Tag: government

Election audit in New Hampshire confirms unreliability of machine tabulators

3:49 pm

Auditors today completed a hand recount of the votes in the town of Windham, New Hampshire and concluded that the count proves the machine tabulators are unreliable and do not produce trustworthy totals.

Hand recount finished & #’s very closely match the hand recount #’s done on Nov 12. Windham voting machine election results are confirmed to be unreliable. @WAuditors still investigating causes & contributing factors.

None of the local results are changed because of these new results, but the audit was done because a hand recount done in November showed serious discrepancies, with the hand count consistently finding more votes for Republicans compared to what was tabulated by the machines.

On Election Night, Republicans swept all four of Windham’s state representative seats. One Democrat, Kristi St. Laurent, fell short by just 24 votes and requested a recount.

But during the recount, the margin between St. Laurent and the Republican candidates changed significantly. The vote totals for all of the Republican candidates in the race increased by about 300, while St. Laurent’s vote count decreased by nearly 100.

While the outcome of the race didn’t change — the four Republican victories from Election Day were upheld at the recount — the change in vote totals raised serious questions for many from both parties.

The audit has now confirmed what the hand count has suggested. Both matched closely, but differed significantly from the machine totals, the numbers of which apparently penalized Republican candidates consistently.

They are now beginning an investigation into what caused the discrepancies. I would say above all the town should dump these machines and replace them with something that can be trusted, even if it means we go back to primitive times and hand count all elections.

5 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: Professor fired for reading anti-slavery novel to students

12:36 pm

Today's modern witch hunt
Burning witches: What St. John’s university wished it could do
to a Jewish professor.

They’re coming for you next: Hannah Berliner Fischthal, a professor at St. John’s University in New York and the daughter of Holocaust survivors, was immediately fired because she read aloud in her literature class a selection from Mark Twain’s anti-slavery book, Pudd’nhead Wilson, that included the “N-word”.

On March 3 she was called into a meeting with HR about her use of the N-word in class, the subsequent discussion of it and a comment she allegedly made about a Black student’s hair. Fischthal said she only made a remark about a student’s head being wrapped up during class and it had nothing to do with her hair.

She said she was also criticized for mentioning her family’s experience in the Holocaust during class.

On March 5 she was suspended pending an investigation she had violated the university’s policy against bias. On April 29 she was fired.

The school had been alerted to her terrible crime of reading accurately from an accurate book portraying the actual culture of the pre-Civil War south by at least one of her students, who apparently was so weak-minded that even hearing this word that-shall-not-be-named was ““unnecessary and very painful.” It didn’t matter to this brainless student that the book was written to condemn slavery and bigotry. All that mattered is that a word of six letters was spoken aloud and she or he was forced to hear it.
» Read more

16 comments

ESA proposes constellation of lunar communications and navigation satellites

11:15 am

The European Space Agency is proposing in this decade to build a constellation of communications and GPS-type satellites, dubbed Moonlight, to orbit the Moon.

ESA is asking two industrial consortia in Europe to define what an integrated sat-nav and telecoms system at the Moon would look like.

It’ll include a constellation of at least three, but probably more, positioning-and-relay satellites to give global coverage, and will likely include some surface beacons, too, to augment the accuracy of the navigation signals.

“The target we have at the moment is that the constellation would be able to allow for an accuracy of 100m and probably better. We think we are able to get to 30m in the first instance,” explained Paul Verhoef, the director of ESA’s navigation department.

The two consortiums are the UK’s Surrey Satellite and Italy’s Telespazio.

It also appears the ESA is proposing making this system available to all lunar exploration missions, whether they be part of the U.S.’s Artemis program or China’s lunar plans. If so, it is commercially smart, as they will have plenty of customers to buy their services.

9 comments

Delays force ULA to replace Vulcan rocket with Atlas 5 on military launch

11:08 am

Because the development of ULA’s new Vulcan rocket is behind schedule, the Space Force has agreed to allow the company to replace it with an Atlas 5 rocket on a ’22 launch.

That mission, known as USSF-51, was awarded to ULA in August 2020 and is scheduled to launch in late 2022. The company had bid its newly developed Vulcan to fly that mission but the vehicle is not going to be ready on time. As a result, the Space Force agreed to allow ULA to launch USSF-51 on the company’s legacy vehicle the Atlas 5.

