Tag: policy

Biden administration endorses Artemis program

9:14 am

During a press conference yesterday Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki stated that the Biden administration plans to continue the Artemis manned lunar program that was initiated by the Trump administration.

“Through the Artemis program, the United States government will work with industry and international partners to send astronauts to the surface of the moon — another man and a woman to the moon,” Psaki told reporters in a White House press briefing Thursday. “Certainly, we support this effort and endeavor,” she added.

The Biden administration was under pressure to endorse Artemis, coming from its own party. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress want the pork it represents to them. This statement now aligns Biden with Congress. The American effort to return to the Moon, established by Trump, is now practically engraved in stone.

What the statement that Psaki read did not detail is whether that support will include the SLS rocket or the Orion capsule. Nor did her statement indicate any time schedule for a landing, which adds weight to the supposition that they are going to abandon the Trump’s effort to push for a 2024 manned landing on the Moon.

Moreover, the letter sent to the White House on February 3rd by eleven Democrats endorsing Artemis (available here [pdf]), also said nothing about SLS or Orion. Instead, it was more intent on encouraging the White House to award contracts to the private sector to build the manned lunar lander. NASA had announced on February 1st that it was delaying its decision on who should build it, and those Democrats did not want that delay to result in the contracts getting killed.

Both statements tell us is that SLS itself is presently on very thin ice. Congress wants Artemis, but Artemis is no longer synonymous with SLS. For the past two years the Trump administration had been awarding contracts to numerous private companies to design and build many components of Artemis, rather than have NASA do the designing and building (as it had with SLS). Those contracts have created a cohort of new vested interests that rely on Artemis, all of which I am sure are screaming at their representatives in Congress to keep their work funded.

Furthermore, SpaceX’s development of Starship is clearly showing everyone that an alternative to SLS does exist, and could be operational for much less and much sooner.

To my mind, all this evidence suggests that the Washington political world is getting itself ready for the possibility of abandoning SLS. They don’t want to, but if alternatives to its pork are available that are also more productive, they are steeling themselves for making the difficult political decision of switching.

This evidence also suggests that the Biden administration will continue the policies I outlined in my 2017 policy paper Capitalism in Space (available as a free download here [pdf]) and adopted by the Trump administration. I had recommended that all design and construction should be taken from NASA and given to many different private companies, with that private sector also owning what they build while competing for those government dollars. NASA would outline the project’s goals and concept, and then act merely as a customer which would find others to execute those goals and concepts, as quickly and as cheaply as possible.

If the Biden administration is embracing these recommendations, this is very good news. While the motives of these corrupt politicians might be bad, the result could be very good for the U.S. Allowing the private sector to do the job means it might actually get done, rapidly and for much less. It will also help fuel the growth of a very robust American space industry, which once established will soon no longer depend solely on the government for its business. The lower cost required by the competition to get NASA business will encourage others to buy the products, and soon thereafter the government will become irrelevant to this industry’s success.

This is the model used in the early 20th century to jump start the airline industry. It worked. It now looks like NASA and the govenment will do it in space.

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China’s Long March 3B rocket launches military satellite

8:24 am

China yesterday used its Long March 3B rocket to place a military communications satellite into orbit.

No word on whether this first stage or strap-on boosters lander near any residential communities.

The 2021 launch race:

4 SpaceX
3 China
1 Rocket Lab
1 Virgin Orbit
1 Russia

The U.S. still leads China 6 to 3 in the national rankings. SpaceX’s had planned to do another Starlink launch this morning but has rescheduled it for the weekend.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Democrats working to fire civil servant

10:32 am

They’re coming for you next: Congressional Democrats and the Biden administration have been on a campaign to fire a recently hired civil servant because he had previously been a Republican political appointee.

Michael Ellis, who last served as the former senior director for intelligence on the National Security Council during the Trump administration, was put on administrative leave from his new position as the general counsel at the National Security Agency, just hours after President Joe Biden was inaugurated.

