Tag: oppression

FBI investigating reports of an effort to bomb SpaceX’s Boca Chica Starship facility

9:00 pm

According to news stories from several sources tonight, the FBI is investigating a reported threat to bomb SpaceX’s Boca Chica Starship facility.

The source to the story comes from a local.

The report was made by Calvin Wehrle of Galveston, who frequently camps along Texas 4 near the Starship launch site.

In an interview Friday, he said he was there on the afternoon of Christmas Eve when an SUV pulled up with five male passengers who rolled down their windows to converse. They said they were from the Middle East. “I said something like, ‘What are y’all here for? ’ and the driver said, ‘Oh, we’re here to blow (Starship) up,’ ” Wehrle said. “I just went stone cold, and he said, ‘Oh, I got you. I was joking.’ ”

As the conversation went on, though, Wehrle’s visitors said at least three times they were in South Texas to attack Starship. He reported the incident to SpaceX and the sheriff’s office and said he was contacted later by an investigator.

This could be nothing, or it could be serious. The location of the Starship/Superheavy facilities is right along the road at Boca Chica, and it is very easy for anyone to get quite close. In fact there have been several incidences where people were caught trespassing.

Considering that SpaceX is gearing up for the seventh orbital test flight of Starship/Superheavy on January 10, 2025, the risks are now higher. The tank farm there, also not far from public access, is going to be filled with oxygen and methane, and will be an ideal target for attack.

And we can thank Joe Biden and his Democratic Party for allowing millions of illegals to enter the country un-vetted over the past four years, including tens of thousands who the evidence suggests could be potential terrorists. And we can also thank the Biden administration for sucking the quality out the FBI, making it incapable of doing its real job while it was used for political purposes harassing and persecuting Trump, many Republicans, and many ordinary conservatives.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

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Scientific American is looking for a new and “diverse” editor-in-chief!

1:15 pm

Scientific American, where discrimination and bigotry thrive!
Scientific American, where discrimination and
bigotry thrive!

Scientific American needs a new editor-in-chief, but right off the bat I must warn qualified white men they needn’t bother to apply. They won’t get the job.

More on why later. First we must give the background. In November Scientific American’s editor-in-chief, Laura Helmuth, resigned, claiming it was time for her “to take some time to think about what comes next (and go birdwatching).”

In truth, it was time for her to go. She had disgraced herself repeatedly by posting some very ugly posts condemning Trump and insulting his supporters in a most emotional and irrational manner. But those posts weren’t the real reason she need to leave.
» Read more

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FAA cancels one of three public meetings on the Starship/Superheavy environmental reassessment

9:38 am

The FAA today announced that it has canceled one of three meetings that it plans to hold in the Brownsville region next week to obtain public feedback on SpaceX’s request to increase its Starship/Superheavy launch rate at Boca Chica to 25 launches per year.

The FAA was scheduled to hold in-person public meetings on January 7th and 9th, 2025. However, due to the designation of January 9, 2025 as a National Day of Mourning to honor the late former President Jimmy Carter, the January 9th meetings are now cancelled.

The meeting schedule is now as follows:

  • In-person meeting: Tuesday, January 7, 2025; 1:00 PM–3:00 PM & 5:30 PM–7:30 PM CDT at the Texas Southmost College, Jacob Brown Auditorium, 600 International Boulevard, Brownsville, TX 78520
  • Virtual on-line meeting: Monday, January 13, 2025; 5:30 PM–7:30 PM CDT Registration Link here. Dial-in phone number: 888-788-0099 (Toll Free), Webinar ID: 879 9253 6128, Passcode: 900729

As I noted in November when the new environmental reassessment and these meetings were announced, it is practically certain that the fringe anti-Musk activists groups SaveRGV, Sierra Club, the Friends of Wildlife Corridor, and the fake Indian Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas (which never existed in Texas) are organizing to be there in force, demanding SpaceX’s Boca Chica operations be shut down.

If the rest of the public, which is the vast majority of the Brownsville community, does not show up to counter these fringe activists, it will make it much easier for the bureaucrats who hate Musk at the FAA to take action against SpaceX. It is essential that the business community at least make an appearance, as the arrival of SpaceX has brought billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs to Brownsville.

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The global launch industry in 2024: A year of amazing highs and depressing lows, with the best yet to come

9:40 am

For the past five years the entire global rocket industry has experienced a revolution that has resulted in a rise in global launch numbers unprecedented since the launch of Sputnik in 1957. 2024 was no different, with the total number of successful launches topping 256, two to four times the average number of launches that had occurred yearly prior to 2020.