…Switching vehicles financially penalizes ULA. According to the company, the Atlas 5 is more expensive than Vulcan. Phase 2 provisions allow ULA to change vehicles but at no cost penalty to the government.

This story however is important because of what it tells us about the state of Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine, required by both Vulcan and Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket.

At this moment ULA is saying that the first launch of Vulcan is still scheduled for late this year, launching Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander to the Moon. However, for that launch to happen the rocket requires working BE-4 rocket engines for its first stage. In January Blue Origin announced it had finally completed a full throttle test of that engine after problems lasting several years, and would soon be delivering flight-worthy engines to ULA.

It is now late May, and the article at the link revealed this very significant and somewhat shocking detail buried in the text:

Blue Origin in 2020 delivered pathfinder engines for ground tests but has yet to provide a flight-qualified engine for Vulcan’s first flight. A spokeswoman for Blue Origin said May 20 the company is “on track to deliver BE-4 engines this year.” [emphasis mine]

It seems completely impossible for ULA to launch that lunar lander on Vulcan this year if it does not yet have any flight-worthy engines on hand to incorporate and test in the rocket. Worse, it appears that Blue Origin might not deliver those engines for months yet.

This story thus suggests that we will not see launches of either ULA’s new Vulcan rocket or Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket for a considerable time.

6 comments

China scrubs launch of station cargo freighter again

10:43 am

For the second time in two days China has scrubbed the launch of the first unmanned Tianzhou cargo freighter to the core module of its space station,

As before, the Chinese only said that the scrub was due to unstated “technical issues.”

They will likely try again tomorrow, but that is pure speculation. Without a more detailed report from China, we really have no idea what is happening.

Leave a comment

Moranbong Band – Csardas & Gypsy Airs

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace, who notes,

Talk about an eclectic Evening Pause. “Csardas” was written by Italian, Vittorio Monti, in the early 20th century. “Gypsy Airs” was composed by Spaniard, Pablo de Sarasate, in the late 19th century. Both compositions are inspired by Hungarian music. And the orchestra is North Korean.

The band was organized by North Korea’s Supreme Leader, Kim Jong Un. This performance was from 2012. From the link this interesting tidbit:

In December 2015, Kim Jong-un sent the band to perform in a series of shows in Beijing to improve relations between China and North Korea; these would have been the band’s first performances outside of North Korea. However, the band left Beijing on a scheduled flight to Pyongyang only a few hours before their performance was scheduled. China’s Xinhua news agency stated that all of the band’s performances had been cancelled due to “communication issues at the working level.” The Korea Herald reported that North Korea had cancelled the tour because China had requested that North Korea’s missiles should not be shown during performances.

One comment

China scrubs launch of Tianzhou freighter to its Tianhe station module

12:24 pm

The first launch of a Tianzhou freighter to China’s first module, dubbed Tianhe, of its planned Chinese Space Station (CSS), was scrubbed early this morning for unstated “technical reasons.”

Not only has China’s state-run press or its space agency not revealed what caused the scrub, they have said nothing about a new launch date. This cargo freighter however apparently needs to be in place before the arrival of the station’s first crew, now roughly scheduled for sometime in June.

3 comments

Pennsylvania votes to severely limit governor’s emergency powers

10:48 am

Good news: Pennsylvania voters yesterday soundly approved constitutional amendments that severely limit the emergency powers of their governor, thus preventing the present and future governors from endlessly renewing such powers.

One would give the General Assembly the ability to end or extend a declared emergency without the involvement of the governor, and the other would end a declared emergency after 21 days unless extended by the General Assembly.

Previously, once the governor’s emergency powers were granted they would last for 90 days, and the governor himself could automatically renew them endlessly. This is what Democrat governor Tom Wolf has been doing for the past year. His last renewal however expires tomorrow. It is unclear whether this vote will forbid him from renewing those dictatorial powers again.

The vote however signals to all Pennsylvania politicians the hostility the voters have to these endless emergency powers and the abuse of power that has resulted.