Ellis — a Navy Reserve intelligence officer, Yale Law School graduate, and Jeopardy! winner — had first applied for the position in January 2020, and went through an extensive months-long vetting process conducted by a panel of non-partisan civil servants, according to the two former officials. Ellis was ultimately selected for the position in mid-November by Paul Ney, the Pentagon’s general counsel whose first job at the department came during the George W. Bush administration as the Navy’s principal deputy general counsel. He started his position on Tuesday, January 19.

However, recent news reports revealed that a day later, on Inauguration Day, NSA Director Army Gen. Paul Nakasone placed Ellis on administrative leave, pending the outcome of an inquiry by the Department of Defense inspector general into the circumstances of his hiring.

It is no secret that Democrat lawmakers for months opposed Ellis going from an appointed position in the Trump administration to a non-partisan civil service position in the government — a practice commonly referred to as “burrowing in.”

The Democrats might have a complaint about Ellis’ civil servant hiring if this “burrowing in” strategy was a new one, but in fact, far more Democratic Party political appointees have used it over the years to become civil servants — who are difficult to remove — than Republicans, and as far as I know, the Republican Party has almost never moved to get them fired when it took power.

No, what the Democrats are doing here is part of their on-going purge from government of any Republicans, as I have already shown by previous posts in this daily stream of blacklisted Americans. The bureaucracy in Washington is almost completely controlled by their supporters. Can’t have anyone there who might dissent from the Democratic Party’s agenda. They must all be removed, now!

Moreover, if this effort at a purge was unique, applied only to this one Republican, it might be more understandable in the dog-eat-dog world of politics. The Democrats might have justifiable reasons for opposing strongly this one person.

In this new age of Democratic Party blacklists and censorship, however, this kind of blacklisting effort is instead par for the course. The Democrats are trying to destroy all Republicans wherever they can, not because of any policy differences but merely because they are Republicans. This story is just one of many.

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Firefly shakes up board of directors

9:09 am

The smallsat rocket company Firefly, only a month or so from the first orbital test flight of its Alpha rocket, has drastically changed its board of directors, removing its main financial backer from the Ukraine and replacing him with Americans.

Among those no longer on the board is Firefly’s financial savior, Polyakov, who has dual Ukrainian-British citizenship and lives in Edinburgh. This is a substantial change, as it moves the company’s key financial backer from a role as a decision maker to that of a stockholder. Markusic said Polyakov has the rights of a stockholder but that Firefly’s board now directs the company. Polyakov remains Firefly’s largest shareholder.

“These changes are part of the logical growth and development of Firefly,” Polyakov told Ars. “I’m extremely proud of what we have accomplished to date. Moving forward, I have the utmost confidence in Tom, his team, and the new board members.”

Some concerns had previously been raised about Polyakov’s background. This move, however, is more due to having an all-American board of directors, which should bolster Firefly’s efforts to work with the defense community.

Essentially, the company and Polykov have moved Polykov out of a sensitive position so as to make the company seem more palatable to the federal government. His presence on the board would have likely made it difficult to win any government contracts. Making him in name just a stockholder will reduce that issue.

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SpaceX competitors lobbying to kill FCC subsidy for Starlink

9:00 am

A lobbying effort instigated by some of SpaceX competitors in the rural internet service business is now working to kill the $886 million subsidy the FCC had awarded the company for developing its Starlink internet constellation.

The losers in the awards process apparently are teaming up with the Democrats to challenge all the awards, with SpaceX their main target.

The [award to SpaceX was] made when Trump administration appointees still controlled the FCC and now the agency is led by Biden appointees who could cut off applicants it considers dubious. Last month, 160 House and Senate members urged the FCC to scrutinize recipients, in part because network construction takes time. “We fear that we will not know whether funds were improperly spent for years to come,” said the lawmakers.

There is a “a need for proper upfront assessment,” Representative Jim Clyburn, of South Carolina, the No. 3 House Democrat, said in an email. He said many applicants claim to be able to deliver faster service to new customers than they are delivering to current subscribers.

