Tag: policy

Excerpt of Conscious Choice published by The Federalist

11:46 am

The Federalist today published a short excerpt from the last chapter of my new book, Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space.

You can read it here. They titled the excerpt most appropriately: “When Settling Space, Future Colonists Should Emulate The Pilgrims”. The key quote from this particular excerpt:

Building a new human society means the settlers must go with the intent of raising healthy and well-adjusted children. Future space colonists must remember that they are not really exploring the unknown. What they are really doing is building new societies for their children and children’s children. Such an effort carries great responsibility, and if we shirk that responsibility, our descendants will curse our memory.

While the lessons taught by the mistakes of Virginia’s colonists are long and complex (and carefully outlined in Conscious Choice), it is this lesson that is the most important to remember for future colonists in space. We will go to explore, but what we will really be doing is creating those new worlds for future generations. If we do not put our kids first and foremost, those colonies will certainly fail, as Virginia did.

And as it appears America is failing now, after several generations where children were more often considered a nuisance and something that others could take of for us.

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NASA and ESA sign simple lunar exploration agreement

9:57 am

In what appears to be an attempt by both to maintain their working relationship, even though several major European nations have not yet signed the Artemis Accords, last week NASA and ESA signed a simple agreement reaffirming their desire to work together in exploring the Moon.

Neither ESA nor NASA published the agreement, which in a photograph appeared to be little more than one page. In a Sept. 23 statement, NASA described the agreement as a “non-binding joint statement” about current and prospective future cooperation in Artemis.

Of ESA’s members, only France, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, and the United Kingdom have signed the Artemis Accords. Thus, ESA and NASA face a conundrum. According to the accords and the NASA policy established by the Trump administration and supposedly continued under Biden, only signatories can participate in the Artemis program. Yet, most of the members of ESA have not signed, and ESA has no authority to make them do so. ESA however is building the service module for the Orion capsule — as well as other major components of Artemis — which NASA must have.

I suspect this short one page agreement is the Biden administration’s under-handed admission that — when it comes to Europe — the Artemis Accords will no longer be required.

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Astroscale to partner with UK companies to develop mission to remove two defunct orbiting satellites

9:44 am

Capitalism in space: The Japanese-based company Astroscale has signed an agreement with the United Kingdom’s space agency to develop a mission — in partnership with a number of UK companies — to remove two defunct orbiting satellites.

The COSMIC mission will be developed in collaboration with 10 UK-based partner companies in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland including: MDA UK, Thales Alenia Space UK, Nammo, GMV-NSL, NORSS, Goonhilly, Satellite Applications Catapult, Willis Towers Watson, and other advisory and industrial partners.

What Astroscale brings to the table is its magnetic capture system that it has already tested in orbit.

This is also the second contract Astroscale has won in Europe for its space junk removal technology. In May it signed a deal with OneWeb to de-orbit two of its satellites.

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NASA managers decide finally to roll SLS back to assembly building

9:01 am

NASA managers this morning finally gave up on launching their SLS rocket in an early October launch window and scheduled rolling back the rocket to the assembly building tonight.

NASA will roll the Artemis I Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft back to the Vehicle Assembly Building on Monday, Sept. 26. First motion is targeted for 11 p.m. EDT.

Managers met Monday morning and made the decision based on the latest weather predictions associated with Hurricane Ian, after additional data gathered overnight did not show improving expected conditions for the Kennedy Space Center area. The decision allows time for employees to address the needs of their families and protect the integrated rocket and spacecraft system. The time of first motion also is based on the best predicted conditions for rollback to meet weather criteria for the move.

Based on this graph [pdf] provided by NASA earlier this year, the next launch window is from October 17 to October 31, followed by another from November 12 to November 27. It is unclear whether they can meet that first window, even if all engineers do is check and recharge the flight termination system batteries.

The question of the rocket’s two solid-fueled boosters however looms. Both are now one year past NASA’s use-by date, and it appears somewhat unknown what the risks are using them. Replacing them however will entail a significant delay, from three to six months.

As I said this weekend, NASA managers face no good choice, because of the impractical and inefficient design of this rocket.

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China’s Kuaizhou-1A rocket launches two satellites

9:36 am

Early today China’s smallsat Kuaizhou-1A rocket successfully launched two “experimental” satellites into orbit from an interior spaceport.

