Tag: freedom

SpaceX stacks Starship on Superheavy on orbital launchpad

9:37 am

Starship mounted by tower on Superheavy

Capitalism in space: SpaceX for the first time used the giant arms on the launch tower at its Boca Chica orbital launchpad to stack Starship on top of Superheavy, with the fully stacked giant rocket to act as a backdrop to Elon Musk’s update on the project scheduled for airing tonight at 8 pm (Central).

You can see a time lapse of the several hour process here.

The use of a launch tower to stack a rocket is apparently a first, and provides solid evidence that SpaceX’s plan to catch Superheavy with that tower and put it on the ground has a chance of success.

SpaceX has not yet announced how Musk’s presentation will be aired, but when this information is available I will embed it on Behind the Black.

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Pushback: Oral surgeon sues state for shutting down his practice for refusing COVID shots

11:38 am

Oral surgeon Stephen Skoly, blackballed by Rhode Island
Oral surgeon Stephen Skoly, blackballed by Rhode Island

Don’t comply: Stephen Skoly, an oral surgeon in Rhode Island, has sued both his governor, Democrat Daniel McKee, and the head of the state’s health department, James McDonald, for shutting down his dental practice — serving 800 patients monthly — and preventing him (and his ten employees) from earning a living, simply because he has decided for medical reasons not to get the COVID shots.

Skoly, who’s been a dental surgeon since 1990, requested medical exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine because of his history of Bell’s palsy paralysis, the complaint says, and he says he has “natural immunity” against the virus because of a “blood test” that confirmed he has COVID-19 antibodies.

More information here.
» Read more

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Swiss startup raises $29 million to build a hypersonic commercial plane

9:31 am

Capitalism in space: Destinus, a new Swiss startup, has successfully raised $29 million in seed money to begin development of a hypersonic commercial plane.

Destinus is developing a vehicle that takes off and lands horizontally under the power of airbreathing jet engines. Once out of controlled airspace, Destinus’ hyperplane is designed to accelerate to hypersonic speeds with the help of a cryogenic hydrogen-fueled rocket engine, according to the company’s Feb. 8 news release.

Destinus has been testing airbreathing engines during flight tests of an unpiloted prototype. By the end of the year, the company aims to show its prototype can break the sound barrier

This company’s founding has an interesting backstory. Its founder, Mikhail Kokorich, was a major investor in the American space tug company Momentus. When the Defense Department forced him to sell his share in that company last year because he was not an American, he moved to Switzerland to form Destinus instead. Nor is this Kokorich’s only endeavors in commercial space. He has started a number of other small companies previously.

Don’t expect Destinus’s plane to fly in the near future. Though it has already flown a small scale prototype, the company only started to hire engineers in the past few months.

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Pioneer game update: Full demo of game released

9:31 pm

Though no launch date for the Kickstarter campaign for funding the creation of a videogame based on my science fiction book Pioneer has been announced, the producer, Aaron Jenkin, early this week released the full demo of the game. You can download a version for either Windows, Mac, or Linux here.

I’ve played the Linux version and had a great time. While this is only a demo, Aaron has captured the feel of my book, while adapting it to the needs of a video game. I really hope when the Kickstarter campaign starts, it quickly raises enough to produce the game. It will be a blast for players.

For those who want to get the game’s newsletter updates, published about once per week, you can subscribe at PioneerSpaceGame.com. If you are definitely interested in donating to the game, you should also subscribe as it gives Aaron a sense of the amount of interest (the numbers have been rising quickly in the past month, a very good sign!).

For those who want to get a sense of of what the game itself will be like now, below the fold is the game’s trailer.
» Read more

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Pushback: Conservative Hispanic student defeats effort to blacklist her

11:29 am

Olivia Gallegos
Gallegos is also participating in Wichita State’s
first Collegiate Leadership Competition

Don’t comply: Despite being Hispanic, Olivia Gallegos — a student at Wichita State University and an elected member of its student government — was accused of being a white supremacist and threatened with removal because she nominated a conservative woman for recognition by the school’s Diversity, Empowerment and Inclusion Committee.

It seems that committee wanted nothing to do with diversity of thought, even if it empowered a woman.

