Tag: government

Russia & China negotiating increased cooperation on the Moon

10:21 am

The new colonial movement: According to the state-run Russian news source TASS, Russia and China are in negotiations to increase Russia’s participation in China’s program to establish a manned base on the Moon.

Russia’s state-run space corporation Roscosmos is in talks with its Chinese colleagues to determine scientific tasks for a lunar base and to discuss technical aspects of the project’s implementation, Deputy Director General for International Cooperation at the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos Sergey Savelyev told TASS. “At present, work is under way to determine possible scientific tasks of mutual interest in the Moon research. Besides, possible technical implementation of the project is being analyzed,” he said.

The article is very vague about details. It does signal that Russia is strongly looking for alternatives to working with the U.S. on its Lunar Gateway project. If it teams up with China NASA will likely begin breaking off all cooperation with Russia because of the legal restrictions that prevent it from partnering in any way with China.

This article also illustrates Russia’s declining status as a space power. For years they have depending on the American program at ISS to have a place in space. Now they are looking to China. All in all, it appears they can’t get their own projects going, and need to attach themselves to others to have any part in the exploration of space.

As for China, that country wants to the good public relations that would come from making its space program international in scope. I expect therefore they want Russia to sign on. I also expect that China will dictate terms, as it doesn’t really need Russia in its effort.

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Russian launches military satellite

9:50 am

Russia this morning successfully launched a military intelligence satellite using its Soyuz-2 rocket.

This was Russia’s first launch in 2021. The 2021 launch race:

3 SpaceX
2 China
1 Rocket Lab
1 Virgin Orbit
1 Russia

The U.S. still leads China 5-2 in the national rankings, a lead that should widen by tomorrow as SpaceX has two Starlink satellite launches planned from Cape Canaveral four hours apart in the wee hours of the morning. If both are successful, that single American company will have as many launches as the entire world combined.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Liberal fired for posting stupid tweet

11:25 am

They’re coming for you next: While the bulk of blacklisting going on right now in America is coming from the left with the goal of silencing their opposition, the control freak nature of our society is doing harm to many others for sometimes the stupidest of reasons.

Today’s blacklisted American falls into this latter category. On January 21, 2021, Will Wilkinson, a writer at the very liberal Niskanen Center think tank in Washington, was fired because an apparently conservative twitter mob had complained about a very stupid tweet he had sent out. The wording of the tweet, sent the night after Biden’s inauguration, was ugly, without doubt: “If Biden really wanted unity, he’d lynch Mike Pence.”

Wilkinson claimed in his apology that the tweet was a very bad attempt at satire, making fun of both the left and the right, both of which had expressed at some time or another real anger or hate for Mike Pence. It didn’t work, which is not surprising considering the mindless emotional nature of Twitter. Instead, at first glance it looked like he was sincerely calling for Pence’s lynching.

As noted by Glenn Greenwald at the link,
» Read more

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Rocket of Chinese pseudo-private company fails on 2nd launch

8:52 pm

The new colonial movement: Today’s second launch of the Chinese pseudo-private company iSpace’s Hyperbola-1 rocket ended in failure soon after launch.

No details yet on what went wrong.

The company had successfully completed its first orbital launch in July 2019. The smallsat rocket, using four solid-rocket stages, is almost certainly derived from China’s military technology, and thus the company could not exist without significant government supervision.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Mike Lindell, CEO of My Pillow

2:10 pm

They’re coming for you next: And in the case of Mike Linddell, the CEO of the company My Pillow, the left is coming at him from all sides.

First he was banned from Twitter, merely because Twitter decided it apparently did not like him.

Twitter said Tuesday that it permanently suspended Lindell — a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump — because of his “repeated violations” of the company’s civic integrity policy, which it implemented last fall to clamp down on misinformation.

Twitter didn’t say which of Lindell’s posts pushed it over the edge. [emphasis mine]

As is typical of this corrupt leftist company, it does not provide any evidence for its claims. Nor does it outline clearly the standards that Lindell was supposed to have violated.

No, what Twitter really doesn’t like is that Lindell has been a vocal supporter of Trump, and for that he must be silenced.

Next, the computer company Dominion, which sits in the center of many of the election fraud allegations from the November 3rd election, has threatened Lindell with a defamation lawsuit for daring to note the many problems that others have identified with the manner in which Dominion’s machines tabulated votes in several states.
» Read more

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Environmentalists cheer FAA blocking of Starship test flight

9:28 am

Two Starship prototypes now on launchpads
Two Starships are better than one!

They’re coming for you next: It appears the environmentalist movement is thrilled that the FAA and the Biden administration blocked last week’s test flight of SpaceX’s ninth prototype of Starship.

It also appears they are gunning to end Starship entirely, and might now have the right people in charge to get it done.

Jim Chapman, president of the nonprofit Friends of the Wildlife Corridor, says it is unusual for a federal regulatory agency to allow a company to conduct tests prior to completion of an environmental review and licenses issued.

He and other environmentalists have repeatedly expressed concerns to Border Report of what they say is a lack of oversight by the FAA on this site. But Friday’s actions gave Chapman some hope. “The fact that the FAA is going by the book for a change is a good development,” Chapman said. “They’re following the law by doing that and they’re supposed to do the environmental evaluation before they issue new licenses and up until now they kind of haven’t been doing that.”

