The competition heats up: In a press conference today, Jeff Bezos of Blue Origin announced that his company will be making Cape Canaveral, Florida, its launchpad for their planned commercial orbital spacecraft.
Not only will they launch from a former Air Force launch complex, they will be building their production facility there for assembling their reusable ships. Bezos also said that they hope to be flying by the end of the decade.
Though this BBC news article is really nothing more than a propaganda piece for Virgin Galactic, the announcement it describes does confirm what has been suspected by space experts for months, that the company is reconfiguring LauncherOne to be more powerful and to launch on a bigger airplane, not WhiteKnightTwo.
In reading the quotes in this article from the various Virgin Galactic officials, I come away feeling even less confident of this company’s ability to get this rocket off the ground. To me, they sound like they are improvising wildly as they go, have no clear long term plan, and thus will have significant trouble settling on a final design early enough so that they will be able to build it intelligently.
I hope I am wrong. The report does suggest however that their investment in WhiteKnightTwo is increasingly appearing to be a waste. They won’t use it for LauncherOne, and their effort to launch SpaceShipTwo with it appears to be slowly vanishing.
The competition heats up: Launch competitors SpaceX and ILS announced new contracts today for launching commercial satellites into orbit.
SpaceX announced two new contracts, one from the Spanish communications company Hispasat, who signed them up to use a Falcon 9, and a second from the Saudia Arabian communications company Arabsat for a Falcon Heavy launch.
ILS meanwhile got its own contract from Hispasat to use a Proton to put another Hispasat communcations satellite into orbit.
The two Hispasat contracts show the advantages of competition for satellite makers. They now have more than one company to choose from, and are spreading their business around to give them options while encouraging these companies to compete against each other by lowering prices.
Fascists: A Boston doctor has been expelled from the staff of the hospital because he expressed opinions disagreeing with the homosexual lifestyle while noting the negative health effects of that lifestyle.
Recently, Dr. Church was expelled from the staff of BIDMC after he posted medical concerns about the dangerous practices of homosexual behavior, also two Bible verses, on the hospital’s internal Internet portal. The hospital did not dispute the truth of Dr. Church’s statements, nor claim that he ever discussed these matters with patients. But they stated that his concerns constitute “discrimination,” “harassment,” and “unprofessional conduct” and may not be discussed.
I normally do not object when private organizations or businesses fire someone, even if I believe that firing to be wrong. What strikes me about this expulsion is the political agenda behind it. The doctor was fired because he dared disagree when the hospital became an aggressive advocate for the homosexual lifestyle and political agenda. He didn’t take his disagreement to patients, and in fact continued to treat homosexual patients without bias. All he was doing was expressing his disagreement of the hospital’s advocacy within the private hospital communications network. Be sure and read the timeline of this story, which outlines what happened in great detail, going back to 2011. It even describes the double standard of the hospital, telling him to shut up because he was offending homosexuals but continuing to send him pro-gay email flyers even though he asked to be removed from the emailing list because those flyers offended him.
This story thus illustrates starkly the lengths in which the liberal, leftwing community, not just homosexuals, will go to stifle any opposing opinions. It shows again that the freedom to speak your mind in modern America is very much threatened, because it isn’t a small minority that believes freedom of speech should be squelched, but a very significant percentage, possibly a majority.
Here’s another example, in California. This fascist attitude aimed at shutting down any speech that the left disagrees with is growing and becoming downright dangerous.
An evening pause: On this anniversary of one of human history’s darkest acts, instigated by madmen who enjoy destroying things, let’s watch some normal humans from a normal society build things.
Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
The competition heats up: SpaceX today released a short video showing a very limited glimpse at the interior of the manned version of its Dragon capsule.
I’ve embedded the video below the fold, but I will tell you it is quite disappointing. Lots of tight close-ups of seatbelts and seats and instrument panels without really providing a clear picture of the capsule’s interior.
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The competition heats up: Firefly Space Systems, a new company aimed at the small satellite market, successfully test fired its first rocket engine today.