“Basically by highlighting a conservative, I was [called] a white supremacist and [accused of] giving a platform to white supremacy,” she said. “I just laughed, because I’m Hispanic.”

But the effort to force Gallegos to resign never came to fruition. “I had to sit through a 2.5-hour senate review board where they ultimately determined, ‘You did nothing wrong. But we’d like you to meet with diversity and inclusion to learn how to respond to things like this, and use this as a learning experience,’” Gallegos said.

She refused.

» Read more

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Space tug company picks Falcon 9 for test flights

9:39 am

Capitalism in space: Launcher, one of several space tug startups, has awarded SpaceX the contract to launch its first four test flights of its Orbiter tug.

Launcher announced Feb. 7 it signed a multi-launch contract with SpaceX for three additional missions of its Orbiter tug. Those tugs will fly on Falcon 9 rideshare missions in January, April and October of 2023.

Launcher’s first Orbiter tug will launch on SpaceX’s Transporter-6 rideshare mission in October 2022 under a contract announced last June when the company revealed its plans to develop Orbiter. The vehicle is designed to deploy cubesats and other smallsats in their desired orbits as well as host payloads for missions lasting up to two years.

Launcher — along with Momentus, Spaceflight, Astroscale, and several others — are all rushing to build and launch the first tugs for transporting satellites from orbit to orbit, or to remove space junk. Launcher’s deal with SpaceX suggests it is tailoring its system for satellites launched from the Falcon 9.

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Astra launch aborts at T-0

12:17 pm

UPDATE: The launch has been scrubbed for the day. No word on when they will reschedule, nor has Astra released any information as to what caused the launch abort, other than a “telemetry issue.”.

Capitalism in space: The second attempt by Astra to launch its first commercial satellites on its second orbital launch from Cape Canaveral aborted at T-0.

The launch on February 5th was scrubbed when some radar equipment used by the range failed.

The launch team is presently reviewing the data to see if they can recycle and attempt another launch today. This would be the second recycle today, as the first launch attempt was held about a minute before launch and then recycled, leading to the launch abort at T-0. The launch window still has about 100 minutes left.

The rocket is carrying four cubesats, three built by students at three different universities, with the fourth built by engineers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in their effort to learn how to build cubesats for themselves.

I have embedded Astra’s live stream below the fold, for those who wish to watch.
» Read more

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Pushback: Huge increase in homeschooling in VA

11:46 am

Home-schooling: a example of liberty in action
Home-schooling: a example of liberty in action

Because of oppressive and racist policies that include mask mandates, remote schooling, and the teaching of the bigoted and Marxist program dubbed Critical Race Theory, Virginia has seen a huge increase in home schooling in the past two years.

Homeschooling in Virginia has increased by nearly 40% since 2019, which has been partly fueled by the implementation of critical race theory in classrooms and the coronavirus. “The children don’t belong to the state. I think parents really want to impart their own values to their children – their values and beliefs and their own worldview. And that is a major reason parents are home schooling,” Yvonne Bunn, director of government affairs for the Home Educators Association of Virginia, told the Virginia Mercury earlier this month.

There are currently about 62,000 homeschoolers in Virginia, according to Virginia Department of Education data. There were 44,226 homeschoolers in the state during the 2019/2020 school year, marking a more than 39% increase. The numbers this year are slightly down from the 2020/2021 school year, when 65,571 students were homeschooled.

» Read more

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Astronomers organize lobbying group to block satellite constellations

10:13 am

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has now created an office to lobby governments worldwide to block the coming commercial launch of numerous satellite constellations.

The IAU claims that the first goal of this new office will be to study the effects of these satellites on ground-based astronomy accompanied by an effort to work with industry to mitigate those effects.

That is a lie. This is the office’s real purpose:

Another role for the center will be to create national and international laws and norms for what regulators allow in orbit. “We need to codify these good intentions, to have some backup,” says Richard Green of the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory. “We’ll take a two-pronged approach: Cooperate and develop legislation to apply if necessary.” IAU and other bodies are working to convince the United Nations’s Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space of the need for legislation. “We are confident that we will have guidelines that will have to be followed by companies in the near future,” Benvenuti says. Cosmologist Aparna Venkatesan of the University of San Francisco says it would be good if there were laws in the United States and elsewhere that echoed the influential U.S. Clean Air Act: “Many of us dream of a Clean Skies Act.”