This vote in Pennsylvania also shows us the way to freedom. Reform must come from the states, the cities, and the local school boards, not at the federal level. If enough states make changes to their laws to strengthen their voting systems to prevent what has become almost routine Democratic Party fraud, that party will lose power at all levels. If enough parents get involved in school board activities, the politicization of education for the purpose of leftist indoctrination will end.

Once these things happen, reform at the federal level might finally have a chance.

Good people have got to stop doing nothing. Time is running out. Soon it will be too late for them to do anything.

One comment

Senate revises NASA authorization to protect lunar lander award to SpaceX’s Starship

9:47 am

Even as the full Senate today begins its review of NASA’s newest authorization, the bill has been modified to grandfather in the contract award that NASA gave to SpaceX to build its manned lunar lander using Starship.

An earlier version of the bill had included language inserted by Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) demanding NASA award within 30 days a contract for a second lunar lander. The modified bill extends that timeline to 60 days, but also specifically protects SpaceX’s contract award:

The Administrator shall not, in order to comply with the obligations referred to in paragraph (1), modify, terminate or rescind any selection decisions or awards made under the human landing system program that were announced prior to the date of enactment of this division.

The revised bill still puts NASA in a ridiculous position. Combined with Cantwell’s amendment, the agency will now be forced to name a second lunar lander contract within sixty days. Though it recommends doubling the money for this program ($10 billion over five years instead of ten), it does not actually appropriate it. Moreover, that new budget recommendation is still about one half of what NASA had originally requested in order to fund the construction of two lunar landers.

Not surprisingly, the entire bill [pdf] has become a pork-laden collection of spending put together without any concern for the needs for the nation. Instead, ithe 1,445-page long bill “is the proverbial ‘Christmas tree’ with a Table of Contents that alone is 15 pages” that different senators keep adding items to, making it a hodge-podge of incoherence.

The bill itself however still has to be approved by both the Senate and the House. While this should act as a corrective to make it more sane, don’t expect that. Instead, the more likely result will be that the two houses of Congress will combine together their own personal earmarks into one humongous bill.

3 comments

1st pictures from Zhurong finally released

9:09 am

Zhurong's front view
Click for full image.

Zhurong's rear view
Click for full image.

China today finally released the first images from its Mars rover Zhurong, proving that the rover landed successfully and is operating as planned. The link takes you to the website of the Chinese space agency, in Chinese. This link provides some details in English.

The two images to the right show the front and rear views from Zhurong, sitting on top of its landing. The black & white front view shows the deployed ramps that the rover will roll down when it begins it operational phase. It shows, as expected, the generally flat terrain of the northern lowlands plains of Utopia Planitia. In the distance however there appears to be distinct features, possibly the rim of a small crater. At the moment the exact location of the rover is not known, so no precise map yet exists of its surrounding terrain. This will change in the coming days as both Chinese and American scientists hone in on the rover using orbital images.

The color rear view shows that the rover’s solar panels and high gain antenna have properly deployed. While the design of Zhurong in many ways imitates the two American rovers Spirit and Opportunity (probably because China hacked into the JPL website for several years and downloaded their blueprints), it also includes several upgrades. For example, Zhurong’s solar panels unfold, providing a significantly larger surface area to gather sunlight. Both Spirit and Opportunity were somewhat hampered by the power they could obtain by their smaller solar panels. Both also experienced times when Martian dust on the panels reduced that power. Zhurong’s much larger panels will protect it better from these issues, and could allow it to survive longer on Mars.

2 comments

China’s Long March 4B rocket launches oceanography satellite

12:46 am

China tonight successfully launched a new oceanography satellite using its Long March 4B rocket, completing a three satellite constellation.

No word on whether the rocket’s first stage landed on any villages in the interior of China.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

15 SpaceX
13 China
7 Russia
2 Rocket Lab
2 ULA

The U.S. still leads China 21 to 13 in the national rankings.

Leave a comment

NASA gives an American the seat on Dragon flight that it had been holding for Russian

10:15 am

NASA yesterday announced that it has added an American astronaut to the next manned mission to ISS, set for October.

NASA said that Kayla Barron will join the Crew-3 mission, launching on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft scheduled for launch no earlier than Oct. 23. Barron joins NASA astronauts Raja Chari and Tom Marshburn, and European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer, who had been assigned to Crew-3 last December.

