Tag: policy

Rolling Stone provides more details about Jared Isaacman and his nomination as NASA administrator

10:08 am

Jared Isaacman
Jared Isaacman

This article from Rolling Stone published yesterday provides a wealth of new information about Jared Isaacman, Trump’s still unconfirmed pick to become NASA’s next administrator.

Two key details: First, the article quotes Isaacman saying he opposes NASA’s policy of signing up two companies, SpaceX and Blue Origin, to build manned lunar landers.

I will try to help, but this is why I get frustrated at two lunar lander contracts, when will be lucky to get to the [Moon] a few times in the next decade. People falsely assume its because I want SpaceX to win it all, but budgets are not unlimited & unfortunate casualties happen.

In other words, he opposes using NASA to develop an aerospace industry with multiple companies capable of doing things NASA needs done. He also appears to dismiss the value of redundancy that two landers provides.

Second, the article provides links to the financial [pdf] and ethics [pdf] disclosures that he submitted to the government after being named as nominee. In the financial statement he indicates he paid SpaceX more than $50 million for providing the transportation for his multi-mission Dragon/Starship Polaris Dawn manned program. In the ethics statement he asserts he would end that contract if confirmed as NASA administrator, with SpaceX refunding any monies for services not yet rendered. The program itself would be suspended until Isaacman completes his term as administrator.

The Rolling Stone article, though detailed and fair-minded, appears to strongly endorse Isaacman, and thus joins a growing public campaign from many insider Washington players — a large number of whom have been passionately hostile to Donald Trump — to get Isaacman approved. At the moment however his nomination appears stalled because the Trump administration has not yet submitted to the Senate the paperwork needed to allow that body to schedule hearings.

The strange campaign by many of Trump’s opponents to endorse Isaacman continues to suggest to me that the Trump administration has had second thoughts about its NASA nominee. The swamp now wants him, and this is raising hackles inside the administration, which thus explains the slow-walking of his paperwork.

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NASA drops its DEI emphasis on race and sex in describing who will fly on first Artemis lunar landing

8:55 am

Not surprisingly, considering Trump’s executive orders demanding all government agencies discontinue their racial and sex quotas based on the bigoted Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies, NASA has now deleted any mention of launching the first “woman and person of color” on its first Artemis lunar landing mission.

The Artemis landing page of Nasa’s website previously included the words: “Nasa will land the first woman, first person of color, and first international partner astronaut on the Moon using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.” The version of the page live on the website on Friday, however, appears with the phrase removed.

During the Biden administration every single press release about this first Artemis lunar landing touted these racial and sexual qualifications, as if it was the only thing that mattered in choosing the right astronauts for the job. It was not only illegal discrimination against men and whites, it was insulting to minorities and women.

This change in language does not mean that NASA will now purposely exclude “women or people of color” from that mission. Instead, it ends the emphasis on race and sex. The astronauts NASA chooses for the flight will now be picked based on more important considerations, such as experience and talent. Picking someone because of their race or gender is like picking someone because of the color of their eyes or hair. It is stupid and misguided. Trump has now ended that stupidity.

Or at least he is forcing NASA’s management make its bigotry less obvious. We should not be surprised if that management still intends to make race and sex a major criteria. They will simply no longer blast that decision with a bullhorn.

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The insane left keeps shooting itself in the foot!

1:41 pm

Tesla vandal identified and arrested
Click for video.

The recent string of vandalism of Tesla vehicles as well as swatting attacks on well known conservatives by leftist crazies might be scary, horrifying, and disgusting, but if you take a step back from these emotions for a second to look dispassionately at the situation, you will realize these attacks are only the dying screams of a bankrupt political movement that has no proposals, no ideas, and no goals except the obtaining of power — now through the use of violence because its political support has dropped to such record lows.

First, the attacks are beyond senseless. In the case of the vandalism of Teslas, the attacks are actually doing harm to those who in the past were most likely to have supported the Democratic Party’s leftist political agenda. Conservatives in general have not been buying electric vehicles, because they have no need to virtue signal leftist climate goals. So, by damaging Teslas owned by innocent bystanders, just because the car was built by a company founded by Elon Musk, the vandals are not only not winning converts to their cause, they are making enemies of people who were once on their side.
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China and SpaceX complete launches

9:03 am

Two more launches since yesterday. First, SpaceX successfully launched a National Reconnaissance Office classified surveillance satellite, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off shortly before midnight from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage not only completed its fourth flight, landing back at Vandenberg, it did so setting a new record for the shortest turnaround from its previous flight, only ten days previously. The fairings completed their fourth and seventh flights respectively.

