SpaceX successfully launches 10 Iridium satellites
Capitalism in space: SpaceX this morning successfully launched into orbit 10 Iridium satellites.
The launch was from Vandenberg. The first stage successfully landed on a barge in the Pacific.
Tag: freedom
The midterm revolt brewing against the Republican leadership
Link here. Two key quotes:
The movement that is emerging to back candidates nationally in these critical upcoming primaries and general elections—combined with the candidates themselves, almost a decentralized and loosely organized political party in and of itself—is filled with some of the strongest conservative voices and a broad spectrum across the movement.
“What I’m seeing is a lot of anger, frustration, and disappointment from voters around the country,” Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots, a key grassroots organization, told Breitbart News. “They are angry at the lack of Republican leadership on Capitol Hill, and many think it’s time to ditch Mitch as the leader of the Senate. What I am beginning to remind people and let people know is I’m meeting incredible candidates around the country who are willing to take on the Republican status quo. I’ve seen candidates from Montana to Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee, who are ready to take on the status quo and be the leaders we need.” [emphasis mine]
And this:
In other words, conservatives are considering a full slate of candidates nationally in open races and those with Democrat incumbents—and running or actively seeking out serious primary challengers for every GOP incumbent senator up for reelection next year except for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)—all part of an effort to wrest control of the Republican Party away from failed leaders and hand it to fresh blood. [emphasis mine]
Back in 2015 at the beginning of the presidential campaign I noted a number of factors suggesting that the Republican Party was a house divided against itself and was likely to break up, with the more moderate half likely replacing the Democratic Party.
Right now the party is trying to be too big a tent, including conservatives and many moderate Democrats who find the modern Democratic Party unacceptable. (This is one reason why the Republican presidential field is so large.)
Should the party split, we might also eventually see the withering away of the Democratic Party, which today is very corrupt and far too leftwing for most Americans. If the Republicans split into conservative and moderate wings, many of those disenchanted Democrats would move to the moderate Republican faction. The result would be to cut off the corrupt modern Democratic Party from the reins of power.
We could now be seeing the concrete political beginnings of this process.
The world’s oldest flying satellite
Link here. It also happens to have been the fourth ever launched, and the second U.S. satellite, Vanguard 1.
Thanks to Kirk for reminding me that Vanguard 1 was not the first U.S. satellite, and was actually the fourth launched, not the second. All I needed to do to avoid the error was read my own Chronological Encyclopedia, but I was too lazy to do that, even though it is on my desk. Duh.
Air Force releases request for launch proposals
Capitalism in space: The Air Force has released a new request for proposals for providing launch services after 2022.
The Air Force has released a request for proposal for its next iteration of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, known as EELV, to be used on space lift such as the Atlas V, Delta IV, and Falcon 9 rocket systems. The service said Thursday it plans to award “at least three agreements” for prototype development as part of its Launch Services Agreement strategy.
The news comes amid the Air Force’s attempt to move away from its use of Russian-made RD-180 engines.
Though I doubt Blue Origin will have launched enough to get certified by the Air Force when the contracts are awarded in 2020, expect them to demand a pie of the action soon thereafter.
Canadian Inuit officials demand halt to rocket launch
The coming dark age: Canadian Inuit officials are demanding that the launch of a European atmospheric research satellite by a converted Russian ICBM be stopped out of fear of the pollution it might cause.
The position of the rocket company is based on calculated engineering:
In a statement to CBC News, the European Space Agency insisted the fuel won’t reach Earth’s surface. “Please remember that under standard pressure, hydrazine boils at 113.5 C,” the agency said. The stage containing the fuel will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere much hotter than that, it said. “The structural parts lose their integrity and by melting the destruction of the stage occurs. The agency said that six kilometres above the ground “the propellant components have completely burnt up.”
The position of the protesters is based on fear and lack of knowledge:
The concern for Inuit is the rocket’s second stage, which contains hydrazine-based fuel and is expected to splash down in the North Water Polynya. Though it’s outside of Canada and Denmark’s international waters, it’s home to a vast array of birds and marine mammals that Inuit rely on for food.
