Tag: government

Russian Progress freighter successfully launches to ISS

11:20 pm

Using its Soyuz-2 rocket Russia tonight successfully launched a new Progress freighter to ISS.

The spacecraft will take two days to rendezvous and dock with ISS, thus delivering 2.5 tons of cargo.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

48 SpaceX
45 China
18 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 68 to 45 in the national rankings, though it now trails the rest of the world combined 72 to 68.

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Pushback: Nationwide group fights university blacklisting of those who refuse COVID shots

11:49 am

No College Mandates logo

Bring a gun to a knife fight: A new group, dubbed No College Mandates, is now campaigning nationwide against the effort of universities to blacklist anyone who has not gotten any COVID shots.

Formed in December 2021, the organization recently launched a protest letter campaign to colleges that still require the vaccine and boosters and have “forced these young adults into compliance,” according to a news release.

“We decided to target colleges because they were among the first educational institutions mandating vaccines,” Lucia Sinatra, co-founder of the group, told The College Fix via email. “Colleges have known since August 2021 that the virus can transmit equally between unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals yet they mandated boosters and some have begun to mandate the bivalent booster,” she said.

The organization has sent its protest letter to over 300 colleges. The letter to Yale is typical, noting in detail how the CDC has now admitted that the jab does not stop transmission and that the mandates were pointless. Yet the college still insists that teachers, students, and visitors all must get the jab, plus at least one booster. As the letter notes, these senseless rules do nothing to prevent the Wuhan flu, while normalizing blacklisting.
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China’s Long March 5B rocket with new space station module is now at launchpad

10:16 am

China’s Long March 5B rocket had now been rolled out to its launchpad, carrying the new Mengtian module for China’s Tiangong-3 space station.

The launch is presently scheduled for October 31, 2022. Assuming China has not upgraded the engines on the rocket’s core stage, that stage will tumble back to Earth, uncontrolled, sometime in the following week. Since it is large enough to survive re-entry, it will hit the ground, thus threatening every habitable location under its orbital path. By allowing this to happen China violates the Outer Space Treaty, to which it is a signatory.

Nor will this likely be the last time China does this. Though this module completes China’s station, as presently designed, this will not be the last Long March 5B launch. China plans to use it put its Hubble-class space telescope into orbit, as well as other things.

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ISS dodges space junk from Russia’s November 2021 anti-satellite test

9:46 am

In order for ISS to avoid one of the approximately 585 pieces of space junk still in orbit that were produced when Russia destroyed its defunct Cosmos 1408 satellite in a November 2021 anti-satellite test, engineers fired the engines of a docked Progress freighter yesterday for just over five minutes.

Without the burn the debris would have flown within three miles of the station, too close for comfort or anyone’s margin of error.

According to a report in September, of these 585 pieces, most will burn up in the atmosphere by ’25, with only 38 pieces left afterward to pose a threat to other operating satellites and manned spacecraft.

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Virgin Orbit gets UK marine license for its Cornwall launch

9:26 am

Virgin Orbit has been issued its marine license from the United Kingdom for its planned October 29, 2022 launch from Cornwall, the first such orbital launch from the British Isles.

Virgin Orbit proposes to conduct a maximum of one launch in 2022 and approximately two launches per year over the next 8 years (January 2023-December 2030).

The licence issued by MMO covers the 2022 launch, the first of its kind in the UK. As there is material to be deposited into the sea that will be loaded in the UK, the activity requires a marine licence from MMO, as required by The Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009.

The ever-growing reach of government bureaucracy is worldwide. Though Virgin Orbit’s airplane, carrying the LauncherOne rocket and its seven smallsats, is taking off from Cornwall, the release of that rocket will not occur until it is over the Atlantic, with the expendable first stage falling into the ocean west of Portugal. Yet somehow the company must get permission of these UK bureaucrats — as well as American ones — to fly.

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Who and What to vote for in Arizona in 2022

12:01 pm

Liberty enlightening the world
The citizen is sovereign, and your vote demonstrates that power

I first posted my election choices in Arizona on October 11, 2022, the day before the start of early mail-in voting in this state. However, I am now posting my choices again because there were two propositions (#128 and #130) then that I was unsure about how I wished to vote. I have now done a bit more research, and made my choices. I think my analysis will be useful to my readers.

