Tag: policy

Boeing names new CEO, set to take over on August 8, 2024

10:32 am

Boeing today named a new CEO, Robert “Kelly” Ortberg, who among the candidates being considered appears to be the only one who did not have a long career at Boeing.

Ortberg emerged as a leading candidate only recently. Others who were reportedly considered for the job included Patrick Shanahan, a former Boeing executive and now CEO of its most important supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, and another longtime Boeing executive, Stephanie Pope, who recently took over the commercial airplanes division.

Ortberg led Rockwell Collins from 2013 to 2018, when it merged with United Technologies and wound up as part of RTX, the company formerly known as Raytheon. He retired from RTX in 2021.

He will take charge of the company as of August 8, 2024.

It remains to be seen if Ortberg can fix things. As the article notes, since 2019 Boeing has lost more than $25 billion, and has been saddled with numerous quality control failures in almost all its technical divisions, from building airplanes to providing maintenance to building space capsules. The failures in its airplane divisions resulted in several crashes that killed 346 people, and caused it to accept a deal with the Justice Department that included a fine of $243.6 million to avoid a criminal trial. That deal however has not yet been accepted by the judge in the case.

Ortberg will have to demonstrate somehow that the culture at Boeing itself has changed. The first thing he could do to indicate he is serious about doing so would be to shut down entirely Boeing’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) bureaucracy. Getting rid of that poisonous race-based anti-quality program would go a long way in convincing others that Ortberg means business, and wants to put talent, skills, experience first in everything Boeing does, something previous CEOs have clearly not done.

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A review of Japan’s effort to create a commercial space industry

9:54 am

Link here. The article does a nice job outlining the efforts of the new startups in Japan that have been successful in flying missions, such as the orbital tug company Astroscale and the lunar lander company Ispace, as well as newer companies such as Shachu, which proposes building and selling modules for use on any one of the new commercial space stations under construction.

The article also talks at length about Japan’s newly created ten year $6.5 billion strategic fund, designed to be provide funding for many different commercial projects and inspired by NASA recent switch from being the designer, builder, and owner of everything to simply a customer buying products from the private sector.

The fund has been given to Japan’s space agency to administer, and it remains unclear whether that government agency is prepared to give up power to the private sector as NASA has. This quote illustrates this uncertainty:

Since the effort is just starting, both companies and JAXA are uncertain how well the fund will work. Yasuo Ishii, senior vice president of JAXA, said the agency has assigned 450 people to administer the fund, including researchers and other experts. “We used to be an R&D institution and now we’re a funder,” he said.

He said JAXA will closely monitor progress on the initial awards made through the fund. “If some don’t go well, we may terminate them.”

It seems JAXA is so far using this fund to establish a large bureaucracy for itself, rather than issuing contracts to the private sector to build things JAXA needs.

We shall see how this plays out. The Japanese aerospace industry appears to be similar to the American space industry around 2008, with lots of old established big companies working hand-in-glove with the government space agency and a lot of small startups trying to establish themselves as competitors. In the U.S. at that time NASA was very resistant to give contracts to the startups. It took strong political pressure from within the upper levels of government, first in the Obama administration and then in the Trump administration, to force a change at NASA. Whether this will happen in Japan remains unknown.

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China scientists propose both a communications and GPS-type infrastructure on the Moon

9:34 am

In line with the remarkably rational and long term plans China has developed for exploring the solar system, Chinese scientists have proposed the country develop both a communications and GPS-type infrastructure on the Moon, with both including constellations of satellites in orbit as well as facilities on the ground.

A first phase would establish satellites in elliptical frozen orbits around the moon. A second phase would see further … satellites and spacecraft at Earth-moon Lagrange points 1, 2, 4 and 5, a near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO), and a spacecraft in geostationary orbit, termed a cislunar space station.

A third and final phase would add satellites in existing and new distant retrograde orbits (DRO), forming a near-moon space and extended space constellations. The system also includes comprehensive ground-based facilities.

