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.

9 comments

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

29 comments

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.

0 comments

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.”

0 comments

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.

6 comments

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

16 comments

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.

5 comments

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.

0 comments

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.

3 comments

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

20 comments

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.

1 comment

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

9 comments

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

6 comments

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

26 comments

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

27 comments

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.

4 comments

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.

 

 

10 comments

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

37 comments

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.

0 comments

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.

3 comments
1 … 30 31 32 33 34 … 388