Tag: oppression

FAA to now require that reentry spacecraft get landing license before launch

4:05 pm

We’re here to help you! The FAA is now going to require that any company planning to launch a payload or spacecraft into orbit to get both its launch and landing licenses before launch, in order to avoid the situation that occurred last year when Varda launched its capsule and then had difficulties getting its landing license approved due to red-tape confusion between government agencies.

In a notice published in the Federal Register April 17, the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation announced it will no longer approve the launch of spacecraft designed to reenter unless they already have a reentry license. The office said that it will, going forward, check that a spacecraft designed to return to Earth has a reentry license as part of the standard payload review process.

In the notice, the FAA said that decision was linked to safety concerns of allowing spacecraft to launch without approvals to return. “Unlike typical payloads designed to operate in outer space, a reentry vehicle has primary components that are designed to withstand reentry substantially intact and therefore have a near-guaranteed ground impact as a result of either a controlled reentry or a random reentry,” it states.

While this seems to fall directly under the FAA’s basic authority, to make sure launches and landings pose no risk to the general public, I guarantee it is also going to slow the growth of the new space manufacture industry. I fear that with time approvals will be delayed, some so much that companies will go bankrupt waiting for approval. The FAA will never be able to guarantee perfection in this matter, and as bureaucrats tend to be cautious, expect it to increasingly oppose re-entries by new companies.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Former Trump lawyer, already disbarred in California because he took Trump’s case, now blackballed by his banks

11:43 am

Banks blacklisting conservatives
What many banks are now doing to conservatives.

They’re coming for you next: John Eastman — a former Trump lawyer who was fired from a professorship, was banned from speaking at conferences and colleges, is being prosecuted by Fanni Willis in Georgia, and was then disbarred in California, all because he simply made a legal arguement in favor of Trump — has now been blackballed by his banks, USAA and Bank of America.

Bank of America alerted Eastman in September of 2023 that it would be closing his accounts, a letter obtained by the Daily Caller shows. Shortly thereafter, USAA notified Eastman in November that his two bank accounts with the company would be closed, a separate letter shows.

“And then two months later, we get a similar letter from USAA saying that they’ve decided that they’re going to close your account and they did like three weeks later,” Eastman told the Daily Caller. “And so that was where all of our automatic payments were coming out of, all our automatic deposits. So it was a real pain to shift everything. We had to get a new bank account opened and shift everything over.”

It is important to emphasize that Eastman has done nothing wrong. » Read more

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Rocket startup Orbex raises another $16.7 million in private investment capital

9:28 am

The British rocket startup Orbex has raised another $16.7 million in private investment capital, bringing the total it has raised now to over $100 million.

It remains unclear when the company’s Prime rocket will complete its first launch. It now says it will have its rocket and launch facility at the Sutherland spaceport ready by the end of this year, but it had previously hoped to launch the rocket in 2023. It appears that goal failed because the spaceport could not get either the spaceport license or its own launch license approved by the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). Those licenses have still not been issued, even though the applications had been submitted in Feburary 2022, more than two years ago.

Those delays by the CAA probably explains why the company has had four different CEO’s in the past year. Though the fault of the delays lies with the government, others have had to take the blame. Meanwhile, company officials now state that it is now exploring using other launch sites, including its own near the equator.

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Sweden signs Artemis Accords

9:55 am

Sweden yesterday became the 38th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, one day after Switzerland had officially signed.

The alliance now includes the following nations: Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

The press release once again focuses on “reinforcing” the Outer Space Treaty, rather than using the accords to get around that treaty’s limitations of private property. More and more it appears the Biden administration and the global community wants to use this alliance not to encourage the establishment of a legal framework for private ownership, but to retain that power within the governments involved.

As I said last week, “Under these circumstances, I wonder why China and Russia haven’t signed on as well.”

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Obama: The man behind today’s Middle East madness

9:30 am

Considering my present condition (see the previous post), I thought I would quickly put up a link to an excellent essay by Doug Ross detailing how the present instability in the Middle East is all tied to Barack Obama, both during his first two presidential terms as well as his third term manipulating Joe Biden from behind the scenes.

The most telling quote is this, comparing how things changed before, during, and after Donald Trump’s term:

The stunning populist victory of Donald Trump meant a quick demise for many of Obama’s pro-terror policies. It also resulted in the destruction of the ISIS scourge, another terror spawn of Obama’s people and policies. Trump’s pragmatic view of Iran resulted in a demolition of Obama’s nuclear deal as well as termination of various Palestinian terror funding initiatives. Trump’s Abraham Accords remain one of the most dramatic Middle East peace agreements in modern history.

