned for next fall, that will probably require a third capsule. With those three capsules they will have at least for the next few years a fleet will cover all their initial needs. Don’t be surprised if however the introduce an upgraded capsule or two along the way, based on what they learn on these initial flights.

The article had one other piece of new news concerning Boeing’s Starliner capsule. The second unmanned demo flight has now officially been delayed into the first quarter of next year, rather than late this year.

New Hampshire legislature flips from Democrat to Republican

Resist! Not only did all parts of the New Hampshire legislature flip from Democrat to Republican, Republicans saw upset victories in state races in Rhode Island, Vermont, and Maine.

The victories included the defeat of the incumbent Democratic Party state house speaker in Rhode Island, the first time that has happened in more than a century. The same thing happened to the incumbent house speaker in Vermont, where voters ended the Democrats hold on a super-majority.

The Republican victories generally strengthen their power throughout much of New England, a region that for years has been assumed to be a permanent Democratic stronghold. It appears that assumption is no longer valid.

Relativity completes testing of rocket engine

Capitalism in space: The smallsate rocket company Relativity has successfully completed, ahead of schedule, the testing of its Aeon-1 rocket engine, and is now moving to completing design and construction of its Terran-1 rocket, tentatively scheduled for its first test flight in 2021.

The successful tests augur well for the ongoing development of the Terran 1 rocket, which represents a challenge as this rocket will now be larger than originally anticipated. In 2019, due to customer requests, Relativity resized its rocket to nearly double the available volume for payloads. It expanded the diameter of the fairing at the top of the rocket to 3 meters and height to 7 meters. While this is smaller than the fairing used in big rockets like the Falcon 9, in the class of “small satellite” launch vehicles it is quite large.

Relativity’s move to a larger fairing necessitated a more powerful engine with a gas generator cycle. The original Aeon engine had a thrust of 17,000 pounds at sea level, and the new version boosts the power considerably to 23,000 pounds. And now the company has been able to validate this larger, more powerful engine design.

The Terran 1 rocket, with a lift capacity of 1.25 tons to low Earth orbit, is powered by a first stage with nine Aeon engines. Success with the engine testing gives the company confidence that it can hit its target of launching the first Terran 1 rocket in 2021, said Zach Dunn, vice president of factory development. The next step is integrated stage testing, which will happen next year, followed by a launch from Space Launch Complex-16 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Right now it appears to me that in the race by American companies to join Rocket Lab in providing launch services for smaller satellites, Virgin Orbit and Astra are in the lead, having completed their first test flights, with Firefly and Relativity close behind.

SpaceX launches Space Force GPS satellite

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight successfully launched the GPS satellite that on a previous launch had experienced a launch abort at T-2.

This was a completely new Falcon 9 rocket, with two of its original engines replaced after the company had traced the issue that caused the launch abort. The first stage successfully landed on the drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, and will fly again on the next GPS launch by SpaceX for the Space Force.

The satellite has been deployed successfully, completing the launch.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

27 China
19 SpaceX
12 Russia
4 ULA
4 Europe (Arianespace)
4 Rocket Lab

The U.S. now leads China 30 to 27 in the national rankings.

Rocket Lab will try to recover 1st stage on next launch

Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab announced today that it will attempt to recover the 1st stage of its Electron rocket on its next launch, using parachutes to slow its descent into the ocean and then fishing from the sea.

On its next mission set for liftoff later this month, Rocket Lab will try to recover the first stage of its Electron small satellite launcher after parachuting into the Pacific Ocean downrange from the company’s privately-run spaceport in New Zealand, officials announced Thursday.

The attempt to retrieve the Electron rocket’s first stage moves Rocket Lab closer to eventually capturing falling boosters in mid-air with a helicopter, then reusing the hardware. The reuse initiative is aimed at increasing Rocket Lab’s flight rate, and could result in cost savings, according to Peter Beck, the company’s founder and CEO.

The flight is presently scheduled for November 15 from New Zealand. It appears the goal with this recovery is not to reuse the 1st stage, but to recover it so they can determine how it fared during re-entry. For re-use they will capture the first stage using a helicopter, before splashdown and is exposed to saltwater.

When they attempt the helicopter capture on an actual launch remains unclear.

And now we wait

The American flag

Trying to predict the outcome of today’s election in today’s world of shallow emotions and partisan bickering is beyond impossible. The pollsters, generally favoring the Democrats, have for months slanted their results to favor Joe Biden. The conservative press, desperate to grasp at any straw, has in turn focused on the early voting numbers, broken down by party, to claim that Trump is leading.

I really don’t know which is right, at this moment. Moreover, there is a lot of evidence that we will not even have a result by the end of tonight.

However, I still would like to make some predictions, because there are some things we know are very likely to happen, regardless of who wins the election.
» Read more

Vote for Trump, but even more, vote Republican across the board

Trump

I’ve said it before but I will say it again. Donald Trump is the right candidate for president, and everyone who hasn’t yet voted should vote for him tomorrow, both because he kept his promises and has actually done a decent job as president.

However, it is even more important to vote for Republicans across the board. If Trump is re-elected but the voters do not give him strong majorities in both houses of Congress, his ability to do what the voters want will be seriously circumscribed. And if the Democrats win control of both houses of Congress, expect that their first order of business will be to impeach Trump and then try to remove him from office. The goal will be to quickly nullify your vote for Trump, by the party of segregation, slavery, riots, looting, and stolen elections.

And on the local city and state level things are quite simple. » Read more

SpaceX to live stream 50,000 foot hop of Starship

Capitalism in space: Elon Musk yesterday announced that SpaceX will publicly live stream the 50,000-foot hop of Starship prototype #8, expected sometime in the next two weeks. His tweet:

Sure, although it might be quite a short livestream! Lot can go wrong, but we’ll provide video, warts & all. You will see every frame that we do.

Up until now the public has had to depend on the independent live streams being put out by local residents still living in Boca Chica, Texas, which did not know SpaceX’s exact schedule. When SpaceX does it they will likely provide more specific launch times. They will also probably provide detailed accurate commentary.

Also, this update on the status of Starship development notes that the primary goal of that hop is testing the ability of the ship’s fins and systems to control the ship’s initial descent on its return to Earth, flying on its side like the Space Shuttle. If they have problems getting the ship upright for a vertical landing and it ends up in the ocean that will not surprise them. A successful vertical landing would be icing on the cake.

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