This is a fight for government hand-outs, period. The losers are now using political pressure to change the decision. And since the Democrats generally hate SpaceX (and Elon Musk) because it is so successful at actually achieving what it sets out to do, they are glad to help them. Not only will it bring these politicians campaign donations (called bribes if you are honest), it will destroy the one space company that is proving that capitalism and freedom works.

From my perspective, no one, including SpaceX, should get these funds. SpaceX is proving they aren’t necessary to get the job done (bringing fast internet service to rural communities). Moreover, the federal government really doesn’t have the cash, deep in debt as it is.

But then, my perspective is now considered quaint, even “raaaaaaacist”, in our modern corrupt Marxist society.

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Ten finalists in public Chinese contest to name Mars rover

3:15 pm

The new colonial movement: The Chinese public vote to pick the name of the Mars rover presently flying to Mars on its Tianwen-1 orbiter has now been narrowed to ten finalists.

The public can now vote for their favorites from a shortlist of 10 names for the Tianwen-1 mission rover.

The 10 names — Hongyi, Qilin, Nezha, Chitu, Zhurong, Qiusuo, Fenghuolun, Zhuimeng, Tianxing and Xinghuo — are taken from ideas including Chinese mythological figures, Confucian concepts and legendary animals.

Notably Hongyi, from the Confucian Analects, can be translated to “persistence” or perseverance, giving a similar meaning to the NASA Perseverance rover also heading for Mars. Others meanings include:

Zhurong: a god of fire
Qilin: a Chinese unicorn
Chitu: red rabbit
Qiusuo: to explore, referencing an ancient poem
Zhuimeng: to pursue a dream
Nezha: a mythological hero
Fenghuolun: Nezha’s weapons
Tianxing: referring to the motion of celestial bodies
Xinghuo: spark

Personally, I hope they pick Chitu (Red Rabbit), as that matches nicely with the name of China’s lunar rover, Yutu-2 (Jade Rabbit).

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Today’s blacklisted American: Professor fired from journal he founded

12:56 pm

They’re coming for you next: Timothy Jackson, a professor at the University of North Texas, was removed from the music journal he founded because he dared criticize in print the racial and anti-white politics of another academic.

In November 2019, music theorist Philip Ewell delivered a plenary address to the Society of Music Theory positing “a white racial frame in music theory that is structural and institutionalized.” Ewell took particular aim at 19th century music theorist Heinrich Schenker, whose influence on music theory is “hard to overstate,” arguing that Schenker was a “virulent racist” and that Schenker’s “racist views infected his music theoretical arguments.”

Timothy Jackson has devoted his career to the study of Heinrich Schenker. He is the director of the Center for Schenkerian Studies at UNT and a co-founder of the Journal of Schenkerian Studies, an academic journal published at UNT. Ewell’s widely-heard address related so directly to Schenker’s work that Jackson and the editorial staff of the journal decided to publish a symposium issue featuring a number of responses, both pro and con, to Ewell’s address. The journal issued a call for papers to all members of the Society of Music Theory, including Philip Ewell, who did not respond. Timothy Jackson himself published a response in the symposium that was highly critical of Ewell’s analysis.

The symposium issue was published in July 2020, and the calls for Jackson’s punishment began immediately. Rather than defend academic freedom against this obvious attempt to suppress unpopular opinions, UNT launched an investigation, creating an “ad hoc” panel to look into the process that allowed the symposium issue of the journal to be published. On November 30, 2020, this ad hoc panel published a report criticizing the journal’s structure and the editorial and review process used for the symposium.

In response to the ad hoc panel’s report, department chair Benjamin Brand “informed Professor Jackson that he would be removed from the Journal and that the university would eliminate resources previously provided to the Journal and Center for Schenkerian Studies,”

One important detail about the Heinrich Schenker whom Ewell calls a “virulent racist.” He was also a Jew who was a victim of German anti-Semitism and lost many relatives in the Holocaust, facts that Ewell somehow did not think important to mention.