While this plan is simply a proposal, it fits with China’s overall strategies for lunar exploration, all of which are designed carefully so that they can be scaled up for more complex operations there as well as elsewhere in the solar system. And based on China’s track record in space in the past decade, we should be entirely confident this program or some variation will be built.

That is, unless China undergoes a major economic collapse and a change in leadership that has different priorities.

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Secret Service agent reveals the edifice of incompetency and stupidity that permeates the entire federal government

2:27 pm

You would have to live under a rock, or rely entirely on mainstream media news sources, to not know that in the past twenty years the work of most federal government agencies had almost always been incompetent and badly managed, resulting in failed projects and vast amounts of money spent to get nothing accomplished. Only two recent examples come to mind immediately:

The second story is an even more egregious failure. After three years the program has so far failed to provide any American internet service. In that same time period SpaceX’s Starlink service, by itself, provided millions service worldwide, and did it for far less.

Letter of condemnation by secret service sniper
Letter of condemnation by secret service sniper. Click for original.

This reality of governmental failure was driven home even more harshly today when it was revealed that a Secret Service agent has sent out an agency-wide email [enhanced screen capture to the right], condemning the entire supervisor leadership at that agency, and insisting that he will continue to speak up publicly “… until 5 high-level supervisors (1 down) are either fired or removed from their current positions.” He went on to note that

I have conveyed these thoughts to not only supervisors (to include the current Captain of CS [Counter Snipers], but those responsible for training us (SOTS/CS). Only to be brushed off as those with less experience somehow knew more than me.”

» Read more

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Google monitors and censors Gmail and Googlegroup emails for political content it dislikes

1:07 pm

Google, hostile to free speech

Reason 2,458,210,539 to stop using Google: We now have solid evidence that Google monitors and censors emails sent out using either Gmail or to Googlegroup listservs, because it censored emails discussing Robert F. Kennedy’s independent candidacy for the presidency.

The story at the link describes how the author, Lori Wentz of the Brownstone Institute, on June 27, 2024 emailed to a Googlegroups listserv a link to an X livestream where Kennedy would give his own answers to the questions in the live debate between Trump and Biden on June 28, 2024. In doing so the author also included some of her own thoughts, which resulted in an exchange on the political listserv about the subject. She subsequently got the following notice from Googlegroups:

“We’re letting you know that we’ve permanently removed [your] content…An external report flagged the content for illegal or policy violations. As a result, our legal content and policy standards team removed the content for the following reason: unwanted content.”

Wentz had no way of finding out what that “unwanted content” was, as Googlegroups did not provide this essential information, instead informing her that she would simply have “to pursue your claims in court.”
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FAA releases proposed environmental assessment of Boca Chica permitting more Starship/Superheavy launches

10:19 am

Superheavy/Starship lifting off on March 14, 2024
Superheavy/Starship lifting off on March 14, 2024

In advance of several planned public meetings, the FAA today released [pdf] its proposed environmental assessment of SpaceX’s proposal to increase the number of orbital launches allowed per year from Boca Chica from 5 to 25.

The report makes for some fascinating reading. First and foremost it indicates the FAA’s general approval of this new launch cadence. That approval however must also be given by the public in comments at those meetings, as well as by the National Park Service (NPS), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Expect serious objections from the NPS and USFSW, both of which have acted to slow or stop SpaceX in the past, when each was given the opportunity. Both have a new opportunity here.
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Senate gives NASA cash to stop its tantrum

9:35 am

Surprise, surprise! As expected after NASA proposed major cuts in several missions, such as the Chandra Space Telescope and the OSAM demo robotic refueling mission, the subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee has rejected those cuts and instead proposed that NASA not only get everything it asked for, it be forced to take more money than it requested.

I am certain that NASA is not going to complain, as this was its plan from day one. The cancellation of Chandra was intended as a toddler’s tantrum that our weak Congress was certain to bow to and come up with the cash. It has now done so.

The report directs NASA to spend at least $98.3 million on Hubble and up to $72.1 million on Chandra, similar to the budgets for those missions in recent years, emphasizing the ability of the telescopes to work in conjunction with the James Webb Space Telescope.

