Tag: policy

Pushback: Workers fired from San Fran’s subway for refusing jab win $1 million jury award

3:36 pm

Are Americans finally waking up and emulating their country's founders?

Fight! Fight! Fight! Six workers who were fired from San Francisco’s
BART subway system for refusing to get a COVID jab have won a $7.8 million judgment from a jury, with each person taking home more than a million dollars in damages.

The employees claimed religious exemptions to the vaccine mandate but say they were not accommodated by the transit agency, and subsequently lost their job.

BART did initially grant vaccine exemptions, but the plaintiffs argued they weren’t accommodated. An accommodation could have meant that they were able to work from home or get tested regularly for COVID. They argued none of that happened and they lost their jobs.

More information here and here. There were not the only fired employees who sued. Another sixteen had sued and then settled in July. It also appears that further suits by fired employees are pending.

Do not expect these stories to stop. Over the next five years we will see story after story of blacklisted individuals winning case after case, because almost all the blacklisting in the past five years due to politics, COVID, and racial bigotry has been blatantly illegal, not only breaking numerous civil rights laws but in direct violation of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the very fundamental principles of American culture. When these cases get before juries, the plantiffs are going to win, and win big, as these former BART employees have.

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Arecibo telescope collapsed because of a surprising engineering failure that inspections still should have spotted

1:41 pm

Illustration of cable failure at Arecibo

According to a new very detailed engineering analysis into the causes of the collapse of the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico in 2020, the failure was caused first by a surprising interaction between the radio electronics of Arecibo and the traditional methods used to anchor the cables, and second by a failure of inspections to spot the problem as it became obvious.

The surprising engineering discovery is illustrated to the right, taken from figure 2-6 of the report. The main antenna of Arecibo was suspended above the bowl below by three main cables. The figure shows the basic design of the system used to anchor the cable ends to their sockets. The end of the cable bunches would be inserted into the socket, spread apart, and then zinc would be poured in to fill the gap and then act as a plug and glue to hold the cables in place. According to the report, this system has been used for decades in many applications very successfully.

What the report found however was at Arecibo over time the cable bunch and zinc plug slowly began to pull out of the socket, what the report labels as “zinc creep.” This was noted by inspectors, but dismissed as a concern because they still believed the engineering margins were still high enough to prevent failure at this point. In fact, this is exactly where the structure failed in 2020, with the first cable separating as shown in August 2020. The second cable did so in a similar manner in November 2020.

The report concluded that the “only hypothesis the committee could develop that provides a plausible but unprovable answer to all these questions and the observed socket failure pattern is that the socket zinc creep was unexpectedly accelerated in the Arecibo Telescope’s uniquely powerful electromagnetic radiation environment. The Arecibo Telescope cables were suspended across the beam of ‘the most powerful radio transmitter on Earth.'”

The report however also notes that the regular engineering inspections of the telescope had spotted this creep, which was clearly unusual and steadily becoming significant, and did not take action to address the issue when it should have. It also noted the slow response of the bureaucracy, not only to the damage caused earlier to the facility by Hurriane Maria in 2017, but to obtaining the funding for any repairs.

Ray Lugo [the principal investigator for Arecibo] described to the committee how months of his time during 2018 were spent writing, resubmitting, and justifying repair funding proposals. Repairs had to go through the traditional “bid and proposal” process, described in more detail below, which added years of delay.

We can forgive the inspectors somewhat for not noting the creep when they should, as its cause appears to be very unusual, still uncertain and rare, but the red tape that prevented proper and quick repair effort after the hurricane is shameful. Had the telescope gotten the proper support on time, the creep itself might have even been addressed, because the resources would have been there to deal with it.

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As if on cue, the Democrats now go after Musk for daring to campaign for Trump

12:56 pm

Elon Musk under attack
The target is now Elon Musk

When Elon Musk revealed in May 2022 that he had decided to switch his political allegiance from the Democratic to the Republican Party, he immediately predicted quite correctly the following: “Watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold.”

As I noted in detail a year ago, the federal campaign against Musk and his companies since then has been extensive and disgusting, with investigations opened by the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Transportation Department.

Nor has this harassment eased in the past year. If anything it has accelerated, with the red tape by the FAA slowing down operations at SpaceX to the point of absurdity.

Now, as the campaign season moves to its climax on election day and the polls increasingly show a major shift in the direction of a Trump win, barring any illegal vote tampering, we should not be surprised that the Democrats are now demanding that Elon Musk shut up, and are doing so by issuing new false accusations against him.