And They’re Back! The instant Trump departed the presidency in 2021, the ostensible Biden administration — led by cadres of Obama acolytes — reactivated funding for Islamist terrorism.

…As part of Barack Obama’s de facto third term, Iran received yet another infusion of cash less as recently as November of 2023. As Majid Rafizadeh put it: “Who needs the Nobel Peace Prize when you can have the Biden War Prize? That’s right, the Biden administration announced last week that it plans to give the Iranian regime another $10 billion in unfrozen assets from Oman.”

The funds are apparently as a small token of appreciation for helping to orchestrate a war in the Middle East and targeting U.S. troops in the region at least 56 times, wounding at least 56 U.S. servicemen, many of whom suffered traumatic brain injuries—in just one month! Where does everyone sign up

Ross concludes by asking what is the reason behind Obama’s obsession in funding this terrorism. The shadow of bigotry and anti-Semitism lurks heavily over everything.

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Remember: The climate data foisted on us by NOAA is based 30% on nonexistent weather stations

2:24 pm

The uselessness of the global temperature record

A story yesterday at Zero Hedge noted once again that the yearly global data that NOAA inflicts on us, each year claiming that a new record has been set as the hottest year ever, is all based on fake data, with about one-third of the data created from weather stations that no longer exist.

The problem, say experts, is that an increasing number of USHCN’s stations don’t exist anymore. “They are physically gone—but still report data—like magic,” said Lt. Col. John Shewchuk, a certified consulting meteorologist. “NOAA fabricates temperature data for more than 30 percent of the 1,218 USHCN reporting stations that no longer exist.”

He calls them “ghost” stations.

Mr. Shewchuck said USHCN stations reached a maximum of 1,218 stations in 1957, but after 1990 the number of active stations began declining due to aging equipment and personnel retirements. NOAA still records data from these ghost stations by taking the temperature readings from surrounding stations, and recording their average for the ghost station, followed by an “E,” for estimate.

This is not a new story. » Read more

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LA Times: Can California’s coastal commission stop SpaceX launches from Vandenberg?

9:48 am

Link here. This article is a follow-up on the story I posted yesterday, about a meeting of the California Coastal Commission where locals demanded and the commission considered measures for attempting to limit an increase in launches from Vandenberg.

The article provides many more details about this political battle. It appears the military, out of courtesy, was letting the commission know that it wants to raise the number of launches to accomodate not just SpaceX but other private companies. It can do so without the commission’s permission, but wishes to work with it.

The commission and the ten or so people at the meeting complaining were exploring ways to block this increase. Though the meeting postponed any action until the next meeting in May, it was clear its commissioners will use the next few months to explore ways to expand their control, including looking for funding sources for initiating court actions.

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Switzerland to sign Artemis Accords

8:56 am

NASA revealed today that Switzerland will become the 37th nation to sign the Artemis Accords in an official ceremony on April 15, 2024.

With this signing, these are the members of the American alliance: Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

The NASA press release is revealing about the goals of this alliance, under the Biden administration, both by what it says and what it does not say:

The Artemis Accords reinforce the 1967 Outer Space Treaty as well as the commitment by the United States and partner nations to the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices and norms of responsible behavior that NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data.

When established by the Trump administration, the accords were not intended to “reinforce the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.” The accords were intended to create an alliance that would have the political clout to overcome that treaty’s limitations on establishing a private property legal framework in space. Right now the treaty seriously impairs investiment because no company has any assurance it will own any piece of ground it occupies.

The press announcement makes no mention of private enterprise, and implies that the Biden administration is aggressively working to eliminate that goal, and instead use the accords as a way to strengthen government control in space.

Under these circumstances, I wonder why China and Russia haven’t signed on as well.

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Activists file lawsuit to prevent land swap at Boca Chica

2:51 pm

The same collection of activists who have been waging lawfare against SpaceX’s Boca Chica rocket facility have now filed a new lawsuit, this time against the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission (TPWD) in order to block an approved land swap that gives SpaceX 43 acres of a Boca Chica state park in exchange for receiving 477 acres nearby.

The South Texas Environmental Justice Network, the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, and Save RGV banded together for a lawsuit filed in the District Court of Travis County on April 3. The suit alleges that Texas Parks and Wildlife violated statutory requirements for the proposal, including the requirement to consider alternatives to giving away public park land; the requirement to ensure the minimization of harm to the public park land; and the requirement to consider the best interests of the local community and TPWD.

These jokers represent very few people in south Texas. Worse, the so-called “Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas” was in Mexico, not Texas, when it existed. The corporation that exists now is a front for filing these lawsuits, taking advantage of the numerous DEI regulations that now exist to favor such minorities.

