Tag: policy

SLIM survives its third lunar night

9:07 am

Though it was primarily designed to prove its landing system and was never expected to resume operations after enduring the long 14-day-long lunar night, Japan’s SLIM lunar lander has successfully survived its third lunar night, resuming contact with Earth yesterday.

JAXA said on the social media platform X that SLIM’s key functions are still working despite repeated harsh cycles of temperature changes. The agency said it plans to closely monitor the lander’s deterioration.

While the newly downloaded data and photos have some scientific value, the important data is the spacecraft’s engineering status. Finding out what continues to work and what fails after each lunar night will inform engineers on what to do best to build future lunar landers and rovers.

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It is simple: Conservatives don’t have the votes

2:53 pm

The Republican Party and its voters
The modern Republican Party and its voters

Many conservatives both in Congress and out have recently railed in fury at the compromises that House speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has made with the Democrats in order to pass large multi-billion dollar foreign aid bills to help the Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan protect their sovereignty and borders, while doing nothing to pass any bills to secure the American border at all.

That fury is best represented by Marjorie Taylor Greene, (R-Georgia), who has filed a motion to vacate the speaker but as yet has not followed through to force a vote. She has repeatedly condemned his willingness to work to pass Democratic Party proposals while doing little to help Republicans get their bills passed.

The problem however for Johnson is the same one faced by the previous Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, as well as the Republican speaker before him, Paul Ryan, and the speaker before him, John Boehner. All struggled to get Republican proposals passed, and all failed. None could garner a majority strong enough, especially because the Democrats stood firm and united in opposition and many Republicans were actually more allied with the Democratic Party agenda. It is this same problem that Greene faces and is why she has not moved to force a vote for a new speaker.
» Read more

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German rocket startup Hyimpulse’s first suborbital rocket arrives in Australia

9:32 am

Australian commercial spaceports
Australia’s commercial spaceports. Click for original map.

The German rocket startup Hyimpulse today announced that its first suborbital rocket, the SR75, had arrived in Australia for its planned first test launch.

On 28 February, Southern Launch, the commercial outfit that manages the Koonibba Test Range, revealed that a launch attempt of the suborbital SR75 rocket would occur between late April and early May. This likely gives the team little room for the unexpected as it prepares for launch.

Those launch dates depend on whether Australia’s government will issue the launch licenses on time. So far its ability to do so in a timely manner has been difficult if not impossible. For example, the rocket startup Gilmour, which wants to launch from Bowen at about the same time, has been waiting more than two years to get its approval, delaying its first orbital test launch by more than a year.

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PLD Space announces its upcoming plans

9:22 am

Capitalism in space: Having received in late January a $43.5 million grant, bringing its total funding to more than $120 million, the Spanish rocket startup PLD Space today announced its upcoming plans.

[T]he company intends to inaugurate the first serial space rocket factory in Spain in mid-2024. The facilities will also enable vertical integration of the launchers. The industrial site, whose building work is already underway, will house the factory for the first MIURA 5 units [the company’s orbital rocket] as well as the company’s head offices. In total, PLD Space will be able to count on 18,400 square metres of industrial facilities in Elche (Alicante).

…Also scheduled for 2024, construction work is to begin on the launch base at the European CSG spaceport in Kourou (French Guiana), which belongs to CNES [France’s space agency]. This site, covering over 15,700 square metres, will host MIURA 5’s first launches.

That France is now leasing launch facilities to private companies illustrates starkly how Europe is steadily abandoning Arianespace, the European Space Agency’s government-run commercial company. Instead, Europe is now choosing competition and private enterprise as its model. Expect these new companies, including PLD, to achieve big things in the coming years.

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On the left, certainty and violent passion; On the right, doubt and fearful timidity; This must change!

3:11 pm

What the left wants to destroy
What the left wants to destroy

“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.” ― Winston S. Churchill

It is said that if you want to win a war, it is essential to know your enemy almost better than you know yourself, so that you know what will be required of you to win.

Americans, those who still believe in the Constitution and the basic values of our country — limited government and the right of each individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — routinely still think they are in the majority, that given a fair fight they will always win against the fascists of the left because the general public will immediately recognize the justice of the right’s cause.