Leading the way was a Wall Street Journal report [behind a pay wall], picked up by all the usual suspects in the propaganda press, based solely on anonymous sources, that accused Musk of having private and secret phone conversations with Vladimir Putin, head of Russia. From this typical propaganda piece at NPR:
» Read more

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Old rockets clash with new rockets in Europe

9:35 am

Two stories today from Andrew Parsonson at his website Europeanspaceflight.com today illustrate the battle going on in Europe’s vast space bureaucracy over its future rocket development, and clearly tell us who is winning.

First Parsonson described a presentation put forth by Arianespace officials at an “Ariane-6 User’s Club” meeting two weeks ago, outlining the planned and proposed upgrades Arianespace intends for the Ariane-6 rocket over the next decade. All the upgrades are focused on increasing the rocket’s payloac capacity. None will make any of the rocket reusable in order to lower its high cost which makes it uncompetitive in the modern launch market.

What was significant about Parsonson’s report is that he also noted that many of these upgrades need to be approved by the European Space Agency (ESA), and its officials won’t make that decision until 2025 during a planned conference. Thus, this presentation by Arianespace was essentially a lobbying effort to convince ESA to approve these upgrades.

Parsonson’s second story then told us what ESA is approving, right now.

The European Space Agency has selected Rocket Factory Augsburg, The Exploration Company, ArianeGroup, and Isar Aerospace to develop reusable rocket technology.

On 9 October, ESA held its Future Space Transportation Award Ceremony in Paris. During the event, the agency announced the four awardees under two initiatives focused on the development of reusable rocket technology: the Technologies for High-thrust Reusable Space Transportation (THRUST!) project and the Boosters for European Space Transportation (BEST!) project.

Except for ArianeGroup, these are new startups. The German companies Rocket Factory and Isar are developing their own rockets, while the French company Exploration has so far focused on making cargo capsules to supply future space stations.

ArianeGroup meanwhile is the joint partnership between Airbus and Safran that built and owns the Ariane-6, and actually has more say on its future than Arianespace, which is merely a government agency that in the past (but no more) managed and controlled all of Europe’s rockets. ArianeGroup hasn’t abandoned Ariane-6 by no means, but clearly is shifting its interests in new directions.

Interestingly, the final decisions on some of these reusable projects will be made at that same 2025 conference.

Want to bet that ESA at that conference shifts its focus from upgrading the non-reusable Ariane-6 and instead goes whole hog for reusability? I expect that, especially because all recent political signs at ESA has indicated no interest in maintaining Arianespace any longer. For example, ESA has taken the Vega family of rockets away from Arianespace and given it back to Avio, the Italian company that manufactures it. ESA has also returned management of French Guiana from Arianespace to France’s space agency, which owns the site.

Designed as the commercial arm of ESA, it no longer has a function, now that Europe is shifting from the Soviet-model of its rocket operation run by the government (Arianespace) to a capitalism model where competing independent companies provide products and services to that government.

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ISRO head unveils new timeline for major missions

10:06 am

The head of India’s space agency ISRO, S. Somanath, yesterday unveiled a new timeline for several of that nation’s major missions, both manned and unmanned.

The new timeline is as follows:

  • 2025: NISAR: a joint Indian-American radar orbiter, long delayed
  • 2026: Gaganyaan-1, India’s first manned orbital mission
  • 2028: Chandrayaan-4, an unmanned sample return mission to the Moon
  • 2028: Chandrayaan-5, a joint lander-rover to the Moon

The last project will be done in partnership with Japan, with India building the lander and Japan the rover.

2028 will be a very busy year for India in space. The Indian government had previously announced that ISRO would launch in 2028 the first module of its space station as well as a Venus orbiter.

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Sutherland spaceport submits another revised plan to local council

10:41 am

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea.

We’re from the government and we are here to help you! The long-delayed proposed Sutherland spaceport on the north coast of Scotland has now submitted another revised plan to its local Highlands council for approval.

The amended plans for Sutherland Spaceport include a smaller launch pad and launch services facility, and realigning an access road to avoid an area of deep peat. Highland Council planners said the changes would mean reducing the amount of peat that would have to be excavated by more than half. The soil is seen as important because it absorbs CO2.

Highland councillors meeting next week have been asked to approve the amendments. In a report, officials said the amount of peat to be dug up could be cut from 24,046 cubic metres to 9,895 cubic metres.