I have also included more information about the candidates running.

I want to once again emphasize that though I am not partisan, based on the steady decline of thought in the Democratic Party combined with its increased passion for arresting and violently harassing its opposition, I cannot at present vote for anyone in that party. I wish this was not the case, but I also believe strongly that if American voters throw out as many Democrats as possible in November, it will allow for that party to reform itself. With the defeat of its present leadership, the party will be faced with a stark choice: find new leaders, shift gears, or die (allowing a new party to replace it). With any of these options, the voters would be provided with a new choice in future elections, coming from a different direction.

As a perfect example of the mindless corruption that has now taken over the Democratic Party, witness President Joe Biden’s statement this past weekend throwing his full support behind the castration and mutilation of children in order to change their sex, as advocated by the “trans” movement — which in plain English is a movement of cross-dressers demanding more power over everyone else.

The president denounced Republican states that have passed laws attempting to ban or limit sex change surgeries and transition treatments – like hormone blockers – for children who identify as non binary or transgender. Biden spoke with a panel of six progressive activists for the NowThis News presidential forum on Friday, which aired on Sunday. One of the six panelists was TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney who is documenting their transition from a male to trans woman.

When asked if red states should have the right to pass laws limiting access to gender-affirming treatments, Biden said: ‘I don’t think any state or anybody should have the right to do that.’

‘As a moral question and as a legal question, I just think it’s wrong,’ the president added.

This corruption in the Democratic Party has also made the Republican Party unreliable, which is why the Republican slate in Arizona is so important. All of the state’s major candidates (governor, senate, secretary of state, attorney general) are not from the established party. They are mostly Trump outsiders, who are running on platforms calling for major reform. Giving them all a win will send shockwaves throughout the political landscape, on both sides of the political aisle. The establishment controlling both parties might finally realize they must pay attention to the citizens of the country, not their own wishes.

All these factors suggest that this is a truly significant election. or as Doug Ross noted in this excellent essay:

This is our generation’s fork in the road and the stakes of our decision could not be higher. If we are to protect our society from the inevitable decline and despotism that has infected so many societies since the beginning of time, in whom should we trust? If we are to shield our children from the tyranny against which our founders fought and so many Americans shed blood, in whom should we put our faith?

I contend that we must fight the anti-Constitutional counter-revolution using every political tool at our disposal. We must pledge to return our country to the rule of law, as it was originally defined by our founders and codified in the Constitution. For anything less condemns our descendants to the fate that Thucydides described. The choice is clear. The question is simple.

Which road will you choose?

Thus, below are my updated final election choices. Note too that I have not contributed any money to any of these candidates, nor have I received any money from any candidate or party as well. These opinions are solely my own.
» Read more

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OneWeb paid ISRO about $130 million for two GSLV launches

8:56 pm

It appears that OneWeb agreed to pay India’s space agency ISRO about $130 million for two GSLV launches, putting up 36 satellites on each launch.

When asked how much his business would spend to have 72 satellites launched, OneWeb Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal told reporters in India that it would be more than Rs 1,000 crore.

Rs 1,000 crore translates to about $130 million, which means OneWeb paid about $65 million per launch, which is comparable to SpaceX’s standard Falcon 9 price, before discounts for using previously launched boosters.

It also appears that at present this deal is the only one between ISRO and OneWeb, and that the remaining 576 satellites that OneWeb needs to launch to complete its constellation are still open for others. At present, SpaceX and Relativity have contracts, though it is unclear how many each will launch. I suspect SpaceX will be the majority, since Relativity has not even completed its first test launch. It is also possible that ISRO will get more contracts based on its first launch success.

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Russia launches 4 satellites with Soyuz-2 rocket from Vostochny

8:06 am

Russia yesterday successfully launched four satellites from its Vostochny spaceport, using its Soyuz-2 rocket.

Three satellites were part of Russia’s data relay satellite constellation, and one was the first test satellite of Russia’s proposed low Earth orbit broadband constellation, comparable to Starlink.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

48 SpaceX
45 China
17 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 68 to 45 in the national rankings, but trails the world combined 71 to 68.