This success has almost entirely been driven by the arrival of many private rocket companies competing for government and commercial business — led largely by SpaceX — aided by the decision by governments worldwide to get out of the way and let private enterprise do the job. The result has been spectacular, so much so that it now seem possible in the very near future to see humans finally revisiting the Moon and even getting to Mars and the asteroids.

At the same time, 2024 saw some significant signs that this success is not guaranteed, and could vanish in an instant if care is not taken.

The graph below, my annual count of launches world wide, provides the groundwork for these conclusions.
» Read more

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Seventh Starship/Superheavy test launch now targeting January 10, 2025

9:55 am

Based on a single word tweet by Elon Musk as well as the FAA’s license approval, it now appears that SpaceX is targeting January 10, 2025 for the seventh Starship/Superheavy test orbital launch.

According to the FAA license, the launch window that day opens at 4 pm (Central), with backup launch opportunities each day through January 15th.

Reading that license is very illuminating. The depth in which the FAA now demands compliance from SpaceX is beyond daunting, and illustrates the mission creep the agency has used to grow its power. Based on a recent Supreme Court ruling, the company likely has grounds to sue and win, correctly claiming that Congress never gave it such power over so many things, and that its regulatory oversight is unconstitutional.

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Space Force starts environmental impact study of SpaceX’s launches at Vandenberg

3:35 pm

In mid-December the Space Force initiated a new environmental impact study (EIS), reviewing SpaceX’s request to significantly increasing the number of launches it would do out of Vandenberg, an increase that could climb to as much as a hundred launches per year.

The EIS will examine the environmental impacts from the redevelopment of Space Launch Complex (SLC) 6 for use by SpaceX for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches. The Space Force awarded SpaceX access to SLC-6, aka “Slick Six,” in 2023 after the final launch of United Launch Alliance’s Delta 4 from the site.

SLC-6 was built in the 1960s for the Air Force’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory program, which was canceled in 1969 before any launches took place. It was later converted to support Space Shuttle launches, but mothballed after the Challenger accident in 1986 before hosting a single launch. ULA took over the site in 2006.

The EIS would also allow SpaceX to conduct up to 100 launches annually between SLC-6 and its existing launch pad at Vandenberg, SLC-4. That includes booster landings at both launch sites as well as droneships downrange.

This is where we are are in the first quarter of the 21st century. Nothing new can be done anywhere without detailed environmental impact statements that take months, sometimes years, to complete, and almost always conclude that the proposed work can proceed without harm. Often however that conclusion can only come if the government and the private sector agree to funnel cash to environmental causes and organizations, if only to shut them up and prevent further lawsuits. (That’s exactly what happened in Boca Chica. Expect the same now in California.)

It must be noted again that we now have almost eight decades of empirical proof in both Florida and California that rocket launches do no significant harm to the environment, and that if anything they act to protect wildlife by creating large undeveloped refuges in the surrounding land. These new impact statements forced on SpaceX in California, in Florida, and in Boca Chica are therefore nothing more than a government power play, done in order to tell everyone who really is boss.

A new boss however takes over the executive branch of the federal government in only a few weeks. I suspect he will not look kindly at these games. Expect some quick changes almost immediately.

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Chinese pseudo-company gets major cash influx for its Starlink copycat constellation

9:53 am

The Chinese pseudo-company Genesat, which is making the satellites for the 14,000 Starlink-type satellite constellation being developed by the Chinese pseudo-company SpaceSail, has been awarded $137 million in cash from a variety of Chinese sources, most of which are government agencies focused on encouraging development by these pseudo-companies.

Superficially everything about these companies appears real. They compete for contracts and investment capital, and can only function if they make a profit. They also compete with other similar Chinese pseudo-companies. The reality however is that they only exist because the Chinese government wants them to. For example, Genesat was formed by a partnership of SpaceSail and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (which is entirely government-run). And SpaceSail was formed earlier with support of both the national and local Shanghai governments. For example, consider today’s story:

Shanghai Gesi Aerospace Technology, also known as Genesat, announced the more than 1 billion yuan (approximately $137 million) funding round Dec. 30. The main investors include China’s National Manufacturing Transformation and Upgrading Fund, China Development Bank Science and Technology Innovation, Guosheng Capital, SIMIC Capital and Shanghai FTZ Fund.

The first two backers are both government agencies created to funnel government cash to these pseudo-companies.

Overall this approach by the communist Chinese government has worked remarkably well. It has created an robust space industry within a competitive and innovative atmosphere. That industry only exists however as long as the present policies of the Chinese government exist. If there is a major change in leadership it all could vanish in a moment, as there are no property rights in China. A new government could do as Putin did in Russia, consolidate all these pseudo-companies into a central government-run agencies in order to more closely control them.