Rather than realize that things are changing and Earth-based astronomy is becoming obsolete, the astronomers wish to use the force of law to block progress by others so that they can continue to live in the past.

The time to have moved all cutting edge astronomical research off the planet arrived more than three decades ago. The astronomers refused to recognize this, focusing instead on building giant telescopes on the ground that had less capability than the Hubble Space Telescope and were dogged by political and engineering challenges that hindered their success.

Had astronomers instead focused on building many small orbiting optical telescopes, the threat of satellite constellations now would be minimal. Instead, astronomers would be poised to build the bigger space-based telescopes they need. Instead, they are grounded, with the needed future space-based telescopes possibly decades away.

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Pushback: Doctor suspended for opposing mandates sues hospital

1:39 pm

Dr. Mary Bowden, refusing to bow to the authorities
Dr. Mary Bowden, refusing to bow to the authorities

Pushback: Mary Bowden, a doctor who was suspended from working at Houston Methodist Hospital because she publicly opposed COVID shot mandates and used ivermectin in treating her Wuhan flu patients, has now sued the hospital to get data on the effects, pro and con, of those shots on its own patients.

The hospital had accused her of “spreading dangerous misinformation which is not based on science” because she had successfully treated about 2,000 COVID patients, none of which ever needed hospitalization, with both ivermectin and monoclonal antibodies.

Bowden apparently has publicly advocated choice by both doctors and patients, something the lords at Houston Methodist cannot tolerate.

Bowden added, “We all know that early COVID treatment works, it saves lives, and I’m not going to be silenced, intimidated, or bullied by Houston Methodist, Houston Chronicle, or anyone else who wants to target physicians that question the narrative.”

In November, [her Attorney Steve] Mitby said that Bowden had never peddled disinformation, as a Stanford University-trained physician who has had vast experience in treating coronavirus patients. “She is helping her patients, through a combination of monoclonal antibodies and other drugs, to recover from COVID. Dr. Bowden’s proactive treatment has saved lives and prevented hospitalizations,” he said at the time. “Dr. Bowden also is not anti-vaccine as she has been falsely portrayed. Dr. Bowden has opposed vaccine mandates, especially when required by the government. That is not the same as opposing vaccines.”

Hospitals nationwide have been blocking doctors from considering these other treatments, even though there is building evidence that they work. Bowden’s own success is an example of that evidence.

The lawsuit is not seeking damages. Instead, it wishes to obtain from the hospital its data on its own success at treating the Wuhan flu, as well as what it has gained financially by that treatment.
» Read more

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Iceye raises $136 million in private investment capital

9:51 am

Capitalism in space: Iceye, which launches commercial Earth observation satellites, has successfully raised another $136 million in private investment capital, bringing its total cash raised to $304 million.

With the latest cash infusion announced Feb. 3, Iceye is expanding manufacturing capacity and upping its launch tempo. Iceye plans to loft 11 satellites in 2022, after launching seven in 2021. Iceye also will devote additional resources toward natural catastrophe monitoring. In 2021, Iceye began working with insurance industry partners including Zurich-based Swiss Re and Tokyo-based Tokio Marine.

With the climate changing and natural catastrophes becoming more frequent, Iceye executives see increasing demand for updated information. SAR satellites are particularly useful for observing floods and other disasters because unlike optical sensors, they gather data at night and through clouds.

Essentially, commercial satellites like Iceye’s are replacing the government satellites that NASA and NOAA have been launching, but with far less frequency and far more cost in the last two decades. In fact, the inability of these agencies to get many new Earth observation satellites launched on time and cheaply has fueled this new private industry.

Like NASA’s manned program, the government will soon depend entirely on privately-built satellites for its climate and Earth resource research. And it will get more for its money and get it faster.

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Former NASA insiders form commercial company to launch satellites to lunar orbit

9:43 am

Capitalism in space: Two former NASA managers have teamed up with two commercial businessman to form a startup, dubbed Quantum Space, to launch an unmanned platform to lunar space to provide support for NASA’s Artemis program.