The irony here is that these environmentalists are claiming that SpaceX’s rocket facility at Boca Chica will threaten the local beach wildlife, when we have more than a half century of evidence from Cape Canaveral that a rocket launch facility does the exact opposite. When the federal government established its Florida spaceport it reserved vast tracts around it for safety, but also reserved that land as a wildlife preserve. The result has been that the beach wildlife at Cape Canaveral has thrived, and been protected.

What these environmentalist really want to do is prevent SpaceX from flying, merely because they hate the development of new technology and the advancement of human capabilities. The environmental movement is routinely against anything new, and has been for decades.

With the Democrats controlling Congress and the White House, their allies are now in power. I would not at all be surprised if the FAA’s action last week is also tied to this environmental review. If so, expect future test flights at Boca Chica to be further delayed and stretched out.

Meanwhile, this past weekend SpaceX rolled out its tenth Starship prototype, placing it on a second launchpad right next to prototype #9, as shown by the screen capture above from the LabPadre 24/7 live feed this morning. The company sure is making it clear that the only reason they have been stalled is the government.

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India is targeting ’21 for first unmanned test launch of manned system

9:07 am

The new colonial movement: According to Indian government officials, the first unmanned test flight of their Gaganyaan manned capsule will occur before the end of 2021.

The first unmanned launch is slated for December 2021. The Gaganyaan is a crewed orbital spacecraft expected to carry three astronauts into space for at least seven days. The spacecraft is likely to consist of an orbital module which will have a service and a crew module. The mission is estimated to cost around Rs 10,000 crore. The GSLV Mk-III, now called LVM-3 (Launch Vehicle Mark-3), will be deployed for the launch.

The new name for the rocket helps distinguish it from the GSLV Mk-II, a smaller version aimed mostly at commercial customers.

India also hopes to launch a new smallsat rocket in ’21, as well as its next lunar lander/rover, Chandrayaan-3. The country’s space effort will also be attempting to recover from its shutdown in 2020 due to the Wuhan virus panic.

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NASA delays lunar lander contract award

8:55 am

NASA, now under the control of the Biden administration, has quietly delayed by at least two months the contract award to two companies to build manned lunar landers for its Artemis program.

With short funding from Congress and a new administration focused on more pressing national issues, the move was expected.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX, a team of aerospace giants led by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, and Leidos-owned Dynetics won a combined $967 million in seed funding from NASA last year to develop rivaling concepts for a human lunar landing system. It’s the space agency’s first effort to spend money on astronaut moon landers since the Apollo program in the 1970s.

Last Wednesday, NASA told the three contractors that an extension to their development contracts “will be required,” picking a new award date of April 30th. Under the Trump administration’s timeline, the agency had planned to pick two of the three bidders in late February, giving a stamp of approval for two systems that would inevitably carry humans to the moon.

This delay would likely have occurred under Trump as well, mainly because Congress only appropriated less than a third of the money needed for this Artemis program.

However, under Biden it was guaranteed. A major review is about to happen, designed not to kill Artemis but to slow it down appreciable. Congress likes the pork Artemis produces, but is wholly uninterested in it actually flying any dangerous missions. I suspect Biden will agree. The focus will once again shift back to Gateway, making any lunar landing require it so that it must be built first. Such a shift will guarantee that no American manned missions to the surface of the Moon will occur before ’30, but also allow the spending of gobs of money building a small lunar station that will only be occupied for short periods.

The big loser here, to my mind, is Jeff Bezos. His company, Blue Origin, was building the descent portion of the lunar lander, with all other portions built by his big space partners, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper. Not only is most of the other work by these partners more easily shifted to other uses related to Gateway, but those companies already have plenty of government contracts. As far as I can remember, Blue Origin has no other big government deals, with its New Glenn having been rejected by the military, and its lunar descent technology unneeded until there is a lunar landing, and I expect that to be significantly delayed.

For the past four years Bezos has clearly wanted to make Blue Origin a new big space contractor. Right now it appears that effort has failed wholly.

Dynetics will also lose out big, as they are a new company and can ill afford losing a contract here.

SpaceX will likely be hurt the least. Not getting any money for designing Starship to land on the Moon will do little to slow its development. Starship is almost completely privately funded, and does not need NASA money to get built.

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NASA to do another static fire test of SLS’s core stage

10:52 pm

NASA has now scheduled a second static fire test of the core stage of its SLS rocket, tentatively scheduled for the fourth week in February.

The first test, planned to last eight minutes, shut down after only one minute when the stage’s computers decided the parameters on engine #2 were outside their conservative margins. That burn also had a sensor issue with its fourth engine.

Conducting a second hot fire test will allow the team to repeat operations from the first hot fire test and obtain data on how the core stage and the engines perform over a longer period that simulates more activities during the rocket’s launch and ascent. To prepare for the second hot fire test, the team is continuing to analyze data from the first test, drying and refurbishing the engines, and making minor thermal protection system repairs. They are also updating conservative control logic parameters that resulted in the flight computer ending the first hot fire test earlier than planned. The team has already repaired the faulty electrical harness which resulted in a notification of a Major Component Failure on Engine 4. This instrumentation issue did not affect the engine’s performance and did not contribute to ending the first test early.

Assuming this test is successful, they will then need a month to get the stage ready for shipment by barge to Cape Canaveral, where it will take several more months to get it assembled with its two strap-on solid rocket boosters, its upper stage, and the Orion capsule on top.

Right now the unmanned test flight into orbit of this entire rocket and Orion is set for November ’21. While NASA has not announced a delay, this additional static fire test puts significant pressure on that schedule.