The satellites are part of a classified program, so little is known about them.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

43 SpaceX
39 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
6 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 60 to 39 in the national rankings and the entire world combined 60 to 59.

Tomorrow ABL Space will attempt to launch from Alaska its RS1 smallsat rocket for the first time. Later in the week Firefly will make its second attempt to launch its Alpha rocket successfully. I will embed the live streams, if available.

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NASA managers might forego SLS rollback and aim for Oct 2nd launch

9:20 am

Based on the present hurricane track, NASA managers are considering the possibility of leaving SLS on the launchpad so that they can go for a launch on October 2, 2022.

NASA managers will meet this evening to evaluate whether to roll back or remain at the launch pad to preserve an opportunity for a launch attempt on Oct. 2. The exact time of a potential rollback will depend on future weather predictions throughout the day and could occur Monday or very early Tuesday morning.

If they stay on the launchpad, it means the flight termination system is questionable at launch. If the rocket goes out of control during its first test launch — a not-unreasonable possibility for a new rocket — there is a chance the range officer will not be able to destroy it.

If they roll back to the assembly building, it means the rocket’s two solid strap-on boosters will either have to be replaced, delaying the launch months more, or the rocket will launch with two boosters that are questionable.

Every choice they face is a bad one, simply because this rocket is really not well designed for practical use.

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ULA’s Delta Heavy successfully launches spy satellite for NRO

3:38 pm

ULA today has successfully launched a spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, using its Delta Heavy rocket, its largest rocket.

With this launch, ULA retires the Delta from any further launches from Vandenberg. Future California launches will use its as yet untested Vulcan rocket.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

42 SpaceX
38 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
6 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 59 to 38 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 59 to 58. The 59 launches makes this the third most active launch year in American history, trailing only 1966 (70 launches) and 1965 (64 launches).

SpaceX has a Falcon 9 launch of 52 Starlink satellites scheduled very shortly, so these numbers will hopefully go up again before the day is out.

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Two launches from U.S. set for this afternoon

10:29 am

Both ULA and SpaceX have planned launches this afternoon a little over an hour apart, at 2:53 pm and 4:10 pm Pacific time respectively.

The ULA launch is first, and is the last Delta rocket launch from Vandenberg Space Force base. The company is slowly phasing this rocket out as it transitions to its not-yet-launched Vulcan rocket. The payload today is a spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office, using ULA’s biggest rocket, the Delta Heavy.

SpaceX will follow with another Falcon 9 Starlink launch, placing another 52 Starlink satellites into orbit.

I have embedded the live streams of both launches below.
» Read more

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Indian smallsat rocket startup hopes to complete 1st launch this year

10:16 am

The new colonial movement: A new Indian private commercial rocket startup, Agnikul, now hopes to complete the first launch of its Agnibaan rocket before the end of 2022.

Whether or not this launch happens this year, the important thing is the existence of this private independent rocket company in India. Up until now, India’s government space bureaucracy in ISRO, and in its new commercial arm, NSIL, has controlled all of that country’s commercial market share. Like NASA before 2008, it has worked aggressively to keep independent players out.

Agnikul’s existence suggests the Modi government’s effort to emulate the U.S. and create an independent private space industry is beginning to bear fruit. If so, expect big things over the next decade from India in space.

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NASA managers scrub September 27th SLS launch

9:59 am

NASA managers today decided that they had to scrub their attempt to launch SLS on September 27, 2022 due to a hurricane threatening Florida, and are instead preparing to roll the rocket back to the assembly building to protect it.

During a meeting Saturday morning, teams decided to stand down on preparing for the Tuesday launch date to allow them to configure systems for rolling back the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to the Vehicle Assembly Building. Engineers deferred a final decision about the roll to Sunday, Sept. 25, to allow for additional data gathering and analysis. If Artemis I managers elect to roll back, it would begin late Sunday night or early Monday morning.

This will likely delay the launch until the late October launch window, or the mid-November window, as shown in this graph [pdf]. During this time engineers will certainly test and recharge the batteries that run the rocket’s flight termination system so that there will be no question they will work should the Space Force safety range officer need to destroy the rocket during launch.