This what academia has been like now for nigh on two decades. Only one political perspective is allowed, which for decades was merely liberal and Democrat. More recently this has transitioned into outright bigotry against whites. If you happen to be one of the continually shrinking tiny minority that disagrees publicly you will find yourself quickly squashed like a bug, as the University of North Texas is now attempting to do to Jackson.

Jackson however is not willing to get squashed without a fight. He has filed a defamation lawsuit (available here [pdf]) in response, noting that he was punished merely because he exercised his First Amendment rights of free speech. Jackson’s lawsuit not only names the University of North Texas, it also names many of the individuals who attacked him and participated in the witchhunt against him.

I hope he wins, and wins big, causing real pain to every single one of the bigots and tyrants who have tried to silence him, merely because he disagrees with them.

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Russia & China negotiating increased cooperation on the Moon

10:21 am

The new colonial movement: According to the state-run Russian news source TASS, Russia and China are in negotiations to increase Russia’s participation in China’s program to establish a manned base on the Moon.

Russia’s state-run space corporation Roscosmos is in talks with its Chinese colleagues to determine scientific tasks for a lunar base and to discuss technical aspects of the project’s implementation, Deputy Director General for International Cooperation at the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos Sergey Savelyev told TASS. “At present, work is under way to determine possible scientific tasks of mutual interest in the Moon research. Besides, possible technical implementation of the project is being analyzed,” he said.

The article is very vague about details. It does signal that Russia is strongly looking for alternatives to working with the U.S. on its Lunar Gateway project. If it teams up with China NASA will likely begin breaking off all cooperation with Russia because of the legal restrictions that prevent it from partnering in any way with China.

This article also illustrates Russia’s declining status as a space power. For years they have depending on the American program at ISS to have a place in space. Now they are looking to China. All in all, it appears they can’t get their own projects going, and need to attach themselves to others to have any part in the exploration of space.

As for China, that country wants to the good public relations that would come from making its space program international in scope. I expect therefore they want Russia to sign on. I also expect that China will dictate terms, as it doesn’t really need Russia in its effort.

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Russian launches military satellite

9:50 am

Russia this morning successfully launched a military intelligence satellite using its Soyuz-2 rocket.

This was Russia’s first launch in 2021. The 2021 launch race:

3 SpaceX
2 China
1 Rocket Lab
1 Virgin Orbit
1 Russia

The U.S. still leads China 5-2 in the national rankings, a lead that should widen by tomorrow as SpaceX has two Starlink satellite launches planned from Cape Canaveral four hours apart in the wee hours of the morning. If both are successful, that single American company will have as many launches as the entire world combined.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Liberal fired for posting stupid tweet

11:25 am

They’re coming for you next: While the bulk of blacklisting going on right now in America is coming from the left with the goal of silencing their opposition, the control freak nature of our society is doing harm to many others for sometimes the stupidest of reasons.

Today’s blacklisted American falls into this latter category. On January 21, 2021, Will Wilkinson, a writer at the very liberal Niskanen Center think tank in Washington, was fired because an apparently conservative twitter mob had complained about a very stupid tweet he had sent out. The wording of the tweet, sent the night after Biden’s inauguration, was ugly, without doubt: “If Biden really wanted unity, he’d lynch Mike Pence.”

Wilkinson claimed in his apology that the tweet was a very bad attempt at satire, making fun of both the left and the right, both of which had expressed at some time or another real anger or hate for Mike Pence. It didn’t work, which is not surprising considering the mindless emotional nature of Twitter. Instead, at first glance it looked like he was sincerely calling for Pence’s lynching.

As noted by Glenn Greenwald at the link,
» Read more

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Rocket of Chinese pseudo-private company fails on 2nd launch

8:52 pm

The new colonial movement: Today’s second launch of the Chinese pseudo-private company iSpace’s Hyperbola-1 rocket ended in failure soon after launch.