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Anyone who worked in the Trump administration

12:47 pm

Death to the Bill of Rights!

They’re coming for you next: Today’s post about the new effort by leftists and Democrats to blacklist all their opponents does not concern any single individual (as has been the focus of my previous posts), but instead will focus on the all-encompassing effort by the Democratic Party and its leftist supporters to blacklist anyone who worked in Trump administration, so they can never get work again.

Thus, today have three stories illustrating the left’s oppressive and intolerant effort to destroy any who oppose them.

First, there is a bill introduced in Congress by a congresswoman Stephanie Murphy (D-Florida) that would ban any person from federal employment or military service who might have attended any protest rally that claimed the November 3rd election was stolen, or even suggested that there was voter fraud.

This level of attempted government repression is breathtaking in its scope. As a rule, anyone who is convicted (and that’s a key word) of having breached the Capitol building on January 6th and committing acts of vandalism or attacks on law enforcement officers will likely disqualify themselves from obtaining a security clearance. (And hence, a federal job in most cases.) The same is true for all serious offenses, though you can generally receive a waiver for misdemeanors and minor violations. No new legislation would be needed to make that happen.

But this bill is something entirely different. It would effectively criminalize every person who showed up for the rally and remained out in the streets protesting. The same would go for the hundreds of other rallies held across the nation in the preceding months. Further, depending on how the legislation is interpreted, if you ever engaged with Q-anon believers on social media or other discussion groups, you could be similarly canceled from working in the public sphere.

In other words, Democrat Murphy is aiming to make second class citizens of anyone who dared protest the election of Joe Biden. While it is doubtful her legislation will pass as is, do not be surprised if it gets slipped into a larger omnibus bill somewhere, when no one can spot it. And don’t be surprised when the Democrats controlling Congress help her get this done.

Next we have an effort by leftist activists to develop a real blacklist and use it to prevent anyone who worked for the Trump administration from getting a job in the private sector.
» Read more

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Roscosmos’ commercial division to market tourist seats on Soyuz

9:29 am

The new colonial movement: Glavkosmos, the commercial division of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, has announced that it is now making available for sale to passengers up to four seats on the Soyuz capsule.

Roscosmos has previously sold such seats through a long-standing relationship with American company Space Adventures. In December, Glavkosmos tweeted its plans to start selling seats, which a company spokesperson has since confirmed. “We assume that each crewed Soyuz MS spacecraft intended solely for commercial spaceflight will have two seats for space tourists” with a professional astronaut occupying the third seat, Glavkosmos spokesman Evgenii Kolomeets told SpaceNews. “In 2022-2023, with a favorable combination of circumstances, we can count on four seats aboard the commercial spacecraft for space tourists.”

The first dedicated Glavkosmos flight should be Soyuz MS-23 in the fall of 2022 to the ISS, with a second flight expected some time in 2023. “Commercial spacecraft and launch vehicles for the 2022-2023 launch campaigns are being manufactured, and specific mission numbers are assigned to spacecraft only after they are included in the flight program,” Kolomeets said.

If this happens, it will mean that at least three different entities — Axiom, Space Adventures, and Roscosmos — will be selling tourists flights into space. And that doesn’t even count possible flights on Boeing’s Starliner, once it becomes operational.

This competition is certain to force a drop in price, which in turn should increase the customer base, making more such flights possible.

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Biden Justice Dept investigating SpaceX over hiring of non-citizens

9:21 am

They’re coming for you next: The Biden Justice Dept is now investigating SpaceX for discriminating against non-American citizens in its hiring practices.

The DOJ’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section received a complaint of employment discrimination from a non-U.S. citizen claiming that the company discriminated against him based on his citizenship status.

“The charge alleges that on or about March 10, 2020, during the Charging Party’s interview for the position of Technology Strategy Associate, SpaceX made inquiries about his citizenship status and ultimately failed to hire him for the position because he is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident,” DOJ attorney Lisa Sandoval wrote in a court document filed Thursday. The document was a request for a judge to order SpaceX to comply with an administrative subpoena for documents related to how the company hires.

It also appears that SpaceX refused to comply with a subpoena from this Justice Dept section, claiming that it exceeded that section’s authority. The Biden administration is now asking the court to enforce that subpoena.

This is not just absurd, it smacks of government overreach designed to destroy the company. SpaceX is a rocket company that must follow very strict ITAR rules designed to prevent the release of military technology to foreign powers. By its very nature the company cannot hire foreign nationals for almost any position. If SpaceX were to hire a non-citizen the State Department would have grounds to shut them down.

Now the Biden administration is demanding that SpaceX do exactly that, essentially placing the company between a rock and a hard place.

This action, combined with the refusal yesterday by the FAA to issue a launch permit to SpaceX so it could do a test flight of its Starship prototype #9, gives us another clear picture of what to expect from Democratic Party rule for the next four years. They have always been out to squelch any independent operations in any way they can, and they now have the power to do it.

Musk better get ready to pay that bribe to the Democratic Party. Otherwise they will shut him down.

As for Starship, according to SpaceX’s website they will make their next launch attempt in February 1. This could be because the FAA has finally relented, or the company is scheduling it to apply more pressure to the agency to get that permit approved. We shall have to wait until then to see.

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FAA bureaucrats block SpaceX Starship test flight

2:39 pm

Capitalism in space? It is now confirmed that the test flight of SpaceX’s ninth prototype of its Starship rocket was scrubbed because of the FAA’s refusal to approve the license. To quote the FAA:

We will continue working with SpaceX to resolve outstanding safety issues before we approve the next test flight.

