Tag: oppression

Sutherland spaceport submits another revised plan to local council

10:41 am

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea.

We’re from the government and we are here to help you! The long-delayed proposed Sutherland spaceport on the north coast of Scotland has now submitted another revised plan to its local Highlands council for approval.

The amended plans for Sutherland Spaceport include a smaller launch pad and launch services facility, and realigning an access road to avoid an area of deep peat. Highland Council planners said the changes would mean reducing the amount of peat that would have to be excavated by more than half. The soil is seen as important because it absorbs CO2.

Highland councillors meeting next week have been asked to approve the amendments. In a report, officials said the amount of peat to be dug up could be cut from 24,046 cubic metres to 9,895 cubic metres.

This is the second time the spaceport has had to submit revised plans to this council. It did so in December 2023, but apparently the council was not satisfied.

Meanwhile Sutherland’s main launch customer, Orbex, has still not gotten its launch licence from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority, first applied for in February 2022. Orbex, which has a fifty year lease at Sutherland and has built its rocket factory nearby, had planned to do its first test launch of its Prime rocket two years ago. Didn’t happen.

Adding to these bureaucratic delays, Anders Holch Povlsen, a local billionaire — who is an investor in the Saxaford spaceport on the Shetland Islands — in July 2024 filed what appeared to be an absurd harrasment lawsuit against Sutherland, and this was the second time he had done so.

I think Orbex picked the wrong spaceport horse in this race, and is likely going to be killed by this red tape and opposition.

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But will loyal Democrats actually abandon their beloved party? History says no

2:57 pm

The Democratic Party: Given decades of blind loyalty by its supporters
The Democratic Party: Decades of blind loyalty
by its supporters

This week the publication Issues and Insights had a poll taken of registered Democrats to garner some idea of their overall opinion of the Democratic Party’s sudden back-room deal to dump Joe Biden as presidential candidate and replace him with Kamala Harris. The poll asked whether those polled agreed or disagreed with these three statements:

  • The process the Democratic Party used to select its nominee for President did not yield the strongest candidate.
  • The process the Democratic Party used to select Kamala Harris as its nominee was undemocratic.
  • I lost significant faith in the Democratic Party because it did not disclose Biden’s health issues during the primary process.

For Democratic Party politicians, the results should be disheartening at best. A significant majority of the 1,240 registered Democrats polled agreed with all three statements, with 58% agreeing strongly or somewhat with the first statement, 52% agreeing strongly or somewhat with the second statement, and 54% agreeing strongly or somewhat with the third statement. As noted by Scott Pinsker of PJMedia in analyzing the results:
» Read more

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SpaceX rolls out the next Superheavy for sixth test orbital launch

9:59 am

SpaceX in a tweet on October 22, 2024 announced the roll out to the launch tower of the next Superheavy to be used in the sixth orbital test flight, only nine days after that launch tower had successfully caught a Superheavy at the end of the fifth orbital test flight.

Though no launch date has been announced, the company is clearly wants to do it soon. Though its present launch license allows it go when ready, it remains unclear whether it will get that approval from the FAA when requested. FAA upper management has repeatedly indicated a desire to delay its approvals to SpaceX, and until there is a change in the White House — thus forcing a change in that FAA upper management — there is no reason to expect the agency to change its behavior.

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Cyprus signs Artemis Accords

8:57 am

Cyprus today officially became the 46th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, its signing coming one day before the already announced planned signing by Chile tomorrow.

Adding both nations to the list, the American-led Artemis Accords alliance now includes the following 47 nations: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

Should Donald Trump return to the White House it will be very interesting to watch how this alliance evolves in the coming years. The original goal for the accords when started by the Trump administration was to build an alliance with enough clout to overcome the limitations on private property contained by the Outer Space Treaty. Though this alliance is surely now large enough to force those changes, that goal has been mostly pushed aside by the Biden administration. I suspect a new Trump administration will be able to bring it back to life, with added force due to this alliance’s size.

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Have Americans finally awakened? Early voting suggests yes

2:02 pm

Rick, stating the truth in Casablanca
Have ordinary Americans finally awakened to the
anti-American plans of the Democratic Party?

For the past few weeks early voting data from a variety of states has begun to suggest a major shift in what have been the traditional voting patterns for decades. In the past, Democrats routinely dominating early mail-in voting, while Republicans instead went to the polls on election day.

This election season is seeing an almost Earth-shattering change.

Nor are these three states outliers. A look at a nationwide map of early voting shows that Republicans also lead in Georgia and Arizona. Though the overall numbers nationwide show a Democrat-Republican split of 46% to 36%, the number of early votes from Republicans this election is far higher than in the past.