No details yet on what went wrong.

The company had successfully completed its first orbital launch in July 2019. The smallsat rocket, using four solid-rocket stages, is almost certainly derived from China’s military technology, and thus the company could not exist without significant government supervision.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Mike Lindell, CEO of My Pillow

2:10 pm

They’re coming for you next: And in the case of Mike Linddell, the CEO of the company My Pillow, the left is coming at him from all sides.

First he was banned from Twitter, merely because Twitter decided it apparently did not like him.

Twitter said Tuesday that it permanently suspended Lindell — a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump — because of his “repeated violations” of the company’s civic integrity policy, which it implemented last fall to clamp down on misinformation.

Twitter didn’t say which of Lindell’s posts pushed it over the edge. [emphasis mine]

As is typical of this corrupt leftist company, it does not provide any evidence for its claims. Nor does it outline clearly the standards that Lindell was supposed to have violated.

No, what Twitter really doesn’t like is that Lindell has been a vocal supporter of Trump, and for that he must be silenced.

Next, the computer company Dominion, which sits in the center of many of the election fraud allegations from the November 3rd election, has threatened Lindell with a defamation lawsuit for daring to note the many problems that others have identified with the manner in which Dominion’s machines tabulated votes in several states.
» Read more

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Environmentalists cheer FAA blocking of Starship test flight

9:28 am

Two Starship prototypes now on launchpads
Two Starships are better than one!

They’re coming for you next: It appears the environmentalist movement is thrilled that the FAA and the Biden administration blocked last week’s test flight of SpaceX’s ninth prototype of Starship.

It also appears they are gunning to end Starship entirely, and might now have the right people in charge to get it done.

Jim Chapman, president of the nonprofit Friends of the Wildlife Corridor, says it is unusual for a federal regulatory agency to allow a company to conduct tests prior to completion of an environmental review and licenses issued.

He and other environmentalists have repeatedly expressed concerns to Border Report of what they say is a lack of oversight by the FAA on this site. But Friday’s actions gave Chapman some hope. “The fact that the FAA is going by the book for a change is a good development,” Chapman said. “They’re following the law by doing that and they’re supposed to do the environmental evaluation before they issue new licenses and up until now they kind of haven’t been doing that.”

The irony here is that these environmentalists are claiming that SpaceX’s rocket facility at Boca Chica will threaten the local beach wildlife, when we have more than a half century of evidence from Cape Canaveral that a rocket launch facility does the exact opposite. When the federal government established its Florida spaceport it reserved vast tracts around it for safety, but also reserved that land as a wildlife preserve. The result has been that the beach wildlife at Cape Canaveral has thrived, and been protected.

What these environmentalist really want to do is prevent SpaceX from flying, merely because they hate the development of new technology and the advancement of human capabilities. The environmental movement is routinely against anything new, and has been for decades.

With the Democrats controlling Congress and the White House, their allies are now in power. I would not at all be surprised if the FAA’s action last week is also tied to this environmental review. If so, expect future test flights at Boca Chica to be further delayed and stretched out.

Meanwhile, this past weekend SpaceX rolled out its tenth Starship prototype, placing it on a second launchpad right next to prototype #9, as shown by the screen capture above from the LabPadre 24/7 live feed this morning. The company sure is making it clear that the only reason they have been stalled is the government.

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India is targeting ’21 for first unmanned test launch of manned system

9:07 am

The new colonial movement: According to Indian government officials, the first unmanned test flight of their Gaganyaan manned capsule will occur before the end of 2021.

The first unmanned launch is slated for December 2021. The Gaganyaan is a crewed orbital spacecraft expected to carry three astronauts into space for at least seven days. The spacecraft is likely to consist of an orbital module which will have a service and a crew module. The mission is estimated to cost around Rs 10,000 crore. The GSLV Mk-III, now called LVM-3 (Launch Vehicle Mark-3), will be deployed for the launch.