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India’s GSLV-Mark3 rocket launches 36 OneWeb satellites

11:58 am

India’s GSLV-Mark3 rocket, its most powerful, has successfully placed 36 OneWeb satellites into orbit. As of this writing, the first 16 of the 36 satellites had successfully deployed.

This was the first international commercial launch for the GSLV rocket, previously used exclusively for Indian launches. It was also the first launch of OneWeb satellites since its deal with Russia was broken off due to the Ukraine war. Though the company had also quickly signed SpaceX to resume launches, I suspect that since half of OneWeb is owned by a major Indian investment company, India was given favored treatment in determining who would launch first.

This was the third successful launch in 2022 for India, the most since that country shut down in 2020 due to its panic over the Wuhan flu.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race remains unchanged:

48 SpaceX
45 China
16 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 68 to 45, though it now trails the world combined 70 to 68.

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NASA buys 3 Orion capsules from Lockheed Martin for $2 billion

10:02 am

Nice work if you can get it! Earlier this week NASA awarded Lockheed Martin a new contract worth $1.99 billion to build three more Orion capsules for its Artemis program.

This order marks the second three missions under the agency’s Orion Production and Operations Contract (OPOC), an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract for up to 12 vehicles. A breakout of these orders includes:

  • 2019: NASA initiates OPOC IDIQ and orders three Orion spacecraft for Artemis missions III-V.
  • 2022: NASA orders three additional Orion spacecraft missions for Artemis VI-VIII for $1.99 billion.
  • In the future: NASA can order an additional six Orion missions.

Under OPOC, Lockheed Martin and NASA have reduced the costs on Orion by 50% per vehicle on Artemis III through Artemis V, compared to vehicles built during the design and development phase. The vehicles built for Artemis VI, VII and VIII will see an additional 30% cost reduction.

Lawdy me! They’ve reduced the price! Lockheed Martin is only charging NASA three-quarters of a billion dollars per capsule on this new contract (after NASA spent about $18 billion for the development of the first six capsules– that’s $3 billion each). And Lockheed Martin will only charge about a half billion per capsule for future capsules! My heart be still.

Meanwhile, SpaceX is designing, testing, building, and will likely launch its reusable Starship manned spacecraft, which could launch about 10 Orion capsules on each launch, for about $10 billion total. Once flying the expected cost per launch will likely be much less than $100 million, with SpaceX claiming it could be as low as $2 million. Even if you add the development cost for these launches, Starship will cost less than Orion by many magnitudes, on its first launch.

I wonder, which is the better bargain? NASA clearly can’t figure it out, and NASA has the smartest, most brilliant people in the universe working for it.

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ESA asks member nations to build lander for Franklin Mars rover

9:47 am

In its most recent request for funding from the member nations of the European Space Agency (ESA), the agency has asked the member nations to finance the design and construction of a new lander for its long delayed Rosalind Franklin Mars rover, replacing the Russian lander that had became unavailable due to sanctions resulting from Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.

According to the BBC (opens in new tab), ESA will request 360 million euros to kickstart work on the new landing system, with additional funds likely needed in subsequent years. ESA has already spent some 1.3 billion euro on the ExoMars program, which also includes an orbiter that has been studying Mars’ atmosphere and surface since 2017. ESA will put the plan in front of delegates of its 22 member states at a ministerial conference in November.

“We will have to wait if the [member states] decide to go forward with the project,” Parker said. “This concept is now proposed as part of the director general’s package within [ESA’s] exploration program for decision at the ministerial [conference].”

If ESA’s member nations agree to this plan, expect the launch of Franklyn to be delayed further. Based on the normal pace in which ESA functions, that lander will take a minimum of five years to design and build (likely much longer). Though ESA is now targeting ’28 for the launch of Franklin, which was supposed to launch this past summer after a two year delay, this plan likely means it will not get off the ground this decade.

Meanwhile, there are now at least a half dozen private companies building lunar landers that could more quickly (and for less money) get a Franklin Mars lander built for ESA. None are in Europe however, which means ESA would rather have this mission delayed years so that it can funnel money to its own contractors..