Though caution must be exercised, and we must recognize that these numbers do not guarantee a win for Donald Trump, what the data suggests however is an amazing newfound voting enthusiasm among Republicans. » Read more

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SpaceX asks FCC for license revision for launching nearly 30,000 Starlink satellites

8:51 am

SpaceX on October 11, 2024 submitted a request to the FCC to revise its Starlink satellite license to cover a revised plan for its second generation satellites that includes a request to place 29,988 Starlink satellites in orbit.

SpaceX first requests several amendments to the orbital parameters of its Gen2 system between 340 km and 365km altitude to keep pace with rapidly evolving global demand for high-quality broadband. First,SpaceX amends the inclination of its orbital shell at a nominal altitude of 345 km from 46 degrees to 48 degrees. SpaceX also amends its pending Gen2 application to seek authority to operate satellites in its Gen2 system in two additional orbital shells — at 355 km altitude in a 43-degree inclination and at 365 km altitude in a 28- or 32-degree inclination. The total number of operational satellites will remain 29,988 satellites across the amended Gen2 system.

With the exception of its polar shell at 360 km, which will remain unchanged, SpaceX also amends its application to more flexibly distribute satellites in its shells between 340 km and 365 km than requested in its pending application, specifically, in up to 72 planes per shell and up to 144 satellites per plane. While this reconfiguration will result in two additional shells and a higher maximum number of orbital planes and satellites per plane for all but one shell between 340 km and 365 km, the total number of operational satellites in the Gen2 system will remain 29,988 satellites.

In the company’s previous request for this number of satellites, the FCC had approved only 7,500, the full request still pending. We can expect objections from the other big satellite constellations to this request. The FCC’s response remains unclear. There could be legitimate reasons to limit SpaceX request, but it is also possible politics will enter the decision as well, for illegitimate reasons.

Meanwhile, astronomers are already whining about the problems these Starlink satellites will cause to their ground-based telescopes. It seems these so-called brilliant scientists can’t get it through their heads that astronomy from Earth will become increasingly difficult in the coming years — with hundreds of thousands of satellites planned from many satellite constellations, not just SpaceX — while astronomy from space has always been a better choice anyway. Rather than demand regulation or restrictions on these new satellite constellations, they should be pushing hard to developing new orbiting telescopes, now, for launch as quickly as possible.

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Chile to sign Artemis Accords

8:24 am

NASA yesterday invited the media to attend to signing of the Artemis Accords by Chile at the end of this week.

Chile will be the 46th nation to sign. The full list is as follows: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

Though the Biden administration continues to describe the accords as a means for “reinforcing” the Outer Space Treaty — the opposite of its original intent — a new Trump administration will be well positioned with this very large alliance to force changes in the treaty’s limits to private property and capitalism. All that has to happen is a will to demand it. Some of these nations might balk, but I think most will go along, some quite enthusiastically.

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Donations and applications to Harvard drop significantly

4:44 pm

Harvard: where you get can get a shoddy education centered on hate and bigotry
Harvard: where you can spend a lot of money
and still get a shoddy education

According to Harvard, donations to the university in 2024 dropped more than $151 million from donations the previous year, with other indications that overall donors and students are fleeing the university due to its anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas, racist DEI, pro-plagiarism, and anti-free speech policies.

Total donations were down by $151 million, or 14%, in fiscal 2024 from the prior year. Within that total, donations to Harvard’s endowment fell by nearly $193 million from a year ago, while donations for current use gifts increased by $42 million in that time frame.

The drop in donations won’t leave Harvard bankrupt, as it still has more than $53 billion in its endowment, giving it a strong foundation for survival, in the near term, if donations dry up entirely.

And they might.

Bill Ackman, a billionaire Harvard alum, said in December that Gay’s “failures have led to billions of dollars of canceled, paused and withdrawn donations to the university. … I am personally aware of more than a billion dollars of terminated donations from a small group of Harvard’s most generous Jewish and non-Jewish alumni,” Ackman said.

More significant however was the 17% decline in student applications as of December 2023. Though the numbers still exceeded application numbers from before the COVID epidemic, the drop now suggests students have reviewed the reality of this college versus its fantasy, and are now beginning to reject it.

Eventually Harvard will have to fix its bankrupt DEI policies as well as diversify its faculity so that not every teacher and staff member is a pro-Hamas anti-Semite who considers America the devil incarnate and all western civilization nothing more than an expression of “white supremacy.” (I know I am exaggerating but I also know sadly not by much.) If it doesn’t it will certainly fade from view, as students find more viable colleges, knowing that a degree from this bankrupt university will no longer get them the high level jobs they want.

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Good news: The European Union’s space law is delayed

10:38 am

According to comments by one official of the European Union (EU) at a conference in Italy this week, its proposed space law has been delayed and will not be ready for publication in 2024, as previously promised.

It appears the delay is mostly because of what appear to be complex objections to this law from many of the EU’s many member nations.