NASA however now faces another quandary it has been avoiding for the past year. The stacking of the five segments of SLS’s two solid rocket strap-on boosters began in November 2020, two years ago. During the shuttle era and until last year, NASA had a rule that said a booster must launch within a year of stacking. The fear was that the weight of the solid rocket fuel could distort it over time, and possibly cause it to burn improperly once ignited. As these boosters are the equivalent of firecrackers — once you light them you can’t turn them off — NASA had chosen, until last year, to have a use-by date of one year for the boosters.

Now however NASA has abandoned that rule. The boosters have been stacked for twice that time, and the agency has to ask if it will be safe to use them. To change them out however will take at least three months, if not longer. The present set of boosters would have to be removed, and a new set stacked and installed.

I fully expect NASA to stay with these boosters, despite their age, once again violating its own safety rules, as it did routinely during the shuttle era (resulting in the loss of two shuttles and the death of fourteen astronauts). Though no humans will be on this test flight, this sloppy engineering culture clearly threatens the lives of the astronauts who will fly on the second Artemis SLS mission, around the Moon.

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Range gives NASA waiver to launch SLS on September 27th, despite a questionable flight termination system

1:01 pm

In a briefing today, NASA officials confirmed that they are proceeding with their September 27, 2022 first launch of the SLS rocket, having obtained a waiver from the Space Force’s range office on testing the batteries for the flight termination system that would destroy the rocket should it begin flying out of control.

During a Sept. 23 teleconference, NASA announced an extension for the flight termination system battery certification, which expired after 25 days on Sept. 6. Now the Space Force’s Eastern Range has granted a waiver to allow the rocket to launch as late as Oct. 2 before needing to be returned to the Vehicle Assembly building to recertify the batteries.

The flight termination system is only used in the event the rocket veers off course during a launch anomaly.

Note that the 25 day use-by limit was actually an extension itself, as these batteries had been previously required testing every 20 days. Now the range is willing to let them go for as long about 50 days without testing, a two and half times increase.

If the rules before — based on engineering — said the batteries were not reliable after 20 days, why are those batteries now considered reliable up to 50 days? What facts or data does NASA or the Space Force have to allow this waiver? And if they have no data, it seems almost criminal to allow the go-ahead of this launch of a giant untested rocket on its first lift-off. Should something go seriously wrong — which is not that unlikely — and the flight termination system fails to work, we could see a very big rocket careening out-of-control into populated areas.

We all hope SLS launches with no problem on September 27th. We now have a really serious reason for that desire.

Regardless, the launch is now scheduled for a 70-minute launch window that opens at 11:37 am (Eastern) on September 27th, with a back-up launch window on October 2nd of 102 minutes beginning at 2:52 pm (Eastern).

Meanwhile, a developing tropical storm could put a kabosh on all these plans, forcing NASA to roll SLS back to the assembly building anyway. NASA managers plan to meet again before launch to make a decision.

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Pushback: Professor fired for making joke wins $165K settlement from university

12:05 pm

Speech that is forbidden at the University of North Texas
Speech that is forbidden at the University of North Texas

Nathaniel Hiers, fired by his boss as a math professor at the University of North Texas for daring to express a political opinion, has won a $165K settlement from the university.

This story is a follow-up on a previous column from March, when a judge had ruled that Hiers’ lawsuit could go forward. The judge also dismissed the university’s claim of qualified immunity for its officials, thus leaving them personally liable under any settlement.

The background: Hiers’ was fired when, having found flyers in math department’s lounge warning faculty against triggering “microaggessions” in their conversations, responded as shown in the picture to the right, placing one flyer on the chalk rack of the blackboard and wrote his own opinion of it above.

It appears that though the settlement was a victory for Hiers, paying him for damages and his attorneys’ fees, it does not get him his job back. Nor does it appear the officials who fired him wrongly will pay any of the settlement. Instead, the University of North Texas is picking up the tab.

Thus, this victory is not the triumph Hiers’ legal team, the Alliance Defending Freedom, claims it is. » Read more

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Astrobotic gets ESA’s first commercially purchased lunar lander payload

9:18 am

Capitalism in space: Astrobotic yesterday announced that the European Space Agency (ESA) has purchased payload space on the company’s Griffin lunar lander for a commercially produced camera.