That the commission approved the swap unanimously, despite heavy pressure from these groups, illustrates the larger support in Texas for what SpaceX is doing. Expect the Texas courts to endorse that support as well. All these suits will do is delay, delay, delay.

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Idiocracy has arrived

1:54 pm

Sheila Jackson-Lee:
“Sheila Jackson-Lee: “The Moon is made up
mostly of gases!””

Over the last few days the conservative press has been having a field day making justifiable fun of a number of Democrats and leftists for exhibiting incredible scientifict ignorance, an ignorance so profound as to be mind-boggling.

First, after the unusual 4.8 magnitude earthquake centered in New Jersey on April 5th, a Green Party senate candidate in New Jersey, Christina Amira Khalil, immediately tweeted, “I experienced my first earthquake in NJ. We never get earthquakes. The climate crisis is real.” The mocking on X was so great she quickly deleted the tweet.

Then, in an incredibly embarrassing segment of the television show, The View, one host, Sunny Hostin, showed off her complete lack of any scientific knowledge when she claimed that the earthquake, the solar eclipse, and even the normal arrival of the cicadas every seventeen years (which she thought happened every hundred-plus years) was evidence that climate change was real.

Finally, to top off this stream of utter empty-headiness, during an eclipse event in Texas, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee gave a speech of such stunning incompetency and lack of knowledge you have to wonder how she can figure out how to put on her clothes each day. This quote has been most often used to ridicule her:
» Read more

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Turkey to join China’s lunar base program

9:02 am

Turkey yesterday announced that it is applying to join China’s program to build a lunar base on the Moon, dubbed the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), becoming the ninth nation in that partnership.

Those nations are Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela. In addition, another nine academic organizations of one kind or another have signed on.

Interestingly, Turkey’s government apparently decided to partner with China after it flew its own astronaut on Axiom’s AX-3 mission to ISS in January, flying in a SpaceX Dragon capsule launched by SpaceX’s Falcon 9. Previously it had also signed a deal with Sierra Space to participate in both its Dream Chaser and Orbital Reef station.

This new agreement suggests the present instability of international politics has forced it to go to its very powerful neighbors. Or maybe Turkey is signing on with everyone, attempting to burn the candle at both ends.

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What are Israel’s strategic military goals with its latest pull back from Gaza?

12:33 pm

Hamas vs Israel
Even the Arabs recognize these facts.
Courtesy of Doug Ross.

Over the weekend numerous news reports announced that Israel had suddenly pulled almost all its troops out of the Gaza strip, apparently abandoning its plan to finish off the last four battalions of Hamas that were hiding out in the southern town of Rafah.

Despite denials by Israel’s military and the Netanyahu government, on the surface it appeared Israel had bowed to pressure from the Biden administration to cancel its invasion of Rafah and instead break off its military offense against Hamas.

I suspect things are much more complicated, and could instead be — as some Israel officials claimed — a tactical maneuver intended to make that military invasion of Rafah more effective while reducing the large number of civilian deaths anticipated because of the more than a million Gazan refugees that have been crammed into that southern city.

The nature of the withdrawal reveals much about its goal:
» Read more

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Pushback: The legislative effort in Texas to end DEI in state colleges is beginning to work

1:19 pm

Bring a gun to a knife fight: When the Texas state legislature passed a law last May (subsequently signed by Governor Greg Abbott) to ban all Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs in state colleges, I expressed some doubts about whether this legislature would work.

The universities have simply been told the money they formally spent on DEI can no longer be spent on such racist operations. Since they have the cash anyway, what will prevent college administrators to create a new office with a new name, let’s call it the “Openness and Support Office”, and hire the fired DEI staffers that have been terminated from a different college. By simply rearranging the chairs, these administrators — who apparently all enthusiastically support DEI’s Marxist and racist program — can recreate it without making it obvious. And the legislature has agreed to give them the funds for doing so.

It appears the house-cleaning is beginning in Texas universities
It appears the DEI house-cleaning is beginning
in Texas’ universities.

Since then, Texas university administrations have been responding to the legislation in a variety of ways, all of which suggest that, though my doubts continue to have merit, the bill is having a laudatory effect. This week the University of Texas at Austin announced that it is shuttering its DEI offices and terminating around sixty people associated with these bigoted programs. From the email announcement by the university president, Jay Hartzell:

[F]unding used to support DEI across campus prior to SB 17’s effective date will be redeployed to support teaching and research. As part of this reallocation, associate or assistant deans who were formerly focused on DEI will return to their full-time faculty positions. The positions that provided support for those associate and assistant deans and a small number of staff roles across campus that were formerly focused on DEI will no longer be funded.