Ten of the European Union’s 27 member states “have a full-fledged national space law addressing private-sector operation,” Von der Dunk said. The national laws cover authorization and supervision of commercial activities under Article VI of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

The EU’s authority to promote scientific progress and the industrial competitiveness of member states comes from the 2007 Lisbon Treaty. That authority is limited, though. “The commission has to make an argument why [space law] should be treated at the EU level, as opposed to the national level,” Von der Dunk said. [emphasis mine]

As I noted in April 2024 when the release of the EU’s space law was pushed back until the summer of 2024 (which by the way did not happen), those member nations do not wish to give the EU that authority, as the EU’s track record in these kinds of matters is heavy regulation and a lot or red tape, all designed to give it power and squelch private enterprise.

It appears those member nations are acting to block this law, and appear to be succeeding. My guess is that Germany, France, Spain, and Italy are the main opponents, all of which have their own space laws in place and are now developing viable private commercial rocket and spacecraft companies. They don’t want the EU’s busy hands anywhere close to these businesses, because they expect it to squash them if it gets the chance.

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Commerce loosens regulations, allowing American space companies easier use of international facilities

9:42 am

The Commerce department today announced that it has issued three new rulings that will ease the regulations and licensing procedures that American rocket and satellite companies have to go through in order to launch from international facilities.

The first rule will ease licensing for launches from Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. This will make it easier for American rocket companies to launch from the new spaceports being built in these nations, as well as allow satellite and orbital tug companies to launch their spacecraft from these nations using non-American rockets.

The second rule, still in its interim stage of approval, would ease the export licensing for satellites and spacecraft “to over 40 allies and partners worldwide, reducing licensing requirements for the least sensitive components for most destinations, and broadening license exceptions to support additional National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) cooperative programs.” It appears this ruling focuses specifically on the countries who have signed the Artemis Accords, joining NASA’s Artemis program.

The third rule, which is at present only proposed, will remove from the State Department’s strict ITAR regulations many space-related defense technology, transfering their licensing to the much more relaxed Commerce department. This ruling appears aimed at helping the new burgeoning orbital tug, refueling, and satellite servicing industry, which uses rendezvous and proximity technology that was previously considered military in nature.

While it appears this easing of regulation goes against the Biden administration general policy of tightening regulations, the changes make sense if we recognize that these regulations also loosen access to American technology for many international partners, something this administration favors.

All in all, however, the changes are thoughtfully worked out, and will likely help energize the American space industry without releasing important technology to the wrong nations.

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Sinwar’s elimination is merely one small win in Israel’s new quest for total victory

1:39 pm

Hamas vs Israel
The obvious reasons why killing the leaders
of Hamas and Hezbollah is a good thing.
Courtesy of Doug Ross.

The confirmation today that Israel had finally killed Hamas leader Yahha Sinwar, considered the main architect behind the October 7, 2023 murder, rape, and torture of more than a thousand Israeli men, women, children, and babies near Gaza is good news, but it only is one small victory in what is now clearly Israel’s decision to go for nothing less than total victory against the terrorists who have been hounding and killiing its citizens wantonly for decades.

You see, since the 1973 Yom Kippur war, all of Israel’s responses against terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah have been limited and targeted, and ended quickly with fake ceasefires that allowed those terrorist groups to not only regroup, but actually expand their capabilities.

The most blatent and best example of this what happened in connection with Israel’s 2006 month-long invasion of Lebanon, launched in an attempt to defeat Hezbollah. The invasion bogged down, and as a result Israel and Hezbollah ended up agreeing to UN resolution 1701, which had Israel evaculate southern Lebanon and the UN take on the task of keeping the peace. The agreement also created a demilitarized zone in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah was forbidden.

That agreement was an utter failure. Neither the UN nor Lebanon had the ability or even the desire to limit Hezbollah, and so before long it had made that demilitarized zone a launchpad for rocket attacks into Israel. In Israel’s most recent campaign to clear out that zone, it has also discovered tunnels and large weapons caches clearly designed for Hezbollah’s own planned October 7th-type invasion.

After October 7th, what I labeled Israel’s Pearl Harbor, Israel was clearly no longer going to accept this failed piecemeal and limited negotiating approach, administered by dishonest third parties like the UN and even the United States. Instead, it decided to go by an old American concept of “unconditional surrender,” first made plain by Grant during the Civil War and then underlined by Eisenhower and Roosevelt in their insistence on “total victory” in World War II.

In other words, Israel would only accept a ceasefire or peace treaty if it involved the surrender and capture of the leadership of Hamas and Hezbollah. If they refused to do this, then Israel resolved to kill them.

It has now demonstrated its ability to do so, with gratifying success.

Israel’s military actions since October 7th however also illustrate a major change in strategy and tactics. » Read more

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Musk: We will attempt to catch Starship like Superheavy, “hopefully early next year”

10:23 am

According to a tweet by Elon Musk on October 15, 2024, SpaceX is targeting early 2025 for the first attempt to recover Starship after launch, and to do it the same way it recovered Superheavy, by catching it with a set of launch tower chopsticks.