The team includes Steve Jurczyk, who spent thirty years at NASA and finished his career there before retiring serving as acting NASA administrator for the first three months of the Biden administration.

Jurczyk is one of the three co-founders of Quantum Space. Another is Ben Reed, former division chief of exploration and in-space services at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and who worked on satellite servicing projects there. He is the chief technology officer of Quantum Space. The third co-founder is Kam Ghaffarian, who also helped start commercial space station company Axiom Space and lunar lander developer Intuitive Machines after selling Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies. They’re joined by Kerry Wisnosky, the co-founder and former principal owner of Millennium Engineering and Integration, who is the chief operating officer of Quantum Space.

Their plan is to launch their platform and robots to the Earth-Moon L1 point, the spot where the gravitational spheres of influence of the Earth and Moon meet, about 40,000 miles from the Moon.

The outpost … would consist of two components. One is a spacecraft bus that serves as a platform for hosting payloads, using modular “plug-and-play” interfaces. The other is a spacecraft that would deliver payloads to the platform and install them using robotic manipulators.

Those payloads could include communications, navigation, remote sensing, space domain awareness and space weather sensors, Jurczyk said. Those payloads would primarily come from customers, but he said the company is looking at developing its own payloads, particularly for imaging of the Earth and moon.

They hope to launch their first satellite by ’25.

Like the insiders who run Axiom, these guys are taking advantage of their experience at NASA to build a private space company that will serve NASA’s needs. They are also recognizing that in the coming years, everything NASA “does” will be done by private companies. This company is their effort to jump on that bandwagon.

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SpaceX successfully launches another 49 Starlink satellites

11:27 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX successfully completed its third launch in four days today, launching 49 Starlink satellites into orbit on its Falcon 9 rocket.

At the time of writing, the satellites themselves have not yet deployed. The first stage, flying its sixth mission, landed successfully. The two fairing halves were flying their sixth and fourth flights.

The 2022 launch race:

6 SpaceX
2 China
1 Virgin Orbit
1 ULA

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Pushback: Cop wins $75K settlement for being punished for praying

11:19 am

A victory for liberty in Louisville
A victory for liberty in Louisville

Do not comply: Policeman Matthew Schrenger has won a $75,000 settlement from the city of Louisville, Kentucky, for suspending him after he prayed, while off duty, in front of an abortion clinic.

Officer Matthew Schrenger was off-duty when he stopped to pray with his father on the public sidewalk outside the EMW Women’s Surgical Center nearly a year ago, on Feb. 20, according to the Thomas More Society. Schrenger arrived in the early morning, before the abortion provider opened, as part of 40 Days for Life, an international grassroots campaign dedicated to ending abortion through prayer and fasting.

Matt Heffron, senior counsel for the Thomas More Society, previously said that Schrenger, a 13-year police veteran, was praying the rosary, according to the local Fox affiliate, WDRB News.

For his actions, Schrenger was suspended for more than four months with pay, stripped of his police powers, and placed under investigation.

» Read more

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NASA outlines plans for ISS deorbit and the transition to commercial stations

9:55 am

Capitalism in space: NASA on January 31st released its updated plan for transitioning all government manned orbital operations to commercial private space stations in the next eight years in preparation for the deorbiting of ISS in early 2031.

You can read the report here [pdf]. The key paragraph however is this:

NASA has … signed agreements with three U.S. companies (Blue Origin of Kent, Washington; Nanoracks LLC of Houston, Texas; and Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation of Dulles, Virginia) to develop commercial destinations in space that go directly to orbit, i.e., free-flyers. The awards, along with the Axiom concept [where the private station starts as part of ISS and then later separates], are the first part of a two-phase approach to ensure a seamless transition of activity from the ISS to commercial destinations. During this first phase, private industry, in coordination with NASA, will formulate and design [commercial space stations] capabilities suitable for potential Government and private sector needs. The first phase is expected to continue through 2025.

For the second phase of NASA’s approach to a transition toward [commercial space stations], the Agency intends to certify for NASA crew member use [commercial space stations] from these and potential other entrants, and ultimately, purchase services from destination providers for crew to use when available.