For the present however China’s pseudo-capitalist approach means it will be a major player in space in the coming years. That success might even lead to a positive change in government, throwing the communists out of power eventually. It is not only demonstrating the advantages of freedom and competition over a top-down command economy, it is developing a class of people doing it. They might eventually have enough wealth and power to take over the government and changes things for real.

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Beware the DEI shell game

1:09 pm

Don't trust it to do the right thing
Don’t trust the leftists who run it to do the right thing

In the past few months the conservative has been repeatedly celebrating the retreat of the racist “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) movement. From corporations to universities DEI departments are being shut down.

Today I report on one of the most recent examples, but I do so as a warning. Just because a university or company announces plans to shut down a DEI department does not mean this racist policy is no longer being taught or used in hiring. In many cases, the shut down is merely a shell game to fool the general public while the policies continue, under the radar.

On December 17, 2024, the University of Iowa announced that was shuttering a number of programs, including its department of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies, and combining them into a new department dubbed the School of Social and Cultural Analysis. From the university’s press release:

Under the proposed plan, the college would close the departments of American Studies and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies, as well as the current majors in American Studies and in Social Justice, which have fewer than 60 students combined, and create a new major in Social and Cultural Analysis. The existing programs have limited faculty and overlapping curricula, causing challenges for faculty in sustaining teaching capacity. The new curricula will not only streamline operations but offer clarity and flexibility in students’ educational pathways.

“Right now, these programs are administered by multiple department chairs and multiple directors,” said Roland Racevskis, CLAS associate dean for the arts and humanities. “Under this proposed plan, the school would have a single leadership team dedicated to overseeing the operations of the programs. This new structure would provide better coordination of curriculum across these related programs, easier pathways for degree completion, and support for interdisciplinary research opportunities.”

Existing minors and certificates in associated areas would move into the new school. No changes to graduate programs are currently being proposed. [emphasis mine]

One of the reasons for this action is that the state legislature had recently passed an education appropriations bill [pdf] that specifically banned spending any money on DEI-type programs. From page 8 of the bill:
» Read more

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China replaces head of its space agency

9:16 am

The man who has headed China’s space agency since 2018 during its most aggressive and successful period, Zhang Kejian, has been replaced by the Chinese government. Zhang has also been removed from another important political post.

Zhang, 63, who has been head of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) since May 2018, is to be removed as Party Secretary of the State Administration for National Defense Science, Technology, and Industry (SASTIND), the agency announced Dec. 26. Shan Zhongde, 54, has been appointed as his replacement. The leader of SASTIND typically also heads CNSA and the China Atomic Energy Authority, both of which are subordinate agencies to SASTIND. CNSA has yet to announce the expected change.

China’s state run press provided no explanation for this change, though it also follows the removal of two other high ranking managers this year from another space agency, CASC, that is supervised by CNSA. Those removals are thought related to reports of corruption.

In the past two decades CNSA administrators went on to become heads of Chinese provinces, the approximate equivalent of a state governor in the U.S. and a somewhat powerful position. It appeared the Xi government was using its space agency as a training ground for its future political leaders. This in turn gave its space operations a favorable political position within the government.

Zhang’s removal in this manner and the rumors of corruption suggest this policy failed in his case. Another possibility is ven more significant if true. It might imply Zhang was involved in some power struggle that threatened Xi and his leadership. If this last possibility is so, the present favored political position of China’s space operations might be seriously threatened. Xi might have decided he did not like the power its leaders have garnered, and is now moving to squash it.

This does not mean the government will now move to reduce its space effort. It could mean however that funding will be more closely watched, and new projects questioned and rejected more easily.

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Roscosmos buys Earth observation data from private Russian satellite company

11:05 am

According to a report today by Russia’s state-run news agency TASS, Roscosmos has awarded a commercial contract to a private Russian satellite company, dubbed Sputnix, to purchase earth observation data its satellites have already collected.

“In 2024, up to 1.4 billion rubles [around $14.285 million] were allocated in budget funds to conclude forward contracts with private companies on buying out Earth’s remote sensing data obtained from their satellites and created under the federal project ‘Developing the Advanced Space Systems and Services High-Tech Sector.’ The first contract on buying out data has been concluded with the Sputnix Group of Companies,” Roscosmos said in a statement.

The Sputnix Group confirmed to TASS that the contract had been signed.

“Under the contract, the data already loaded into the database were bought out. We hope that next year we will be able to sign a forward contract as part of implementing the roadmap for the ‘Advanced Space Systems and Services’ project,” the company said, emphasizing that cooperation with Roscosmos remained a priority for Sputnix.