To do this will require getting that second launch tower at Boca Chica operational. It will also require SpaceX to successfully restart Starship’s Raptor engines in space, something it has not yet done. Once this is demonstrated to work, the company would also have to do another orbital test where Starship is put in a full orbit and then de-orbited precisely to a point over the ocean, demonstrating that such a return can next be done reliably over land.

In other words, a tower catch can only happen after at least two more test flights. Thus, to do it early next year means SpaceX will have to establish a test launch pace of a launch every one or two months. This is actually something Musk has said repeatedly he wants to do, but has been stymied repeatedly by FAA red tape from doing it.

I suspect Musk’s tweet is expressing his unstated hope that a Trump victory in November will force the FAA to ease its bureaucratic interference.

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SpaceX sues California Coastal Commission

9:30 am

Wants to be a dictator
Wants to be a dictator

As promised by Elon Musk, SpaceX has now filed suit against California Coastal Commission, and its commissioners, accusing it of violating Musk’s first amendment rights and using its regulatory power against the company simply because those commissioners disagree with Musk’s political positions.

You can read SpaceX’s lawsuit filing here [pdf]. From its introduction:

[The Commission has engaged in naked political discrimination against Plaintiff Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) in violation of the rights of free speech and due process enshrined in the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. Rarely has a government agency made so clear that it was exceeding its authorized mandate to punish a company for the political views and statements of its largest shareholder and CEO. Second, the Commission is trying to unlawfully regulate space launch programs—which are critical to national security and other national policy objectives—at Vandenberg Space Force Base (the Base), a federal enclave and the world’s second busiest spaceport.

The lawsuit stems from the comments made by the commissioners when then voted against the military’s plan to allow SpaceX to increase its launch rate at Vandenberg spaceport to up to 50 launches per year. In those comments, the commissioners made it clear that the main reason they were voting against the motion was because they were offended by Elon Musk and his political positions, not because the company was doing anything wrong. In fact, the commissioners knew SpaceX was doing nothing wrong. As noted at the first link above:
» Read more

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The evidence strongly suggests FAA top management is working to sabotage SpaceX

2:44 pm

FAA administrator Mike Whitaker today said this to SpaceX:
FAA administrator Mike Whitaker to SpaceX:
“Nice company you have there. Shame if something
happened to it.”

After SpaceX’s incredibly successful fifth test flight of Starship/Superheavy on October 13, 2024, I began to wonder about the complex bureaucratic history leading up to that flight. I was most puzzled by the repeated claims by FAA officials that it would issue no launch license before late November, yet ended up approving a license in mid-October in direct conflict with these claims. In that context I was also puzzled by the FAA’s own written approval of that launch, which in toto seemed to be a complete vindication of all of SpaceX’s actions while indirectly appearing to be a condemnation of the agency’s own upper management.

What caused the change at the FAA? Why was it claiming no approval until late November when it was clear by early October that SpaceX was preparing for a mid-October launch? And why claim late November when the FAA’s own bureaucracy has now made it clear in approving the launch that a mid-October date was always possible, and nothing SpaceX did prevented that.

I admit my biases: My immediate speculation is always to assume bad behavior by government officials. But was that speculation correct? Could it also be that SpaceX had not done its due diligence properly, causing the delays, as claimed by the FAA?

While doing my first review of the FAA’s written reevaluation [pdf] that approved the October 13th launch, I realized that a much closer review of the history and timeline of events might clarify these questions.

So, below is that timeline, as best as I can put together from the public record. The lesser known acronyms stand for the following:

TCEQ: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
NMFS: National Marine Fisheries Service (part of NOAA)
FWS: Fish & Wildlife Service (part of the Department of Interior)

My inserted comments periodically tell the story and provide some context.
» Read more

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Army successfully completes one-year commercial satellite pilot program

10:05 am

Capitalism in space: The U.S. Army has now successfully completed a one-year pilot program whereby it purchased the use of commercial communications satellites from both Intelsat and SES, rather than attempt to build and launch its own satellites.

Under the pilot, the Army selected satellite operators Intelsat and SES to provide “satcom as a managed service,” a model where the provider handles all satellite communications functions — from setup and maintenance of equipment to network management and technical support — through a subscription-based contract.

The project, officially completed on Sept. 30, is now raising questions about whether the Department of Defense will expand its reliance on commercial satcom providers for long-term military communications needs. David Broadbent, president of Intelsat’s Government Solutions, said that while the pilot program demonstrated the efficiency of managed services, it is still uncertain if the Army will fully embrace this model for future satellite communications (satcom) procurement.

It appears that the Pentagon’s bureaucracy is uncomfortable with the idea, and is resisting expanding the program beyond this one test. For decades the military has designed, built, owned, and operated its own satellites. That approach has created a very large job-base within the military that feels threatened by the idea of out-sourcing this work to the private sector. That approach however has also in the last two decades done a poor job of providing the Pentagon the communications satellites it needs on time and on budget.