This is not only a grave error, it is an error that Americans have been making for decades. Year by year since the 1960s Americans of all stripes have been unwilling to fight for right when it could have been easily won without bloodshed. Now bloodshed is almost certainly required, and the right continues to be unwilling to fight hard. Instead it still thinks its victories can be won easily, and so it is lazy about fighting those battles.

The left

To understand best why the right continues to lose, we first have to look closely at the left. As a movement, it has for decades been passionate and unwilling to compromise. Its leaders and followers are filled with certainty, and have been willing to do whatever is necessary to win.
» Read more

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China launches “remote-sensing” satellite

10:41 am

China today successfully launched what its state-run press stated was “a remote-sensing” satellite, its Long March 2D rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China.

No other information about the satellite was released. The state-run press also provided no information about where the rocket’s lower stages, which carry very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed within China.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

41 SpaceX
16 China
6 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 47 to 28, while SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 41 to 34.

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Update on SpaceX’s preparations for the 4th test flight of Superheavy/Starship

11:10 am

Link here. The article is definitely worth reading, as it tells us that SpaceX is pushing hard to be ready to launch in early May, as Musk has promised. The article also thinks SpaceX will be able to ramp up later launches to one every two months.

The article however is I think being naively optimistic about this timeline, because it naively assumes the FAA will quickly approve the launch licenses to meet that schedule. I guarantee the FAA won’t, as it has taken it one to four months after SpaceX was ready to launch to approve the licenses for the previous launches. The length of that approval process has shrunk each time, but FAA still made Space X wait each time, for no reason.

Making that schedule even more unlikely is SpaceX’s desire to do as many as nine test launches per year at Boca Chica. While the company could certainly do this, the environment reassessment issued in 2022 limits it to only five launches per year. It needs a waiver from the FAA and the Biden administration,
a waiver no one should expect considering the Biden administrations hostility to Musk.

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Slovenia signs Artemis Accords

10:58 am

NASA announced yesterday that Slovenia has become the 39th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, joining the American alliance for exploring the Moon and the solar system.

The alliance now includes these 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, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

As with all the recent announcements, the NASA press release now insists that the accords are designed to “reinforce and implement key obligations in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty,” the exact opposite of the original goals of the accords. Rather than overvcome the Outer Space Treaty’s restriction on private property in space, the Biden administration is now using the accords to strengthen that restriction. To quote someone (Mussolini) whose policies the modern globalist world clearly admires, “Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”

This could all change with different leadership in Washington, but whether the administrative state, led by the Democratic Party, will allow such a thing at this point in history is very questionable. And they appear aided in this totalitarian effort by a meek and largely ignorant American public.

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Boeing to reduce staffing for SLS due to overall delays in Artemis

9:53 am

Boeing announced yesterday that it is going to reduce the staffing for its SLS rocket, caused by delays in other parts of the program that force it to stretch out operations.

When Boeing cites “external factors,” it is referring to the slipping timelines for NASA’s Artemis Program. In January officials with the space agency announced approximately one-year delays for both the Artemis II mission, a crewed lunar flyby, to September 2025; and Artemis III, a lunar landing, to September 2026. Neither of these schedules are set in stone, either. Further delays are possible for Artemis II, and likely for Artemis III if NASA sticks to the current mission plans.

Although the SLS rocket will be ready for the current schedule, barring a catastrophe, the other elements are in doubt. For Artemis II, NASA still has not cleared a heat shield issue with the Orion spacecraft. That must be resolved before the mission gets a green light to proceed next year. The challenges are even greater for Artemis III. For that mission NASA needs to have a lunar lander—which is being provided by SpaceX with its Starship vehicle—in addition to spacesuits provided by Axiom Space for the lunar surface. Both of these elements remain solidly in the development phase.

What Boeing is telling us indirectly is that, though NASA has not yet announced any further delays in those launch dates for Artemis-2 and Artemis-3, those dates are going to be delayed, quite possibly by one or more years.

None of this is a surprise. I have long been predicting that the first manned lunar landing in the Artemis program will not take place before 2030. In fact, that date was obvious the moment NASA announced its plan to make the Lunar Gateway space station an integral part of the program, back in 2018, when it was called LOP-G.