Typically vague bureaucratic language. There is no word on why the government did this. The flight of Starship prototype #8 proved SpaceX has full control over its vehicle, to the point they could put it down right on target. Why the FAA should now suddenly get cold feet is inexplicable.

There is one difference between now and the December 9th flight of Starship prototype #8. Then the president was Republican Donald Trump, and the Senate was controlled by the Republicans. Now the president is Democrat Joe Biden, and both houses of Congress are in Democratic Party control. It would not surprise me in the least if some Biden officials called the FAA and demanded they impose stricter safety restrictions on SpaceX, and that they did so at the very last minute.

Or to put it another way, someone in the Biden administration essentially wanted to tell SpaceX, “Nice rocket company you got here. Sure would be a shame if something happened to it.”

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Today’s blacklisted American: Literary agent fired for having Parler & Gab accounts

12:50 pm

They’re coming for you next: A New York city literary agent was fired by her agency for merely having accounts at both Parler and Gab, based on a single complaint on Twitter.

Colleen Oefelein, an associate literary agent with the New York City-based Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency, was sacked after her boss learned that she owned accounts on Gab and Parler. The agency’s owner, Jennifer DeChiara, publicly announced on Twitter that the firm had dropped Oefelein after making the “distressing” discovery.

“We do not condone this activity, and apologize to anyone who has been affected or offended by this,” the message read. DeChiara stressed that her agency was committed to ensuring a “voice of unity” and was firmly “on the side of social justice.”

Oefelein says she was really fired because she is a conservative and a Christian. And the evidence shows that her use of these two platforms had little to do with politics, as she was having trouble logging onto her Twitter account and was switching for that reason. Moreover, when she did post on any of these social media sites, she used them not for political reasons but to interact with her clients and other writers.

None of those facts mattered. One fascist thug on Twitter complained, slandering her by accusing her without evidence of frequenting “alt-right social media”, whatever that means, and the owner of the agency, Jennifer DeChiara, moved swiftly to fire her.

In other words, merely touching a social media platform that won’t participate in the blacklisting movement is now grounds for blacklisting.

It seems to me she has solid legal grounds to sue, and win big. Regardless, this action by the owner of this literary agency shows that the storm-troopers in today’s leftist dominant culture come from both the rank and file as well as their political leadership in the Democratic Party.

Be aware. Your liberal friends might not really be your friends. Instead, they may be people who enthusiastically endorse McCarthyism and the blacklisting of innocent Americans, merely because those Americans disagree with them.

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Abraham Lincoln and George Washington

1:23 pm

They’re coming for you next: Even as Democrats nationwide embrace blacklists of ordinary Americans for daring to express dissent from that party’s leftist agenda, the extremely leftwing school board in San Francisco is moving to blacklist as many of America’s historical national figures as possible, including Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Paul Revere.

Cancel culture is going after our Founding Fathers and other American leaders. Just this week, the San Francisco Board of Education voted to rename 44 public schools in a vote of 6 to 1.

The names on the chopping block are familiar and belong to important American leaders. Lincoln, Washington, and Roosevelt will no longer have their names attached to schools in the Golden Gate City. Dianne Feinstein’s name will also be removed.

Francis Scott Key, who penned the national anthem, former presidents William McKinley, James Garfield, James Monroe, and Herbert Hoover, and even Paul Revere were viewed as being too controversial and incendiary to have the honor of having a school named after them.

The school board can’t argue that these were supporters of slavery, since Lincoln freed the slaves, and Roosevelt, Key, McKinley, Hoover, and Revere never owned them and lived either in places that did not permit slavery (colonial New England) or outlawed it (post-Civil War America).

No, what this school board is doing is banning history, so that the students it “educates” will be guaranteed to know nothing about the past noble Americans who made this country a great and free land, for all. Instead, San Fransisco students will be indoctrinated into the Marxist philosophy of hate and envy, hating anyone who doesn’t agree with that ideology and having envy for anyone who works hard to achieve success instead of relying on the central government to feed them.

And most of all, they will be taught that America is, was, and always will be an evil land. They will be taught to hate it, so they can be enlisted in the war to destroy it.

So while today’s blacklisted Americans are dead and thus cannot be oppressed, the destruction of their names and good works is still possible, and the modern fascist Democratic Party is there to gladly oblige.

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SpaceX and Amazon in cat-fight over internet satellite constellations

10:19 am

Capitalism in space: Even as SpaceX is rolling out the internet service from its growing Starlink satellite constellation while Amazon’s own Kuiper constellation languishes in development, the two companies are in a battle over the orbits of their respective constellations.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter on Tuesday, as his company works to persuade Federal Communications Commission officials that it should allow SpaceX to move some of its Starlink satellites to lower altitudes than originally planned.

Jeff Bezos’ Amazon has been among companies that have disputed SpaceX’s request, on the grounds that the modification would interfere with other satellites.

“It does not serve the public to hamstring Starlink today for an Amazon satellite system that is at best several years away from operation,” Musk said in a tweet.

Amazon responded to Musk’s comment in a statement to CNBC. “The facts are simple. We designed the Kuiper System to avoid interference with Starlink, and now SpaceX wants to change the design of its system. Those changes not only create a more dangerous environment for collisions in space, but they also increase radio interference for customers. Despite what SpaceX posts on Twitter, it is SpaceX’s proposed changes that would hamstring competition among satellite systems. It is clearly in SpaceX’s interest to smother competition in the cradle if they can, but it is certainly not in the public’s interest,” an Amazon spokesperson said.