It is NASA’s goal to be one of many customers of commercial LEO destination services, purchasing only the goods and services the Agency needs. [Commercial space stations], along with commercial crew and cargo transportation, will provide the backbone of the human LEO ecosystem after the ISS retires. [emphasis mine]

The report predicts that, by using private stations instead of building its own, the agency will save up to two billion dollars per year, money it can than use of planetary missions. This of course is assuming NASA cancels SLS. If not, I predict that overpriced cumbersome rocket will quickly absorb all this money saved.

The highlighted sentence indicates that NASA continues to accept entirely the recommendations I made in my 2017 policy paper, Capitalism in Space [a free pdf download]. In fact, that sentence is almost an exact quote from one of most important recommendations.

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ISS government partners give okay to Axiom’s first commercial crew to station

9:26 am

Capitalism in space: NASA announced yesterday that it as well as the other international partners for ISS have approved the crew and passengers who will fly on Axiom’s first commercial flight to the station, presently scheduled for launch on March 30, 2022, flying in SpaceX’s Endeavour capsule.

Axiom Space astronauts Michael López-Alegría, Larry Connor, Mark Pathy, and Eytan Stibbe are prime crew members of the Ax-1 mission. López-Alegría, who was born in Spain, raised in California, and a former NASA astronaut, will serve as the mission commander. Connor, of Dayton, Ohio, will serve as pilot. Pathy, from Canada, and Stibbe, from Israel, will be mission specialists. The quartet is scheduled to spend eight days aboard the orbiting laboratory conducting science, education, and commercial activities before their return to Earth.

Because the four will be staying at this government station, they must work with NASA, which appears to be requiring them to do some research while on board. Those experiments are still “under review” though Axiom has already revealed a suite of microgravity experiments the crew will perform.

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Orbex applies for UK launch license

9:15 am

Capitalism in space: The British smallsat rocket company Orbex has now submitted its application for a launch license to the United Kingdom’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

The press release does not mention a launch date, but it does state that ground tests of Orbex’s Prime rocket, designed to launch smallsats, are about to begin.

The Orbex ‘Prime’ rocket is soon to be tested on the Orbex LP1 launch platform at a facility in Kinloss, close to the Orbex headquarters in Forres, where full ‘dress rehearsals’ of launch procedures will take place.

Actual launches will take place at Space Hub Sutherland in Scotland. A previous announcement in 2020 had suggested the first launch would occur in ’22. Whether that date can still be met is unclear, but without doubt Orbex is moving forward towards launch.

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SpaceX launches spy satellite using new first stage

1:37 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base a National Reconnaissance Office spy satellite .

What made this launch unusual was that it used a new first stage, only the third time SpaceX has done so since the beginning of 2020. Last year, of 31 launches all but two used a used first stage. This new first stage landed successfully at Vandenberg.

5 SpaceX
2 China
1 Virgin Orbit
1 ULA

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SpaceX’s failure to win space station NASA contract reveals where the company is weak

12:11 pm

Jeff Foust of Space News today has a detailed article detailing NASA’s decision-making process that led to its awarding Blue Origin, Northrop Grummann, and Nanoracks development contracts for their proposed commercial and private space station.

The article not only describes NASA’s analysis of each winning bid, it also describes the analysis of some of the eight bids that lost. Most interesting were the strengths and weaknesses NASA saw from SpaceX’s bid.

The company won strengths based on its technical maturity linked to HLS proposal (the Starship lunar lander) and a “strong approach” to communications that appeared to be associated with SpaceX’s Starlink constellation. However, NASA assessed several weaknesses because of a lack of details about its concept, including how it will accommodate payloads and scale up an environmental control system for long-duration missions. [emphasis mine]

While SpaceX so far has proven itself to be a brilliant rocket and engineering company — achieving things that everyone else said couldn’t be done and doing so so quickly it takes your breath away — the company has so far appeared to have little understanding or knowledge about the complexities of building an interplanetary manned vessel. This NASA analysis, as noted by the highlighted phrases in the quote above, underlines that impression.