This is the first commercial payload ESA has purchased for a lunar mission. The camera will fly as a secondary payload on Griffin’s first mission, which will deliver NASA’s VIPER rover to the Moon’s south pole in 2024. The camera is being built by a French startup called Lunar Logistics Services.

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Confirmed: Saudi Arabia buys two seats on next Axiom commercial flight to ISS

8:59 am

Capitalism in space: Saudi Arabia’s official press yesterday confirmed an earlier Reuters story that it has purchased two seats on an Axiom commercial flight to ISS, using a SpaceX Dragon capsule.

The twist is that the Saudi government says one of those astronauts will be a woman, and the mission should fly in 2023. It will include Axiom’s pilot, two Saudi passengers, and a fourth passenger, all as-yet unnamed.

The mission is part of what the Saudi government calls a new astronaut training program.

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How private enterprise is solving the vulnerability of satellites to military attack

1:10 pm

Link here. The essay provides a nice overview of the U.S. military’s present conundrum on protecting all American satellites in orbit, not just military ones, and what it is beginning to do to solve it, now that the Space Force exists.

The approach is following three paths, with only the last two having any hope of success. First, the Biden administration is trying diplomacy to convince space-faring nations to ban future anti-satellite tests. This approach has really little chance of success.

The other two avenues involve innovations from private enterprise, launching many small satellites as part of a large constellation and in-orbit servicing, repair, and refueling. The first creates redundancy, making it difficult for any enemy power to easily destroy U.S. assets. The second provides capabilities for both fixing important satellites as well as attacking our enemy’s without causing space junk. Both will become common in the coming years, and thus will become very viable tools for military use.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Google, Paypal, Venmo team up to blacklist a gay organization

12:18 pm

Google loves blacklisting, along with its teammates Paypal,Venmo, and Twitter
Google loves blacklisting, along with its teammates
Paypal,Venmo, and Twitter

Blacklists are back and big tech likes ’em: Apparently because the homosexual advocacy group Gays Against Groomers opposes the exposure of queer ideology to little children, this week the big social media companies Google, Paypal, and Venmo did a coordinated crack down on the group, shuttering its accounts all within one day’s time.

Google, Paypal and Venmo shut down accounts affiliated with Gays Against Groomers, a Twitter account that is critical of gender ideology, particularly in regard to children. Venmo shut down the account early Tuesday morning, and Paypal blocked the account from its services minutes later, according to an email shared by the account’s founder Jamie Michell; Google shut down her account, including her email address, the following morning, according to a screenshot and an email.

Google reinstated the account the next day, but provided no credible explanation for its actions, at all.

In July this same organization had also been suspended by Twitter. The account was only reinstated when the group agreed to replace the letter “o” in “Groomers” with graphic eyeballs. It appears Twitter did not like the use of the word “groomers”, since it described precisely what queer advocates are doing when they espouse their perverse sexual behavior to young children.

The organization had been using its Twitter account to publicize examples where queer advocates performed sexually in front of kids. As it notes on its webpage:
» Read more

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Roscosmos head: Russia likely to remain ISS partner through 2028

9:57 am

According to a statement made by Yuri Borisov, the head of Roscosmos, during a press conference today, Russia now will definitely remain an ISS partner through 2024, and likely through 2028, assuming the station remains safe and operable.

These statements fit well with the “kinder, gentler” approach that Borisov seems to be taking in his relations with Russia’s international partners in space, compared to the bellicose and often hostile attitude of Roscosmos’s previous boss, Dmitry Rogozin. Borisov has been trying to ease the tension. He quickly signed the barter agreement with NASA allowing for crew exchanges on each other’s spacecraft, and has made it clear almost immediately that the ISS partnership was solid.

I strongly suspect Borisov will eventually offer OneWeb the return of its 36 satellites that Rogozin confiscated. This is not likely to regain Russia OneWeb’s commercial business, but it would do a lot to make it less a pariah in the international launch market.

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SLS fueling test completed

9:38 pm

NASA engineers today successfully completed the tanking test of the agency’s SLS rocket, completing all objectives after successfully dealing with a hydrogen fuel leak at the beginning of fueling.