» Read more

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Biden’s anti-Christian Easter proclamation means the Democrats believe their November victory is certain

11:48 am

Biden's proclamation declaring Easter a day to honor the queer agenda
Biden’s proclamation declaring Easter a day
honoring the queer agenda. Click for full proclamation.

The decision by the White House to declare Easter Sunday, the holiest day of the Christian religion, to instead be this year’s “Transgender Day of Visibility”, as shown by the screen capture of his declaration to the right, outraged and insulted millions of religious people throughout the country.

That outrage was further inflamed when the very next day Joe Biden boldly denied he had done any such thing, even though he had done it only one day previously.

“I didn’t do that,” Biden said when asked about proclaiming Easter Sunday ‘trans day of visibility.” Asked about Speaker Johnson’s claim otherwise, the president replied, “he’s thoroughly uninformed.”

Most political analysis of these events has focused on whether these actions suggest Biden is entirely incompetent, or whether it proves that others run things in the White House and that Biden is merely a puppet on a string. In either case, those analyses noted that these actions showed an amazing contempt for the religious community that could only hurt Biden in November.

I see this in an entirely different way. While the decision showed utter contempt of Christians, who consider the queer agenda to be deviant and sinful, it also showed us two things about the Democratic Party leadership, whether Biden or the puppet masters pulling his strings, that should truly terrify every single American who values our democratic republic, its Constitution, and its Bill of Rights.
» Read more

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Boeing’s problems are only the tip of the iceberg

1:25 pm

Most of all beware this boy.’
As noted by the Spirit of Christmas Present in Dickens’ The Christmas
Carol, ‘This boy is ignorance, this girl is want. Beware them both,
but most of all beware this boy.’

Since the beginning of this year, following the near disaster when a door of a Boeing 737-Max airline blew off during the Alaska Airlines flight, the media has been obsessed with reporting every single subsequent Boeing airplane incident as attributed to bad management and quality control at Boeing.

The problem with this shallow reporting is that it fails entirely in recognizing the real depth of the problem.

First, in most of the incidents reported, the planes involved were not recent purchases from Boeing, but had been owned by the airlines for years, sometimes decades. Thus, any maintenance issues, such as a wheel falling off after take-off or a landing gear collapsing on landing or the sudden failure of an Airbus plane’s hydraulic system, are not Boeing’s fault, but the fault of the airline the plane belongs to. In the case of these particular incidents, that airline was United, and in every case, the failure was with its maintenance department, not Boeing’s bad management and poor quality control.

A similar string of incidents has also occurred at American Airlines, involving both Boeing and Airbus airplanes. With both United and American, evidence suggests that the quality of its maintenance staff has likely declined significantly since 2020, when both companies decided to abopt Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) hiring practices, which made skin color and sex the most important qualification in hiring, rather than talent, skill, experience, or knowledge.

It is important for readers to recognize this fact when they see new stories about a Boeing plane forced to make an emergency landing, such as the story today about a United Airlines’ Boeing 787. It apparently had a cracked windshield, requiring an unscheduled landing in Chicago. The article at the link focuses a great deal on Boeing, but the focus should instead be on United Airlines, not the airplane maker, since it is United’s responsibility to keep its fleet flightworthy. When an airline fails to do so, future customers should take note, and consider other options when they need to fly.

In other words, you shouldn’t avoid flying on a Boeing plane, you should avoid flying on airlines that maintain their airplanes badly.

Having said this, I don’t want my readers to think I am trying to let Boeing off the hook. Far from it. » Read more

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Australian spaceport on sourthern coast prepares for launch

11:06 am

Australian commercial spaceports
Click for original map.

According to a report today, the first suborbital launch from a new commercial spaceport on the sourthern coast of Australia is now expected by the end of April or early May.

New launch facilities at the Koonibba Test Range, South Australia’s first permanent spaceport, are almost complete ahead of the impending inaugural launch. Located northwest of Ceduna, the range is a partnership between Southern Launch and the Koonibba Community Aboriginal Corporation. It is the largest commercial testing range in the Southern Hemisphere.

Space Industries Minister Susan Close is today visiting the site ahead of the sub-orbital test launch of German manufacturer HyImpulse’s SR75 rocket, which, subject to final regulatory approval, will go ahead at the end of April or early May. The rocket will reach an altitude of 50 kilometres before parachuting back to Earth where it will be recovered for testing.

Southern Launch, marked on the map to the right, is on south coast of Australia. Two other Australian commercial spaceports also under development are noted on the northern and eastern coasts.