The new name for the rocket helps distinguish it from the GSLV Mk-II, a smaller version aimed mostly at commercial customers.

India also hopes to launch a new smallsat rocket in ’21, as well as its next lunar lander/rover, Chandrayaan-3. The country’s space effort will also be attempting to recover from its shutdown in 2020 due to the Wuhan virus panic.

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NASA delays lunar lander contract award

8:55 am

NASA, now under the control of the Biden administration, has quietly delayed by at least two months the contract award to two companies to build manned lunar landers for its Artemis program.

With short funding from Congress and a new administration focused on more pressing national issues, the move was expected.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX, a team of aerospace giants led by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, and Leidos-owned Dynetics won a combined $967 million in seed funding from NASA last year to develop rivaling concepts for a human lunar landing system. It’s the space agency’s first effort to spend money on astronaut moon landers since the Apollo program in the 1970s.

Last Wednesday, NASA told the three contractors that an extension to their development contracts “will be required,” picking a new award date of April 30th. Under the Trump administration’s timeline, the agency had planned to pick two of the three bidders in late February, giving a stamp of approval for two systems that would inevitably carry humans to the moon.

This delay would likely have occurred under Trump as well, mainly because Congress only appropriated less than a third of the money needed for this Artemis program.

However, under Biden it was guaranteed. A major review is about to happen, designed not to kill Artemis but to slow it down appreciable. Congress likes the pork Artemis produces, but is wholly uninterested in it actually flying any dangerous missions. I suspect Biden will agree. The focus will once again shift back to Gateway, making any lunar landing require it so that it must be built first. Such a shift will guarantee that no American manned missions to the surface of the Moon will occur before ’30, but also allow the spending of gobs of money building a small lunar station that will only be occupied for short periods.

The big loser here, to my mind, is Jeff Bezos. His company, Blue Origin, was building the descent portion of the lunar lander, with all other portions built by his big space partners, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper. Not only is most of the other work by these partners more easily shifted to other uses related to Gateway, but those companies already have plenty of government contracts. As far as I can remember, Blue Origin has no other big government deals, with its New Glenn having been rejected by the military, and its lunar descent technology unneeded until there is a lunar landing, and I expect that to be significantly delayed.

For the past four years Bezos has clearly wanted to make Blue Origin a new big space contractor. Right now it appears that effort has failed wholly.

Dynetics will also lose out big, as they are a new company and can ill afford losing a contract here.

SpaceX will likely be hurt the least. Not getting any money for designing Starship to land on the Moon will do little to slow its development. Starship is almost completely privately funded, and does not need NASA money to get built.

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NASA to do another static fire test of SLS’s core stage

10:52 pm

NASA has now scheduled a second static fire test of the core stage of its SLS rocket, tentatively scheduled for the fourth week in February.

The first test, planned to last eight minutes, shut down after only one minute when the stage’s computers decided the parameters on engine #2 were outside their conservative margins. That burn also had a sensor issue with its fourth engine.

Conducting a second hot fire test will allow the team to repeat operations from the first hot fire test and obtain data on how the core stage and the engines perform over a longer period that simulates more activities during the rocket’s launch and ascent. To prepare for the second hot fire test, the team is continuing to analyze data from the first test, drying and refurbishing the engines, and making minor thermal protection system repairs. They are also updating conservative control logic parameters that resulted in the flight computer ending the first hot fire test earlier than planned. The team has already repaired the faulty electrical harness which resulted in a notification of a Major Component Failure on Engine 4. This instrumentation issue did not affect the engine’s performance and did not contribute to ending the first test early.

Assuming this test is successful, they will then need a month to get the stage ready for shipment by barge to Cape Canaveral, where it will take several more months to get it assembled with its two strap-on solid rocket boosters, its upper stage, and the Orion capsule on top.

Right now the unmanned test flight into orbit of this entire rocket and Orion is set for November ’21. While NASA has not announced a delay, this additional static fire test puts significant pressure on that schedule.