China then followed, with its pseudo-company Galactic Energy placing six weather satellites into orbit, its solid-fueled Ceres-1 rocket lifting off from the Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China. China’s state run press provided no information on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China. This was the second launch for Galactic Energy this week, and the nineteenth overall, making it the most successful Chinese pseudo-company. That its rocket is solid-fueled tells us that it is based on missile technology, which also tells us that the company is not really an independent company as we conceive it in the west, but closely controlled and supervised by China’s military.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

33 SpaceX
14 China
4 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successfully launches, 33 to 25.

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NASA’s still undecided as to Starliner’s next flight

9:27 am

Starliner docked to ISS
Starliner docked to ISS.

Though it now appears that the management at both NASA and Boeing are still committed to getting Boeing’s manned Starliner capsule certified for commercial flights, NASA remains undecided as to the scope and nature of the capsule’s next test flight.

[T]esting will be a big part of the next Starliner flight, whenever it lifts off. “We need to make sure we can eliminate the helium leaks; eliminate the service module thruster issues that we had on docking,” [said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program].

NASA has not yet decided whether the coming Starliner flight will carry astronauts or not, he added. But even if the mission is uncrewed, the agency wants it to be crew-capable — “to have all the systems in place that we could fly a crew with,” Stich said. “As I think about it, it might be there for a contingency situation, as we prepare for whatever events could happen,” he added. “One of the things that I’ve learned in my time at NASA is, always be prepared for the unexpected.”

NASA plans to certify Starliner for operational, long-duration astronaut missions shortly after this next flight, if all goes well.

Stich’s comments took place during a press conference following the return of the Starliner crew on SpaceX’s Freedom capsule.

There had been rumors last year that NASA would pay Boeing to use Starliner on a cargo mission to ISS, thus saving the company the cost of flying another demo mission on its own dime. I suspect those plans have now been squashed by the Trump administration, which is likely to insist that Boeing honor the deal in its fixed price contract. If so, the next flight will once again be a demo mission to prove the capsule’s systems, paid for by Boeing. Whether astronauts fly on it will be a political decision made by Trump, with advice from NASA management. And that decision cannot occur until NASA’s new administrator is confirmed and has had time to review the situation.

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Isar confirms March 20, 2025 for first launch

11:59 am

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea

The German rocket startup Isar Aerospace has now confirmed that it will attempt the first orbital test launch of its Spectrum rocket on March 20, 2025, lifting off from Norway’s Andoya spaceport.

Isar announced March 17 that the Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) issued a launch operator license to the company for its Spectrum rocket, launching from Andøya Spaceport in northern Norway. The launch, called “Going Full Spectrum” by the company, is a test flight of Spectrum with no customer payloads on board. “Our goal is to test each and every component and system of the launch vehicle,” Alexandre Dalloneau, vice president of mission and launch operations at Isar Aerospace, said in a statement about the upcoming launch.

Isar Aerospace did not announce a specific time for the launch, noting the timing would depend on weather as well as range and vehicle readiness.

This launch is also going to be the first vertical orbital rocket launch from the European continent, and will put Andoya ahead of the three other spaceports being developed in the United Kingdom and Sweden. For the two UK spaceports this launch will be especially embarrassing, as both started years before Andoya but have been endlessly hampered by red tape, government interference, and local lawsuits. Norway meanwhile has moved with alacrity in approving Andoya’s permits and Isar’s launch licenses.

As for Isar, this launch puts it in the lead over the half dozen or so new European rocket startups as the first to attempt a launch. None of the others are close to that first launch attempt, though the German startup Rocket Factory Augsburg came close last year. During its last static fire test of the first stage prior to launch the rocket was destroyed in a fire.

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SpaceX’s manned Freedom capsule has undocked with ISS with its crew of four

12:39 am

SpaceX’s manned Freedom capsule tonight undocked with ISS, carrying with it the two astronauts that launched with it in September as well as the two astronauts that launched on Boeing’s Starliner capsule in June.

At 1:05 a.m. EDT Tuesday, NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov undocked from the space-facing port of International Space Station’s Harmony module aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.

Splashdown is scheduled for 5:57 pm (Eastern) March 18, 2025 off the coast of Florida. I have embedded the NASA live stream below.