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Russia’s Soyuz-2 rocket launches two military satellites

9:37 am

Russia today successfully launched from its Plesetsk spaceport two military satellites using its Soyuz-2 rocket.

Russian sources provided little information but it appears the launch was timed to allow these satellites to come close to an American military satellite.

Today’s launch of Kosmos-2561 and 2562 also seemed to mirror the trajectory of USA-326, with the American satellite passing over the cosmodrome roughly at the time of today’s launch.

If the latest launch is an inspector mission, it is possible that Kosmos-2562 is a subsatellite that was released by 2561 shortly after launch, as previous inspector satellites have done. Kosmos-2542 was believed to have been an inspector satellite, although never confirmed by Russia, and later released Kosmos-2543.

The launch was from the interior of Russia. The Soyuz-2 version launched was one with no side boosters, so that only the expendable core stage crashed in Russia.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

48 SpaceX
45 China
16 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 68 to 45, though it now trails the world combined 69 to 68.

The launch of 36 OneWeb satellites by the biggest version of India’s GSLV rocket is right now counting down for a launch shortly. You can watch it here.

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Teachers fired and blacklisted for opposing the queer agenda in childcare and elementary schools

1:01 pm

As I did yesterday, today’s blacklisting column will cover a number of individual stories, this time focusing on the blacklisting of teachers who oppose indoctrinating very young children to the queer agenda. I am reporting more than one story in order to make sure these stories do not fall by the wayside. The harm done to the individuals does not go away, even if the news cycle considers their story stale.

Bright Horizons commitment to Critical Race Theory and the queer agenda, for toddlers
Screen capture from Bright Horizons’ own webpage.
Very clearly, Bright Horizons is determined to teach
Critical Race Theory and the queer agenda to toddlers.

First we have California teacher Nelli Parisenkova, who was fired from her job with the nationwide childcare company Bright Horizons because she for religious reasons refused to read books promoting the queer agenda to 1 to 5-year-old toddlers.

What makes this story especially egregious is the vindictive manner in which Parisenkova was treated. From the lawsuit [pdf]:

The childcare room at Bright Horizons where Ms. Parisenkova works has children’s books on the shelf that promote and celebrate same-sex relationships and marriage. When Ms. Parisenkova first started working for Bright Horizons, her supervisor at the time provided her with an informal accommodation that she would not be required to read books to the children promoting same-sex marriage. However, on or around April 7, 2022, Katy Callas, the director of the location where Ms. Parisenkova worked, discovered Ms. Parisenkova’s religious beliefs in this regard. Ms. Callas, who is lesbian, apparently took personal offense at Ms. Parisenkova’s religious beliefs.
» Read more

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Ukraine officials in direct negotiations with Musk about Starlink

10:22 am

According to the Ukraine’s defense minister, they are now conducting direct negotiations with Elon Musk concerning the cost of using SpaceX’s Starlink constellation as part of its war against Russia.

In an interview, Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said “I know that we will not have a problem” keeping the service active, citing the “personal communication” between Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov and Musk.

Fedorov “is responsible for the digitalization and he has a direct connection with Elon Musk. They have a personal communication, and Mykhailo was really positive” about the situation in their last discussion of the issue, Reznikov said.

I suspect that at some point, the Ukraine will start paying SpaceX some money out of the $20 million per month Musk says it costs. And it will likely draw the cash for those payments from the approximately $50 billion the U.S. has sent it in aid.

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Chandrayaan-3 now scheduled for summer 2023

10:01 am

India’s second attempt to put a rover on the surface of the Moon, Chandrayaan-3, has now been tentatively scheduled for launch in the summer of 2023.

The launch had originally been scheduled for launch in the fall of 2020, but was delayed when India shut down due to the Wuhan panic. Official at ISRO, India’s space agency, had hoped to launch by the summer of 2022, but that proved impossible. They have now delayed the mission a full year.

In fact, all earlier reports had indicated the rover was almost ready. This new delay of a full year suggests that some new issues might have been identified.

The news article at the link also notes that ISRO is now planning two unmanned orbital missions plus four launch abort tests before launching its first manned mission, dubbed Gaganyaan, not two abort tests as previously planned. They are still targeting ’24 for the manned mission.