Sputnix was founded in 2011, and has so far launched 20 satellites into orbit, though many were short-lived cubesats. While on the surface this company appears real, it is not unlike the pseudo-companies in China. Its contracts appear to be almost all with the Russian government, all its work appears supervised by that government, and at any moment the Russian government can take it over, as it essentially did with the effort of the so-called private rocket startup S7 to launch from the Sea Launch ocean platform.

In other words, this news piece is simply the Russian government’s attempt to convince the world and its own people that there is a competitive and independent private sector in Russia, when in reality it doesn’t exist.

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Blue Origin finally gets FAA license to launch New Glenn, now targeting January 6, 2025

2:27 pm

The first completely assembled New Glenn, on the launchpad
The first completely assembled New Glenn,
on the launchpad

The FAA, after months of apparent delays, today finally issued Blue Origin a license to launch its New Glenn rocket for a period covering the next five years.

As has now become the FAA’s custom, in issuing this license it also brags about its success in issuing the license “well in advance of the statutory deadline” for doing so.

What a crock. Blue Origin and NASA were originally targeting an October launch of New Glenn carrying two Mars orbiters, but had to cancel when the rocket couldn’t lift off during the six-day launch window. Though delays at Blue Origin certainly contributed to this cancellation, I suspect the FAA’s red tape played a major factor as well.

According to another source, Blue Origin is now targeting a launch date of January 6, 2025. The company is presently doing a static fire test on the launchpad.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

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Chinese solid-fueled rocket fails during launch

9:26 am

The commercial division of a Chinese space agency, dubbed CAS Space, late yesterday experienced a launch failure of its solid-fueled Kinetica-1 rocket, lifting off from the Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

A statement by the pseudo-company described the failure tersely:

We can confirm that the first two stages were nominal. Stage 3 lost attitude three seconds after ignition and the self-destructing mechanism was activated.

Nothing was said about where the first two stages crashed inside China, or whether they landed near habitable areas.

According to the first link above, this was the second launch failure by China in 2024, which is incorrect. This was the third launch failure for China (see here and here for previous two). That article also says this was the 68th total launch this year, suggesting China has completed 66 successful launches. This does not jive with my count, which presently says China has had 64 successful orbital launches this year. I suspect the two additional launched might have been suborbital tests — such as first stage hop tests (here, here, and here) — which I do not include in these totals. It also might be including the accidental launch of one first stage during a static fire test when it broke free and launched itself unintentional.

More recent information from my readers (see the comments below) suggests that, though the numbers above are not correct, my own count for China’s total successful orbital launches needs adjusting as well. I had marked a March 13th Chinese launch as a failure because the satellites were not placed in their proper orbit. However, using their thrusters engineers were eventually able to get them into place and they are operating. I have therefore increased China’s totals below by one.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

134 SpaceX
65 China
17 Russia
14 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 154 to 97, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 134 to 117.

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Post COVID data in the UK: Those who got the jab substantially increased their chances of death

12:43 pm

How health scientists determined policy against COVID
How health officials and governments determined
policy against COVID during the epidemic.

Data assembled by the government of the United Kingdom now proves unequivocally that getting the jab during the COVID panic was a very bad idea. It did less than nothing to prevent you from getting the virus, and in fact significantly increased your chances of dying.

[T]he data show that 30 percent of the UK population remained completely unvaccinated as of July 2022. 34 percent were not double vaccinated, and 50 percent were not triple vaccinated.

However, the vaccinated population accounted for 95 percent of all COVID-19 deaths between January and May 2023.

The unvaccinated population, meanwhile, accounted for just five percent of Covid deaths.

Perhaps the most troubling information revealed in the data is the fact that deaths increased among the groups who received more “vaccine” doses. The vast majority of the deaths are among those vaccinated four times. This quad-vaxxed population accounts for 80 percent of all COVID-19 deaths, and 83 percent of all Covid deaths among the vaccinated.

The numbers for many other time periods following the introduction of the jab are comparable.
» Read more

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Liechtenstein signs the Artemis Accords

10:16 am

The tiny nation of Liechtenstein in Europe yesterday became the 52nd nation to sign the Artemis Accords.

The full list of nations now part of this American space alliance: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

There has been a flurry of new nations signing the accords since the November election of Trump. I suspect his coming encouraged these nations to sign, knowing the moribund leadership of Biden will soon be replaced with something more robust. It is also likely that these nations see a renewal of Trump’s original goals for the Artemis Accords, to create an international alliance, led by the United States, with the goal of overcoming the Outer Space Treaty’s limitations on private property.

I hope this turns out to be true. This alliance gives Trump a powerful lobby he can wield to force change.

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Enrollment in colleges nationwide dropped 5% in 2024

4:47 pm


Modern college education: “But Brawndo’s got
what plants crave. It’s got electrolytes!”