SpaceX in its own response to the FCC has noted “that Amazon representatives have had ’30 meetings to oppose SpaceX’ but ‘no meetings to authorize its own system,’ arguing that the technology giant is attempting ‘to stifle competition.'”

Both companies appear to have a point. Amazon is planning its system under an agreed-to arrangement where its orbits would not conflict with SpaceX’s. To permit SpaceX to change the deal and expand its orbital territory into Amazon’s threatens their system.

At the same time, that Amazon has been so slow to launch its system is something the FCC will not take kindly to. Companies get FCC licensing approval on the condition that they deliver within a certain time frame. Amazon appears to be taking a bit too much time, and SpaceX is trying to take advantage of this fact.

I suspect the FCC will deny SpaceX’s request, but will also tell Amazon that it had better start launching its satellites soon, or else the FCC will change its mind and give SpaceX that orbital territory.

Overall, the slowness of Amazon to launch Kuiper seems to fit the operational pace of Jeff Bezos’ other space company, Blue Origin. Lots of talk, but relatively little action. At some point the talk has to stop and Bezos’ companies have got to start delivering.

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Space Force ends development contracts with Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman

9:33 am

The Space Force, having chosen SpaceX and ULA as its sole launch providers, officially ended on December 31, 2020, its rocket development contracts with Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman.

The Air Force awarded Launch Service Agreements to Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman and United Launch Alliance. These were six-year public-private partnerships where both the government and the contractors agreed to invest in rocket development and infrastructure required to compete in the National Security Space Launch program.

The plan from day one was to discontinue the LSAs with companies that did not win a National Security Space Launch procurement contract. Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman lost to ULA and SpaceX, which were selected in August 2020. The Space and Missile Systems Center confirmed in a statement to SpaceNews that the LSAs with Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman ended in Dec. 31, 2020.

From October 2018 through December 2020, Blue Origin was paid $255.5 million. The original six-year agreement was worth $500 million. Northrop Grumman got $531.7 million over that same period, nearly two-thirds of the total value of the LSA which was $792 million.

This whole deal stinks to high heaven. First, it never made any sense for the military to restrict bidding on future launches to just two companies. Such a restrictions smells of a cartel deal designed to play favorites, something the government should not do. It also ends up costing the government more, as it limits competition.

Second, the money handed out sure looks like nice pay-offs to all these big companies, designed to pay company salaries rather than real design work. SpaceX chose not to take it, because it did not want to be beholden to the military’s bureaucracy in how it developed Starship/Super Heavy. That choice has proven wise, as the deal slowed development of both Blue Origin’s New Glenn and ULA’s Vulcan rockets by at least a year, while SpaceX Starship development has moved forward far quicker.

Moreover, its seems very inappropriate for ULA to still be getting this government cash while SpaceX does not. In truth, neither should get a dime unless they actually sign a contract to launch something for the Space Force. Otherwise it is just a form of kickback and a misuse of the taxpayer’s money.

Not that my complaining here will change anything. The big aerospace industry has been addicted to these kind of government payoffs for decades, and apparently will continue to be so addicted for the foreseeable future.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Evangelist Franklin Graham

1:46 pm

They’re coming for you next: A mob of more than 17,000 people have signed a petition to get evangelist Franklin Graham fired from his jobs at two different Christian organizations, merely because he has strongly supported President Trump during his term in office.

As is usual in these efforts to blacklist people, the charges are not based on substantive facts, but on the modern use of slander and bigotry, first made normal during the Obama administration. From the petition:

“Graham gets away with his hatred and conspiracy-theories by hiding behind the humanitarian work of Samaritan’s Purse and his late father’s name,” Faithful America said in the petition. “It’s time for Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) to realize that by propping up Franklin’s unchristian extremism, they are abandoning their Gospel missions, undermining democracy, and helping incite white-nationalist sedition.”

The petition encourages board members to fire Graham or resign in protest. [emphasis mine]

For these leftist thugs, “hatred” and “extremism” is simply disagreeing with them. For these storm-troopers, “conspiracy-theories” and “undermining democracy” is simply expressing concerns about the numerous serious allegations of voter fraud in the November 3rd election, none of which have been properly investigated by any civil authorities.

And “inciting white-nationalist sedition” is merely refusing to bow to the bigoted racist identity politics of the Marxist Black Lives Matter movement, which only cares about leftist black lives, and hates all others, including conservative blacks, in turn.

Fortunately, the two religious organizations being petitioned have dismissed the petition for the slander that it is, expressing full support for Graham.

That 17,000 people were willing to sign such a petition however is truly horrifying, and shows their willingness to oppress their opponents, simply because they disagree on policy and politics. It also suggests these signatories are incredibly ignorant about politics, and are thus easily led by lies told to them.

Despite the support of his employers, this effort will do harm to Graham’s future work, as he now has to continually answer bogus questions about his beliefs, questions not unlike the old political-destroying question, “Do you still beat your wife?” No matter what you say, you will be quoted in a manner that will make you look evil.

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New Democrat head of House subcommittee covering NASA says he supports Artemis

9:32 am

The new Democrat head of the House appropriations subcommittee that covers NASA funding, Matt Cartwright (D-Pennsylvania), appears to support the Artemis program established during the Trump administration, though he has also indicated that he does not favor the timeline imposed by Trump to land a manned mission on the Moon by ’24.