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Nurses fired and blacklisted for either being white or Christian

2:31 pm

In today’s blacklist story, I tell two different tales, both of long-time nurses of great experience were not only fired from their jobs because one was white and the other was Christian, but are now apparently blacklisted from getting new work for the same reasons.

I tell two stories today because I am finding I have so many blacklist stories in the queue that many are getting dropped because they are getting stale in terms of the news cycle. Since none of these stories are stale to the individuals being persecuted, I feel a need to tell more than one per day, for a few days, just to catch up.

Laura Morgan, blacklisted
Laura Morgan

First we have Laura Morgan, a nurse with 39 years experience. Morgan was fired by her employer, Baylor Scott & White Health, when she refused to take a new anti-racism course required by her employer that specifically accused her of being a racist, because she was white.

Morgan said her “ordeal” began in September 2021 when her company, Baylor, Scott & White Health, directed annual training for clinicians that this year included a course called “Overcoming Unconscious Bias.”

After reviewing the course, she requested a meeting with the nursing director and the human resources manager. Both blew her off.

“The idea of implicit bias is grounded in the belief that white people treat those who aren’t white worse than those who are. It’s part of the woke assumption that society, including healthcare, suffers from ‘systemic racism,’” she wrote. “Accordingly, my own supposed implicit bias, which is a euphemism for ingrained racism, must be rooted out. Not only that, it must be replaced with preferential treatment for the nonwhite.”

“I fail to see how real racial discrimination is justified by my nonexistent racism,” Morgan added.

Morgan also added in a Wall Street Journal op-ed,
» Read more

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NASA approves use of American spacesuits for spacewalks after investigation

10:14 am

NASA this week gave approval to the resumption of spacewalks on ISS, using its American spacesuits, following its investigation into a March incident where one astronaut’s spacesuit became somewhat water-logged.

The agency has now completed a review of the incident, finding that it was not a leak caused by hardware issues. Instead, the water was condensation caused by high levels of astronaut exertion and the cooling setting on Maurer’s extravehicular mobility unit (EMU) spacesuit, NASA officials said.

Though NASA was somewhat vague about the solution, it appears it has simply told astronauts to adjust the cooling setting of their suits to prevent condensation within the suits.

These American suits are very complicated to use, and very expensive. The agency has contracted out for new suits from private companies, but it will be very instructive to see what SpaceX comes up with for the spacewalk suits it is making for the private commercial manned Polaris Dawn mission in the spring of 2023.

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ESA delays first Ariane-6 launch to late in 2023

10:02 am

The European Space Agency has once again delayed the first Ariane-6 launch, shifting it to the fourth quarter of 2023.

Even so, officials warned that this is merely “a planned date,” and that static fire tests of both the first stage and second stage must first be completed before the launch can go forward.

Ariane-6 was initially supposed to begin launching in 2020, putting it three years behind schedule. Furthermore, it has struggled to obtain customers, as it is entirely expendable and thus expensive and not competitive with SpaceX’s Falcon 9.

Since Ariane-6 is delayed and the Ariane-5 rocket’s has only a few launches left before retirement, ESA officials also noted that it has now been forced to buy two launches from SpaceX.

The launches include the Euclid space telescope and the Hera probe, a follow-up mission to NASA’s DART spacecraft which last month succeeded in altering the path of a moonlet in the first test of a future planetary defence system. “The member states have decided that Euclid and Hera are proposed to be launched on Falcon 9,” ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher told reporters after a meeting of the 22-nation agency’s ministerial council.

The launches will take place in 2023 and 2024 respectively.

The irony is that ESA is probably going to save a lot of money launching with the Falcon 9, rather than its own Ariane-6. In fact, I would not be surprised if the total SpaceX price for both launches equals one Ariane-6 launch. Furthermore, SpaceX gets this business because its own American competitors, ULA and Blue Origin, have also failed to get their new rockets flying on time.

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Moderna CEO admits to past lies: “COVID is simply the flu, harmless to the healthy.”