The four main objectives for the demonstration included assessing the repair to address the hydrogen leak identified on the previous launch attempt, loading propellants into the rocket’s tanks using new procedures, conducting the kick-start bleed, and performing a pre-pressurization test. The new cryogenic loading procedures and ground automation were designed to transition temperature and pressures slowly during tanking to reduce the likelihood of leaks that could be caused by rapid changes in temperature or pressure. After encountering the leak early in the operation, teams further reduced loading pressures to troubleshoot the issue and proceed with the demonstration test. The pre-pressurization test enabled engineers to calibrate the settings used for conditioning the engines during the terminal count and validate timelines before launch day to reduce schedule risk during the countdown on launch day.

Teams will evaluate the data from the test, along with weather and other factors, before confirming readiness to proceed into the next launch opportunity. The rocket remains in a safe configuration as teams assess next steps. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words are key. NASA has proposed a September 27, 2022 launch date. For that launch to occur, the rocket must remain on the launchpad, where it is impossible to check the batteries for operating the flight termination system used by the military range office to destroy the rocket should it go wildly out of control during launch. To check the batteries they need to roll it back to the assembly building, and one week is simply not enough time.

The vagueness of the highlighted language suggests that NASA has not yet gotten a waiver from the range for that date. Nor should it. Those batteries normally have a 20-day limit. On September 27th they will been unchecked for about 42 days, well past their use-by date.

This will be the first test launch of this rocket. Such first launches very frequently go wrong, and if SLS goes wrong, it would go wrong in a very big way, considering the size of the rocket. To do such a risky launch with a questionable flight termination system would not simply be improper it would be downright criminal.

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Pushback: NY cops fight city’s COVID jab mandate

12:16 pm

NY Mayor Eric Adams: an enthusiastic tyrant
NY Mayor Eric Adams: an enthusiastic tyrant

Bring a gun to a knife fight: In the past week three stories from New York City suggest that the willingness to fight against the irrational and abusive COVID shot mandates imposed by the one-party rule of the Democratic Party in that city can win.

First, a state judge in New York on September 13, 2022 ruled in favor of a lawsuit by police officer Alexander Delito, stating that the city cannot fire him for refusing to get the jab. Delito had apparently been arbitrarily denied a religious exemption, with no explanation. As the judge noted in his decision:

“The hollow and generic phrase ‘does not meet criteria’ cannot be rational because not a single item particular to [Deletto] was discussed and not a single reason for the decision was given,” Justice Arlene Bluth ruled. “There is no indication that anybody even read [Deletto’s] arguments. It is the duty of the agency to explain why it made the decision,” the judge added.

The ruling sets a precedent that will make it difficult for New York City to continue the mandate. Not surprisingly, a week later the city’s Democrat mayor, Eric Adams, announced he is lifting the mandate on the private sector and on school children, even as he refused to remove it from government workers.

The response from the leaders of various government unions was immediate. Here is just one example:
» Read more

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Saudi Arabia buys two seats on Dragon for Axiom commercial flight to ISS

9:43 am

Capitalism in space: According to an as-yet unconfirmed story today by Reuters, Saudi Arabia has purchased two seats on a SpaceX Dragon capsule as part of an Axiom commercial flight to ISS.

The sources for the story are all anonymous, and no one from Axiom or SpaceX or Saudi Arabia has confirmed it. Nonetheless, it seems entirely plausible, since Saudi Arabia has made it clear it is considering such a mission and Axiom and SpaceX are eager to sell tickets.

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Hydrogen leak detected during today’s SLS tank test

9:08 am

Though engineers have apparently overcome the issue so that today’s tank test of NASA’s SLS rocket can continue, a hydrogen leak was nonetheless detected during fueling.

The fueling tank test is not yet complete.

At this moment I cannot imagine the military’s range office will allow NASA to launch on September 27th, as the agency has requested. To do so will require the range to ignore the possibility that the flight termination is inoperable, as its batteries are past their use-by date by almost a month. Combined with these ongoing leak issues, it would be irresponsible to do otherwise.

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Russia launches three astronauts to ISS; China launches Earth observation satellite

9:02 am

Russia today successfully used its Soyuz-2 rocket to launch three astronauts to ISS, two Russians and an American flying as part of the NASA-Roscosmos barter deal whereby each agency flies an astronaut from the other in order to make sure everyone knows how to use each other’s equipment.