Cartwright’s embrace of Artemis during [a] July 2020 webinar was a change from 2019 when he was one of several members reacting skeptically to a supplemental budget request from the Trump Administration after it unexpectedly accelerated the timeline for putting people back on the Moon from 2028 to 2024. He complained NASA did not even have a cost estimate for the entire effort, yet expected Congress to embrace it.

In 2018, he expressed concern about proposed cuts by the Trump Administration to NASA’s earth and space science activities especially climate programs and WFIRST (now the Roman Space Telescope). He urged NASA to follow the Decadal Surveys produced by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

What his prior views presage now that he chairs the subcommittee remains to be seen. It is widely expected the 2024 deadline will be pushed back, perhaps to the 2028 date NASA originally planned, but Cartwright appears favorably disposed towards the agency overall.

Delaying the Moon landing by SLS forever is the real goal, so the jobs program can be extended without any risks. To actually fly might result in a failure, something that no politician wants.

In the end it will not be SLS anyway that gets Americans back to the Moon. It costs too much and is badly designed. It might fly once or twice, but after that Congress will drop it while keeping Artemis, albeit in a very different form. Instead of having NASA design and build things, the new Artemis will be built by the many companies who were awarded fixed priced contracts during the Trump administration to develop their own hardware as fast as possible and as inexpensively as possible.

The distinction is important, because the latter is more likely to succeed in a reasonable amount of time.

At the same time, with Congress on board and a Democrat in the White House, it is not surprising that the policy is immediately shifting to a slower timeline. Can’t get this done too fast! I must also add that 2028 was not NASA’s original date for its return to the Moon. Before the Trump administration took control of Artemis, NASA had wanted to complete Gateway first, which based on all of NASA’s previous schedules would have pushed a lunar landing into the 2030s. Do not be surprised if this sluggish schedule is reinstated.

In fact, with the present incompetents in charge in Washington, I fully expect China to own the Moon, while U.S. politicians brainlessly dither on how to spend pork.

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Today’s blacklisted American: A blogger about babies

2:09 pm

They’re coming for you next: A neonatal nurse named Cara Dumaplin, who for years has run very successful website called Taking Care of Babies, is now considered a “racist” and “hater” because she and her husband committed the unforgivable act of donating to the campaign of Donald Trump.

MamaBirdLosAngeles drew attention to Dumaplin’s political donations on Instagram, setting off a flurry of denunciations.

MamaBird identified herself as “part of the #babypeople who are actively using our platforms to speak out about hate, and give you the information you need to not only raise your babies, but to raise them anti-racist. So with that, I recommend y’all consider unfollowing and stop giving your support and $$$ to @TakingCaraBabies, who along with her husband, has been actively donating to Trump and his campaign.”

“We need to out these people, especially because they are profiting off of photos of BIPOC [black, indigenous, people of color] families,” MamaBird added. “I encourage you to share this far and wide!”

This bigot, who automatically assumes, based on no evidence, that Trump is a racist and then slanders anyone with the same lie should they have supported him, is bad enough. She wants to boycott and blacklist anyone who dared back an opponent of the Democrats. You won’t get much freedom of expression under any society that she runs.

What is worse however are the knee-jerk responses from long time fans of Taking Care of Babies, moving quickly to ostracize and destroy this very non-political website. For some reason, crazy and ugly accusations like this must now be accepted with no skepticism or challenge.

Many Instagram accounts moved to blacklist Dumaplin for her political views, assuming that if she supported Trump she must be a hateful racist (even though millions of black and Hispanic Americans voted for Trump). “We as a brand do not stand by these donations and have unfollowed and sent a personal note” to Dumaplin, the Instagram account BigLittleFeelings, which has 1.2 million followers, announced. “If you see something in your feed that is misaligned with your values, create your feed with what you feel is best. For us that meant unfollowing.”

BigLittleFeelings went on to say that the brand dreams of “a world where our next generation, our kids and your kids no matter the color of their skin, their abilities or where they came from, are treated equally. … Empathy, inclusivity, always always.”

Heh. BigLittleFeelings doesn’t appear very empathetic to me, willing so quickly with no evidence to destroy someone. And they are also only one example of the new blacklist mob coming after the Dumaplins. The article at the link gives more.

Hopefully the Dumaplin’s will survive this hate campaign. I am not optimistic. Our modern leftist close-minded culture teaches that no one should be exposed to opinions which they find uncomfortable. Everyone must have a safe space! And if any ordinary American should dare challenge that bubble, they must be destroyed and silenced, now! Freedom of speech is now evil, and most always be squelched!

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Japan’s new H3 rocket is almost ready for launch in ’21

9:32 am

The H3 rocket, jointly made by Mitsubishi and Japan’s space agency JAXA, is almost ready for launch and will be shipped to is launch site shortly for a launch later this year.

According to the link, it will cut the cost of launch by half when compared with Japan’s H2A rocket. They hope this cost reduction will garner them international customers, though I wonder as the rocket is not reusable. To get those international customers they have done something interesting. Rather than putting “Nippon” on the side of the rocket, which is what the Japanese call their country, they have put “Japan” on it instead.

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New leak located in Zvezda on ISS

5:57 pm

Russian astronauts have located the suspected new leak location in the Zvezda module on ISS, and also think there might be another, as yet unlocated.

The specialists have discovered one more crack at the International Space Station and suspect that yet another one exists, ISS Russian Segment head Vladimir Solovyov told Rossiya-24. “So far, we have found one place and suspect another, where as some kind of leak exists. We must bring a powerful microscope on a cargo spacecraft and use to examine this place. We are not totally certain so far,” Solovyov said.