According to a report by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, college enrollment in 2023 dropped by 5% from the previous year, suggesting that high school students are beginning to question the value of attending colleges where anti-Semitism and bigotry is promoted and white and Asian students are treated like dirt.

It could also be because they are beginning to realize that — at least in the soft sciences like history, sociology, literature, etc — all they will get is leftist/Marxist indoctrination, not a true education.

The statistics point in this direction:

Enrollment declined across racial groups for 18-year-old freshmen, though white students saw the steepest decline, the analysis found. White 18-year-old enrollment dropped 10 percent between fall 2023 and 2024, compared to 8.4 percent for multiracial students, 8.2 percent for Black students, 5.7 percent for Asian students and 2.1 percent for Hispanic students.
» Read more

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Oh no! The sonic booms of SpaceX are coming!

10:00 am

Superheavy after its flight safely captured at Boca Chica
Superheavy after its flight, safely captured at Boca Chica
on October 13, 2024.

When the current (but soon to step down) administrator of the FAA Mike Whitaker testified before Congress in September 2024 and attempted to explain his agency’s red tape that have significantly slowed development of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy rocket, he claimed that the sonic booms produced when Superheavy returned to land at the launchpad posed a “safety issue” that needed a detailed review.

“I think the sonic boom analysis [related to returning Superheavy back to Boca Chica] is a safety related incident.”

The sudden introduction of this issue was somewhat out of the blue. While loud, the sonic boom of a rocket launch is hardly a concern. The space shuttle produced the same for decades when it landed, and that was always considered a fun plus to watching the landing. And even if SpaceX begins launching its rockets once a day from any spaceport, that added noise does nothing to hurt anyone. In fact, it is a local signal of a thriving economy.

Since then it appears the leftist “intellectual elitists” that don’t like it when they don’t run everything — which is one reason they now hate Elon Musk — have run a full court press trying to make these rocket sonic booms a cause celebre that can be used to block SpaceX launches.
» Read more

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Pushback: Blacklisted doctor gets lawsuit reinstated by higher court

1:25 pm

What apparently passes for medical treatment at the Hennepin Healthcare system
The kind of policies advocated by Hennepin Healthcare system
that Gustilo criticized

Fight! Fight! Fight! Back in August 2021, I reported the horrible blacklisting of Tara Gustilo, a biracial physician from the Philippines, who had been demoted and experienced a $150K cut in salary at the Hennepin Healthcare system in Minnesota simply because she had posted criticisms of the racist Black Lives Matter movement as well as the critical race theory policies, now known as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), that Hennepin was pushing.

In addition to filing a discrimination complaint with the federal government, Gustilo sued, represented by the Minnesota-based Upper Midwest Law Center (UMLC). You can read her lawsuit here [pdf].

That lawsuit however had been dismissed by a lower court. Last week however the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out that decision, reinstating the lawsuit.

The court’s decision can be read here. The court specifically noted that Gustilo’s right to free speech appeared to have been violated, and that fact must be considered by a jury.
» Read more

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Alabama Republican congressman introduces spaceport funding bill to help a non-spaceport

10:00 am

In an example of the typically corrupt behavior of the Washington swamp, Alabama Republican congressman Dale Strong yesterday introduced a bill dubbed the Spaceport Project Opportunities for Resilient Transportation (SPACEPORT) act that has a lot of high-minded goals, but is mainly designed to funnel federal money to local regions. To quote Strong himself:

“The U.S. is the global leader in space, and North Alabama is at the forefront of that effort,” Strong said. “As former Chairman of the Madison County Commission, I worked closely with local city officials and commercial space stakeholders to secure Huntsville International Airport’s designation as the first entry site for space vehicle landings. I understand the preparation, coordination, and support required to safely and efficiently manage space launches and reentries. North Alabama is ready to leverage our unparalleled civil, commercial, and national security space expertise to support space infrastructure projects and the future of space exploration.” [emphasis mine]

Huntsville International Airport is not a spaceport. Giving it cash for this is nothing more than pork and a waste of the taxpayer’s money.

Strong’s bill is merely a proposal, and has been announced I think mostly to give this guy a photo-op. Nonetheless, it shows that we cannot trust any politician to do what they say. The Republicans always run on cutting the budget, but here we have a Republican eagerly proposing we spend money we don’t have in order to provide pork to his district. It is essential that his own constituents tell him in no uncertain terms that this kind of legislation is not what they hired him for. If they don’t, then things in Washington will only continue to do downhill.

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Activists sue Texas commission for allowing SpaceX to use its Superheavy deluge launch system

9:45 am

The same activist groups that have repeatedly used lawfare to try to block SpaceX’s operations at Boca Chica have now sued the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for allowing SpaceX to use its deluge launch system during Starship/Superheavy launches, claiming that dumping potable drinking water into the ground somehow damages the environment.