The Crew-3 mission will relieve the Crew-2 astronauts who arrived at the station on another Crew Dragon spacecraft April 24. The four Crew-3 astronauts will remain on the station for a six-month stay.

The space agency had been holding that seat open for a Russian, as part of its long term barter arrangement whereby in exchange for flying Americans on Soyuz capsules, Russia flies Russians on American spacecraft. That arrangement had been used repeatedly when the shuttle was flying, but since its retirement the U.S. has been forced to buy its seats on Soyuz as it had nothing to offer in exchange.

With the arrival of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule however NASA has been trying to get the Russians to renew that arrangement. And though an American, Mark Vande Hei, flew for free on a Soyuz last month, the Russians have as yet refused to assign their own astronaut to this upcoming October flight, despite months of negotiations. It appears NASA decided it could wait no longer, and filled the seat with its own astronaut.

In fact, the announcement by Roscosmos on May 13th that the next two Soyuz launches to ISS will carry two commercial passengers each means that Vande Hei cannot return on a Soyuz until next year. The seat he would have used to come home now must be used by these tourists, meaning his mission will now be extended to last for as much as a full year or more.

Unless of course NASA decides to bring him home on a Dragon capsule instead.

6 comments

China rolls out rocket for next space station launch

10:00 am

The new colonial movement: On May 15th China rolled out the Long March 7 rocket that on May 20th will carry the first Tianzhou cargo freighter to the already launched core module of its space station.

Tianzhou-2 will carry 4.69 tons of cargo in a pressurized segment and 1.95 tons of propellant, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

Meanwhile, the core stage, dubbed Tianhe, has successfully completed its on-orbit checkouts and has placed itself in the right orbit for the arrival of Tianzhou.

If all goes right with this cargo mission, China is targeting a June launch for the station’s first three-man crew, who will attempt to stay at the station for three months.

Do not expect much information to be released by China during these missions. Like the Soviet Union of old, and as they have been doing routinely since their space program began to gear up in the past decade, they will only make periodic terse announcements, all of which will contain only the most superficial of information. Only much later will more be learned, usually many years after the fact when its news value has vanished and it only concerns historians and space buffs.

Leave a comment

Texas: No masks, no restrictions, now no COVID deaths!

3:24 pm

Surprise! Surprise! Two months after lifting business restrictions and mask mandates, Texas reported yesterday no deaths linked to COVID.

Once again the fear-mongers were wrong. Biden called the officials in both Texas and Mississippi “neanderthals” for their decisions to end lockdowns and mask requirements. Others predicted a wave of deaths that would boggle the mind.

Instead, cases of COVID dropped quickly, to actually reach zero for the first time in fourteen months. Though I am sure there will be new coronavirus cases and deaths, that the numbers dropped after removing the stupid lockdowns and mask mandates is just another illustration of how failed a policy those lockdowns and mask mandates were.

Nor is any of this a surprise to anyone who has read this website for the past year. I have been saying from day one that the lockdowns were a terrible mistake, and that the mask mandates were not only useless but possibly very counter-productive. As another writer noted today, “The Neanderthals were right.”
» Read more

10 comments

Where is China’s Zhurong Mars rover?

2:13 pm

Where is Zhurong?

At this moment we do not have confirmation that China’s rover Zhurong landed safely on Mars. Assuming it did, the mosaic to the right, made from two images from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s (MRO) context camera, shows that landing zone, with the white cross indicating the centerpoint of the suspected landing site, as leaked to the Chinese press back in October 2020.

The red boxes are the only two images released by China that were taken by its Tianwen-1 orbiter of this landing zone. The two white boxes show the areas covered by two of the seven or so photographs taken by MRO’s high resolution camera since that location was revealed. Below is a map showing all the images MRO has taken of this location.
» Read more

24 comments

Why no visual confirmation of the landing on Mars of China’s Zhurong rover?

12:03 pm

Despite more than 48 hours having passed since China announced the successful landing of its Zhurong rover on Mars in the northern lowland plain of Utopia Planitia, no images or data of any kind has been released by that nation or its space agency.

It is very possible that this is totally expected, since they have always said they will need about a week of checkouts before they rollled the rover off the lander and begin its operations.