“It’s the birthing ground of all the animals that we eat, that people in the North depend upon,” said Eva Aariak, Canada’s commissioner on the Inuit Circumpolar Council and former Nunavut premier. “I know it’s being played down in terms of the kind of effect it would have, but nobody knows. This is the most concerning part is that nobody really knows. And before people know exactly what kind of effect it can have, we will keep fighting.” [emphasis mine]
The article also interviews a pro-Inuit scientist whose primary evidence apparently comes from a youtube video.
There is no doubt that hydrazine is very toxic, which is why it is generally not used as the launch fuel for rockets. However, these protests appear based on mindless fear, almost like the protesters were primitive tribesman afraid of thunder. Ah, but maybe that is exactly what they are!
Stratollite completes five day balloon test flight
Capitalism in space: World View’s first test flight of its stratollite high altitude balloon out of its Tucson launch site has successfully achieved a five day mission.
The vehicle hovered between 55,000 and 75,000 feet, while successfully testing out equipment designed to steer the balloon and keep it relatively stable at the same spot. Onboard were a 50.6-megapixel Canon EOS 5DS camera to do Earth observations, as well as communications equipment from the US military’s Southern Command. The military is interested in using the stratollite to look for human and drug trafficking, as well as maritime piracy.
World View says it’s going to bring down the stratollite sometime today, after hitting all of its critical milestones. “This is an enormous leap in our development program and we are certain the stratollite is going to forge a new path in how we observe, react to and collect data about our planet,” Jane Poynter, CEO of World View, said in a statement.
It is pretty clear that World View has shifted its focus from high altitude tourist flights in a balloon to high altitude reconnaissance and research flights, suggesting that they found the customer demand for the tourist flights at $75,000 each to be weak.
MDA becomes Maxar
Capitalism in space: The space company MDA has acquired DigitalGlobe and reorganized itself under the new name Maxar Technologies.
The acquisition and name change appears to be part of a strategy to make this long time Canadian company an international company able to do U.S. military missions.
MDA undertook a major corporate reorganization in May 2016 as part of its “U.S. Access Plan” strategy, including the appointment of Mr. Lance and the formation of SSL MDA Holdings, Inc., with its headquarters in San Francisco, which manages and controls all of the Company’s operations across Canada, the U.S. and internationally. This process was completed under the guidance and approval of the U.S. Department of Defense, whereby SSL MDA Holdings operates under a Security Control Agreement. This structure allows the Company to pursue and execute U.S. government programs that require security clearances.
Maxar’s SSL division is the one building a satellite servicing mission for DARPA, and has been sued (unsuccessfully) by Orbital ATK for getting favorable treatment by the government, including federal monies, even though it is a foreign company. This reorganization apparently is aimed at eliminating Maxar’s foreign status in the U.S.
The name change also succeeds in making the company more marketable. MDA, which stands for MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd, always sounded like an accountant firm. Maxar is much better.
ArianeGroup struggles with the concept of reusability
Capitalism in space: ArianeGroup, the company building ESA’s next generation rocket Ariane 6, is debating when and if it should introduce reusability into its design.
[Patrick Bonguet, head of the Ariane 6 program,] said ArianeGroup is studying reusability with Prometheus “in order to be sure to take the right path at the right moment.” Those efforts are mostly to prevent Europe from being caught flat-footed in the wake of other reusable launch systems, namely from SpaceX and now also Blue Origin.
Reusability is far from a primary focus, however. “We still have not understood, would we save money by reusing? At least with our launch rate?” he asked. “We hope to launch 12 times a year. If we reuse 12 times, that means we only manufacture one time per year. It is difficult for us to have that.”
Bonguet said reusability would essentially erase the production efficiencies ArianeGroup is striving for, starving the Ariane 6 industrial base of the work upon which it relies. A smaller tip-toe into reusability could come through salvaging Ariane 6’s payload fairings. Swiss manufacturer Ruag Space is developing reusable fairings, which Bonguet said are of interest to ArianeGroup.
I guarantee that by the mid-2020s they will entirely be “caught flat-footed” if they have not begun by then the use of reusable rockets.
The first meeting of the National Space Council
The first meeting of the National Space Council just wrapped up. You can see highlights here. I have several thoughts.
The entire event was very carefully staged, with the planned outcomes determined beforehand. The three panels of speakers were organized to match up with the three main actions the council intended to pursue, with the questions from the various high level Trump cabinet members clearly arranged to line up with each panel. Moreover, the fact that all these panel members were there and participating in this staged event suggests that Trump himself is directly interested, and insisted they do so.