We shall see if this suborbital launch occurs as planned. Recently the evidence has suggested that Australia’s regulatory state is as bad as the United Kingdom, taking forever to issue licenses for private launches.

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March 29, 2024 Quick space links

3:25 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

 

 

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Arizona city shuts down church program that fed the hungry for the last 25 years

2:43 pm

Nieves Riedel, mayor of San Luis, Arizona
Nieves Riedel, mayor of San Luis, Arizona, and
very hostile to churches feeding the hungry

They’re coming for you next: In 2022 a new mayor and administration arrived in San Luis, Arizona, and immediately thereafter the food program of Gethsemani Baptist Church in San Luis, Arizona, came under harassment, with repeated citations and bureaucratic demands that it limit its operations, to a point that the threatened fines (more than $4,000) and potential jail terms for its pastor forced the church stop the program, despite operating peaceably and acceptably for a quarter of a century.

After new officials took over in San Luis, the city sent a letter last fall ordering the church to stop using semi-trucks for food delivery at its property. Attempting to resolve the order, the church offered to use smaller trucks. The city denied the request and told the church it must stop the food ministry entirely. These limitations make it functionally impossible to carry out the ministry in the same way.

Since receiving the city’s letter, Pastor Jose [Castro] had to significantly cut back on the food ministry. He’s tried to continue feeding the hungry as best he can under these limitations. But this wasn’t enough for the city of San Luis and its new Mayor, Nieves Riedel. Just a few weeks ago, while Pastor Jose passed out emergency food supplies to a small group of people at the church, a city code enforcer showed up unannounced and issued him four citations. Less than a week later, when a third party parked a truck in front of the church for just five minutes, the code enforcer returned and issued Pastor Jose four more citations. Not only will Pastor Jose have to pay fines in municipal court, each future violation may result in criminal charges.

These aggressive tactics have now forced Gethsemani to pause its ministry, as the church and Pastor Jose cannot afford the heavy fines or to relocate. Because of the City and Mayor Riedel’s intimidation tactics, the church cannot feed the hungry. That means people are going hungry right now.

» Read more

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Japan awards development agreements with four rocket startups

1:14 pm

Capitalism in space: Japan’s space agency this week awarded development agreements to four Japanese rocket startups, signaling that nation’s attempt to shift from depending on JAXA’s government-built rockets to becoming a customer of an industry of competing commercial rocket companies.

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Interstellar signed a basic agreement in March. Space One, whose Kairos solid rocket exploded seconds after liftoff earlier this month, was also selected under the JAXA-SMASH (JAXA-Small Satellite Rush Program) initiative. Two further companies also signed basic agreements. These are Space BD and Mitsui Bussan Aerospace, which offer services aimed at the commercial utilization of space.

The agreements mean the companies will have priority for future contracts. These are designed to support private-sector entities capable of launching satellites developed under JAXA’s small satellite missions and advance the commercialization of space transportation services.

These deals are part of a new policy announced in November that includes $6.6 billion to help encourage the growth of a Japanese commercial space sector, independent of that nation’s space agency.

It remains uncertain whether JAXA will let go the purse strings and actually allow these new companies ownership of what they do. The deals as described sound like the agency is using its power to attempt to capture the companies, rather than encourage their independent growth.

We shall have to wait and see. On its face this announcement is very good news for Japan’s space industry, as it suggests that things might be changing.

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A detailed look at the international partners for China’s Moon base

1:03 pm

Link here. The article provides a nice summary of who has signed on to China’s project to build a Moon base in competition with the American Artemis project, prompted by the announcement that an astronomical association in Colombia has now signed on.

The contrast is stark between the nations that have signed the Artemis Accords to participate in the American project (36 so far) and the entities that have partnered with the Chinese. China at present only has seven partner nations (Belarus, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Russia, Venezuela, South Africa, Egypt), only one of which, Russia, has any space capabilities. The remaining nine partners are all academic organizations of one kind or another, all of which also have little or no major space capabilities.

Essentially, these partners are mostly PR by China to make it appear it has an international team. In reality almost all of its lunar project will be done by China. China doesn’t even expect Russia to contribute that much. As the article notes, “China has regularly omitted any mention of Russia as an ILRS partner” since the Russia invaded the Ukraine in February 2022. Before then Russia’s ability to accomplish much of anything new in space had long been questionable, and since then the doubts have escalated.

Though many of the nations who have signed the Artemis Accords are as weak, the list also includes almost all the world’s major players in space, such as France, Germany, India, Japan, and Luxembourg.