At the same time, China has been very very creative with providing early images for all its planetary missions. For example, within hours of landing they had released images from their Chang’e-5 lunar sample return lander. Similarly, only hours after Chang’e-4 landed on the far side of the Moon with its Yutu-2 rover China released images.

They did the exact same thing when Chang’e-3 landed in 2013 with its Yutu-1 rover.

I can’t imagine they don’t have some cameras on the Mars lander to snap pictures of the horizon or the ground directly below. They might not, but if so the lack would be truly astonishing.

It is also possible China is holding the data close for any number of political reasons, though this doesn’t make much sense since the whole political point of these planetary missions is to sell China to the world.

The more time that passes with no confirmation data, the more it will appear that something is wrong. If this conclusion is incorrect, China needs to act now to dispel these doubts.

13 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: Space Force officer fired for criticizing Marxism and condemning bigotry

11:12 am

Twitter's idea of debate
Show trials: What America’s Space Force apparently wants.

Blacklists are back and the military’s got ’em: Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier, a fourteen year veteran of the Air Force who became one of the first officers in the Space Force, has been fired by his superiors because he wrote a book criticizing Marxism and compounded that sin by repeating the criticisms, along with criticisms of the undeniable bigotry of critical race theory, on a public podcast.

From a military pr officer:

“This decision was based on public comments made by Lt. Col. Lohmeier in a recent podcast,” a Space Force spokesperson said in an email. “Lt. Gen. Whiting has initiated a Command Directed Investigation on whether these comments constituted prohibited partisan political activity.”

Lohmeier’s temporary assignment in the wake of his removal was not immediately clear. [emphasis mine]

In addition, Amazon has decided to shadow ban Lohmeier’s book, Irresistible Revolution.

Irresistible Revolution has debuted in a strong position and as of this writing, it is #2 and #3 in military policy on Amazon, despite the fact that within hours of Lohmeier being relieved of his command, the book was no longer searchable on the publishing giant’s website. Only a direct link to the book’s page works at this time. It is available at Barnes & Nobles and other online booksellers such as Hudson and AbeBooks.

Lohmeier notes that he wrote the book entirely on his own time. He also informed the military of its existence and offered to have them review it before publication. The Pentagon said such a review was not required.

So what exactly did Lohmeier say that made his superior, Lt. Gen. Steven Whiting, believe he was participating in “partisan political activity”? From the Military.com come article:
» Read more

11 comments

China’s Zhurong rover successfully lands on Mars

10:45 pm

The rover landing site for Tianwen-1's rover

The new colonial movement: China’s today successfully landed its Zhurong rover on the northern lowland plains of Mars dubbed Utopia Planitia.

China’s lander and rover began their descent to the surface at about 4:00 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT) by separating from the Tianwen-1 orbiter, which since March has been used to capture imagery of the targeted landing site for study. An aeroshell protected the stacked probes as they plunged into the atmosphere at 3 miles per second (4.8 km per second), generating tremendous heat in the process.

Once inside the atmosphere, while traveling at supersonic speeds, the spacecraft deployed a 2,150-square-foot (200 sq. meter) parachute to slow its approach to less than 328 feet per second (100 m per second). China based the canopy design on the parachutes it has used on Shenzhou missions to return astronauts to Earth.

Finally, the Tianwen-1 lander fired thrusters similar to the type on China’s Chang’e lunar landers to make the final descent. A laser range finder and a velocity sensor helped guide the craft as it hovered at about 328 feet (100 m) to identify obstacles and measure the slopes of the surface before touching down safely.

We don’t yet know the exact touchdown point. The image above is a mosaic of two wide angle photos from the context camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), with the white cross marking the spot previously leaked by the Chinese press as the landing site. The white box shows the area covered by the only high resolution MRO photo, as of October 2020. Since then MRO has taken a number of additional high resolution images of this area. The red boxes are the areas covered by the only two high resolution images released by China from its Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter

Note that the rover is actually not yet on the ground. It still sits on the lander. A ramp will be deployed and it will then roll down on the ground to begin what China says is a planned 90 day mission, with the most important data likely coming from the rover’s ground penetrating radar, looking for underground ice.

