Tag: oppression

NASA: No further Artemis Moon landings for at least two years after first in 2025

11:53 am

The tortoise appears to be dying: NASA today announced that there will be a two-plus year pause of Artemis missions to the lunar surface after it completes its hoped-for first manned Moon landing in 2025.

In presentations at a two-day meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s Human Exploration and Operations Committee Jan. 18 and 19, agency officials said the Artemis 4 mission, the first after the Artemis 3 mission lands astronauts on the moon, will not attempt a landing itself.

Instead, Artemis 4 will be devoted to assembly of the lunar Gateway. The mission will deliver the I-Hab habitat module, developed by the European Space Agency and the Japanese space agency JAXA, to the Gateway. It will be docked with the first Gateway elements, the Power and Propulsion Element and Habitation and Logistics Outpost, which will launch together on a Falcon Heavy in late 2024 and spend a year spiraling out to the near-rectilinear halo orbit around the moon.

Essentially, the Biden administration appears to be switching back to NASA’s original plans, to require use of the Lunar Gateway station for any future lunar exploration, thus delaying that exploration considerably. Do not expect any of this schedule to take place as promised. The 2025 lunar landing will be delayed, as will all subsequent SLS launches for Artemis. The rocket is simply too complicated and cumbersome to even maintain one launch per year, while inserting Gateway into the mix only slows down lunar exploration even more.

NASA officials also revealed that they are limiting their lunar landing Starship contract with SpaceX to only that single planned ’25 Moon mission. For future manned missions to the Moon the agency will request new bids from the entire industry.

NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) Option A award to SpaceX last year covers only development of a lander and a single crewed flight on Artemis 3. NASA will acquire future landings through a separate effort, called Lunar Exploration Transportation Services (LETS). The goal of LETS is to select one, and possibly more, companies to provide “sustainable” landing services.

The timing of LETS — a draft request for proposals is scheduled for release this spring — means there will be a gap of a couple years before the first landing service acquired through that program would be ready. “It’ll be about two years from the Option A award to the LETS award before we’ll have this sustainable lander,” Kirasich said. “It’s a different lander with more aggressive requirements than Option A.”

It appears that Jeff Bezos’ political lobbying efforts have paid off, and that NASA is now reopening bidding so that his consortium, led by Blue Origin, can once again compete for that lunar lander contract. Whether the Bezos’ team will be able to propose anything comparable to Starship is however very questionable.

None of this really hurts SpaceX. Its contract with NASA helps them develop a Starship lunar lander. Then, while NASA twiddles its thumbs building Gateway, it will be free to fly its own lunar missions, selling tickets on the open market. I suspect that — should NASA succeed in landing humans in ’25 — the next American manned landing on the Moon will be a bunch of SpaceX customers, not that second Artemis mission sometime in the late 2020s.

SpaceX of course will also be able to bid on that second lunar landing competition. And it will be hard for NASA not to award Starship a further contract, even if others are competing against it. Starship will be operational. The others will merely be proposed.

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NATO issues new space policy filled with blather

11:11 am

NATO on January 17th published a new space policy document that with a great deal of bureaucratic blather essentially says that space is important, NATO’s enemies threaten those assets, and NATO recognizes these facts.

You can read the full document here.

This is obviously a policy document so we should not expect it to lay out proposed or planned operational projects. At the same time, it is so filled with generalizations it really says very little. In a sense, the blather is designed to hide how little it says, besides the very obvious or the most common sense goals, such as for example making sure the equipment of all of NATO’s partners is compatible with each other. To give you a flavor, here is one quote:

NATO will identify and, if necessary, develop appropriate mechanisms, based on voluntary participation, to fulfil and sustain requirements for space support in NATO operations, missions and other activities in the above functional areas. Allies’ capabilities, and, if necessary, trusted commercial service providers, should be leveraged to meet these requirements in the most secure, efficient, effective and transparent manner.

In plain English, NATO wants the cooperation of both private and government space entities to make sure it can function fully in space. As I said, stating the obvious.

The language actually tells us more about the foggy and inefficient thinking among DC and Pentagon bureaucrats. They can’t write clearly because they really don’t think clearly.

Still, the policy outlined essentially commits NATO to support a thriving infrastructure in space, from both the private and governmental sectors. The policy’s strong apparent support for “voluntary” private space is especially encouraging.

The policy’s position against aggressive actions by others, such as Russia and China, is also somewhat encouraging, though its expression in such mealy-mouth language suggests a fundamental lack of commitment that could be worrisome. Russia’s response to this new policy statement was not so vaguely put:

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova took NATO to task over its space policy paper at a briefing on Thursday, branding it as slanted and incendiary. According to her, the document entitled NATO’s Overarching Space Policy, which was published on January 17, covers the Western-led bloc’s priorities in space. “The document is one-sided and in fact incendiary as it is based on destructive beliefs of the US-led NATO members who have an important role in space,” Zakharova emphasized.