Like the Cold War, the western capitalist alliance is larger and more capable, because no one really wants to join an partnership that discourages freedom and private enterprise.

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Part 3: The expected tantrum of madness should Biden actually lose the election

1:48 pm

The Democratic Party: hostile to freedom and fair elections

For the past two days I have tried to lay out some of the illegal and immoral strategies and tactics of the Democratic Party in its relentless effort to guarantee a win in this year’s presidential election, no matter what. (For the first two parts, go here and here.)

The bottom line is that Democratic Party politicians and their allies in the press and big tech will stop at nothing to prevent Donald Trump from regaining the White House. They will cheat, lie, encourage riots and looting, censor and blacklist their opponents, and in the end, even commit election and voter fraud on a massive scale.

But despite all this, what if Donald Trump still ends up victorious? Right now a rational look at both the polling trends and the disastrous consequences of Joe Biden’s presidency all suggest the American public is screaming for a change. The historic shift in the black and hispanic populations to Trump and away from the Democratic Party underlines these trends quite clearly. These trends are further underlined by the presence of two different moderate-left alternative presidential tickets, both drawing the bulk of their support from the Democrats.

In the end, this data tells us that it is very likely that none of the chaos and violence and fear-mongering and vote tampering by the Democrats will work, that in the end Donald Trump will emerge as the winner.

How will this now very close-minded and very vicious Democratic Party respond when that happens? The signs tell us that they can no longer tolerate defeat, or even the existence of alternative parties. (For example, consider the relentless effort by the Democrats to legally squelch these alternative parties from the ballot box.) For them, “democracy” only exists when they win.

We should therefore expect these terrible things to happen in short order after election day.
» Read more

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Members of Texas Space Commission unveiled

9:27 am

The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, yesterday revealed the names of the 18 individuals who will head the Texas Space Commission, created by the legislature to encourage the development of that state’s commercial space industry.

The Texas Space Commission will be tasked with developing a statewide strategy that promotes innovation, creates incentives (including grant funding) and develops workforce training. They initially have $350 million to work with, $150 million budgeted for grants and $200 million for a new research and training facility built by the Texas A&M University System.

The Texas Aerospace Research and Space Economy Consortium, which is part of the Texas Space Commission, will identify research and development opportunities and find ways to further integrate space into the Texas economy.

The commission appears strongly made up of representatives from many commercial companies, including the big companies SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing as well as a number of newer smaller companies. Linked as it is so closely with the state government, this commission will be well placed to eliminate any obstacles within the state to commercial development.

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Pushback: Smithsonian to pay Catholic students $50K and publicly apologize for ejecting them from Air & Space for wearing pro-life hats

5:25 pm

The evil hat that Air & Space banned
The evil hat that Air & Space officials banned

Bring a gun to a knife fight: The Smithsonian has agreed to pay twelve Catholic students $50K and publicly apologize to them for ejecting them from the Air & Space museum last January because they were wearing pro-life hats.

That hat is to the right. Though many others were wearing t-shirts and hats with other political statements, museum officials singled these students out for harassment and ejection. According to their lawyer,

Once in the museum, they were accosted several times and told they would be forced to leave unless they removed their pro-life hats. The group all wore the same blue hat that simply said, “Rosary PRO-LIFE.” Other individuals in the museum were wearing hats of all kinds without issue.

The museum staff mocked the students, called them expletives, and made comments that the museum was a “neutral zone” where they could not express such statements. The employee who ultimately forced the students to leave the museum was rubbing his hands together in glee as they exited the building.

According to the settlement deal [pdf]:
» Read more

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Part 1: The expected upcoming election chaos caused by the left’s hatred of any opposition

4:33 pm

The Democratic Party: hostile to freedom and fair elections

The kerfuffle this week at MSNBC because NBC had hired former Republican National Committee (RNC) chairwoman Ronna McDaniel is important not because of what eventually happened (MSNBC quickly announced McDaniel was banned though she would still appear on NBC), but by what it reveals of the left’s political class.

Democrat politicians everywhere, both pretending to be journalists at MSNBC as well as within the leaders of the Democratic Party, complained that it was unacceptable to hire a former Republican Party leader, simply because she had dared express opinions and conclusions they disagreed with.

“The free and independent press is fundamental to our democracy and has and continues to face unprecedented attacks by Donald Trump and his lackeys – including Ronna McDaniel – to chip away at its credibility and allow space for MAGA lies and deceit,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison fumed in a statement. “There should be no debate about the truth in our political discourse. Ronna McDaniel is a proven liar, and has no place in an honest and objective conversation about the future of this country.”