Now that SLS development is complete and NASA considers it “operational”, Boeing is merely reducing the staffing to maintain its assembly line, reducing it accordingly because of expected delays when additional rockets will be needed.

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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.

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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

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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.

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TESS has resumed science operations

9:15 am

Engineers have successfully returned TESS to full science operations, without providing as yet any explanaton as to why on April 8, 2024 it went into safe mode or what they did to fix the issue.

The Aprill 11 press release announcing the safe mode had only mentioned that the shut down had occurred “during scheduled engineering activities.” The lack of information continues to suggest that someone did an “Oops!” during those activities, and NASA is too embarassed to reveal that fact.

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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.”

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NASA approves Dragonfly mission to the Saturn moon Titan

9:50 am

NASA yesterday announced that it has given final approval for the Dragonfly helicopter mission to the Saturn moon Titan.

With the release of the president’s fiscal year 2025 budget request, Dragonfly is confirmed with a total lifecycle cost of $3.35 billion and a launch date of July 2028. This reflects a cost increase of about two times the proposed cost and a delay of more than two years from when the mission was originally selected in 2019. Following that selection, NASA had to direct the project to replan multiple times due to funding constraints in fiscal years 2020 through 2022. The project incurred additional costs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain increases, and the results of an in-depth design iteration. To compensate for the delayed arrival at Titan, NASA also provided additional funding for a heavy-lift launch vehicle to shorten the mission’s cruise phase.

The rotorcraft, targeted to arrive at Titan in 2034, will fly to dozens of promising locations on the moon, looking for prebiotic chemical processes common on both Titan and the early Earth before life developed. Dragonfly marks the first time NASA will fly a vehicle for science on another planetary body. The rotorcraft has eight rotors and flies like a large drone.

Be prepared for the project to go overbudget, as NASA’s biggests projects almost always do.

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NASA admits that its Mars Sample Return project needs new ideas

10:09 am

The present plan for Mars Sample Return
The present plan for Mars Sample Return

In issuing yesterday its reponse [pdf] to the February 28, 2024 audit [pdf] by NASA’s inspector general (IG) of its Mars Sample Return mission (MSR), NASA has admitted that its Mars Sample Return project needs new ideas and major changes. From the press release:

“The bottom line is, an $11 billion budget is too expensive, and a 2040 return date is too far away,” said [NASA administrator Bill] Nelson.

The agency will today issue a call for proposals from the private sector for alternative ideas for picking up the samples on Mars and getting them up into orbit.

This NASA response to the IG report however changes little else in overall project, and almost certainly will not succeed in either reducing cost or shortening the timeline in any way.
» Read more

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The value of Trump’s Abraham Accords once again proven

2:59 pm

Hamas vs Israel
Even the Arabs recognize these facts.
And they know that Iran is allied with Hamas.
Courtesy of Doug Ross.

Over the weekend the Iranian attempt to bomb Israel drove home starkly the effectiveness of the Abraham Accords that Donald Trump pushed through during his term between Israel and a number of its Arab neighbors.

The effectiveness of the accords was not only illustrated by the moral and technical support given to Israel by the UAE and Bahrain (two accord signatories), the good will these agreements produced between Israel and the Arab world caused other Arab nations to add their own support as well.

First, when Iran tipped off several Arab countries of its intentions — which likely included both Jordan and Saudi Arabia (neither of which has signed the accords) — those countries then immediately passed that information to the United States, knowning full well it would then be passed to Israel. Iran had thought the Arab world was united with it, when in truth at least half the Arab world is now allied with Israel (either overtly or covertly).

Then Jordan denied Iran permission to use its airspace, and then followed this up by first opening its airspace to Israel and American fighter jets. All three then proceeded to shoot down Iran’s missiles and drones, preventing almost all from even reaching Israel.