Whether the Pentagon will change to this new approach, as NASA mostly has, will likely hinge on who wins the election in November. A Harris administration will likely provide little guidance one way or the other, but will also likely take the side of the bureaucrats in power now. A Trump administration is much more likely to force a change.

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Even as the left ramps up its effort to cancel Columbus, new DNA data suggests he was born of Jewish parents

12:07 pm

What Philadelphia thinks of Columbus
How Democrats in Philadelphia celebrated
Christopher Columbus in 2022, placing
a box over his statue so no one could see it.

Now we know why the anti-Semitic left has been striving for years to cancel Columbus: New DNA analysis of the remains of Christopher Columbus now strongly suggests his ancestry was Jewish and that he might even have come originally from Spain, not Italy as has been long claimed.

“We have DNA from Christopher Columbus, very partial, but sufficient. We have DNA from Hernando Colón, his son,” [said forensic expert Miguel Lorente]. “And both in the Y chromosome (male) and in the mitochondrial DNA (transmitted by the mother) of Hernando there are traits compatible with Jewish origin.”

Around 300,000 Jews lived in Spain before the ‘Reyes Catolicos’, Catholic monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand, ordered Jews and Muslims to convert to the Catholic faith or leave the country. Many settled around the world. The word Sephardic comes from Sefarad, or Spain in Hebrew.

After analysing 25 possible places, Lorente said it was only possible to say Columbus was born in Western Europe.

Though these results do involve a lot of uncertainties, they are very intriguing and indeed quite possible. If Columbus was born Jewish he would have had to convert in order to have any chance of obtaining work in Catholic Spain. He would have also done everything he could to keep secret his Jewish ancestry.

As this is Columbus Day, which for almost a century has been an American holiday to celebrate this greatest of explorers who changed human history, it is not surprising that this news was released just last week. It is also not surprising that the campaign to cancel Columbus continues.
» Read more

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Uzbekistan signs Outer Space Treaty

9:15 am

More than a half century after the Outer Space Treaty was written and put into force in 1967, Uzbekistan’s legislature in August approved joining the treaty, with the nation’s president signing that legislation this week.

By joining this treaty, Uzbekistan aims to strengthen cooperative relations with developed nations, accelerate the transfer of space-related technologies, and ensure that its space activities are conducted in accordance with international law and its national interests.

By signing the law the country — formerly part of the Soviet Union — is better positioned to sign joint agreements with other nations, either with China’s lunar base partnership or the American Artemis Accords (as presently being structured by the Biden administration).

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Estonia signs Artemis Accords

8:55 am

NASA yesterday announced that Estonia had become the 45th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, the bi-lateral treaty created during the Trump administration initially to overcome the Outer Space Treaty’s limits on private property and ownership.

The Biden administration appears to be working to de-emphasize those goals, and in fact to instead strengthen the Outer Space Treaty. From this press release (and similar to statements in all recent press releases):

The accords are grounded in the Outer Space Treaty and other agreements including 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.

The full list of nations is as follows: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

It is interesting to note that Estonia as well as Lithuania, Armenia, and the Ukraine were once part of the Soviet Union (against their will). Similarly, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia were once part of the Soviet bloc, also against their will. It appears they want to ally themselves with the west, with one reason their fear that Russia might invade them as it has the Ukraine. It also could be that these nations agree with the Trump administration’s original goals, and wish to promote capitalism and private property, having experienced for decades the failures of communist and authoritarian rule.

The future goals of the Artemis Accord alliance will demand entirely on who wins the presidency in the elction in November.

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Musk says SpaceX will sue California Coastal Commission

8:42 am

In a tweet on X on October 12, 2024, Elon Musk said that SpaceX will sue the California Coastal Commission for violating his first amendment rights as soon the court opens tomorrow.

“Filing suit against them on Monday for violating the First Amendment,” he wrote, adding: “Tuesday, since court is closed on Monday.”

At least two commissioners had made it very clear in public statements at a hearing last week that they were voting against a Space Force request that would increase the number of launches at Vandenberg because they opposed Elon Musk’s political positions, not because the request would do any harm to the coast. The commission then rejected the request 6-4, with others claiming that SpaceX should have made the request directly rather than have the Space Force do it.

The vote remains non-binding, as the Space Force has the legal power to do whatever it wants at Vandenberg, and only works with the commission as a courtesy.

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FAA approves launch license for tomorrow’s SpaceX Starship/Superheavy launch

12:24 pm

Superheavy being captured by the tower chopsticks at landing
Artist rendering of Superheavy being captured by
the tower chopsticks at landing. Click for video.

The FAA today announced that it has finally approved a launch license for the fifth test launch tomorrow of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy, and that this approval applies to the next few launches as well, assuming the FAA or other government agencies or politicians don’t attempt to nitpick things again.