This is the second time the spaceport has had to submit revised plans to this council. It did so in December 2023, but apparently the council was not satisfied.

Meanwhile Sutherland’s main launch customer, Orbex, has still not gotten its launch licence from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority, first applied for in February 2022. Orbex, which has a fifty year lease at Sutherland and has built its rocket factory nearby, had planned to do its first test launch of its Prime rocket two years ago. Didn’t happen.

Adding to these bureaucratic delays, Anders Holch Povlsen, a local billionaire — who is an investor in the Saxaford spaceport on the Shetland Islands — in July 2024 filed what appeared to be an absurd harrasment lawsuit against Sutherland, and this was the second time he had done so.

I think Orbex picked the wrong spaceport horse in this race, and is likely going to be killed by this red tape and opposition.

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But will loyal Democrats actually abandon their beloved party? History says no

2:57 pm

The Democratic Party: Given decades of blind loyalty by its supporters
The Democratic Party: Decades of blind loyalty
by its supporters

This week the publication Issues and Insights had a poll taken of registered Democrats to garner some idea of their overall opinion of the Democratic Party’s sudden back-room deal to dump Joe Biden as presidential candidate and replace him with Kamala Harris. The poll asked whether those polled agreed or disagreed with these three statements:

  • The process the Democratic Party used to select its nominee for President did not yield the strongest candidate.
  • The process the Democratic Party used to select Kamala Harris as its nominee was undemocratic.
  • I lost significant faith in the Democratic Party because it did not disclose Biden’s health issues during the primary process.

For Democratic Party politicians, the results should be disheartening at best. A significant majority of the 1,240 registered Democrats polled agreed with all three statements, with 58% agreeing strongly or somewhat with the first statement, 52% agreeing strongly or somewhat with the second statement, and 54% agreeing strongly or somewhat with the third statement. As noted by Scott Pinsker of PJMedia in analyzing the results:
» Read more

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SpaceX rolls out the next Superheavy for sixth test orbital launch

9:59 am

SpaceX in a tweet on October 22, 2024 announced the roll out to the launch tower of the next Superheavy to be used in the sixth orbital test flight, only nine days after that launch tower had successfully caught a Superheavy at the end of the fifth orbital test flight.

Though no launch date has been announced, the company is clearly wants to do it soon. Though its present launch license allows it go when ready, it remains unclear whether it will get that approval from the FAA when requested. FAA upper management has repeatedly indicated a desire to delay its approvals to SpaceX, and until there is a change in the White House — thus forcing a change in that FAA upper management — there is no reason to expect the agency to change its behavior.

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Spaceport startup SUAS Aerospace signs deal to launch small suborbital rocket from west coast of Ireland

9:49 am

SUAS's proposed spaceport plan
Click for original image.

The Irish spaceport startup SUAS Aerospace has now signed a partnership deal with the Netherlands rocket startup T-Minus Engineering to launch a small suborbital rocket from west coast of Ireland in order to demonstrate the viability of Ireland as a potential spaceport location.

According to this report, “T-Minus will provide its Dart rocket for the launch. Dart stands at 3.5 metres and is capable of carrying payloads of up to 3.5 kilograms to a maximum altitude of 200 kilometres.”

Though SUAS has raised €5 million in private investment capital to push its project to build two launch sites within Ireland, it has not made it clear the exact locations of these sites, other than indicating it wants to place them at two locations on Ireland’s west coast, as shown by the company graphic to the right. I suspect it does not yet have rights to the land, and its lobbying effort is largely focused on getting government help to obtain those rights, either on public or private land.

For example, its press release does not provide any details on where this suborbital launch will occur. I am not even sure the company knows. It might simply arrange some coastal location, simply to make possible this demonstration launch, even if that place is not the actual location of its proposed spaceport.

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Cyprus signs Artemis Accords

8:57 am

Cyprus today officially became the 46th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, its signing coming one day before the already announced planned signing by Chile tomorrow.

Adding both nations to the list, the American-led Artemis Accords alliance now includes the following 47 nations: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, 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.

Should Donald Trump return to the White House it will be very interesting to watch how this alliance evolves in the coming years. The original goal for the accords when started by the Trump administration was to build an alliance with enough clout to overcome the limitations on private property contained by the Outer Space Treaty. Though this alliance is surely now large enough to force those changes, that goal has been mostly pushed aside by the Biden administration. I suspect a new Trump administration will be able to bring it back to life, with added force due to this alliance’s size.