None of this precludes SpaceX from gaining that knowledge and applying it to the engineering of future Starship designs. This information however shows that the company still lacks this knowledge. It apparently has still not tackled the job of designing the insides of Starship, only its rocketry for getting into orbit.

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Blue Origin successfully tests fairing for New Glenn rocket

9:45 am

Capitalism in space: Blue Origin has successfully tested the jettison of the two fairing halves that will be used on its orbital New Glenn rocket.

The test took place at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio. The company’s video, available at the link, is like all such videos made by all these companies nowadays, filled with dramatic music in order to make it seem like a movie trailer. The jettison itself occurs near the end of the video, and only shows the separation..

This success is encouraging. Moreover, according to Scott Henderson, Blue Origin’s vice president of test and flight operations and Florida site director, they have also completed the launchpad in Florida.

The first launch of New Glenn is presently targeted for late this year, so these successes indicate that launch is getting close. However, everything still hinges on the production of the company’s BE-4 rocket engine, more than two years behind schedule. Until a flightworthy engine is finally available, that first New Glenn launch will remain an ephemeral dream.

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Pioneer game update: Kickstarter campaign delayed again

1:39 pm

I wish I could be reporting that the Kickstarter campaign for the video game of my science fiction book, Pioneer, has begun today as planned. Unfortunately, it has not, but for entirely good reasons. To quote the producer Aaron Jenkin in his update last night to newsletter subscribers:

Jellop, the Kickstarter marketing company I mentioned in our last newsletter, has asked us to make some changes to our reward tiers – changes that make sense, but that will require some major revisions. The request came last minute, and so we need more time to knock it all out properly.

Instead of announcing a new launch date and risking another false start, we’ll finish the changes and then communicate the date to you.

Since there’s no Kickstarter launch tomorrow, we will do the next best thing – we will release the game demo in the next newsletter instead! On Windows, Mac, & Linux. Be on the look out for that and after you play, please send us your feedback!

For those who want to get that newsletter update so they can try the demo, you can subscribe at PioneerSpaceGame.com. I’ve played it, and found it both fun and challenging, even though I wrote the book!

For those who want to get a sense of of what the game itself will be like now, below the fold is the game’s trailer, this time with an audio narration added for effect.
» Read more

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The first signs of a coming revolution for freedom — from the next generation

1:16 pm

A little child shall lead them, by James Johnson
“A little child shall lead them,” painting by James L. Johnson.

If there is any hopeful sign coming out of the last two years of Wuhan panic, it might be the long term reaction of the young to how the political community has treated them.

Let me explain. For decades it has been assumed, quite rightly, that the young would automatically gravitate to the Democratic Party. That party’s tendency to favor social programs based on helping everyone fit well with the young’s lack of experience, their natural instinct to think emotionally, and their personal lives so tightly bound to their school’s social community. The young lived in a type of emotional and socialist existence, so it was natural for them to instinctively favor the socialist ideas based on feel-good emotions put forth routinely by the Democratic Party.

Polls and voting patterns have consistently for decades proven this assumption to be true. For example, small college towns found the politics of their communities suddenly shift significantly leftward when the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18. The large but temporary college population in their towns, mostly leaning left, suddenly swamped out the more moderate voting patterns of the smaller general population.

This assumption has also been illustrated by many get-out-the-vote campaigns put forth by the Democratic Party. Rather than try to get voters of all stripes to vote, the Democrats would routinely focus these campaigns inside college campuses, a tactic that for decades has repeatedly brought them great success.

Above all — and most important — the Democratic Party never put forth policy proposals that would offend the young. Instead, the party would aim its policies at businesses, which the young did not own and would thus not be impacted by any negative consequences of any new leftist laws.

The Democrats love affair with “green” policies is a perfect example. A campaign to save the planet from global warming is something that sounds so good to the emotionally-driven young. For children under eighteen environmental issues would especially resonant. They would naturally like the high-minded idealistic sounding goals of environmentalism while feeling none of the negative effects of its sometimes draconian regulation. When these youngsters reached voting age they would thus instinctively pick the Democratic Party as their home, since it had portrayed itself as the true representative of their idealistic but very naive beliefs.