I suspect, based on Zakharova’s comments, that Russia has determined from the new policy statement that NATO’s policy is weak, and that Russia can therefore continue to push the envelope against it and the western powers, just to find out exactly how much it can get away with.

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SpaceX now blocked from Pakistan; OneWeb signs deal to operate in India

9:44 am

Capitalism in space: Two stories this morning suggest that the competition between the internet satellite constellations Starlink and OneWeb is being partly influenced by local politics, with the influence favoring OneWeb and hindering SpaceX.

First, Pakistan ordered SpaceX to stop taking preorders from its citizens for its Starlink system.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said in a Jan. 19 news release that “Starlink has neither applied for nor obtained any license from PTA to operate and provide internet services” in the country. The telecoms regulator advised the general public to refrain from pre-booking the service in Pakistan through Starlink or associated websites.

This order follows a similar decree in India. Like India, SpaceX had apparently not been granted a license or permit to take preorders. SpaceX has now been blocked entirely from the subcontinent by the governments of both countries.

Second, OneWeb and Hughes announced a partnership agreement to distribute its internet service in India.

In the statement, OneWeb’s CEO Neil Masterson said the company would partner with Hughes to “offer high-speed, low-latency satellite broadband solutions and contribute to the Digital India vision”. OneWeb’s constellation, he said, would cover the length and breadth of India, from Ladakh to Kanyakumari and from Gujarat to the Northeast and bring secure solutions to enterprises, governments, telcos, airline companies and maritime customers. “OneWeb will invest in setting up enabling infrastructure such as Gateways and PoPs in India to light up the services,” he added.

According to the announcement, OneWeb intends to start offering its service this year.

OneWeb is half-owned by the Indian-based Bharti group. It seems that this connection with India has greased the bureaucratic wheels in that country for OneWeb, allowing it begin offering its services there. It also appears that this same connection with India is likely one reason both India and Pakistan have put a break on SpaceX’s operations.

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Freedom is under siege, and the besiegers have now told us they have no mercy

1:06 pm

Liberty under siege
Liberty under siege.

For many years I deeply and sincerely believed that many rank-and-file Democrat voters honestly did not know how corrupt and power-hungry the political leaders of their party had become. I thought that if I could simply get them to see the clear evidence of misbehavior and abuse of power that has been going on in the Democratic Party without check since Bill Clinton was president, they would reconsider their voting habits and abandon their support of that party.

I thought that the vast majority of Democrats were decent people who opposed oppression and intolerance and simply were unaware that they were voting for it when they supported the Democratic Party.

I now know unequivocally that I was wrong. Two stories in the past week illustrate bluntly that a large number of ordinary Democrats, maybe even a majority, are eager supporters of oppression and intolerance and dictatorship. They like the corruption and abuse-of-power coming from Democratic Party politicians. They even want more of it.
» Read more

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Chinese pseudo-company preparing first launch of methane-fueled rocket

9:07 am

The Chinese pseudo-private company, Landspace, is apparently prepping its new launchpad and Zhuque-2 rocket for launch in one of China’s interior spaceports.

Satellite imagery and deleted social media postings indicate that work is progressing on a new complex for facilitating methane-liquid oxygen launch vehicles at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. Timelapse and high resolution satellite imagery show the development near the national Jiuquan center in the Gobi Desert and suggest the presence of a Zhuque-2 test article. A recent, now-deleted article indicates a new flame trench has been completed at Jiuquan.

The article at the link also cites statements by the company’s CEO in November, where he claimed they would launch in the first quarter of ’22. If successful, it would be the first orbital launch of a methane-fueled rocket, beating out both SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s New Glenn.

The article also says that the company is working on making the first stage reusable, which makes sense in that it will launch from inside China and that first stage if expendable will crash uncontrolled on Chinese territory. A second Chinese pseudo-company, iSpace, also claims it will begin hop tests of its own reusable rocket later this year.

For new readers: I call these companies pseudo because they really are not independent entities, as private companies are in the west. China’s government since 2014 has allowed private investors to create these companies and for the companies to compete against each other for government business, but none of them do anything without the full supervision of the Chinese government. Most have completed their first launches using solid rockets, technology almost always reserved for military use. None could have done so without that government permission and control.