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ULA begins stacking Vulcan for military launch, anticipating Pentagon approval

8:56 am

Though the Space Force is still reviewing the nozzle issue on the second flight of ULA’s Vulcan rocket and has not yet certified the rocket for military operational launches, ULA has begun stacking the next Vulcan for an anticipated military launch of a national security satellite.

On Monday [October 21], ULA shared photos of the 109.2-foot-long (33.3 m) booster being hoisted into the Vertical Integration Facility to begin the stacking process. In the days and possibly weeks to come, the 38.5-foot-long (11.7 m) Centaur 5 upper stage will be added along with four solid rocket boosters and the payload fairings.

It appears that the military has accepted Vulcan for this launch because — despite the nozzle falling off of
a strap-on side booster — the rocket was successful in placing its payload in its precise orbit. The Space Force is simply completing the paperwork required for certification.

No date however has been set, but the company hopes to complete two military Vulcan launches in 2024, so it won’t be that far in the future.

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Have Americans finally awakened? Early voting suggests yes

2:02 pm

Rick, stating the truth in Casablanca
Have ordinary Americans finally awakened to the
anti-American plans of the Democratic Party?

For the past few weeks early voting data from a variety of states has begun to suggest a major shift in what have been the traditional voting patterns for decades. In the past, Democrats routinely dominating early mail-in voting, while Republicans instead went to the polls on election day.

This election season is seeing an almost Earth-shattering change.

Nor are these three states outliers. A look at a nationwide map of early voting shows that Republicans also lead in Georgia and Arizona. Though the overall numbers nationwide show a Democrat-Republican split of 46% to 36%, the number of early votes from Republicans this election is far higher than in the past.

Though caution must be exercised, and we must recognize that these numbers do not guarantee a win for Donald Trump, what the data suggests however is an amazing newfound voting enthusiasm among Republicans. » Read more

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SpaceX asks FCC for license revision for launching nearly 30,000 Starlink satellites

8:51 am

SpaceX on October 11, 2024 submitted a request to the FCC to revise its Starlink satellite license to cover a revised plan for its second generation satellites that includes a request to place 29,988 Starlink satellites in orbit.

SpaceX first requests several amendments to the orbital parameters of its Gen2 system between 340 km and 365km altitude to keep pace with rapidly evolving global demand for high-quality broadband. First,SpaceX amends the inclination of its orbital shell at a nominal altitude of 345 km from 46 degrees to 48 degrees. SpaceX also amends its pending Gen2 application to seek authority to operate satellites in its Gen2 system in two additional orbital shells — at 355 km altitude in a 43-degree inclination and at 365 km altitude in a 28- or 32-degree inclination. The total number of operational satellites will remain 29,988 satellites across the amended Gen2 system.

With the exception of its polar shell at 360 km, which will remain unchanged, SpaceX also amends its application to more flexibly distribute satellites in its shells between 340 km and 365 km than requested in its pending application, specifically, in up to 72 planes per shell and up to 144 satellites per plane. While this reconfiguration will result in two additional shells and a higher maximum number of orbital planes and satellites per plane for all but one shell between 340 km and 365 km, the total number of operational satellites in the Gen2 system will remain 29,988 satellites.

In the company’s previous request for this number of satellites, the FCC had approved only 7,500, the full request still pending. We can expect objections from the other big satellite constellations to this request. The FCC’s response remains unclear. There could be legitimate reasons to limit SpaceX request, but it is also possible politics will enter the decision as well, for illegitimate reasons.

Meanwhile, astronomers are already whining about the problems these Starlink satellites will cause to their ground-based telescopes. It seems these so-called brilliant scientists can’t get it through their heads that astronomy from Earth will become increasingly difficult in the coming years — with hundreds of thousands of satellites planned from many satellite constellations, not just SpaceX — while astronomy from space has always been a better choice anyway. Rather than demand regulation or restrictions on these new satellite constellations, they should be pushing hard to developing new orbiting telescopes, now, for launch as quickly as possible.

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China launches three radar satellites

8:33 am

China today successfully launched three radar satellites, its Long March 6 rocket lifting off from Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China.

The news report from China’s English state-run press made believe this launch was only one satellite, in contrast to its Chinese language press. It also did not provide information on where the rocket’s first stage crashed within China, nor whether any upgrades have been done to the Long March 6’s upper stage to prevent it from breaking apart and scattering low Earth orbit with space junk, as has now happened four times previously.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

102 SpaceX
48 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 119 to 71, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 102 to 88.