The first action was a decision to rework the country’s overall space policy, including its future goals for exploring the solar system. This action item was linked with statements by officials from Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Orbital ATK, and was clearly intended to placate their desire to keep what they all called “sustained” and “reliable” funding. It was also clearly linked to Pence’s opening remarks, which insisted that the U.S. should return to the Moon, permanently, and use that as a jumping off point for exploring Mars and the rest of the solar system.
The second action was a commitment to review, in the next 45 days, the entire regulatory bureaucracy that private companies must face. This was linked to the testimony from officials from SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Sierra Nevada.
The third action was a focus on the military and national security aspects of space, focused on the development of a “space strategic framework” that will apparently link the military needs with the growing commercial space industry. This framework has been under development for several months. The council actually spent the most time questioning the national security witnesses on this issue. This focus also aligns with the main interest in space held by Trump’s nominee for NASA administrator, Congressman Jim Bridenstine (R-Oklahoma). Interestingly, Bridenstine was in the audience, but was given no speaking opportunity, unlike the NASA acting administrator, Robert Lightfoot, who Pence specifically provided a moment to speak.
Overall, this meeting indicates that the Trump administration is likely not going to do much to drain the swamp that presently dominates our space effort. Trump’s interest in reducing regulation remains strong, but it also appears he and his administration is also strongly committed to continuing the crony capitalism that is wasting literally billions of dollars in space and helping to put the nation into unrecoverable debt.
A new Zimmerman op-ed at The Federalist
The Federalist has published another op-ed by me today: How Trump Can Drain The Space Swamp That Wants To Engulf Him. The key paragraphs:
Right now it appears, based on these news stories, that the Trump administration is gearing up to do the same, with Trump’s grand achievement being a lunar space station, to be built by the mid-2020s, with a possible specific goal of 2026, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Whether this lunar space station concept makes sense is a subject for a different column. The point here is that it appears that the international community and the big space contractors are all converging on this concept, and are making a big push to convince the Trump administration to endorse it.
Based on this pressure, I fully expect Trump to make this endorsement. However, the key to understanding whether Trump is the revolutionary figure he and many of his supporters claim him to be will be how he frames such a declaration.
If he ties it to continuing funding for SLS, he will prove that he is part of the problem, not the solution. SLS is simply too expensive and unwieldy. No nation can seriously mount the manned exploration and settlement of the solar system upon it.
For Trump to adopt it as the core of his lunar space station proposal would mean that his goal has nothing to do with making America great again. Instead, the goal will be the continuing distribution of pork to Congressional districts and to our international partners, as we have seen now for the past twelve years since SLS/Orion was first proposed in 2004. Nothing has flown, but each year Congress has made sure that about $4 billion was distributed to these players.
Trump does have other options, however, even if they include building a space station orbiting the Moon….
Read it all. The first meeting of the National Space Council is about to begin. From the speaker list, it appears that the Trump administration just might be entertaining those other options.
Note: Rand Simberg makes some similar points in his own op-ed yesterday.
The story of Sputnik
On this, the 60th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s successful launch of Sputnik, the first human-made satellite, Anatoly Zak has posted a detailed history of that launch, written from a Russian perspective.
Nobel Prize for Physics awarded to three LIGO scientists
The 2017 Nobel Prize for Physics has been awarded to three scientists involved in the development of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), which detected the first gravitational waves in 2015.
While some of the recent Nobel Prizes have been absurd (such as the Peace award to Obama), this award is absolutely deserved and appropriate. Until LIGO detected that gravitational wave they were merely a theory. The detection proved the theory to be real.
One Chute
Part 4 of Doug Messier’s series on commercial space history, A Niche in Time, is now available. It is entitled “One Chute” and focuses on the long and sad history of Virgin Galactic.
One new detail that Messier notes struck me:
At the time of the accident, Virgin Galactic had about 700 customers signed up to fly on SpaceShipTwo. Officials now say the number is around 650. Assuming full ships with six passengers aboard, Virgin Galactic would need 109 flights just to fly out its current manifest. The figure doesn’t include flight tests and missions filled with microgravity experiments. That’s a lot of launches to make without expecting at least one catastrophic failure, possibly involving prominent wealthy passengers.