In this case the Senate action makes some sense, as these cuts would have been penny wise and pound foolish. But NASA knew that. If the Senate was really interested in controlling the budget (which it is not) it would have funded Chandra and Hubble as described, but demanded cuts from NASA elsewhere.

Instead the Senate committee not only demands that these telescopes be maintained, it doles out extra money the nation doesn’t have for other projects that NASA wanted to cut for entirely legitimate reasons. OSAM for example was conceived more than a decade ago as a mission designed to demonstrate robotic refueling in space. After spending a billion and a decade, it had still not flown, and during that time private companies had not only successfully demonstrated this capability several times for far less, they had done so in a far simpler and more profitable manner. The technical need for OSAM was gone. Why spend the additional billion we can’t afford for a project that will prove nothing?

Congress, especially the Senate, likes wasting money however, and so the appropriations committee in an entirely bi-partisan effort is pushing to revive OSAM, as well as several other projects that have either gone over budget or NASA had deemed correctly were unaffordable.

The dark age has already begun in many ways, but its official start will be marked by future historians by the date the United States undergoes a full financial collapse, due to its government’s unwillingness to rein in a national debt that is now in the many many trillions and growing uncontrollably each day.

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Local billionaire landowner renews his oppposition to the Sutherland spaceport

10:58 am

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea.

An effort by the proposed Sutherland spaceport on the north coast of Scotland to place a tracking dish on a nearby peak — where other telecommunication dishes are already installed — is now being fought by local billionaire landowner Anders Holch Povlsen, who had previously tried and failed to stop construction of the spaceport entirely.

The spaceport’s main customer, the rocket startup Orbex, has already experienced endless red tape from the United Kingdom’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). It applied for a launch license in February 2022, and almost two-and-a-half years later still has not gotten an approval. It had previously announced a first launch that year, and has been stymied since, not only by the CAA but by local authorities who have demanded it make many changes to its construction plans.

Povlsen, who has himself invested in the competing Saxavord spaceport on the Shetland Islands, has repeatedly acted to block Sutherland, so far with no success. This new suit is especially absurd — claiming the new dish would harm the local landscape — which is why the local councils appear ready to reject it.
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Report: Law enforcement officers nationwide no longer trust the FBI, and will not work with it

12:51 pm

Kamala Harris joking about killing Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and Jeff Sessions
Kamala Harris as she enthusiaticallly joked on television
about killing Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and Jeff Sessions

A just released scathing and horrifying report put together by the National Alliance of Retired and Active Duty FBI Special Agents and Analysts has found extensive nationwide evidence that local law enforcement officers so distrust the FBI they will no longer cooperate with it in any way.

You can read the report here. It came to the following ten conclusions:

  • Local law enforcement officers do not trust the FBI
  • Local law enforcement no longer share actionable, substantive information with the FBI
  • FBI National Academy graduates are troubled by bias
  • Routinely poor management and ineffective leadership found in FBI-led task forces
  • The FBI is isolated and unresponsive to local law enforcement
  • Local law enforcement officers feel disrespected by FBI special agents
  • Today’s tone-deaf FBI disregards the value of retired FBI special agents
  • The new generation of FBI special agents are seen as “completely worthless”
  • FBI management is too transitory and obsessed with self-promotion
  • The FBI’s cult of narcissism begins at the FBI Academy

For conservatives who have been paying attention for the past decade, none of these conclusions are a surprise. The FBI, as well as the CIA, ATF, the Secret Service as well as the entire intelligence and security community in the federal government have not only demonstrated obvious incompetence in their basic jobs since Obama was president, these agencies have clearly become partisan weaponized tools for the Democratic Party.
» Read more

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NASA/Boeing: Cause of Starliner thruster failure identified

10:21 am

According to NASA and Boeing officials, ground static fire engine tests have now identified the likely cause of the thruster failures on the Starliner capsule during its docking to ISS in early June, and puts them in a position next week to determine a return date for the capsule and its two astronauts.