The full written re-evaluation [pdf] released today is somewhat hilarious, in that it spends 61 pages essentially concluding that SpaceX’s proposed actions were already approved by the 2022 Environoment Reassessment [abbreviated PEA by the FAA], spending page after page detailing why a license should be approved based on that 2022 reassessment. After wasting more than two months essentially retyping the 2022 conclusions, this report concludes ludicrously:

The 2022 PEA examined the potential for significant environmental impacts from Starship/SuperHeavy launch operations at the Boca Chica Launch Site and defined the regulatory setting for impacts associated with Starship/Super Heavy. The areas evaluated for environmental impacts in this WR [written reevaluation] included noise and noise compatible land use and biological resources.

Based on the above review and in conformity with FAA Order 1050.1F, Paragraph 9-2.c, the FAA has concluded that the modification of an existing vehicle operator license for Starship/Super Heavy operations conforms to the prior environmental documentation, that the data contained in the 2022 PEA remains substantially valid, that there are no significant environmental changes, and all pertinent conditions and requirements of the prior approval have been met or will be met in the current action. Therefore, the preparation of a supplemental or new environmental document is not necessary to support the Proposed Action.

In plain English, SpaceX is doing nothing to require this bureaucratic paperwork, but we have insisted on doing it anyway in order to justify our useless jobs while acting to squelch free Americans from getting the job done as they wish. As Musk so rightly put it last month, “It takes longer to do the government paperwork to license a rocket launch than it does to design and build the actual hardware.”

Despite this approval, we must emphasize that this action has now set a very bad precedent for the future, When SpaceX makes changes to its flight plans on future test launches — something that is guaranteed as the company incrementally improves the design — the FAA will almost certainly shut things down again as it spends months once again determining that nothing is wrong.

Either way, stand by for tomorrow’s test launch, lifting off at 7 am (Central time). I have embedded the Space Affairs youtube live stream below, since SpaceX’s live streams on X don’t allow one to stand by, and will only go live 35 minutes before launch.
» Read more

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Study proves that more than a decade after passage the promises of Obamacare were all a pack of lies

1:30 pm

Figure 1 from the study, and possibly its most damning datapoint
Figure 1 from the study, and possibly its most
damning datapoint. ACA stands for Affordable
Care Act, Obamacare’s official name.

A new study comparing the promises made about Obamacare by President Barack Obama and the Democrats in 2010 with the real world results more than a decade later shows that either those promises were a pack of lies, or were pushed by politicians so ignorant of the basic facts of economy that we would have been better off having the legislation written and approved by blind voles.

“Obamacare has failed in every particular – it failed to make health care more affordable; it failed to improve the health of Americans; it piled on an enormous amount of additional debt on taxpayers; it has principally enriched massive insurance company conglomerates, and it now serves as a major impediment to real heath care reforms that would empower patients and doctors,” Phil Kerpen, American Commitment and Unleash Prosperity president and one of the study’s co-authors, told the DCNF. “As we show in this paper, every single promise that was made to pass this law turned out to be false.”

You can read the actual study here. From its executive summary:
» Read more

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California officials: SpaceX shouldn’t be allowed to launch from Vandenberg because we hate Elon Musk

10:11 am

In voting yesterday to reject a plan by the military to increase the number of launches at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, members of the California Coastal Commission admitted openly they did so because they do not like Elon Musk and his publicly stated political preferences.

The California Coastal Commission on Thursday rejected the Air Force’s plan to give SpaceX permission to launch up to 50 rockets a year from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County.

“Elon Musk is hopping about the country, spewing and tweeting political falsehoods and attacking FEMA while claiming his desire to help the hurricane victims with free Starlink access to the internet,” Commissioner Gretchen Newsom said at the meeting in San Diego.

…“I really appreciate the work of the Space Force,” said Commission Chair Caryl Hart. “But here we’re dealing with a company, the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race and he’s managed a company in a way that was just described by Commissioner Newsom that I find to be very disturbing.”

It must be noted that this vote is not legally binding on the military. Though it has always tried to work in cooperation with this commission, it has the right to decide for itself how many launches it wants to allow out of Vandenberg. Whether it will defy the commission however is uncertain, and likely depends entirely on who wins the presidential election. If Harris wins, she will likely order the Space Force to not only obey the commission but to further limit launches by SpaceX at Vandenberg. If Trump wins, he will likely tell the Space Force to go ahead and expand operations, ignoring the immoral political machinations of these commissioners.

And it must be emphasized how immoral and improper these commissioners are. Their task is to regulate the use of the California coast in order to protect it for all future users, from beach-goers to rocket companies. It is not their right to block the coast’s use to certain individuals simply because those individuals have expressed political views they oppose. Not only does this violate Musk’s first amendment rights, it is an outright abuse of power.