12:49 pm

The liar at Moderna
The liar in charge at Moderna

On October 17, 2022 during a news conference, Stéphane Bancel, the CEO of the drug company Moderna, made the following statement about COVID, the so-called plague that allowed his company (and others) to make billions pushing their jabs on a terrified public:

“I think it’s going to be like the flu. If you’re a 25-year-old, do you need an annual booster every year if you’re healthy?

“You might want to… but I think it’s going to be similar to flu where it’s going to be people at high-risk, people above 50 years of age, people with comorbidities, people with cancer and other conditions, people with transplants.”

Gee, where I have heard these exact words for the past two-plus years? Could it have been on this very same webpage, said by me as well as numerous other cool-headed experts who — rather than panicking — looked at the actual data? From my first detailed post about COVID in March 2020, using all the early real data:

The death rate is mostly confined to the older population with already existing health issues, like the flu.

This early conclusion was later confirmed again and again in the months that followed. From September 2020, for example, in citing CDC data I wrote:
» Read more

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JAXA reveals cause of Epsilon rocket failure

9:41 am

Japan’s space agency JAXA yesterday announced the results of its investigation into the launch failure of its Epsilon rocket on October 12, 2022, pinpointing the cause to the attitude control system in the solid-fueled second stage.

After the launch of the three-stage solid-propellant rocket, the first-stage rocket engine worked normally and was detached as scheduled. The second-stage engine showed no combustion problem, but an abnormal attitude was confirmed immediately after the engine used up its fuel, JAXA told a science ministry meeting.

The attitude was off to the lower right by some 21 degrees more than planned, according to JAXA. The space agency judged that the rocket could not enter Earth orbit and sent a self-destruction signal to the rocket 6 minutes and 28 seconds after liftoff.

Analyses of flight and other data showed that one function of a reaction control system, which uses thrusters to control attitude and other factors, did not work after the combustion of the second-stage engine, according to JAXA.

Epsilon is Japan’s attempt to produce a low cost rocket, though it has only launched a handful of times since its first launch in 2013, suggesting it has not been attracting many customers.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Students demand professor be fired for stating a fact

12:01 pm

Professor Christy Hammer: targeted for blacklisting
Professor Christy Hammer: targeted for blacklisting by students

Persecution is now cool! After decades of quiet effort by leftists to eliminate all conservative teachers from the halls of education, we are now seeing the results: Students at the University of Southern Maine are boycotting the classes of one education professor, Christy Hammer, while also insisting she should be fired, simply because she stated in class this basic fact of biology: that there are only two sexes.

Almost the entire class of 22 students walked out, all except one, demanding a meeting to be held with the university’s School of Education and Human Development.

Elizabeth Leibiger, who is non-binary, said she felt ‘under personal attack’ after Professor Hammer said there were only two sexes. “I let her know I didn’t think she was qualified to teach a class about positive learning environments. It’s the ultimate irony,” Leibiger said to Fox News.

A restorative justice meeting was held, but Professor Hammer’s position didn’t change. Two dozen graduate students in the class continued to demand that the university replace Hammer, believing her to be transphobic. Students are now refusing to return to the classroom in which she teaches and will only attend class if a new educator be appointed.

The class is a requirement to complete the graduate-level Extended Teacher Education Program and become a certified teacher in Maine. [emphasis mine]

The university has refused to comply with the students’ demand that Hammer be fired. At the same time, its administrators are also pandering to these thuggish students. First of all, what the heck is “a restorative justice meeting” other than a typical Orwellian 2-minute hate session for these childish students to throw a tantrum. For the college to play that game is shameful. Nor did the college’s pandering end there:
» Read more

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Both the Pentagon and Europe are looking for ways to fund Starlink for the Ukraine

9:13 am

According to an article in Politico today, both the U.S. military and the European Union (EU) are investigating ways in which either could fund the cost for providing Starlink to the Ukraine, rather than remaining a voluntary donation by SpaceX.

The most likely source of funding, several government and industry officials said, would be the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which has been used to acquire a range of weapons and services for the Ukraine war effort.

The Starlink issue also came up during a meeting of the European Union’s foreign ministers on Monday, as the countries discussed whether to contribute funding to ensure Ukrainians keep their access to the service. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told POLITICO after the meeting that EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell raised the subject of paying to keep the service running in Ukraine, but the effort is still in its early stages.