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Chile to sign Artemis Accords

8:24 am

NASA yesterday invited the media to attend to signing of the Artemis Accords by Chile at the end of this week.

Chile will be the 46th nation to sign. The full list is as follows: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, 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.

Though the Biden administration continues to describe the accords as a means for “reinforcing” the Outer Space Treaty — the opposite of its original intent — a new Trump administration will be well positioned with this very large alliance to force changes in the treaty’s limits to private property and capitalism. All that has to happen is a will to demand it. Some of these nations might balk, but I think most will go along, some quite enthusiastically.

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Donations and applications to Harvard drop significantly

4:44 pm

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

According to Harvard, donations to the university in 2024 dropped more than $151 million from donations the previous year, with other indications that overall donors and students are fleeing the university due to its anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas, racist DEI, pro-plagiarism, and anti-free speech policies.

Total donations were down by $151 million, or 14%, in fiscal 2024 from the prior year. Within that total, donations to Harvard’s endowment fell by nearly $193 million from a year ago, while donations for current use gifts increased by $42 million in that time frame.

The drop in donations won’t leave Harvard bankrupt, as it still has more than $53 billion in its endowment, giving it a strong foundation for survival, in the near term, if donations dry up entirely.

And they might.

Bill Ackman, a billionaire Harvard alum, said in December that Gay’s “failures have led to billions of dollars of canceled, paused and withdrawn donations to the university. … I am personally aware of more than a billion dollars of terminated donations from a small group of Harvard’s most generous Jewish and non-Jewish alumni,” Ackman said.

More significant however was the 17% decline in student applications as of December 2023. Though the numbers still exceeded application numbers from before the COVID epidemic, the drop now suggests students have reviewed the reality of this college versus its fantasy, and are now beginning to reject it.

Eventually Harvard will have to fix its bankrupt DEI policies as well as diversify its faculity so that not every teacher and staff member is a pro-Hamas anti-Semite who considers America the devil incarnate and all western civilization nothing more than an expression of “white supremacy.” (I know I am exaggerating but I also know sadly not by much.) If it doesn’t it will certainly fade from view, as students find more viable colleges, knowing that a degree from this bankrupt university will no longer get them the high level jobs they want.

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Oman: 1st launch from Duqm spaceport by the end of the year

2:31 pm

Middle East, showing Oman's proposed spaceport

According to an announcement yesterday Oman plans to complete its first launch before the end of 2024 from its proposed new spaceport near the city of Duqm on the Indian coast.

The map to the right indicates its location. Oman has dubbed the spaceport Etlaq, and it is being run by what Oman claims is a private company, the National Aerospace Services Company (NASCOM), but based on what little I can find out, it appears either to be Oman’s space agency, or a variation of the pseudo-companies in China, privately run but very tightly controlled and owned by government officials.

The announcement provided no information about the rocket or launch, which I suspect will be nothing more than a relatively simple suborbital mission, designed to demonstrate they are serious about this spaceport. The news story at the link shows a picture of a very sophisticated rocket resembling India’s GSLV rocket. I think it is a AI image having nothing to do with reality.

This project was first announced in 2023, with more information released in January 2024. It hopes to attract American rocket companies by claiming it is being built to FAA standards.

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Good news: The European Union’s space law is delayed

10:38 am

According to comments by one official of the European Union (EU) at a conference in Italy this week, its proposed space law has been delayed and will not be ready for publication in 2024, as previously promised.

It appears the delay is mostly because of what appear to be complex objections to this law from many of the EU’s many member nations.

Ten of the European Union’s 27 member states “have a full-fledged national space law addressing private-sector operation,” Von der Dunk said. The national laws cover authorization and supervision of commercial activities under Article VI of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

The EU’s authority to promote scientific progress and the industrial competitiveness of member states comes from the 2007 Lisbon Treaty. That authority is limited, though. “The commission has to make an argument why [space law] should be treated at the EU level, as opposed to the national level,” Von der Dunk said. [emphasis mine]

As I noted in April 2024 when the release of the EU’s space law was pushed back until the summer of 2024 (which by the way did not happen), those member nations do not wish to give the EU that authority, as the EU’s track record in these kinds of matters is heavy regulation and a lot or red tape, all designed to give it power and squelch private enterprise.