The groups — the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, along with the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, and Save RGV — filed the lawsuit Monday after the agency decided last month to allow SpaceX to continue its operations for 300 days or until the company obtained the appropriate permit.

These three groups represent only a very tiny handful of people in the Rio Grande Valley. The people the media interviews from Save RGV always includes the same persons, suggesting that few people in south Texas support it. The “Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas” in turn is a fake Indian tribe. It no longer exists, and when it did it existed in Mexico, not Texas. Finally, the “South Texas Environmental Justice Network” is simply an umbrella organization created on top of other two to make it appear they have more support than they do.

The real question that local journalists should be asking is where are these groups getting their money for all their lawsuits? I suspect it comes from outside the region, from leftist political organizations whose goals have nothing to do with the environment.

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FAA issues license for SpaceX’s seventh test flight of Starship/Superheavy

7:33 pm

My, what a difference an election makes! FAA today proudly announced that it has issued the launch license for SpaceX’s seventh test flight of Starship/Superheavy at Boca Chica, now tentatively set for mid-January.

I say “proudly” because of this quote in the announcement:

“The FAA continues to increase efficiencies in our licensing determination activities to meet the needs of the commercial space transportation industry,” said the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation Kelvin B. Coleman. “This license modification that we are issuing is well ahead of the Starship Flight 7 launch date and is another example of the FAA`s commitment to enable safe space transportation.”

For the past three years it was like pulling teeth to get the FAA to issue these licenses for Starship/Superheavy test flights. Every time SpaceX had to wait from one to six months extra, and would only get the license mere hours before launch. During that time the FAA made no effort to “increase efficiencies” in its licensing process. Instead it found more ways to slow things down, not just for SpaceX but for the entire launch industry.

Trump gets elected and now suddenly the agency is interested in reducing red tape? What you are seeing instead a lot of bureaucrats desperately trying to convince the incoming administration that the delays for the past three years were not their fault, that they were really against red tape!

Or to put it more bluntly: “Please don’t fire us!”

I hope Trump doesn’t fall for this. A major house-cleaning in management and regulations is necessary at the FAA, and it must be done fast.

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Thailand signs the Artemis Accords

8:26 am

Thailand yesterday became the 51st nation to sign the Artemis Accords, joining the American alliance in space.

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

Trump created the accords with the goal to create an alliance with enough clout to overcome the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions on private property. Biden rewrote the goal to accomplish the exact opposite, as NASA states in all recent press releases about new nations joining:

The Artemis 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.

I expect there to be a shift back to the original goals in the second Trump administration.

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FAA eliminates a stupid licensing requirement imposed when it “streamlined” its launch licensing regulations

9:18 am

We’re from the government and we’re here to help! The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced last week that it will stop demanding rocket companies redo a flight safety analysis that have already been done by the rocket’s spaceports, a new bit of red tape that was apparently added when the agency introduced its Part 450 “streamlined” licensing regulations in 2021.

The FAA announced Dec. 13 that it will accept flight safety analyses performed by federal launch ranges in California, Florida and Virginia in applications for launch licenses under regulations known as Part 450. That decision means that companies will no longer have to perform similar analyses specifically for the FAA as part of the licensing process. Launch companies had complained of the duplication of work needed to carry out FAA analyses in addition to those required by the ranges they were launching from.

The FAA’s own bureaucracy had recognized the stupidity of this requirement (as well as many others) in July 2023 report [pdf], but the agency’s management did nothing. Apparently the political appointees who ran the agency during the Biden administration either liked this red tape — slowing American business — or were too dense to take action.

Trump’s election victory has now obviously forced some action. Not only has the agency suddenly recognized this particular problem, one week after Trump’s victory it announced the formation of an independent committee of industry and academia to review, once again, its Part 450 regulations.

It seems this committee is largely a Potemkin Village to make the Trump leadership think the agency is doing something. Instead, the FAA should do what it did last week, and adopt the many recommendations of the July 2023 report, now. The committee can then move forward cleaning up Part 450 in other areas instead of simply repeating that past work.

4 comments

Head of FAA resigns

1:32 pm

You could leave now for all I care: Mike Whitaker, who has been director of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) under the Biden administration and who has apparently been the main source of that agency’s increased red tape that has almost destroyed the new rocket industry that had been emerging during the first Trump administration, announced today that he is stepping down next month.

Mike Whitaker announced his pending resignation in a message to employees of the FAA, which regulates airlines and aircraft manufacturers and manages the nation’s airspace. He became the agency’s administrator in October 2023.