China in turn today used its Long March 2D rocket to launch an Earth observations satellite into orbit.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

42 SpaceX
38 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
5 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 58 to 38 in the national rankings, and is now tied with the entire world combined at 58.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Republicans and conservatives increasingly unwilling to talk to pollsters out of fear

12:45 pm

Joe Biden's
Joe Biden’s anti-conservative rally on September 1, 2022

Blacklists are back and the Democrats have got ’em: According to pollsters, the vicious almost slanderous attacks by President Biden against Republicans and conservatives — following decades of similar harsh language from Democrats nationwide — is causing these voters to increasingly refuse to talk to pollsters about their opinions.

In a Twitter thread, Trafalgar Group chief pollster Robert C. Cahaly said that President Joe Biden’s recent attacks on so-called “MAGA Republicans” will make polling supporters of former President Donald Trump even harder to poll than in previous years. Cahaly pointed out that in the last two presidential election cycles, name-calling and threats from prominent Democrats contributed to the phenomenon of the “shy Trump voter.” But as the 2022 midterms have begun in earnest, Biden’s escalating rhetoric against Trump supporters, accusing them of embracing “semi-fascism” and being a threat to America, will make these voters even harder to reach in polling.
» Read more

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NASA releases new overall objectives for exploration of solar system

11:28 am

NASA today released a new roadmap for its goal of exploring the Moon, Mars, and the rest of the solar system, with the goal of providing an overarching strategy for everything it hopes to accomplish.

The resulting revised 63 final objectives reflect a matured strategy for NASA and its partners to develop a blueprint for sustained human presence and exploration throughout the solar system. They cover four broad areas: science; transportation and habitation; lunar and Martian infrastructure; and operations. The agency also added a set of recurring tenets to address common themes across objectives.

You can read the full document here [pdf].

The most astonishing thing about this roadmap is its utter lack of any mention of race or gender, especially when one considers how obsessed the Biden administration and its minions in federal bureaucracy have been over such things. The goals are entirely focused on exactly what they should be focused on, exploration and research, with the goal of partnering with as many private and governmental entities as possible to get it done in the most efficient way.

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First meeting of all 21 nations who have signed Artemis Accords

10:13 am

For the first time yesterday, the 21 nations who have signed the Artemis Accords gathered together in a single meeting during the International Astronautical Congress being held in Paris this week.

The article at the link comes from the UAE’s state-run press.

Sarah Al Amiri, Minister of State for Public Education and Advanced Technology and chairwoman of the UAE Space Agency, attended the signatories’ meeting on behalf of the UAE. “During this meeting, heads of space agencies discussed future plans in the industry to ensure the safety of humans and deconfliction of activities on the Moon, as well as the importance of the Accords to emerging space nations,” she said.

Since the U.S. is the lead nation in these accords — with all signatories becoming participating partners in its Artemis program to settle the solar system — U.S. government policies will dominate any discussion. When the Trump administration established the Artemis Accords, a major goal was to establish property rights in space for private companies. Under Trump, the U.S. would have thus certainly exercised its power to make sure that was the goal.

With the Biden administration in charge, it appears the focus has shifted — for good intentions — to promoting international cooperation, which means the goals of our other international partners appear more dominant. Under Biden, the U.S. appears willing to allow these other countries to propose policy. Should this happen, I guarantee the opportunities for private enterprise as well as the freedom for future space generations will not be as promising.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Leftist thugs at University of New Mexico threaten conservative speaker and audience with violence

12:14 pm

Tomi Lahren: targeted for leftist violence
Tomi Lahren: targeted for leftist violence

They’re coming for you next: When the conservative student organization Turning Point USA (TPUSA) invited conservative Tomi Lahren to speak at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, a mob of leftist thugs gathered outside, attempted to force their way in, and apparently actually threatened violence against both Lahren, the audience there to hear her speak, and the handful of police officers trying to protect them.

“I start my speech and you can hear the chants and you can hear the screaming and the expletives. And again, nobody really thought anything of it. They’re just, you know, fired up. And I didn’t really think too much of it until they started pushing past the officers and banging on the doors so much that these double doors are visibly moving and shaking and they are smashing into the windows. And that’s when it became incredibly chaotic,” Lahren continued. “Everybody was worried that they were going to get inside. They were pushing officers in front of the doors and pushing them out of the way. I mean, attacking them. It started to get very ugly and very violent, very fast. Of course, we could only see through these little windows in the front the room we were in, so we couldn’t really see exactly what was going on out there.” [emphasis mine]

A very short video shows these protesters chanting and pushing against the door to the room.
» Read more

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Valeri Polykov, holder of the record’s longest stay in space, passes away

10:00 am

Valeri Polykov
Valeri Polykov

Russian astronaut Valeri Polykov, who holds the record for the longest spaceflight yet of any human in history, has passed away at the age of 80.