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Anyone who worked in the Trump administration

12:47 pm

Death to the Bill of Rights!

They’re coming for you next: Today’s post about the new effort by leftists and Democrats to blacklist all their opponents does not concern any single individual (as has been the focus of my previous posts), but instead will focus on the all-encompassing effort by the Democratic Party and its leftist supporters to blacklist anyone who worked in Trump administration, so they can never get work again.

Thus, today have three stories illustrating the left’s oppressive and intolerant effort to destroy any who oppose them.

First, there is a bill introduced in Congress by a congresswoman Stephanie Murphy (D-Florida) that would ban any person from federal employment or military service who might have attended any protest rally that claimed the November 3rd election was stolen, or even suggested that there was voter fraud.

This level of attempted government repression is breathtaking in its scope. As a rule, anyone who is convicted (and that’s a key word) of having breached the Capitol building on January 6th and committing acts of vandalism or attacks on law enforcement officers will likely disqualify themselves from obtaining a security clearance. (And hence, a federal job in most cases.) The same is true for all serious offenses, though you can generally receive a waiver for misdemeanors and minor violations. No new legislation would be needed to make that happen.

But this bill is something entirely different. It would effectively criminalize every person who showed up for the rally and remained out in the streets protesting. The same would go for the hundreds of other rallies held across the nation in the preceding months. Further, depending on how the legislation is interpreted, if you ever engaged with Q-anon believers on social media or other discussion groups, you could be similarly canceled from working in the public sphere.

In other words, Democrat Murphy is aiming to make second class citizens of anyone who dared protest the election of Joe Biden. While it is doubtful her legislation will pass as is, do not be surprised if it gets slipped into a larger omnibus bill somewhere, when no one can spot it. And don’t be surprised when the Democrats controlling Congress help her get this done.

Next we have an effort by leftist activists to develop a real blacklist and use it to prevent anyone who worked for the Trump administration from getting a job in the private sector.
» Read more

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Roscosmos’ commercial division to market tourist seats on Soyuz

9:29 am

The new colonial movement: Glavkosmos, the commercial division of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, has announced that it is now making available for sale to passengers up to four seats on the Soyuz capsule.

Roscosmos has previously sold such seats through a long-standing relationship with American company Space Adventures. In December, Glavkosmos tweeted its plans to start selling seats, which a company spokesperson has since confirmed. “We assume that each crewed Soyuz MS spacecraft intended solely for commercial spaceflight will have two seats for space tourists” with a professional astronaut occupying the third seat, Glavkosmos spokesman Evgenii Kolomeets told SpaceNews. “In 2022-2023, with a favorable combination of circumstances, we can count on four seats aboard the commercial spacecraft for space tourists.”

The first dedicated Glavkosmos flight should be Soyuz MS-23 in the fall of 2022 to the ISS, with a second flight expected some time in 2023. “Commercial spacecraft and launch vehicles for the 2022-2023 launch campaigns are being manufactured, and specific mission numbers are assigned to spacecraft only after they are included in the flight program,” Kolomeets said.

If this happens, it will mean that at least three different entities — Axiom, Space Adventures, and Roscosmos — will be selling tourists flights into space. And that doesn’t even count possible flights on Boeing’s Starliner, once it becomes operational.

This competition is certain to force a drop in price, which in turn should increase the customer base, making more such flights possible.

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Biden Justice Dept investigating SpaceX over hiring of non-citizens

9:21 am

They’re coming for you next: The Biden Justice Dept is now investigating SpaceX for discriminating against non-American citizens in its hiring practices.

The DOJ’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section received a complaint of employment discrimination from a non-U.S. citizen claiming that the company discriminated against him based on his citizenship status.

“The charge alleges that on or about March 10, 2020, during the Charging Party’s interview for the position of Technology Strategy Associate, SpaceX made inquiries about his citizenship status and ultimately failed to hire him for the position because he is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident,” DOJ attorney Lisa Sandoval wrote in a court document filed Thursday. The document was a request for a judge to order SpaceX to comply with an administrative subpoena for documents related to how the company hires.