It appears those member nations are acting to block this law, and appear to be succeeding. My guess is that Germany, France, Spain, and Italy are the main opponents, all of which have their own space laws in place and are now developing viable private commercial rocket and spacecraft companies. They don’t want the EU’s busy hands anywhere close to these businesses, because they expect it to squash them if it gets the chance.

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Space Force awards SpaceX big launch contract

10:24 am

Space Force yesterday awarded SpaceX a $733 million contract for what appears to be a total of eight future launches of military and national security payloads.

Few details were released about the payloads, including the launch timeline. The deal was issued as part of the military launch contracting system, which in June named SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin as its launch providers for the next five years.

However, one official’s comment appeared to suggest this contract award was the military’s expression of disgust at the delays at ULA and Blue Origin in getting their rockets launchworthy.

“In this era of Great Power Competition, it is imperative to not leave capability on the ground,” Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, program executive officer for Assured Access to Space, said in an emailed statement on Friday. “The Phase 3 Lane 1 construct allows us to execute launch services more quickly for the more risk-tolerant payloads, putting more capabilities on orbit faster in order to support national security,” Panzenhagen added. [emphasis mine]

In other words, the Space Force wanted to split this contract between the three companies, but it decided to give it all to SpaceX because it expected any launches given to ULA and Blue Origin would not launch on time, and it didn’t want “to leave [that] capability on the ground.”

In the case of ULA, its Vulcan rocket finally made its first two launches this year, four years late, but on the second launch had a failure on one of its solid-fueled strap-on boosters (the nozzle fell off). Though the rocket successfully placed its dummy payload into the correct orbit, the military has either decided that it can’t yet certify Vulcan for military launches, or sees further delays while the investigation and fixes are installed.

As for Blue Origin, its New Glenn rocket is also four years behind schedule, and likely won’t launch until next year. To get it certified will also probably require two launches, and since that company never seems to be in a hurry to do anything (NASA removed its payload from New Glenn’s first launch because the company had failed to meet the required interplanetary launch window), the Pentagon probably decided it can’t give it any contracts at this time.

And so, more launches and profits for SpaceX. While it is great for that company, with revenue that will likely aid in developing Starship/Superheavy, this is not a healthy situation for the American space industry. As a nation we need more than one launch provider. We need these other companies to stop dithering around and get the job done. That’s the true American way. Have they forgotten how to do it?

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GAO: Next SLS Artemis launches will almost certainly be delayed

10:52 am

SLS's two mobile launchers, costing $1 billion
NASA’s bloated SLS mobile launchers

According to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released yesterday, NASA’S continuing delays and technical problems building the various ground systems required for the next few Artemis launches will almost certainly cause those launches to be delayed.

The schedule at present is as follows:

  • September 2025: Artemis-2 will be the program’s first manned mission, taking four astranauts around the Moon.
  • September 2026: Artemis-3 will complete the first manned lunar landing.
  • September 2028: Artemis-4 will send four astronauts to the Lunar Gateway station in orbit around the Moon, and then complete the second manned lunar landing.

The GAO report notes at length that modifications to the mobile launch platform SLS will use on the first two missions is taking longer than planned. It also notes that the problems completing the second mobile launcher continue, with the budget growing from $383 million to $1.1 billion, and the work years behind schedule with no certainty it will be completed in time for the 2028 mission. These issues are the same ones noted by NASA’s inspector general in August 2024.

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

This report focused exclusively on the scheduling delays for the ground systems that will be used by SLS for each launch. It did not address the serious questions that remain concerning the serious heat shield damage experienced by the Orion capsule when it returned to Earth on its first unmanned mission in late 2022. NASA has been studying that problem now for two years, and as yet has not revealed a solution.

I continue to predict that the first manned landing, now scheduled for 2026, will not occur before 2030, six years behind the schedule first proposed by President Trump but actually fifteen years behind the schedule initially proposed by President George Bush Jr in 2004. All in all, it will take NASA almost a third of a century to put American astronauts back on the Moon, assuming the landing occurs in 2030 as I now predict. Compare that with the development time of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy. Proposed in 2017, it is already flying, and will almost certainly complete its first private manned lunar mission and its first test missions to Mars by 2027. The contrast is striking.

More and more the entire part of Artemis run by NASA is proving to be the failed disaster I predicted it would be in 2011. No wonder former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote an op-ed yesterday calling for its cancellation. Like most politicians, reality is finally percolating into his thick skull, though several decades late.

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