Environmentalism is just one of a whole slate of policy positions taken by the Democrats, from poverty to police abuse to civil rights, that have been designed to please the young without impacting them negatively in any way. The result has been a young population that routinely favored in great numbers the Democratic Party.

The Wuhan panic however has changed this situation radically. » Read more

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New Mexico legislature dumps space tourism sales tax proposal

9:05 am

Capitalism in space: A committee in the New Mexico legislature yesterday rejected a space tourism sales tax proposal submitted by two sponsors, one from each party, essentially killing the bill.

The vote to kill the bill was 9-1, with the only yes vote coming from the Democrat representing Albuquerque.

That the tax was voted down so conclusively suggests there actually might be some brain cells among the elected officials in New Mexico. Hard to believe, considering that the tax was actually proposed at a time when New Mexico’s only customer for space launches, Virgin Galactic, is in trouble and might go bankrupt. Raising its taxes would likely have only guaranteed that company’s failure.

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Astra’s 1st launch from Kennedy scheduled for Feb 5

8:49 am

Capitalism in space: Astra’s first satellite launch from Cape Canaveral has now been scheduled for Feb 5, 2022, when the startup will attempt to launch four cubesats for NASA.

This launch will also be Astra’s first operational launch, and the first to carry actual satellites on its Rocket-3.3 rocket. If successful it will join Rocket Lab and Virgin Orbit as the third operating commercial smallsat rocket company.

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Coast Guard investigating cruise ship that violated SpaceX launch zone

8:36 am

The Coast Guard has started an investigation of the Royal Caribbean cruise ship, Harmony of the Seas, that violated the launch zone of the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch on January 30, forcing a scrub.

The ship veered into the exclusion zone along a Falcon 9 rocket’s flightpath just before the 6:11 p.m. EST launch, forcing SpaceX to stand down from the mission and prepare for a 24-hour turnaround. Harmony of the Seas is the world’s third-largest cruise ship at 226,963 gross tons. It has 2,747 staterooms, a passenger capacity of 6,687 and a crew of 2,200.

In a statement issued Monday, U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson David Micallef said: “We can confirm the cruise ship was Harmony of the Seas. The Coast Guard is actively investigating Sunday’s cruise ship incursion and postponement of the SpaceX launch.”

“Our primary concern is the safety of mariners at sea, and we will continue to work with our federal, state and local port partners to ensure safe and navigable waterways,” Micallef added.

I am quite certain such investigations are routine, since ship captains are supposed to know about such launches and avoid the launch range accordingly. We normally never hear about them because the violations are almost always done by small boats or planes, not giant cruise ships.

SpaceX’s expected increased launch pace in ’22, combined with the desperate need of the cruise lines to resume normal operations following the Wuhan panic, will probably make this kind of conflict more possible. It also highlights SpaceX’s request to rethink the size of the exclusion zone, since today’s rockets are much more reliable than the rockets of the 1960s, when the zones were first created.

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SpaceX successfully launches Italian civilian/military radar satellite

4:22 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch an Italian civilian/military radar satellite.

This was the fifth attempt to launch in five days, with the first three attempts canceled due to weather and fourth canceled because a cruise ship had violated the no-go zone in the Atlantic.

The first stage completed its third flight, landing at Cape Canaveral after sunset. I highlight this last fact because it shows how completely routine these 1st stage landing have become. No one even notices that the first stage has come back to Florida, and did in the dark. Also, this 1st stage had originally been configured for Falcon Heavy as one of its side boosters. This was its first flight after being reconfigured.

As I write this the satellite and upper stage are still linked together, coasting to the orbital point where the upper stage can boost the satellite into a transfer orbit and then deploy it. UPDATE: Satellite has successfully deployed.

The 2022 launch race:

4 SpaceX
2 China
1 Virgin Orbit
1 ULA

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Ispace extends schedule for its 1st two private moon lander missions

10:37 am

Capitalism in space: The Japaneses company Ispace has revised its schedule for its first two private moon lander missions, delaying the second by one year while confirming that it is on target to launch the first before the end of ’22.

That second mission will also include a small rover, now being developed.