The strategy here of China’s government is nonetheless smart, as the policy is creating competition and thus some innovation within its aerospace industry. The top-down control however will likely prevent these companies from doing anything truly different. Instead, they are apparently latching onto the new ideas, such as methane-fueled rockets and vertically landing first stages, that they have seen demonstrated by the truly independent private companies in the west.

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Israel approves Artemis Accords

8:51 am

The Israeli government has apparently agreed to sign the American-led Artemis Accords, making it the fifteenth nation to do so.

While Israel’s foreign ministry has not released an official statement on the issue, local media reports said a signing ceremony involving NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Israel Space Agency Director-General Uri Oron is expected the week of Jan. 23. ISA will host the 17th Ramon International Space Conference on Jan. 25 as part of Israel’s Space Week.

Once Israel officially signs, the full list of signatures will be as follows: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, and the United States.

Since the accords are designed to encourage private enterprise and private property rights in space, both Russia and China oppose them. The lack of both France and Germany to sign at this point suggests the politicians presently in charge of those capitalist countries are reconsidering their commitment to free enterprise.

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Pushback: New VA Attorney General shows Republicans the right way to fight the left

12:50 pm

The way it has been for decades
The way it has been for decades

All around us the oppressive leftists of the Democratic Party are in control. They dominate the mainstream media, the education and science communities, the bureaucracy, the major social media companies, and the entertainment industry. That monolith of top-down rule now imposes its will everywhere, blacklisting and destroying anyone who dares dissent from its agenda.

For decades these intolerant socialists and communists and hate-filled bigots have steadily gained more and more control and power because no one would truly resist them. Time after time they would do something egregious and never face any consequences. For example, in 1999 a DC bureaucrat was forced to resign because he used the word “niggardly,” properly describing how the political world was sometimes cheap and miserly for the wrong reasons. Several ignorant co-workers accused him falsely of using a racial slur, and DC mayor, Democrat Anthony Williams, quickly forced the man to resign. Shortly thereafter Williams realized his error and arranged for the man’s rehiring, but never did anything to discipline the illiterate fools who caused the furor.

Republicans in this matter are far worse. » Read more

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Philippino presidential candidate meets with SpaceX officials

9:35 am

SpaceX officials have held a virtual meeting with two senators from the Philippines, one of which is running for president, to discuss allowing Starlink service in their country as well as the establishment of a launch site.

TOP executives of SpaceX met with Senators Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao and Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel 3rd to discuss the use of low-orbit satellites to provide cheap internet to the Philippines. SpaceX is a space exploration company owned by technology magnate and billionaire Elon Musk.

During the virtual meeting on Saturday, the SpaceX executives also talked about the possibility of setting up a spaceship launch pad in the Philippines.

Pacquiao also proposed projects for Musk’s other companies, Tesla and Boring. He seems enthusiastic about bringing SpaceX to the Philippines. The odds right now of him becoming president however is not great, according to recent polling. This meeting with SpaceX was clearly an effort by him to garner attention and increase his poll numbers.

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Pushback: For calling parents “terrorists” National School Board Association facing “collapse”

12:11 pm

Not an organization parents should associate with
Parents and state school boards should return the favor, and get out.

Because of a letter [pdf] it sent to the Justice Department suggesting that protesting parents were akin to “domestic terrorists,” the National School Board Association (NSBA) now faces “total collapse,” with nineteen state school board organizations exiting the association, along with 6 members of its 19-person executive board.

More information here, including this quote:

Until this fall, the National School Boards Association was a noncontroversial, bipartisan lobby group. Then its leaders wrote President Biden a letter. It alleged that the threatening and aggressive acts against school board members across the country might be a form of “domestic terrorism” and asked for federal law enforcement intervention.

Now, the association is at risk of total collapse.

…Nineteen mostly GOP-led states have withdrawn from the association or promised to when this year’s membership expires, and six members of what was a 19-person board have left. Several states are discussing forming an alternative association for school boards. A new executive director of the National School Boards Association (NSBA) is working to save the organization, lobbying individual states to reconsider, but so far he has not persuaded any of them to change their minds.

» Read more

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Study: Weightlessness might produce long term anemia

3:13 pm

The uncertainty of science: A study of fourteen astronauts who spent six months on ISS has found that weightlessness appears to increase the loss of red blood cells, and that the continuing loss extends well past their return to Earth.

Before this study, space anemia was thought to be a quick adaptation to fluids shifting into the astronaut’s upper body when they first arrived in space. Astronauts lose 10 percent of the liquid in their blood vessels this way. It was thought astronauts rapidly destroyed 10 percent of their red blood cells to restore the balance, and that red blood cell control was back to normal after 10 days in space.