32 comments

SpaceX in FCC filing outlines first orbital flight plan for Starship

9:40 am

The flight plan for Starship's first orbital flight
Click for full images.

Capitalism in space: This week SpaceX filed the flight plan for the first orbital flight of its Starship/Superheavy rocket, taking off from Boca Chica and landing in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.

The images to the right are from the filing, which also states:

The Starship Orbital test flight will originate from Starbase, TX. The Booster stage will separate
approximately 170 seconds into flight. The Booster will then perform a partial return and land in the Gulf of Mexico approximately 20 miles from the shore. The Orbital Starship will continue on flying between the Florida Straits. It will achieve orbit until performing a powered, targeted landing approximately 100km (~62 miles) off the northwest coast of Kauai in a soft ocean landing.

No date is listed as yet, though the filing suggests they are aiming for a launch before the end of the year. It also appears that though both Starship and Superheavy will make controlled vertical landings, both will target locations in the ocean. It could be that SpaceX plans to place its two refurbished oil rigs at both of those locations, but this is not stated in the filing.

Achieving this flight before the end of the year remains a serious hill to climb, though if any company could do it, SpaceX is the most likely.
» Read more

8 comments

Tampering and serious discrepancies found in Arizona election audit

4:00 pm

The audit of the more than two million votes cast in Maricopa County, Arizona, in November 2020 is not yet complete, but auditors in the past week have revealed that they have already uncovered significant evidence of tampering and major discrepancies that throw great doubt on the victory given to Joe Biden.

First, the auditors forced the county election board to admit that the voting machines were not protected by a password at the administrative level, thus allowing anyone to change anything on every machine, during the vote count.

That doesn’t prove fraud or election tampering, it only proves that it was amazingly easy for it to happen.

Second, it appears from further work that something very fishy was going on. The auditors for example have discovered that Maricopa County officials illegally tampered with the voter database records before turning them over to the auditors, including the deletion of an entire database.
» Read more

48 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: Conservative commencement speakers at all American universities

11:24 am

Today's modern witch hunt
Burning witches: What most colleges want to do to conservatives.

Blacklists are back and academia’s got ’em: Though for years universities have routinely favored leftist or Democratic Party politicians in picking their annual graduation commencement speakers, 2021 is turning out to be a record year in academia’s effort to blackball conservatives.

In its annual survey, Young America’s Foundation [YAF] said that of the 100 top schools that have identified their speaker, 37 are featuring notable and national liberals and one a conservative. By comparison to other years, the group said that 2021 may be the worst-ever showing for conservatives.

You can see the full list here [pdf]. As noted at the YAF announcement,
» Read more

5 comments

Senate committee mandates NASA award 2nd lunar lander contract

9:25 am

More crap from Congress: A Senate committee has approved a new NASA authorization that requires the agency to award a second lunar lander contract — in addition to the one given to SpaceX — even though that authorization gives NASA no additional money to pay for that second contract.

This provision was inserted by senator Maria Cantwell (D-Washington). Washington state also happens to be the state where one of the rejected companies, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, is located. I wonder how much cash Bezos’ has deposited in Cantwell’s bank account.

This provision not only does not give NASA any cash to build two lunar landers, what NASA dubs the Human Landing System (HLS), it forces NASA to violate other laws.
» Read more

21 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: Mom criticizes school board, gets blacklisted by Facebook & Instagram, fights back and wins

11:49 am

The Bill of Rights cancelled at Facebook and Instagram
Doesn’t exist at Facebook or Instagram.

Blacklists are back and Facebook’s got ’em: When Gordana Schifanelli, a mother in a Maryland school district who is also an immigrant from communist Yugoslavia, created webpages criticizing the pro-Black Lives Matter indoctrination being introduced in the schools by school superintendent Andrea M. Kane, both Facebook and Instagram moved quickly to censor her, while others attempted to destroy her career.

The response from Big Tech and leftists in her community would have made Tito proud, Mrs. Schifanelli said referring to Josip Broz, the late dictator of Yugoslavia.

First they shut down her personal Facebook page.

“So I said, ‘OK, I’ll create my own,” she said. Facebook and Instagram shut down the “Kent Island Patriots” and “Maryland Eastern Shore Patriots” pages, too. When her 17-year-old son tried to start a Facebook page, he was blocked, she said.