Gee, I don’t remember anyone complaining when NBC hired Chuck Todd, who hosted fund-raising events for Hillary Clinton and whose wife is a major leftist strategist who did campaign work for Bernie Sanders. Nor did anyone complain when ABC hired George Stephanopoulos, a longtime Democratic Party campaign worker who was a major player in Bill Clinton’s campaign. Nor did any of these so-called journalists complain about these hires:
» Read more

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UK Space Agency proudly grows

9:27 am

The United Kingdom Space Agency today announced that it is opening four new offices in four different cities, giving it a brand new headquarters as well as a total of five regional offices.

The new HQ at Harwell is due to open in June, while offices at William Morgan House in Cardiff and Space Park Leicester will open in April, with the office at Queen Elizabeth House, in Edinburgh, opening later in the summer.

In addition, the agency will retain its offices in London and Swindon.

Will this expansion alleviate the serious red-tape issues in the United Kingdom that killed Virgin Orbit and have delayed launches at its two new spaceports in Scotland? I have my doubts. The licensing problems in the UK have centered on the number of different agencies and offices that must issue approvals to private space companies. While it might make sense for the UK Space Agency to hire more people, if anything it should be streamlining its operations to one central place.

It appears instead that this bureaucracy is doing what all government bureaucracies do, expanding and growing at the cost of private enterprise. I don’t see how opening many different small offices can possibly help make the licensing procedure faster or easier.

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Australia moves to make skin color and sex more important in hiring space engineers than skill or knowledge

9:18 am

A new industry group, established with full support of the Australian government, has been formed to encourage the hiring of minorities and women in that nation’s space industry, merely because they are minorities and women.

The Australian Space Diversity Alliance (ASDA) said it aims to support senior leaders and minimise the barriers that marginalised groups face. It comes after a series of reports have shown the sector is lagging behind others in regard to gender disparity, and alongside a talent shortage critics say can only be overcome with a more diverse intake.

ASDA was founded by eight industry figures, including Defence Council of Victoria’s Anntonette Dailey, ANU’s Dr Cassandra Steer, and Raytheon’s Linda Spurr. Defence Connect is one of the group’s industry partners, alongside five state governments, the iLAuNCH Trailblazer initiative, and communications agency The Write Space.

It makes the typical and very bogus claims of these Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs that because woman comprise only 20% of the people in the space industry and minorities only 5%, bigotry must be involved. And the only solution is more bigotry, by favoring applicants from those groups even it they are less qualified than others.

The possibility that women and minorities might simply not be interested in doing this work is a reality that these race hustlers simply can’t tolerate. No, if women and minorities aren’t represented at a level we believe appropriate, we will make it so, regardless of skills, talent, knowledge or experience.

Expect the entire Australian space industry to suffer because of this effort.

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Mob of Democrats threatens violence against conservative students at the University of Memphis

11:55 am

Democrats in Georgia in 1915, lynching Leo Frank
Democrats in Georgia in 1915, lynching Leo Frank

In a now typical display of the modern leftist protest movement, a mob of Democrats threatened to kill attendees at a Turning Point USA event at the University of Memphis on March 20, 2024 where Kyle Rittenhouse was scheduled to appear.

A savage mob terrorized conservative students attending a Turning Point USA event featuring Kyle Rittenhouse at the University of Memphis. The mob literally chased conservative students shouting obscenities and violent threats. Several students who had been attending a campus Bible study were also caught up in the melee. Eyewitnesses say the mob made direct threats against TPUSA leadership. Radical black activists cheered the chaos. There are no reports of arrests. The TPUSA group later found refuge in a nearby safe house

When Rittenhouse attempted to give his speech, he was shouted down and forced to go directly to Q&As. Though it seemed from at least one clip that this Q&A proceeded with some civility (though interspersed with many angry catcalls from the crowd), it ended abruptly after thirty minutes, which according to Rittenhouse was because they had a hard cut off time.

At the first link are numerous videos showing that mob in all its glory, one of which is embedded below. It shows several attendees of the event being escorted into the building by police, as the mob surrounds and chases them, shouting curses and threats.
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Is the Republican Party finally doing the election due diligence it should have been doing since 2020?

1:31 pm

The Republican Party: Finally waking up?
The Republican Party: Is it finally waking up?

Too late is better than nothing: Three stories in the past week suggest that after almost four years of twiddling its thumbs, the Republican National Committee (RNC) is finally beginning to do the hard work necessary to prevent Democratic Party vote tampering in the 2024 election.

This new apparently aggressive approach began almost immediately after Michael Whatley and Lara Trump took over as co-chairs of the committee from Ronna McDaniel, who for seven years seemed incapable of achieving anything beneficial for Republicans, or conservatives for that matter. In addition, a new chief of operations, Chris LaCivita, was brought in.