Normally the transfer of control of the station from the old crew to the new one takes about a week. In this case NASA cut that transfer time to only three days because of the political desire to get the Starliner astronauts home more quickly. The irony is that NASA decided to leave them up there for almost seven months more than planned in order to disturb its normal ISS launch and crew schedule as little as possible. This effort now to shorten their spaceflight by a few measly days seems quite trivial in comparison.
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Norway awards the German rocket startup Isar Aerospace a two-satellite contract

9:48 am

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea

In what appears to be a concerted effort by Norway to cement the establishment of its Andoya spaceport on its northwest coast, last week it awarded a two-satellite launch contract to the German rocket startup Isar Aerospace, launching from that spaceport.

The launch is scheduled until 2028 and will take place from Andøya Spaceport, Europe’s first operational spaceport on the mainland. The agreement between the Norwegian Space Agency and Isar Aerospace involves launching two Norwegian satellites as part of the AOS program, a national maritime surveillance system.

Isar is now gearing up for the very first orbital test launch of its Spectrum rocket, which will also be the very first from Andoya, and the very first from the four proposed spaceports in Europe. Regulatory filings from Norway suggest it will occur during a ten-day launch window beginning on March 20, 2025, but Isar has not yet confirmed this.

Unlike the two UK spaceports, which have been delayed years due to government red tape, Norway’s government has apparently worked hard to cut red tape and help Isar get off the ground quickly. It also appears that Norway’s government is acting to stymie Sweden’s Esrange spaceport, releasing a report last week that suggested it will not give permission for launches over its territory from Esrange.

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Chinese pseudo-company launches 8 satellites

9:09 am

The Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy today successfully placed eight remote-sensing satellites into orbit, its solid-fueled Ceres-1 rocket lifting off from the Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China.

This was Ceres-1’s eighteenth launch, making Galactic Energy the most successful rocket pseudo-company so far in China. That its rocket uses solid-fueled shows us however that it is strongly tied to China’s military, and likely controlled tightly by it.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

31 SpaceX
13 China
4 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successfully launches, 31 to 23.

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Russia launches classified satellites

9:09 am

Early this morning Russia successfully placed three classified satellites into orbit, its new Angara-1.2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport in northeast Russia.

Little information about the launch was released, and none about the satellites. This was the rocket’s fourth straight launch success from Plesetsk, beginning in 2022.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

31 SpaceX
12 China
4 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successfully launches, 31 to 23.

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Norway questions Sweden’s plan to launch orbital rockets from Esrange spaceport

12:56 pm

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea

In the capitalist competition between Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom to establish Europe’s prime launch site, Norway’s government has now issued a long study questioning Sweden’s plan to launch orbital rockets from its Esrange spaceport, since polar launches heading north from there will have to cross Norway.

You can read the report here [pdf]. For Esrange to conduct orbital launches it will need the permission of Norway for each launch, and it appears Norway is not satisfied with Sweden’s assessments that say launches can occur safely. The report concludes:

Norway recommends that the relevant Norwegian authorities conduct an assessment of the risks a launch will pose to the people in Norway and Norwegian interests, and determine whether this risk is acceptable, taking into account the interests and safety of the Norwegian people and the severity of the risk.

…Due to the significant economic costs associated with the impact on oil and gas production in
the Barents Sea, CAA Norway recommends that no launches be permitted in areas where there
is any risk to Norwegian oil and gas installations.

The release of this report illustrates Norway’s geographic advantages. The German rocket startup Isar is gearing up to do its first launch from Norway’s new spaceport, Andoya, possibly before the end of this month. It will have a clear path to space. Meanwhile, the American rocket startup Firefly, which wants to launch from Esrange, faces serious regulatory hurdles from neighboring countries, like Norway, because any rocket must fly over their territories.

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Four more launches, two by SpaceX, following manned launch

10:33 am

Following SpaceX’s successfully launch of four astronauts to ISS yesterday afternoon, the launch industry upped the pace by completing four more launches in the next few hours, two by SpaceX, one by Rocket Lab, and one by China.

Beginning with SpaceX, it first launched another one of its Transporter missions, carrying about three dozen smallsat payloads, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg. The first stage completed its thirteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. The two fairings completed their eighth and eleventh flights respectively.

Five hours later the company launched another 23 Starlink satellites, the Falcon 9 lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, with the first stage completing its eighteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

Rocket Lab meanwhile successfully placed the first of eight commercial radar satellites into orbit for the Japanese satellite company iQPS, its Electron rocket launching from one of its two launchpads in New Zealand.

China in turn used its Long March 2D rocket to place two satellites into orbit, lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China. Its state-run press provided little information about either satellite. Nor did it provide any information about where the rocket’s lower stages — using very toxic hypergolic fuel — crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

31 SpaceX
12 China
3 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successfully launches, 31 to 22.

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