This company is aiming for the same market that Virgin Galactic is going for with its LauncherOne rocket. It will be interesting to see if either can make money selling launch services to these small satellites.
Engineering by powerpoint! Several NASA engineers have proposed using SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket and an upgrade of its Dragon capsule to bring samples back from Mars.
The researchers have drawn up a plan that uses a modified version of SpaceX’s uncrewed Dragon cargo capsule, which has already flown six resupply missions to the International Space Station for NASA. The Red Dragon variant would include a robotic arm, extra fuel tanks and a central tube that houses a rocket-powered Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) and an Earth Return Vehicle (ERV).
Red Dragon would launch toward Mars atop SpaceX’s huge Falcon Heavy rocket, which is scheduled to fly for the first time next year. After a long deep-space journey, the capsule would touch down near the 2020 Mars rover (whose landing site has not yet been chosen). “Red Dragon can go anywhere the rover can go, as far as landing elevation and terrain,” Gonzales said. “We’re confident we could land in front of the rover and have it drive to us.”
Red Dragon’s robotic arm would then grab a sample from the rover’s onboard cache (assuming the 2020 rover does indeed carry its samples, rather than stash them someplace) and transfer it to a secure containment vessel aboard the ERV, which sits atop the MAV. If something goes wrong during this exchange, Red Dragon can simply scoop up some material from the ground using its arm. The MAV would then blast off from the center of the capsule, like a missile from a silo, sending the ERV on its way back to Earth. The ERV would settle into orbit around our planet; its sample capsule would then be transferred to, and brought down to Earth by, a separate spacecraft — perhaps another Dragon capsule.
I like this concept because it uses available or soon-to-be available resources that are also relatively cheap to adapt for the mission. I also warn everyone that this is, as I note above, engineering by powerpoint. It is a concept, hardly a real proposal. The track record of seeing these kinds of proposals by NASA actually happen is quite poor.
The competition heats up: ULA and Blue Origin have signed a new agreement expanding the production of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine for ULA’s new Vulcan rocket.
This agreement and the timing of its announcement, one day after news leaked that rocket engine manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne is making a bid to buy ULA, suggest that there are people in ULA that want to make sure the agreements with Blue Origin are set in stone should the purchase comes true.
Last night police arrested 8 protesters who were camping illegally on Mauna Kea in opposition to the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope.
I have posted below the fold a video of the arrests. To me, the significant take-away from this video is the scale and permanence of the tent structures that these people have built opposite the Mauna Kea visitors center. The emergency order forbidding camping had gone into effect on July 14. Yet, the impressive buildings they have made of wood and poles have clearly been allowed to stand. This suggests that the state is really not serious about enforcing the law and stopping the protesters from camping on the mountain.
The competition heats up: Rocket engine-maker Aerojet Rocketdyne has reportedly made a $2 billion offer to buy the rocket company United Launch Alliance (ULA), a partnership of Boeing and Lockheed.
If this deal goes through, it will put the squeeze on Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, which presently has a contract to build rocket engines for ULA. Aerojet Rocketdyne had wanted that contract and had lost out. If they buy ULA, they could then kick Blue Origin out and take on the contract themselves.
I am honestly not sure what to make of this whole thing, however. It could be that Aerojet, having lost a number of contracts and faced with a significant lose in business, has decided it needs to become a rocket company to survive. It could also be that the corporate heads of ULA have decided that the company’s effort to replace its Delta and Atlas rockets with Vulcan is too risky, and they are better off taking the cash and running.
Or it could be any number of other reasons. We shall have to wait and see how this plays out.
The competition heats up: The president of the spaceport in Midland, Texas, said today that XCOR’s Lynx suborbital spacecraft will complete its first test launch in the second quarter of 2016.
My readers know that I have been very skeptical of XCOR. They also know, if they have read closely, that I would be thrilled if they proved me wrong and succeeded. I think we shall find out one way or the other next year.