If anyone in California reading this article wishes to tell these commissioners what they think of their actions yesterday, you can find their contact information here.

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Fringe activists in Texas sue SpaceX to prevent further launches of Starship/Superheavy

9:50 am

In an obvious attempt to block SpaceX’s effort to do the fifth Starship/Superheavy orbital test launch this coming weekend, a fringe activist group dubbed Save RGV has now sued the company, accusing it of using industrial wastewater in the launchpad’s deluge system that acts to minimize damage to the pad.

The suit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Brownsville Division, under the Clean Water Act (CWA), seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, the imposition of civil penalties and “other appropriate relief” to bring a halt to SpaceX’s “recurring, unpermitted discharges of untreated industrial wastewater from the deluge system at the SpaceX Boca Chica Launch Site into waters of the United States,” according to the suit.

According to SpaceX, water in the deluge system is potable drinking water. Moreover, in previous launches the company obtained all the proper licenses for its use, only to have the EPA subsequently step in and claim SpaceX had “violated the Clean Water Act in deploying the deluge system. The EPA did not assess a fine, but did order SpaceX to comply with federal regulations.” That action has forced the FAA to delay issuing any further launch licenses, even as of today.

I call Save RGV a fringe group because it has almost no support from within the Rio Grande Valley surrounding Boca Chica and Brownsville. That community is overwhelming in support of SpaceX’s efforts, and wants it to grow and expand, because of all the jobs and money it is bringing to the region.

This suit is clearly an attempt to forestall any launch license approval the FAA might want to issue for SpaceX’s desire to launch this weekend, on October 13, 2024. SpaceX is ready to go that day, and is now merely waiting for the FAA to “go!”.

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Arianespace sets December 3, 2024 for the next Vega-C launch

9:17 am

Arianespace today announced that the next Vega-C launch is now scheduled for December 3, 2024, the first in more than two years since a launch failure in 2022.

The failure was caused by a design flaw in the rocket’s upper stage engine nozzle. In attempting to fix the problem, the first redesign failed as well during a static fire test in 2023. The second redesign has now passed all engine tests.

This launch — of a European Space Agency (ESA) radar satellite — is being managed by Arianespace, the commercial arm of ESA that is presently being phased out. Beginning late next year the rocket’s manufacturer, Avio, will regain complete control of its rocket and will be able to market it internationally, no longer required to deal with this unneeded government middleman. Expect the launch price to drop at that point to make Vega-C more competitive.

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NATO to issue new space strategy to address growth in commercial sector

9:07 am

Capitalism in space? NATO officials at a meeting this week proposed issuing a new space strategy next year, designed to deal with the changing relationship in space between government and private enterprise.

During the Commercial Space Forum at NATO, participants discussed the threats they face, from cyber-attacks against ground systems, to jamming or spoofing of GPS and other satellite communications signals. They also addressed the importance of further investment in areas such as cybersecurity and sharing information about threats.

NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment, Ms Tarja Jaakkola, highlighted the need for a new relationship between the military and the commercial sector, “where both sides can learn from another, and where we can support and harness the entrepreneurial spirit and technological innovation essential to keep our defences strong and effective.”

More information here. It appears that NATO officials have realized that they can no longer do things as they have for the past half century, whereby they design, build, and own the space assets they launch. They must instead do what NASA and the Pentagon has been doing, become the customer that buys such products from the private enterprise.

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EPA to NASA: We intend to regulate how you dispose ISS, and that’s only the start

12:47 pm

The FAA to SpaceX
The EPA and its supporters to the American space industry:
“Nice industry you got here. Sure would be a shame if
something happened to it.”

It appears the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a number of activist groups are now lobbying for the right to regulate whether anything in orbit can be de-orbited into the oceans, beginning with how NASA plans to dispose of the International Space Station (ISS) when the station is de-orbited into the ocean sometime before 2030.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is evaluating how the disposal of the International Space Station into the ocean will need to be regulated but has not shared the details of any specific concerns or aspects of regulation. “EPA’s Office of Water is coordinating with the Office of General Counsel on this complex issue. The agency does not have a timeline for this evaluation,” EPA spokeswoman Dominique Joseph told SpaceNews.

“Sixty-six years of space activities has resulted in tens of thousands of tons of space debris crashing into the oceans,” said Ewan Wright, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of British Columbia and a junior fellow of the Outer Space Institute, an interdisciplinary group of experts working on emerging space sustainability issues.

While Wright is later quoted as saying that disposal in the ocean is “the least worst option,” the article at the link includes quotes from several other academics, all claiming that such an option must be stopped at all costs, because it threatens to “cause great damage” to the ocean. These “experts” make this claim by comparing ISS’s de-orbit with the dumping of old ammunition from World War I as well as plastic forks now.
» Read more

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Judge rules for 9-year-old Kansas City Chiefs fan, allowing his lawsuit against Deadspin to go forward

11:31 am

Holden Armenta on his way to the Superbowl
Holden Armenta in face-paint and headdress,
on his way to the Superbowl in February. Click for video.