It also appears there are discussions to find a back-up to Starlink. At the moment however the only possible option would be OneWeb, and it is not clear its design would work for the soldier in the field.

Regardless, considering the amount of cash being thrown at military contractors for the war — much of which is likely worthless and simply pork — it seems entirely reasonable to devote some to Starlink, a technology that has actually made a difference.

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ESA looking to SpaceX to launch Euclid space telescope

9:02 am

Capitalism in space: Having lost its Soyuz launch vehicle for its Euclid space telescope because of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, the European Space Agency (ESA) is now looking at SpaceX as a possible option.

At a meeting of NASA’s Astrophysics Advisory Council, Mark Clampin, director of the agency’s astrophysics division, said his understanding is that the European Space Agency was leaning towards launching its Euclid mission on a Falcon 9 in mid to late 2023.

NASA is a partner on Euclid, a space telescope that will operate around the Earth-sun L-2 Lagrange point 1.5 million kilometers from Earth to study dark energy, dark matter and other aspects of cosmology. The 2,160-kilogram spacecraft was to launch on a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana in 2023.

Europe has for years used its own rockets for its science missions. However, right now the Falcon 9 appears the only option. The last launches of Europe’s Ariane-5 rocket are already assigned, and the new Ariane-6 rocket has not yet flown, is behind schedule, and its early launches are also already reserved.

Nor does ESA have other options outside of SpaceX. Of the rockets powerful enough to do the job, ULA’s Atlas-5 is also being retired, and the Vulcan rocket is as yet unavailable. Blue Origin’s New Glenn is years behind schedule, with no clear idea when it will finally launch.

A final decision is expected soon. ESA could either go with SpaceX, or simply delay several years until Ariane-6 is flying.

If SpaceX gets the job however it will once again demonstrate the value of moving fast in a competitive environment. While its competitors have dithered and thus do not have their rockets ready, SpaceX has been flying steadily for years, so it gets the business.

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October 17, 2022 Quick space links

3:55 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who trolls twitter so we don’t have to.

 

 

 

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Blacklisting in academia has been going on for decades unseen

1:04 pm

The output from modern academia
The triumphant result of academia’s long blacklisting of conservatives

Blacklists are back and academia loves ’em: Though the return of blacklisting by Democrats has only become evident and blatant in the past two years, this blacklisting culture against conservatives has been aggressively blackballing such people from academia for decades, largely silently and without any news coverage.

That no one has noticed this blackballing is because until recently this effort hasn’t tried to get conservatives fired. Instead, administrators and faculty heads in colleges nationwide have simply made it a point to not hire conservatives. They blackballed them, and did so silently so that it was difficult to accuse them of any unfair discrimination.

How do I know this? A recent series of surveys performed by the College Fix proves it unequivocally. The data from Cornell University, though extreme, was hardly unusual:
» Read more

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Government to Musk: “Nice business you got here, shame if something happened to it.”

11:46 am

The government to Elon Musk: Nice business you got here.
The press and the feds negotiate with Elon Musk

Over the past week a series of events relating to the Ukraine War, Elon Musk, and Starlink illustrated starkly the growing corrupt, aggressive, and unrestrained power of our federal government and the administration state and press that supports it.

Our story begins in early October when Elon Musk put forth his own proposed solution to the Ukraine War, suggesting that to end the war the Ukraine should cede the Crimea to Russia and forgo its attempts to join NATO, making itself a neutral power instead.

Not surprisingly, Ukrainian officials responded to this somewhat naive though sincere proposal with great hostility. So did the press, the Biden administration, and many in social media.

Then, on October 14, 2022 Elon Musk said that his company Starlink cannot continue indefinitely providing service to the Ukraine, without some reimbursement. At the beginning of the war Musk had made Starlink available for no charge, and it has been an important factor to the Ukrainians in their recent military successes.
» Read more

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Russia launches military satellite using Angara rocket; new global record for launches

9:00 am

Russia today successfully launched a classified military satellite using its new Angara rocket in its Angara-1.2 configuration.