These two leaks are in addition to the one inch crack that caused last year’s leak and has been sealed.

All are pointing strongly to stress fractures in this section of Zvezda, one of the station’s oldest modules at twenty-plus years. The leaks are apparently located in the aft section where ships dock to Zvezda, with over a 100 dockings there since launch.

If the cracks and leaks are caused by stress fractures, the life span of Zvezda is now quite limited. It might be possible to seal the cracks and protect the module from further breaks by ending dockings at its port, but I suspect that will not work. Moreover, if I remember correctly Zvezda has the engines that are used to periodically raise ISS’s orbits. If the stress of firing those engines is too risky than another way must be found to maintain the station’s orbit.

In a few years the private company Axiom will be launching its own modules to ISS, designed in the long run to separate from the station and function independently. If NASA and Axiom are smart, they will make sure this new module matches Zvezda’s capabilities, thus making the Russian module redundant and actually superfluous.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Laura Loomer

2:12 pm

They’re coming for you next: First, before I tell the sad situation that journalist and former candidate of Congress Laura Loomer faces, I want to note that this now daily feature has been renamed. For the past week I have called it “Today’s blacklisted conservative.” I have decided this is not accurate, as the people being repressed, squelched, destroyed, and silenced are routinely people whose opinions fall very much in the center of traditional American philosophy, in favor of freedom, the rule of law and the Constitution, and the equal treatment of all regardless of race, color, or creed.

I thought it more appropriate to note this fact, by pointing out that it is Americans who are being oppressed, not simply conservatives. And the people doing the oppression are so un-American it boggles the mind.

Today’s blacklisted American is Laura Loomer, who for many years was an aggressive investigative journalist willing to challenge corrupt politicians to their face. She ran for Congress in 2020, but unfortunately lost.

Earlier this week she announced on her website that she has discovered she has been placed on a “do-not-buy” list that now prevents her from buying a fire-arm anywhere. As she notes,

While I have NEVER been convicted of a felony, domestic violence, and I’ve never been adjudicated mentally unfit by a judge, my name was placed in the Federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) and I have been prohibited from ever owning or even touching a firearm.

She also notes in this same post that she has been banned from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Paypal, Venmo, GoFundMe, Uber, and Lyft. Chase bank once attempted to shut down her bank accounts.

And during her campaign for Congress, she added that “Comcast blocked my congressional campaign from sending texts and emails to voters while they donated to my opponent.”

On top of this, she found herself hassled by the government thugs of the TSA when she returned to this country last week after spending the last month or so in El Salvador.

I was singled out with no explanation and subjected to a thorough search, I was not allowed to grab my own suitcases from baggage claim, and I was detained for several hours while different federal officials from Department of Homeland Security interrogated me about my Wikipedia page, which states that I am a right-wing extremist and was an official Republican nominee for Congress, endorsed by President Trump. DHS officers also asked me about the events that occurred on January 6th in Washington DC. Needless to say, I was not in the country at the time, and know nothing about the protest at the US capitol.

Welcome Laura Loomer to the new America, ruled by a Democratic Party and helped by quisling establishment Republicans, all of whom apparently hate and fear ordinary Americans — especially those ordinary Americans unafraid to express their dissent publicly — and are willing to abuse their power to oppress such Americans.

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Chinese government gives wrist slap to powerful scientist on fraud and plagiarism charges

9:48 am

In a decision clearing a powerful scientist of charges of fraud and plagiarism in more than sixty papers, several of which have already been retracted, the Chinese government has also allowed that scientist to keep his post as head of one China’s universities.

The Chinese communists did punish him, but in a way that in the long run is mostly meaningless.

Cao [Xuetao, president of Nankai University and an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering] will be barred from applying for national science and technology projects, lose his qualification as a scientific expert, and be forbidden from recruiting graduate students, all for 1 year. The notification also ordered him to investigate and correct the papers. It appears he will keep his job as president of Nankai University, one of China’s most prestigious universities. (On Nankai’s English-language website, Cao is also listed as one of the university’s two chancellors.) Cao did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

In other words, he keeps his powerful post. To get off so lightly you would almost think he worked for the American FBI and had tried to overthrow a legal election. But then, no, it isn’t the same. The FBI officials who managed the Trump coup have actually seen less punishment. China, as corrupt as its communist government might be, in this case actually managed to administer a tiny bit of justice.

This is the future, as the world’s culture no longer honors law and the truth, but power and authority. And those in power will never be brought to justice, because they are above all those little people who serve them.

This also tells you how little you should trust any results coming from a government scientist. Those results might be real, but before you accept them you better go over them with a fine-tooth comb.

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Today’s blacklisted conservative: Professor at Florida University to be fired for wrongthink

12:25 pm

They’re coming for you next: A professor at the University of Central Florida, having taught there for 22-years with exemplary ratings, has now been under a seven-month-long investigation by the university, trying to drum up evidence that he created a “hostile” classroom environment so he can be fired, an investigation sparked by Black Lives Matter protests against him because he tweeted things that fascist movement doesn’t like.

The University of Central Florida is set to fire embattled Professor Charles Negy, accusing him of creating a “hostile” classroom environment, the Orlando Sentinel reported this week.

Negy became a target of intense Black Lives Matter protests over the summer after he tweeted: “Black privilege is real: Besides affirm. action, special scholarships and other set asides, being shielded from legitimate criticism is a privilege. But as a group, they’re missing out on much needed feedback.”