In a ruling earlier this week, a Delaware judge rejected the motion of the news organization Deadspin to dismiss the lawsuit by 9-year-old Holden Armenta that accuses the news organization of falsely slandering the boy as a racist and bigot.

This story is just another example of the legacy of hate that came out of the Obama era, whereby leftists decided they had the right to slander and defame anyone they wanted, simply for political gain. In this case Deadspin writer Carron Phillips had in an article unjustly accused this child of being a racist because he attended a game wearing facepaint.

Phillips wrote the child was wearing blackface, and Deadspin helped Phillips push this lie by printing a picture that only showed the black side of Armenta’s face. A head-on shot showed his facepaint had nothing to do with blackface, but was a typical example of what many football fans do, paint their faces with the colors of their team. The right side of the boy’s face was painted black, the left side red.

What made the slander even more egregious is that Holden is an American Indian, with his grandfather, Raul Armenta, on the board of the Chumash Tribe in Santa Ynez, California. Deadspin and Phillips further worsened the situation by refusing to take down the story. Phillips even went so far as to further accuse the boy of bigotry against American Indians by the use of the red face paint!

Deadspin, which shortly after its slanderous behavior was sold to a foreign company which then fired its entire staff, had attempted to get the Armenta lawsuit dismissed, claiming that Phillips’ article was simply an “opinion,” not a statement of a false fact that was libelous. Superior Court Judge Sean Lugg bluntly rejected that argument, allowing the lawsuit to now go forward.
» Read more

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The bad consequences to the bad COVID policies in 2020 continue to pile up

2:27 pm

Lysenko with Stalin
Trofim Lysenko (on the left), preaching to Stalin as he destroyed
Soviet plant research by persecuting anyone who disagreed with him,
thus causing famines that killed millions. He is now the role model for
today’s entire government health community.

Three stories this week illustrate once again that not only did none of the governmental actions imposed by our “betters” during the COVID panic in 2020 work, they are now resulting in long term harm across large populations.

First there was a study of 1.7 million children that found a marked increase in serious heart problems in children who got the jab.

Their research confirmed a large body of evidence showing links between the COVID-19 shots and myocarditis and pericarditis, particularly in adolescents. The research also confirmed that even in 2021, when the vaccine was first authorized for children and teens, that age group did not face a high risk for COVID-19-related serious outcomes, including death or the need for emergency care, hospitalization or critical care.

You can read the paper here [pdf]. Fortunately, the study also found no deaths in either group from these heart conditions, and that new heart ailments among the jabbed children were rare. Nonetheless, the study found solid evidence that the jab caused some harm while doing little to prevent COVID. As noted in the first link:
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Donations to Columbia University continue to plunge in response to the pro-Hamas anti-Semitic protests on campus

2:13 pm

Columbia University's seal
The motto means “In Your Light [God],
We Shall See the Light.” Too bad no one
running Columbia now believes in this.

During an annual fundraiser event this week at Columbia University, donations plunged nearly 29 percent from its last event in 2022.

Columbia’s “Giving Day” event in 2024 raised $21.4 million, a significant decrease from the $30 million it garnered in 2022, according to the Columbia Spectator, the campus newspaper. The event was not held in 2023 due to the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent protests on campus.

The university also saw a nearly 28 percent decline in the number of gifts, which dropped from 19,229 in 2022 to 13,870 in 2024, the lowest level since 2015 and the first time the total monetary amount of the donations declined from the previous year since the event began in 2012. In response to the decline, the Columbia Spectator stated that the university is currently facing a “donor crisis — born out of concerns regarding campus protests.”

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SpaceX says it is targeting October 13, 2024 for 5th Starship/Superheavy launch

9:13 am

Superheavy being captured by the tower chopsticks at landing
Artist rendering of Superheavy being captured by
the tower chopsticks at landing. Click for video.

The hint last week that SpaceX might attempt its fifth test orbital launch of Starship/Superheavy launch by mid-October was confirmed yesterday by the company. It announced on its Starship/Superheavy webpage that it is now targeting October 13, 2024 for 5th Starship/Superheavy launch, “pending regulatory approval.”

SpaceX’s announcement noted that the flight’s primary goals will be an attempted chopstick landing of Superheavy at the launch tower in Boca Chica and a test of Starship’s ability to return and land using its newly redesigned heat shield.

The returning booster will slow down from supersonic speeds, resulting in audible sonic booms in the area around the landing zone. Generally, the only impact to those in the surrounding area of a sonic boom is the brief thunder-like noise with variables like weather and distance from the return site determining the magnitude experienced by observers.

Starship will fly a similar trajectory as the previous flight test with splashdown targeted in the Indian Ocean. » Read more

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