The support Saudi Arabia gave to Israel this past weekend suggests once again that it does want to sign the accords as well. Just before the 2020 election there were numerous rumors that it would do so, once Trump was confirmed for a second term. It then backed off when Biden was installed as president, though it also has made it clear in the past three years that it is more aligned with Israel than Iran or the Palestinians. In fact, there is much evidence that many Arab countries in the Middle East are increasingly ready to abandon or seriously curtail their support of the Palestinians, in exchange for a peaceful co-existence with Israel that enhances everyone’s security. All fear Iran, and Israel can help them fight it.

The situation of course remains very complex, but it will simplify enormously after Israel finishes Hamas off and then demonstrates its determination to rebuild Gaza as a sane place for both the Gazans and its neighbors. Despite the absurd screams of “genocide” by stupid Hama supporters, Israel’s neighbors very much want to get Hamas destroyed. They might mouth some complaints about the lose of civilian lifes in Gaza, but those protests are not to be taken very seriously. Hamas has done nothing for them except instill disorder and violence in the region. Remove it, and they know everyone will benefit.

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Assuming students sign up, plagiarist Claudine Gay to teach “reading and research” class at Harvard

12:17 pm

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

Claudine Gay, former Harvard president and now a known plagiarist, is now scheduled to teach a “reading and research” class this coming fall at Harvard.

Harvard University’s former president who resigned after numerous plagiarism allegations is slated to teach a graduate level “Reading and Research” course this upcoming semester. Professor Claudine Gay returned to teaching and her reportedly nearly $900,000 annual salary after resigning the presidency after ongoing plagiarism accusations and criticism of her response to campus antisemitism.

…Gay taught the same class in the spring. It is a graduate-level independent study type class.

The commentary on Gay’s future teaching work has generally generally been outraged and amused, since in a sane world the last person any college should want as a teacher is a proven plagiarist. Allowing such a failure to run classes only stains the reputation of the college.

However, there is another aspect to this story that most pundits are missing. » Read more

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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.

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China launches remote sensing satellite

9:17 am

China today successfully launched a remote sensing satellite, its Long March 2D rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China. Video of the launch can be found here.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages, using toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

39 SpaceX
15 China
6 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined 45 to 27, while SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 39 to 33.

To my readers: Posting will be unpredictable for the next few days, as yesterday during a hike I fell, smashing my nose and cracking a rib. The nose is now pretty much fine, though it took a while for the bleeding to stop, but the rib makes doing almost anything somewhat painful. I shall see how the day goes.

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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

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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.

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China: Quequiao-2 is successfully operating in lunar orbit

9:04 am

China’s state-run press today announced that its Quequiao-2 communications relay satellite in lunar orbit has successfully completed its initial in-orbit tests, and is functioning as planned.

The satellite successfully completed a communication test on April 6 with Chang’e-4, which is now carrying out an exploration mission on the far side of the moon. From April 8 to 9, it conducted communication tests with the Chang’e-6 probe, which is yet to be launched. Queqiao-2 was launched on March 20 and entered its target highly elliptical orbit on April 2 after midway correction, near-moon braking and orbital maneuver around the moon.

Two communication and navigation technology test satellites, Tiandu-1 and Tiandu-2, were sent into space together with Queqiao-2. They entered their target circumlunar orbits on March 29 and separated with each other on April 3. They are now conducting a series of tests on communication and navigation technology.

According to the article, Quequiao-2’s orbit is relatively stable for a lunar orbit and requires less fuel to maintain. The spacecraft thus should be able to operate for a very long time. The orbit “has also significantly improved its communication coverage on the south pole region of the moon.” It will be used for all of China’s future unmanned and manned lunar missions, and will provide China the ability to do farside missions routinely.

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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.

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Japan and NASA ink lunar deal

9:33 am

After several years of discussion, Japan and NASA have finally signed an lunar exploration agreement whereby Japan will build a pressurized rover that astronauts can use to travel large distances in exchange for NASA launching two Japanese astronauts to the Moon.

An enclosed and pressurized rover will enable astronauts to travel farther and conduct science in geographically diverse areas by serving as a mobile habitat and laboratory for the astronauts to live and work for extended periods of time. It will be able to accommodate two astronauts for up to 30 days as they traverse the area near the lunar South Pole. NASA currently plans to use the pressurized rover on Artemis VII and subsequent missions over an approximate 10-year lifespan.