He has since deleted the tweet and a few others that caused controversy at the time, but a petition demanding he be fired had garnered nearly 35,000 signatures and protesters even targeted his home.

The university launched an investigation amid the turmoil and recently concluded Negy is guilty of classroom “misconduct,” the Sentinel reported, adding his termination will take effect Jan. 25.

I especially like the truly despicable manner in which the university gathered evidence against Negy:

A June 4th message posted to UCF’s website from the president, provost, and chief diversity officer addressed the content of Negy’s tweets directly and then stated: “If any student, current or former, believes they may have experienced abusive or discriminatory behavior by any faculty or staff member, we want to know about it. UCF takes every report seriously. Concerns can be reported to UCF’s IntegrityLine, which also takes anonymous complaints.” [Emphasis in original]

Read the whole thing. It is very clear that nothing Negy did in the past was considered misconduct, and in fact his work was rated excellent until this witch hunt, much of it inspired by anonymous slanders against him.

Moreover, reread his quoted tweet above. Nothing he says there is untrue. Nor is anything in it racist. It merely notes that affirmative action and being protected from criticism, as too many blacks today are merely because of their skin color, is not healthy for developing a critical mind. Such policies hurt minorities, not help them.

But then, having such opinions outside the norm of our leftist culture today is verboten, and will not be tolerated. And if you dare defy our political masters they will immediately gather to destroy you, no questions asked.

Negy is about to join the modern leftist blacklist, forbidden to speak and forbidden to work. I also think that if they could make him forbidden to even exist, they would. In fact, I fully expect this mob to go in that direction, given time.

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An empty Biden inauguration for a false victory

11:47 am

Comparing crowds at presidential inaugurations
Photos from here.

For those who still think Joe Biden won his election legitimately and with popular support, you need only look at the two screen captures to the right, comparing the crowds at the previous presidential inauguration (at the top) and the crowd today at Biden’s inauguration.

It is also important to note that the Trump crowd in 2017 was totally normal, comparable to every past public inauguration since such events became occasions of grand splendor.

For Democrat Joe Biden, however, the lack of a crowd is essentially unprecedented. While past inaugurations were greeted with large enthusiastic crowds of citizens coming to celebrate the democratic and peaceful transition of power, today’s event was heralded by wartime security, barbed wire fences, military checkpoints, and a military police guard of 25,000 troops. Biden officials claimed this tight security was necessary because of the threat of violence.

I ask however: If 80 million voters swarmed the polls on November 3rd to elect Joe Biden, why does his new administration feel so afraid of the American people? No president in the past was this terrified of taking his oath of office in front of a gigantic crowd. Even Abraham Lincoln did so before a huge crowd in 1865, even as the Civil War still raged, as the photo below shows most emphatically.
» Read more

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Hints that NASA will redo the SLS static fire test

9:52 am

While NASA has not yet announced any decision on whether it will redo the full static fire test of its SLS core stage — following the January 16th abort — there are hints coming from industry sources that the agency is leaning to doing another test.

According to sources at the agency, program managers are in fact leaning toward conducting a second hot-fire test in Mississippi. Due to the need to obtain more propellant at the test site, conduct minor refurbishment to the vehicle, and possibly change the erratic sensor on Engine 4, the agency estimates it will require about three to four weeks before conducting another test.

Based on that schedule, the actual Artemis 1 unmanned flight, now set for November, will likely have to be delayed one month to December, since after the static fire test it will take several months to disassembly and prep the core stage for shipment to Florida and then reassembly it and prepare it for launch. That November launch date was predicated on a successful completion of the static fire test by January.

NASA and Boeing (the lead contractor building SLS) do not have much schedule margin however. They have begun stacking the solid rocket boosters that strap-on to the core stage. Once this is done the boosters supposedly have a life span of approximately one year, which means the launch must occur by about January ’22 though I would not be surprised if NASA waives that use-by-date if it needs to.

I am in a betting mood this morning. Want to bet SpaceX’s Starship completes its first orbital flight before SLS, even though it has been in development for one tenth the time (2 years vs 20) and for one thirtieth the cost ($2 billion vs $60)? I think the odds right now are very very likely. One way or the other, the race will definitely be neck-and-neck.

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Update on China’s pseudo-private commercial launch industry

9:24 am

Link here. Unlike past Space News articles which generally made believe these privately funded Chinese companies were truly private, the article at the link today is very clear about the close supervision maintained by the Chinese communist government over these companies. They might get funding through private investment capital, but everything they do is approved by their government.

A 2014 central government policy shift opened the Chinese launch and small satellite sectors to private capital. Since then around 20 launch vehicle-related firms have been established in China.

These commercial launch companies are being supported by a national strategy of civil-military fusion. This includes facilitating the transfer of restricted technologies to approved firms in order to promote innovation in dual-use technology. The State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) oversees activities.

Provincial and local governments are also providing support for space companies as they look to attract high-end and emerging technology firms.

The initial focus of the article is on iSpace, also called Interstellar Glory Space, which is planning another fund-raising round. This company, whose Hyperbola-1 solid rocket reached orbit for the first time in 2019, is now designing a liquid-fueled rocket whose first stage will be reusable.

The article also gives a quick review of some of the other Chinese companies.

It is all part of the new colonial movement, the international race to gain dominance in space. The competition is presently fierce, and should only become fiercer based on China’s decision to encourage internal competition.

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