The people seeking to censor Mrs. Schifanelli’s opposition to left-wing politics, many of whom did not have children in the public school system, attacked her as a racist. They leveled their accusations with the Maryland Bar Association and at the U.S. Naval Academy, where she teaches economics and law twice a week.

Another target of theirs did lose his job, and he is a plaintiff in a separate lawsuit.

Unlike many of the other stories I have chronicled in this daily column, this one has ended with what looks like a total victory for Mrs. Schifanelli.
» Read more

27 comments

NASA: Commercial demand exceeds supply at ISS

9:03 am

Capitalism in space: According to NASA officials, the number of private commercial tourist flights being proposed exceeds the availability of docking ports at ISS.

“We are seeing a lot of interest in private astronaut missions, even outside of Axiom,” said Angela Hart, manager of commercial low Earth orbit development at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. “At this point, the demand exceeds what we actually believe the opportunities on station will be.”

Opportunities for private astronaut missions are limited by what NASA calls the “traffic model” for the ISS, or the schedule of vehicles arriving and departing the station. Commercial crew missions are limited to two docking ports on the station, one of which is occupied by the vehicle that transported the current long-duration crew on the station. The other is used by commercial crew vehicles during crew handovers, cargo Dragon missions and private astronaut missions.

That restricts the opportunities for private astronaut missions. “About two is about all you fit in there with the rest of the traffic,” Dana Weigel, deputy manager of the ISS program at JSC, said.

The solution should be obvious to all. Private launch companies that wish to use ISS have to launch either their own docking ports, or their own modules with docking ports. This is Axiom’s plan, with its own module scheduled to arrive sometime in ’24. A secondary solution would be for private companies to launch their own space stations, independent of ISS. This would not only sidestep the problem of the bottleneck at ISS, it would free such a company from the charges NASA imposes for using ISS.

Meanwhile, it appears that Axiom is countering those new NASA’s charges for its ISS flights. From the article:

Thanks to an exchange of services between NASA and Axiom, it will actually be NASA paying Axiom for the Ax-1 mission. While Axiom is acquiring services such as crew supplies and on-orbit resources, NASA will be purchasing “cold stowage” space on the Crew Dragon spacecraft to return cargo to Earth at the end of the mission. NASA will pay Axiom $1.69 million for the mission, although Hart noted there will be other charges to Axiom for training and launch services, some of which are still being negotiated.

Suffredini said that, on later missions, Axiom will seek to reduce its reliance on NASA services. “We have a goal that, by after our third flight, we will provide all of those kinds of capabilities” that it is currently purchasing from NASA.

I wonder if that third flight will occur after the launch of Axiom’s module.

4 comments

The atomic hydrogen in Mars’ atmosphere

10:14 am

Atomic hydrogen in Mars' atmosphere, as seen by Al-Amal

The two photos to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, were taken by the ultraviolet spectrometer on the UAE Mars orbiter Al-Amal (“Hope” in English) on April 24 and April 25.

During the 10 hours 34 minutes between the images, the Hope probe moved from being over the planet near noon and viewing the entire dayside (top) to being over the planet at dusk and seeing both the day and night side (bottom). These images will be used to reconstruct the 3D distribution of hydrogen and learn more about its production through the process of splitting water molecules by sunlight and its eventual escape to space.

This data will eventually allow scientists to more precisely measure the total water loss to space that Mars’ experiences annually, which will also allow them to determine approximately how much water the planet has lost over the eons.

2 comments

NASA and Axiom finalize contract for private tourism flight to ISS

9:38 am

Capitalism in space: NASA today announced that it has signed the order detailing the first commercial tourism flight to ISS by Axiom, set for no earlier than January ’22.

The spaceflight, designated as Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1), will launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and travel to the International Space Station. Once docked, the Axiom astronauts are scheduled to spend eight days aboard the orbiting laboratory. NASA and Axiom mission planners will coordinate in-orbit activities for the private astronauts to conduct in coordination with space station crew members and flight controllers on the ground.

Axiom will purchase services for the mission from NASA, such as crew supplies, cargo delivery to space, storage, and other in-orbit resources for daily use. NASA will purchase from Axiom the capability to return scientific samples that must be kept cold in transit back to Earth.