Four days after these people took over they did a complete house-cleaning of the staff at the committee.

As we reported Monday night, political director Elliott Echols and one of his top staffers, Tripp Looser; communications director Keith Schippert; Mike Mears (chief of staff to former co-chair Drew McKissick); and the lead data director were all given their walking papers. We also reported at that time that an email went out to staff from Sean Cairncross, LaCivita’s number two, stating that all existing vendor contracts were going to be reviewed.

We now know that every one of the RNC’s regional political directors, state directors, RNC Community Center staffers, and members of its election-integrity team were fired. Some of those let go were informed that they could reapply for their old positions, and the rest were simply let go but paid until the end of March.

This article also outlines the major restructuring of the entire committee management staff and programs. Included in these changes was the hiring of two people to coordinate the committee’s election integrity legal effort.

LaCivita brought in Charlie Spies, one of the most experienced Republican election law attorneys out there, as chief counsel, and former Trump attorney Christina Bobb as senior counsel for election integrity.

The arrival of Spies and Bobb has apparently resulted in immediate action, in two states, with more predicted. Two days after these changes the committee sued Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson for failing to maintain proper voter rolls, as required by law. One week later the committee followed up with a similar lawsuit against Nevada’s secretary of state Cisco Aguliar. As noted in the introduction to the Michigan lawsuit (available here [pdf]):
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SpaceX’s next Superheavy/Starship launch, according to SpaceX

10:06 am

According to SpaceX’s CEO, Gwynne Shotwell, the company hopes to be ready to fly its fourth orbital test flight of Superheavy/Starship in about six weeks, and will not attempt to deploy any Starlink satellites, as I speculated earlier this week.

“We’ll figure out what happened on both stages,” she said, not discussing what may have gone wrong with either, “and get back to flight hopefully in about six weeks,” or early May. She added that the company doesn’t expect to deploy Starlink satellites on the next Starship launch, as some had speculated. “Things are still in trade, but I think we’re really going to focus on getting reentry right and making sure we can land these things where we want to land them.”

The story however provided one very important tidbit of information about the launch license process from the FAA. Kelvin Coleman, FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation, noted that after the second test flight in November 2023 “the company completed that report in several weeks.”

That statement confirms my conclusion in late December that SpaceX had been ready to launch in early January, but couldn’t do it because the FAA had to spend another two months rewriting SpaceX’s investigation report.

We should therefore not be surprised if the same thing happens on the next test flight. Shotwell says SpaceX hopes to be ready to launch in early May. That means it will likely submit its report to the FAA around then. Expect the agency to then spend at least one to two months retyping the report, as it has done now after both the first and second flights.

Based on this information, we should now expect the fourth flight to occur sometime in the June-July timeframe, with July more likely.

I am sure that the people at the FAA want to move as quickly as possible. I am also sure their bosses in the White House are demanding they dot every “i” and cross every “t”, with meticulous care, so that things cannot move as fast as desired. That has been the pattern since Joe Biden took office, and I have seen no evidence of that changing now.

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Make no mistake, Israel is about to begin the final defeat of Hamas in Gaza

1:38 pm

Hamas vs Israel
Even the Arabs recognize these facts.
Courtesy of Doug Ross.

If anything should illustrate the bankrupt, mindless, stupid and out-of-touch mentality of the leaders of the Democratic Party, it has been the efforts recently of President Joe Biden and Senate Majority leader Charles Schumer (D-New York) to push for a major slow-down or even shut down of Israel’s war against the murderous Hamas leadership and its minions in Gaza.

Biden wants Israel to slow down and to limit its offensive and not move into the last Hamas stronghold in its southern city of Rafah. Schumer has called for new elections in Israel to remove Netanyahu, who Schumer called “an obstacle to peace.”

Both, along with many members of their party, are presently considering ways to punish Israel if it defies them and invades Rafah, including withholding military aid.

Both men are actually excellent examples of the majority of the modern Democratic Party, willing to excuse rape and murder of women and children, if it furthers their political agenda. Both want the American Muslim vote, and are willing to tolerate any evil by Islamic terrorists to get it. In fact, it is very likely that they are doing this because of a strong undercurrent of anti-Semitism and Jew-hate within their party ranks.

What these leaders of the Democratic Party do not understand at all is that Israel is no longer interested in compromising with them, with Hamas, or with any Islamic terrorists anywhere. As Netanyahu made clear in his response to these calls this past weekend, Israel is moving forward in this war, and nothing is going to stop it.
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