It increasingly appears that this will be a total loss for the investors who poured money into Virgin Galactic.
Falcon Heavy launch delayed?
In quelling a false rumor that said NASA was forcing SpaceX to change the launchpad location for its Falcon Heavy (it is not), SpaceX noted that Falcon Heavy’s first launch will occur “no earlier than the end of 2017.”
Previously they have said that they are aiming for November 2017, following the reconfiguration of the 39-A launchpad from Falcon 9 launches to Falcon Heavy launches. This statement suggests that a November launch is now considered unlikely. The reconfiguration will take 60 days, and cannot occur until SpaceX switches its Falcon 9 launches from launchpad 39-A back to launchpad 40. Since a Falcon 9 launch is presently scheduled for launchpad 39-A this Saturday, that reconfiguration cannot begin before then. Moreover, the launchpad for an October 30 Falcon 9 launch remains unnamed, suggesting that launchpad 40 might not be ready by then and therefore forcing SpaceX to use 39-A for Falcon 9. This would in turn delay the first Falcon Heavy launch to the very end of December, at the earliest.
SpaceX successfully completes dress rehearsal for Saturday launch
Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully completed its standard dress rehearsal countdown, including a static firing of the Falcon 9 first stage, in anticipation of its schedule launch of a commercial communications satellite on Saturday.
The first stage will be the third reused first stage to fly into space.
UAE announces manned spaceflight plans
The new colonial movement: The United Arab Emirates has announced their plans to establish an astronaut corps that would fly on the manned spacecraft of other nations.
The first of those astronauts would fly by the end of 2021, the 50th anniversary of the founding of the UAE. “We have not decided on who will be flying us yet,” he said. “We do envisage that we partner up with all of the major space agencies, somehow and in some structure.”
There would be several options for the UAE to choose from, including Soyuz flights by Russia to the International Space Station and Shenzhou flights to a Chinese space station slated to be completed by the early 2020s. Other options include flights on commercial crew vehicles being developed by Boeing and SpaceX.
To me, the really exciting aspect of this is that the UAE is now a new customer looking for a means to get its people into space, which makes all those manned programs, including the American private companies, competitors for that business.
World View completes first Stratollite balloon launch from Tucson spaceport
Capitalism in space: World View today successfully completed the first launch from its Tucson spaceport of one of its Stratollite high altitude balloons.
None of the stories I have found have provided any real detail about the flight, so it is unclear what they accomplished, other than to demonstrate they can launch from the spaceport.
Sierra Nevada and German space center increase ties
Capitalism in space: Sierra Nevada and the German Aerospace Center have signed a new agreement increasing their partnership for using Dream Chaser in space.
The current MOU follows a 2013 Technical Understanding between the parties that initiated cooperation on space activities. This new agreement allows the two entities to establish goals and baseline objectives on future missions, scientific contributions and future space architecture for LEO, Cislunar and lunar operations, and deep space exploration.
It is clear once again that Sierra Nevada is trying to find partners who can pay to keep Dream Chaser flying as much as possible, between its cargo missions to ISS.
Ariane 5 successfully launches two commercial satellites
Capitalism in space: Arianespace today successfully launched two commercial satellites using its Ariane 5 rocket.
Leftists brownshirts stalk and plan violence against conservatives
This post is actually about two stories. The first describes the actions of Berkeley brownshirts as they stalk members of the college Republican club. The second describes the planning of violence against conservatives attending a lecture by conservative Ben Shapiro (whom they call a Nazi despite being an orthodox Jew).
Someone is going to get killed by these masked thugs, merely because those murdered happen to be conservative and believe in freedom.
I have posted below the fold the video of Steven Crowder’s report from the second link. While his evidence shows the violent intent of these leftist thugs, the most damning part of his report is the part where he tries to show this evidence to major news reporters and gets dismissed out of hand. As Crowder notes on the video,
Even being shown the footage in the presence of police officers to confirm its authenticity, they walked away… We were delivering a story to local and national news on a silver platter which included infiltration, violence, and exposing the roots of a national domestic terrorist organization and no one wanted to give it a glimpse, not one person. It didn’t even get mentioned [in later mainstream media reports].
Remember, if you depend on mainstream news sources for your news, you are not simply being uninformed, you are being willfully misinformed.