Since then, the challenges confronting Whitaker have included a surge in close calls between planes, a need for stricter oversight of Boeing. antiquated equipment and a shortage of air traffic controllers at a time of high consumer demand for air travel.

The article at the link is from PBS, so of course it makes this federal bureaucrat appear a hero. Instead, he was a disaster for America’s space industry, forcing unnecessary delays in SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy program, imposing new regulations that claimed to streamline the launch licensing process but did exactly the opposite, and generally forcing FAA regulators to take a fearful attitude to any new technology, so much so that it became almost impossible for that new technology to launch.

As for the aviation industry, Whitaker’s term did little to change things. For example, he did nothing to shut down the DEI programs at major airline and airplane companies that were causing the hiring of unqualified people.

All I can say is good riddance.

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Two congressmen demand FAA streamline its launch licensing process

10:22 am

In a letter [pdf] sent to the FAA on December 6, 2024, two congressmen have called for the FAA to fix what it calls its Part 450 launch licensing process, established in 2021, that has been choking off rocket development in the U.S.

The congressmen, Sam Graves (R-Missouri) and Rob Wittman (R-Virginia), specifically focused on the problems these new regulations have imposed during what the FAA calls its “pre-application review.” From the letter:

In November of 2024, the FAA indicated that 98 percent of applications are met within the statutory 180 day timeline. However, this timeframe does not include the months, and oftentimes years, of pre–application review that create extensive delays for companies seeking a launch and reentry license. [emphasis mine]

Consider the implications of this one quote. The FAA is proud of the fact that it approves license applications within six months — an ungodly long time for a startup — but doesn’t mention that the approval process is actually far longer because it requires new applications to be reviewed at length, before they can even be submitted.

In November, a week after Trump’s election victory, the FAA announced that it was forming a committee made up of people from the launch industry as well as academia to review Part 450. In their letter the congressmen approved of this new committee, but noted its work would not be completed until mid-2025, and that “the system is broken and must be fixed” immediately.

We, however, urge the FAA to act now and ensure that all actions short of rulemaking that can help mitigate the deficiencies of the part 450 regulation are taken in advance of any necessary regulatory changes to ensure that the commercial space industry does not have to wait years for relief.

I suspect we shall see some real action at the FAA come January 20, 2025, after Trump takes office.

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Superheavy to be used on next test flight completes 15-second static fire test

10:04 am

SpaceX has successfully completed a launchpad 15-second static fire test of the 33 engines on the Superheavy booster that will be used on the next test flight (the seventh) of its Starship/Superheavy rocket.

The video at the link is remarkable in that it appears all 33 Raptor-2 engines fired for the entire test with no problems either to the rocket or launchpad, despite producing more thrust in that time than any rocket ever in the history of space exploration.

According to this report, it appears SpaceX is targeting January 11, 2025 for that seventh test flight.

SpaceX has not yet announced a launch date for Starship’s seventh test flight, but the company appears to be eyeing Jan. 11; an email sent by NASA to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration identifies that date as the target. (According to that email, NASA plans to deploy a Gulfstream V jet to observe the upcoming flight.)

This date however has not yet been confirmed by SpaceX. Nor has the FAA indicated it will issue a license. The FAA’s approval will depend on the flight plan SpaceX chooses for the test. If similar to the previous two test flights, then that approval will be fast. If not, the red tape will likely cause several more months of delays.

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One of Australia’s proposed spaceports moves

9:37 am

Australia's spaceports
Australia’s spaceports

“I’m from the government and I’m here to help!” Because of its inability to get the proper permissions from a local council, the management of Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) has abandoned its original spaceport location on the Gove peninsula in the Northwest Territory of Australia and shifted east to a new location on the York peninsula in Queensland.

On the map to the right the “X” shows the old location, with the new location near the town of Weipa on the west coast of the peninsula. The change was forced on the company when it could not get proper approvals from the Northern Land Council (NLC), which manages the Arnhem Land Aboriginal Land Trust where the original site was located.

In a statement late on Monday, ELA said its most recent attempt to finalise a lease for the expansion of the ASC in October had been unsuccessful, following three other failed attempts in the last 12 months. In each case, it said the NLC had “failed to meet its own specified deadline for the approval of the Head Lease” or “provide any official reason for the delay”, despite pleas from the NT government and the Gumatj Aboriginal Corporation.

Because ELA has a launch contract with a South Korea rocket startup Innospace that intends to launch next year, it decided the switch had to occur now to make sure it could meet its obligations under this launch contract.

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Panama and Austria to sign Artemis Accords

9:18 am

NASA yesterday announced that both Panama and Austria will sign Artemis Accords tomorrow, bringing the total number of nations in the alliance to fifty.

The full list of nations now part of this American space alliance: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Panama, 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.