Instead, Dr. Trudel’s team found that the red blood cell destruction was a primary effect of being in space, not just caused by fluid shifts. They demonstrated this by directly measuring red blood cell destruction in 14 astronauts during their six-month space missions.

On Earth, our bodies create and destroy 2 million red blood cells every second. The researchers found that astronauts were destroying 54 percent more red blood cells during the six months they were in space, or 3 million every second. These results were the same for both female and male astronauts.

The study also found that for as much as a year afterward the astronauts continued to lose red blood cells at a rate 30% greater than normal.

The researchers immediately suggested further invasive monitoring of anyone who wants to go to space. From their paper:

Space tourism will considerably expand the number of space travelers. Medical screening of future astronauts and space tourists might benefit from a preflight profiling of globin gene and modifiers. Postlanding monitoring should cover conditions affected by anemia and hemolysis. Monitoring individual astronaut’s levels of hemolysis during mission may be indicated to reduce health risks.

Without question, this data strongly suggests that it would be wise for anyone who wants to go into space for long periods have themselves checked for anemia, and have it treated prior to going, or if they still have it at launch time to decide not to go. However, the choice should belong to the individual, not bureaucrats imposing regulations or legislators passing laws.

Unfortunately, our modern leftist society now assumes such decisions no longer belong to the individual, but must be made by their betters in Washington. Provisions in the 2004 Space Amendments act allows the FAA to impose such invasive medical testing on future space tourists. Its bureaucrats have not yet done so, but the recent history with government mandates over the COVID shots suggests strongly that they will not hesitate to do so when they think they can get away with it.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Four-year-old rejected by Make-A-Wish for not getting COVID shot

11:15 am

4-year-old cancer boy rejected by Make-A-Wish
Four-year-old rejected by Make-A-Wish because
he hasn’t gotten the jab

Now they’re coming for the children: The Make-A-Wish Foundation has rejected the wish of a four-year-old cancer patient to go to Disneyworld because the boy has not gotten his COVID shots.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation is refusing to grant 4-year-old cancer patient Rocco DiMaggio’s wish to go to Disneyworld — all because he is not vaccinated.

Rocco and his two-year-old brother are not yet even eligible for the jab.

“It was a punch in the gut,” Rocco’s mom told Newsmax about Make-A-Wish Foundation canceling the Disneyworld opportunity.

Not only do children regardless of individual medical conditions have to get the mRNA shots, according to Make-a-Wish, the group’s policy says all family members who receive air travel must be vaccinated. The mRNA shots have thus far failed to deliver as promised and there is no long-term safety data on vaccinating children. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted sentence illustrates the utter brainlessness of the Foundation’s policy. Even if the parents were gung-ho to get the shots, which they are not, it can’t be administered to him at this time because of FDA regulations.

That’s not all however. The stupidity of this is further illustrated by these additional facts:
» Read more

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House Democrats attempt end-around of filibuster to pass election law using NASA bill

9:09 am

A bill initially written to give authorization to NASA lease its property to others and and passed by the Senate has been stripped entirely of that language by House Democrats and replaced with their proposal to federalize elections nationwide.

H.R. 5746 was introduced in October by Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), chair of the House Science Committee’s space subcommittee. The bill extended NASA’s authorization to enter into what are known as enhanced use leases, or EULs, of agency property to companies, government agencies, or educational institutions, for 10 years. The House passed the bill by a voice vote Dec. 8.

The Senate amended the bill, extending the EUL authorization by only three months instead of 10 years, and passed it by unanimous consent, sending it back to the House.

The Democratic leadership of the House, in an unusual move, then took the Senate-amended bill and stripped out the NASA provisions, replacing it with the text of two voting rights bills and now called the “Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act.” They did so because H.R. 5746 had already passed the House and Senate, so the amended version could go directly to the Senate floor without the threat of a filibuster from Senate Republicans, who oppose the voting rights legislation. [emphasis mine]

The level of corruption exhibited by this Democratic Party action is beyond words. The Senate approved one bill. The House Democrats have now turned it into another bill that the Senate did not vote on initially.

In the past, such a corrupt action by the House would never have been attempted because the House would have known that the entire Senate would have rejected this tactic immediately as an insult to its legislative rights. Today however the Democrats care nothing for legalities or law or legislative rights. All they care about is power, and they are willing to do anything to get it. You can expect for certain that all but two Democrats in the Senate will support this crooked action.

That vote’s passage however rests with those two Democrats. Since this tactic is a direct attack on the filibuster, and if successful would forever make it null, we must wonder if Senators Kysten Sinema (D-Arizona) and Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) will vote against it. If they don’t, their high-minded claims that they will not end the filibuster rule will be proven to be empty words.

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