SpaceX will transport the four Axiom astronauts to and from ISS in a Dragon capsule, as yet undetermined.

According to yesterday’s Space News article, the contract for this flight had been signed prior to NASA establishing its new much higher prices for the use of ISS.

Leave a comment

NASA officially increases prices for commercial use of ISS by 700%

11:07 pm

Capitalism in space: Though there were some revisions to the price list that NASA released in March, the revised price list for use of ISS by private companies and released at the end of April did not change significantly, and now officially increases prices for commercial tourist flights to ISS by about 700%.

The price list can be found here.

The result of the new policy is a much higher price charged by NASA to companies conducting private astronaut missions. Under the old policy, the life support and crew supplies for a hypothetical four-person, one-week mission to the ISS would cost $945,000, a figure that doesn’t include stowage, data or power. Under the new policy, the cargo, food and supplies charges for the same mission would be more than $2.5 million at the low end of the quoted cost ranges, plus $10 million in per-mission fees.

These prices will not apply to the Axiom commercial tourist flight scheduled for early ’22 because that contract was signed beforehand. Nor do they apparently apply to any visits to the private module that Axiom is building to attach to ISS.

Nonetheless, these prices will almost certainly drive business away from ISS and NASA, especially because many of these costs, such as the upmass and downmass cost of passive cargo, should really be charged by the private commercial companies, SpaceX and Boeing, that are providing the transportation. NASA has nothing to do with that and is merely skimming some money off the top of other people’s achievement.

Expect therefore more free-flying tourist missions that do not dock with ISS, such as SpaceX’s Inspiration4 flight scheduled for launch in September. We should also expect an acceleration in the construction of private stations that will compete with NASA and likely charge less.

6 comments

Long March 5B core stage falls to Earth

5:44 pm

Around 10:15 pm (Eastern) the Long March 5B core stage reentered the atmosphere over the Arabian Peninsula, with pieces landing in the Indian Ocean north of the Maldives to the southwest of India.

China has attempted to minimize its behavior here, claiming that most of the rocket burned up and that the chance of any damage was low. Big deal! If you are a responsible spacefaring nation you don’t build rockets that are designed to do this.

Remember, at least three more Long March 5B launches are scheduled in the next the years. As presently designed all will dump that core stage somewhere on Earth in an entirely uncontrolled manner.

8 comments

Long March 5B booster reentry prediction narrows again

9:30 am

Long March 5B landing prediction, May 7, 2021
Click for original.

The Aerospace Corporation has once again narrowed the reentry window for the 21-ton core stage of China’s Long March 5B rocket, launched on April 29th, as shown by the map above. The window is now only eleven hours long, centered over a point in the Indian Ocean at just before midnight on May 8th. The yellow tracks indicate its path after that centerpoint, while the blue lines show its path prior to it. Tick marks show five minute intervals.

The last orbit as shown by this prediction puts it over the following land areas. If the core stage crashes 5 to 20 minutes early, it would land anywhere from Spain to Africa. Another fifteen minutes earlier and Florida and Mexico would be in the landing zone. If it lands 45 to 50 minutes later, it will land somewhere on the continental United States.

China however might be lucky with this booster. The centerpoint of the prediction has definitely begun to stabilize around the Indian Ocean.

With future boosters, who knows? China plans at least three more Long March 5B launches, two in ’22 to launch modules for its space station, and one in ’24 to launch a Hubble-class space telescope to fly in formation with that space station. We shall see this same Keystone cop charade on all three flights, with the core stage tumbling out-of-control and falling back to Earth to crash somewhere that cannot be predicted.

10 comments

China Long March 2C rocket launches military satellite

8:55 am

China today used its Long March 2C rocket to put in orbit what it calls a “remote-sensing” satellite that is likely for use by its military.

Launched from an interior spaceport, this rocket’s first stage (using very toxic hypergolic fuels) will fall to Earth somewhere in China’s Guizhou Province. This has been China’s standard operating procedure for decades, sometimes resulting in such stages landing near residential areas.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

13 SpaceX
12 China
7 Russia
2 Rocket Lab

The U.S. still leads China 18 to 12 in the national rankings.

2 comments
1 … 132 133 134 135 136 … 388