It appears the problem is related to teflon seals in the thrusters, detected while engineers did a series of tests on the ground with another Starliner capsule. Based on this information, Boeing thinks it can fix the problem on future capsules, while also insuring there will be no problems returning the astronauts from ISS.

The thrusters in question are all attitude thrusters, where there is a lot of redundancy and the issue has been seen to be well controlled from the start. The larger thrusters used for the undocking and de-orbit burn have been tested as well, and have not shown any similar issues at all.

The ground tests have also identified the cause of the helium leaks within the capsule engine system. Boeing will use this data to fix later capsules as well. These leaks are not a concern for the return to Earth.

The plan now is to do in the next few days one more set of static fire tests with the capsule docked on ISS, doing short bursts with all the attitude thrusters to further confirm what has been learned on the ground. If that goes as expected, a final meeting next week will determine the return date for the capsule and crew.

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Saxavord: We will get our last required spaceport license by September

11:45 pm

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea.

My heart be still: According to one official of the Saxavord spaceport in the Shetland Islands, it expects to get its last required spaceport license from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of the United Kingdom sometime in September of this year.

In a presentation at the Farnborough International Airshow here July 23, Scott Hammond, deputy chief executive and operations director of SaxaVord Spaceport, said he expected the spaceport to receive the last of the licenses from U.K. regulators in September needed to host the inaugural launch of Rocket Factory Augsburg’s RFA ONE rocket there.

The red tape getting the first launch off at Saxavord has been odious and disheartening, to say the least. After almost two years of deliberations, the CAA awarded the spaceport its spaceport license in December 2023. This finally allowed it to be a spaceport, but apparently that was insufficient for it to be allowed to do any launches. The CAA then took three more months to issue what it called the range license.

Saxavord was still not allowed to do any launches. The CAA demanded one more license for what it calls “airspace access for launches.” I have no idea how this is different than the range license, unless the CAA has separated control of the surface from the air space, and thus requires two separate licenses for each. Either way, getting that approved has now dragged on for months. No one should be confident Saxavord’s September prediction for approval will turn out to be true.

All these licenses however will still not permit any launches to proceed. The CAA also requires each particular rocket company to get its own launch license. Though Saxavord as well as Rocket Factory are targeting a launch before the end of the year, soon after getting that last airspace license, they might be counting their chickens before they hatch, based on the CAA’s track record with Virgin Orbit.

After Cornwall got all its CAA licenses to allow Virgin Orbit to launch from that airport, Virgin thought it would be able to get is launch license quickly and launch within only a few months. Instead, the CAA took about a year to issue Virgin its launch license, with that long delay eventually becoming the main reason the company went bankrupt.

Rocket Factory unfortunately appears to have locked itself into Saxavord. It has already done a static fire test of its first stage there, and has delivered the rocket’s upper stage. If the CAA takes its time again giving its approval, the startup might find itself bleeding cash, as Virgin Orbit did.

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The anti-Semitic Pro-Hamas Democratic Party shows its colors again

5:17 pm

Democrats burn American flags in support of Hamas
Democrats burn American flags in support of Hamas

Today the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, came to Washington to meet with American government officials and give a speech before both houses of Congress.

Not surprisingly, numerous Democrats both inside and outside Congress showed their hatred of Israel and love of the Hamas terrorists, enthusiastically slandering Netanyahu, Israel, and its struggle to survive while elevating terrorists into “freedom fighters”, even though on October 7 last year those Hamas fighters weren’t fighting for freedom, they were out to kill Jews, eagerly raping, torturing, and murdering more than a thousand men, women, children, and babies simply because they were present inside Israel.

Inside Congress more than forty Democrats boycotted Netanyahu’s speech, including Vice President Kamala Harris (now running for president against Trump). Apparently Harris is courting the American Hamas voting block. Democrats who did attend made it clear in numerous ways that they oppose the right of Israel and Jews to exist and that they support Hamas’ murder of women, children and babies, though of course they couched their statements in cute ways filled with lies in order to give themselves plausible deniability. For example, Nancy Pelosi said this:
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