This rover is being built in a deal between Japan’s space agency JAXA and Toyota. It will be very heavy, which meanst NASA is now planning its lunar exploration with Starship as a fundamental part. No other planned lunar lander could bring this kind of mass to the surface.

The two Japanese astronauts will likely fly on two different Artemis missions over that time-span. When these missions will occur will largely depend on how long NASA stubbornly sticks with is SLS/Orion/Lunar Gateway framework for getting astronauts to the Moon. These assets are not yet ready. They are also very cumbersome and expensive and slow. Missions using SLS expecially cannot occur faster than every two years, if that. If NASA depends on them, serious lunar exploration will likely not occur before 2030, at the earliest.

If however SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy becomes operational in the next two years, and NASA switches operations to it instead, the pace will pick up, exponentially. Launches could likely occur multiple times per year, and it will be possible to put large amounts of mass on the Moon quickly. That lunar base will be built fast.

The decision to switch however will require a political decision, one that it appears many in Washington are reluctant to make. First, the Democrats now see Elon Musk as an enemy. Why award his company? Secondly, SLS/Orion/Gateway are great jobs programs. Abandoning them will eliminate a lot of wasteful pork, a sin to the politicos who operate our government for their interests, not the interests of the country.

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Russia and SpaceX complete launches

9:08 am

Early today both Russia and SpaceX completed rocket launches.

First, Russia after several scrubs for technical reasons successfully completed a test launch of the largest configuration of its Angara rocket, the Angara-A5. It was the first launch of Angara-A5 from its far east spaceport Vostochny, and the first test launch of this rocket confiruration since 2014. Development had stalled for many years due to a major design issue revealed in 2019.

This launch establishes several important benchmarks for Russia’s space program. This rocket is essential for its goal of building a new space station, and the launch from Vostochny gives Russia as stronger backup to Baikonur in Kazakhstan, where long-term access is becoming problematic.

SpaceX then followed, with a launch of a military weather satellite, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage completed its third flight, landing successfully back at Vandenberg.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

38 SpaceX
14 China
6 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined 44 to 26, while SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 38 to 32.

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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.

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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:
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China successfully tests new propulsion system for satellites

10:01 am

The state-run Chinese press today touted the successful use of a new “cold-propulsion system” on the Tiandu-2 test satellite launched into lunar orbit with its Queqiao-2 relay communications satellite.

The cold propulsion system recently provided high-precision orbital attitude control for the satellite during lunar orbit, marking the first successful application of the liquid ammonia cold air micro-propulsion system in the field of deep-space exploration.

The storage tank is an important component of satellite propulsion systems. As a pressure component, it requires not only high precision of forming and no leakage, but also good anti-fatigue performance, allowing for repeated fuel filling and discharge.

The article touts the tank so much because it was 3D-printed, making it the first such tank sent into space by China.

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Angara launch scrubbed for the second day in a row

9:52 am

Technical issues early this morning caused Russia to scrub, for the second day in a row, the first launch of its new Angara-A5 heavy-lift rocket from its Vostochny spaceport in the far east of Russia.

The first attempt to launch the Angara-A5 rocket from the Vostochny spaceport on Tuesday was canceled about two minutes before the scheduled liftoff due to a failure of the pressurization system of the oxidizer tank in the central block [the core stage] of the rocket.

The second attempted launch Wednesday was also aborted by the automatic safety system, which registered a flaw in the engine start control mechanism, said Yuri Borisov, head of Russia’s state-controlled space corporation Roscosmos. He added that the failure was most likely rooted in a programming error.

They intend to try again tomorrow.

Angara has been under development for about two decades. This launch, which carries a dummy payload, will be the fifth launch of Angara, though the first of of the heavy-lift A5 configuration since 2014. In 2019 vibration issues were discovered that caused a major delay in its development. Of the previous four launches, only one carried an actual payload into orbit. All the others carried dummy payloads, with one test launch failing.

Russia needs the Angara-A5 rocket if it is going to build its own space station, because it no longer has the Proton rocket to launch modules. It also needs to get its Vostochny spaceport up and running, because its long term access to Baikonur in Kazakhstan is increasingly questionable.

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