The accords were created by the first Trump administration with the goal to create an alliance with enough clout to overcome the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions on private property. Under the Biden administration, the goal has been rewritten to accomplish the exact opposite, as noted by NASA yesterday:

The Artemis 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.

With Trump back in charge, expect him to bring the accords back to its original goal. Unlike his first term, the alliance is now large, and he can use it to quickly apply pressure on the international community to overcome the Outer Space Treaty’s limitations on private property.

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Ten stupid academic studies funded by the federal government

9:18 am

Campus Reform last week posted a list of ten academic studies funded by federal government that any sane person would not only consider stupid, but an utter waste of money.

Number 1 on the list was a grant of almost a half million dollars to researchers at Reed College in Oregon to study the gambling habits of pigeons. The researchers claimed the study would shed light on human gambling behaviors, but if you believe that then you would likely also fork over your life savings to buy the Brooklyn Bridge.

Of the ten studies listed, the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded four each, while the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Cancer Institute funded one each.

National Cancer Institute’s study is surely going to help cure cancer, as it gave $7 million to the con artists faking as researchers at Stanford University to build an AI toilet equipped with cameras to scan the user’s waste and backside.

The studies were done at a range of other major universities, including Cornell, the University of California, the University of Illinois, and the University of Connecticut. Most are publicly funded institutions.

This list demonstrates clearly the bankruptcy of the government agencies involved and justifies any effort to slash their budgets by significant amounts. It does more however. It shows us the bankruptcy of the academic community as well. If scientists at major universities think this drivel is valid research, then we know they are teaching their students garbage as well. The public funding to these colleges should be slashed also.

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Why Orion’s heat shield problems give Jared Isaacman the perfect justification to cancel all of SLS/Orion

9:43 am

Orion's damage heat shield
Damage to Orion heat shield caused during re-entry in 2022,
including “cavities resulting from the loss of large chunks”

In yesterday’s press conference announcing new delays in NASA’s next two SLS/Orion Artemis missions to the Moon, agency officials were remarkably terse in providing details on why large chunks of Orion’s heat shield material broke off during its return to Earth in 2022 during the first Artemis mission. That damage, shown to the right, is one of the main reasons for the newly announced launch delays.

All they really said was that the damage was caused during re-entry, the atmosphere causing more stress than expected on the heat shield.

Today NASA finally released a more detailed explanation.

Engineers determined as Orion was returning from its uncrewed mission around the Moon, gases generated inside the heat shield’s ablative outer material called Avcoat were not able to vent and dissipate as expected. This allowed pressure to build up and cracking to occur, causing some charred material to break off in several locations.

…During Artemis I, engineers used the skip guidance entry technique to return Orion to Earth. … Using this maneuver, Orion dipped into the upper part of Earth’s atmosphere and used atmospheric drag to slow down. Orion then used the aerodynamic lift of the capsule to skip back out of the atmosphere, then reenter for final descent under parachutes to splashdown.

[Ground testing during the investigation showed] that during the period between dips into the atmosphere, heating rates decreased, and thermal energy accumulated inside the heat shield’s Avcoat material. This led to the accumulation of gases that are part of the expected ablation process. Because the Avcoat did not have “permeability,” internal pressure built up, and led to cracking and uneven shedding of the outer layer.

In other words, instead of ablating off in small layers, the gas build-up caused the Avcoat to break off in large chunks, with the breakage tending to occur at the seams between sections of the heat shield.
» Read more

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Republican California state legislator introduces bill to overturn California Coastal Commission’s effort to block SpaceX

9:46 am

Wants to be a dictator
Wants to be a dictator

Republican state assemblyman Bill Essayli has now introduced a bill that would overturn the decision by the California Coastal Commission to reject SpaceX’s request to increase its launch rate at Vandenberg spaceport, a decision the commissioners readily and publicly stated was made not to protect the state’s beaches (the commission’s prime function) but because they did not like Musk’s political positions.

“AB 10 will reverse the politically-motivated decision by the California Coastal Commission to restrict SpaceX launches for the Space Force due to their hatred of Elon Musk. This dangerous and illegal decision threatens our national security and erodes the public trust we place in our officials to act in the best interest of the people — not politics,” Essayli said in a statement this week.

SpaceX has already sued the commission and its commissioners for violating Musk’s first amendment rights as well as exceeding their statutory authority.

The bottom line however is that the commission’s decision carries no legal weight. Vandenberg is an federally operated military base, and thus this state commission has no authority to dictate what happens there. The Space Force has simply tried to work with it in the past.

Thus, if the commission’s fangs are not pulled by Essayli’s legislation as well as SpaceX’s lawsuit, the military will likely just ignore it.

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