In 1994 and 1995 Polykov spent 437 days on Russia’s space station Mir, the equivalent of fourteen months and two weeks. His thoughts at launch, as he told me personally when I interviewed him while writing Leaving Earth, were not so confident:

“What if something goes wrong?” [he explained]. “I had sacrificed so much time. The government has spent so much, more than they can afford. And I’ve learned so much for them myself, for them.

“Better I die if something went wrong,” he thought. “Better if I had a gun to shoot myself.”

Nothing went wrong however. Polykov, a doctor, had pushed for this long mission to find out if it would be possible for a person to function after a year-plus of weightlessness upon arrival on Mars. Originally planned to last 18 months, circumstances eventually shortened it to 14 months-plus. When Polykov came home in March 1995, he managed to walk a few steps on his own, shortly after being removed from the capsule. To his mind, he had proved that a person could function on their own on Mars after such a long flight.

Others disagreed. As I wrote in Leaving Earth, though he was almost normal within a week of landing,

Polykov had come back to Earth very weak. For at least those first few hours, he needed help from those around him. Any spacefarer arriving on Mars after a year in space must be prepared to face that same challenge.

Regardless, Polykov, like Brian Binnie, was one of the early giants in space exploration. His contribution must not be forgotten.

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NASA issues call for new manned lunar lander proposals

10:12 am

NASA yesterday announced a solicitation for proposals for new manned lunar lander proposals, aimed at obtaining services long term, rather than the initial contract it has awarded SpaceX which only covered the first few Artemis lunar missions.

This solicitation is essentially being offered so that Jeff Bezos’s company Blue Origin will have a second chance to win such a contract, having lost out to SpaceX initially. It also is NASA’s effort to get Congress to give it a bigger budget so that it can pay for two different lunar lander contracts.

Having two competing lunar landers is not a bad thing. Giving a second contract however simply because the company (Blue Origin) exerts political clout is not. Right now it is unclear whether this solicitation is the former or the later.

The announcement also included what has become boilerplate in all NASA announcements about its Artemis lunar missions:

Through Artemis missions, NASA is preparing to return humans to the Moon, including the first woman and first person of color, for long-term scientific discovery and exploration. [emphasis mine]

It is very clear that the number one criteria that NASA has established, under the Biden administration, for picking the crew on that first Artemis lunar landing mission is race and gender, not talent, skill, or ability. While it will be a great thing when the first woman and black steps on the Moon, their skin color or sex should not be the reason they got to go. If it is, it will be incredibly insulting to their talent, skill, and ability. In fact, by making race or gender the only qualification that NASA cares about, it puts an asterisk on those qualifications. Forever people will wonder if these individuals really deserved the honor.

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September 16, 2022 Quick space links

4:02 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who trolls Twitter so I don’t have to.

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Today’s blacklisted American: USC professor suspended because one common Chinese word he was teaching sounded like the “N-word”

12:02 pm

Greg Patton, blacklisted for being a good teacher
Greg Patton, blacklisted by USC for being a good teacher

The modern dark age: Today’s blacklist story is in a sense a follow-up of my blacklist story from yesterday, as it clearly shows that the fraternities which broke free of supervision from the University of Southern California (USC) had good reason, and that (as I speculated) one of the main reasons they did so was because of USC’s woke and racist policies.

Today we discover that USC has forced a communications professor specializing in Asia, Greg Patton, to stop teaching because during one virtual class he was explaining the innocent reason why — to English speakers — the Chinese seem to say a racial slur repeatedly. Apparently, the Chinese phrase “那个” (nèi ge), which approximately means “that one” or more simply “um”, is used in Chinese as a filler word, similar to “um,” “ur” in English.

Patton was trying to explain this to his class during a virtual session. Below is embedded that specific moment that has now caused him so much trouble:
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