Like ArianeGroup’s Ariane-6, Angara is modular, so depending on the payload’s launch needs, it can have additional strap-on boosters, from none to four. This launch had no side boosters at all.

The launch was the 135th of 2022, passing the record set last year of 134 successful launches for the entire world in one year. In 2022 the record was broken in the last week. This year the record has been broken two and a half months before the end of the year. Based on the number of planned launches for the rest of the year, 2022 is likely to easily exceed 150 launches.

And the reason this number going through the roof is because of the advent of private enterprise, private ownership of rockets, and intense competition. New rocket companies are sprouting up everywhere worldwide, each with their own rocket competing aggressively for business by lowering costs. The lower costs make it possible for more satellite companies to find financing because making money will be easier. This in turn results in more customers for the rocket companies, which encourages more competition which pushes the price down further.

The cycle feeds on itself, and will only end when the full potential of space exploration is reached. And since that potential is literally endless, this growth for the human race is also endless. The only thing that could stop it is if human civilization decides to stop it, intentionally, either from willful ignorance or fear.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

47 SpaceX
45 China
15 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 67 to 45 in the national rankings, but now trails the rest of the world combined 68 to 67.

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China launches military satellite

8:31 am

Using its Long March 2D rocket, China today successfully launched a satellite in its classified Yaogan series, suspected to be for military reconnaissance.

In fact, so little is known about the Yaogan satellites that we aren’t even sure how many were placed in orbit today. Normally a Yaogan launch puts three satellites into orbit (which is what this Space.com article assumes). The story from China’s state-run press above however does not say this at all. Instead, it implies that only one Yaogan satellite was launched.

Regardless, the leaders in the 2022 launch race:

47 SpaceX
45 China
14 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 67 to 45 in the national rankings. It is now tied with the entire world combined 67 to 67. This launch today also brings the launch total this year to 134, which ties the record for the most successful launches in a single year, set last year. With two and a half months still to go, 2022 should end up breaking that record significantly.

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Pushback: Central Florida U forced to end censorship and blacklisting

12:31 pm

University of Central Florida: Hostile to free speech
University of Central Florida: Its hostility to free
speech had better change soon!

Bring a gun to a knife fight: In a settlement late last month [pdf] resulting from an April ruling against it by the courts, the University of Central Florida agreed to end its programs and policies designed to censor and even blacklist students who expressed opinions the university did not like.

The lawsuit [pdf] was brought by the legal organization Speech First, a student membership organization which acts to stop colleges from squelching the first amendment rights of students.

UCF officials agreed to pay $35,000 in legal fees, rewrite a harassment policy and discontinued the bias response team in a settlement with Speech First.

…The settlement “led to the elimination of UCF’s Stasi-like bias response team and ensured that the university’s policies actually consider the fundamental rights of their students,” Cherise Trump, the group’s executive director, wrote in a news release [pdf]. “Our win in the Eleventh Circuit not only set precedent in all of Florida, Alabama, and Georgia, but it also guarantees that universities recognize that the law is not on their side when they want to violate their students’ rights and shut down dissenting ideas.”

The college’s bias response teams were structured to report and punish any student for…
» Read more

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Final decision: Arecibo will not be rebuilt

3:34 pm

The National Science Foundation has made it official: It will not rebuild the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, though it will fund the facility as an education center instead.

Now, the National Science Foundation (NSF), which owns the site, has determined that despite scientists’ pleas, Arecibo Observatory won’t be getting any new telescope to replace the loss. The new education project also doesn’t include any long-term funding for the instruments that remain operational at the observatory, including a 40-foot (12 m) radio dish and a lidar system.

…Instead, the NSF intends to build on the observatory’s legacy as a key educational institution in Puerto Rico by transforming the site into a hub for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, due to open in 2023, according to a statement. The observatory is also home to the Ángel Ramos Foundation Science and Visitor Center, which opened in 1997.

It seems unclear how this education center will function. Will it be a school that students attend? Or simply a type of museum with a visitors center? This new plan appears to call for about $2 million per year in funding, which does not appear enough to do much of anything, other than to keep the lights on and hang some pretty astronomy pictures on the walls.

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