The only reason Ispace provided for delaying the second mission was “internal and external conditions.” My guess is that the internal conditions refers to that rover development, while the external conditions means they want more time to find customers to fly on the mission. Ispace won’t likely have trouble finding customers, but this gives them more time for others, mostly universities, to propose and create projects for that mini-rover.

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China’s plans to dominate space revealed in a new Chinese government white paper

11:53 am

China's 2022 white paper on space

The new colonial movement: The Chinese government today released a white paper summarizing in broad terms what it has accomplished in space over the past five years and what it intends to do in the next five years.

If this white paper is ignored by western governments, the ramifications to human freedom and civilization in space will be profound, and quite likely tragic.

You can read the English text of the white paper here.

The paper makes clear China’s considerable successes and advancements in the aerospace sector since 2016. It ramped up its manned program with the launch of two prototype space modules followed by the on-going assembly of its fullsize station. It has successfully landed probes on the Moon and Mars, and brought back samples from the former. It is presently upgrading or replacing its older rockets. It has launched a full constellation of Landsat-type Earth-resource satellites. It has expanded its satellite communications and broadcasting capabilities. It has completed its 30-satellite GPS-type constellation.

And that’s only a short summary.

The white paper then outlines China’s ambitious plans for the next five years. Three areas are of greatest importance.
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Will SpaceX recover Superheavy on land or at sea?

10:36 am

A recent job posting by SpaceX suggests it is still exploring its land or sea landing options for its Superheavy booster.

The job posting said that the company was “seeking a Marine Engineer to support … [its] current fleet of rocket and spacecraft recovery vessels, as well as the development of marine recovery systems for the Starship program.”

The article at the link outlines the many recovery options SpaceX has for Superheavy. The author notes that company’s recent focus has been to bring Superheavy back to its launchpad for quick relaunch. This new job posting suggests SpaceX has not finalized these plans.

First, it might be possible that SpaceX is merely preparing for the potential recovery of debris or intact, floating ships or boosters after intentionally expending them on early orbital Starship test flights. Second, SpaceX might have plans to strip an oil rig or two – without fully converting them into launch pads – and then use those rigs as landing platforms designed to remain at sea indefinitely. Those platforms might then transfer landed ships or boosters to smaller support ships tasked with returning them to dry land. Third and arguably most likely, SpaceX might be exploring the possible benefits of landing Super Heavy boosters at sea.

The author goes on to analyze the pros and cons for returning Superheavy to land, as well as the issues landing it at sea. Based on this analysis, SpaceX is probably planning to have Superheavy to return to land for the near future, even as it explores the sea option because it uses so much less fuel.

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SpaceX aiming to launch 52 times in 2022

9:31 am

According to NASA officials, SpaceX is hoping to complete as many as 52 launches in 2022, a pace of one launch per week.

The impressive figure was given during a virtual meeting of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, or ASAP, which gives guidance to the space agency on how to maintain safety within its biggest programs. “NASA and SpaceX will have to be watchful during 2022 that they’re not victims of their success,” Sandy Magnus, a former NASA astronaut and member of the panel, said during the meeting. “There’s an ambitious 52-launch manifest for SpaceX over the course of the year. And that’s an incredible pace.”

Based on other sources, I had previously estimated a SpaceX manifest for ’22 to be 40 launches. That this new higher number comes from NASA’s corrupt safety panel, and was touted as a reason to raise questions about SpaceX, makes me suspicious of it.

Still, a launch pace by SpaceX of one launch per week is wholly possible. For one thing, the company needs to get a lot of Starlink satellites into orbit as quickly as possible. With its development of Starship blocked by government interference, it might have decided to up the pace of launches using Falcon 9.

Furthermore, because most of the rocket is reused, SpaceX has a far greater launch capacity. For every Falcon 9 it builds it gets ten or more launches from its first stage. This means SpaceX does not have to build as much to maintain a high launch pace.

As for the safety panel’s fears about such a pace, who cares? That safety panel has been consistently wrong about everything it has said about SpaceX and commercial space now for almost a decade. It is very likely wrong now. In a more rational world, NASA would have shut it down two years ago for doing such a bad job. Sadly, we no longer live in a rational world.

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