It also appears that SpaceX refused to comply with a subpoena from this Justice Dept section, claiming that it exceeded that section’s authority. The Biden administration is now asking the court to enforce that subpoena.

This is not just absurd, it smacks of government overreach designed to destroy the company. SpaceX is a rocket company that must follow very strict ITAR rules designed to prevent the release of military technology to foreign powers. By its very nature the company cannot hire foreign nationals for almost any position. If SpaceX were to hire a non-citizen the State Department would have grounds to shut them down.

Now the Biden administration is demanding that SpaceX do exactly that, essentially placing the company between a rock and a hard place.

This action, combined with the refusal yesterday by the FAA to issue a launch permit to SpaceX so it could do a test flight of its Starship prototype #9, gives us another clear picture of what to expect from Democratic Party rule for the next four years. They have always been out to squelch any independent operations in any way they can, and they now have the power to do it.

Musk better get ready to pay that bribe to the Democratic Party. Otherwise they will shut him down.

As for Starship, according to SpaceX’s website they will make their next launch attempt in February 1. This could be because the FAA has finally relented, or the company is scheduling it to apply more pressure to the agency to get that permit approved. We shall have to wait until then to see.

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FAA bureaucrats block SpaceX Starship test flight

2:39 pm

Capitalism in space? It is now confirmed that the test flight of SpaceX’s ninth prototype of its Starship rocket was scrubbed because of the FAA’s refusal to approve the license. To quote the FAA:

We will continue working with SpaceX to resolve outstanding safety issues before we approve the next test flight.

Typically vague bureaucratic language. There is no word on why the government did this. The flight of Starship prototype #8 proved SpaceX has full control over its vehicle, to the point they could put it down right on target. Why the FAA should now suddenly get cold feet is inexplicable.

There is one difference between now and the December 9th flight of Starship prototype #8. Then the president was Republican Donald Trump, and the Senate was controlled by the Republicans. Now the president is Democrat Joe Biden, and both houses of Congress are in Democratic Party control. It would not surprise me in the least if some Biden officials called the FAA and demanded they impose stricter safety restrictions on SpaceX, and that they did so at the very last minute.

Or to put it another way, someone in the Biden administration essentially wanted to tell SpaceX, “Nice rocket company you got here. Sure would be a shame if something happened to it.”

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Today’s blacklisted American: Literary agent fired for having Parler & Gab accounts

12:50 pm

They’re coming for you next: A New York city literary agent was fired by her agency for merely having accounts at both Parler and Gab, based on a single complaint on Twitter.

Colleen Oefelein, an associate literary agent with the New York City-based Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency, was sacked after her boss learned that she owned accounts on Gab and Parler. The agency’s owner, Jennifer DeChiara, publicly announced on Twitter that the firm had dropped Oefelein after making the “distressing” discovery.

“We do not condone this activity, and apologize to anyone who has been affected or offended by this,” the message read. DeChiara stressed that her agency was committed to ensuring a “voice of unity” and was firmly “on the side of social justice.”

Oefelein says she was really fired because she is a conservative and a Christian. And the evidence shows that her use of these two platforms had little to do with politics, as she was having trouble logging onto her Twitter account and was switching for that reason. Moreover, when she did post on any of these social media sites, she used them not for political reasons but to interact with her clients and other writers.

None of those facts mattered. One fascist thug on Twitter complained, slandering her by accusing her without evidence of frequenting “alt-right social media”, whatever that means, and the owner of the agency, Jennifer DeChiara, moved swiftly to fire her.

In other words, merely touching a social media platform that won’t participate in the blacklisting movement is now grounds for blacklisting.

It seems to me she has solid legal grounds to sue, and win big. Regardless, this action by the owner of this literary agency shows that the storm-troopers in today’s leftist dominant culture come from both the rank and file as well as their political leadership in the Democratic Party.

Be aware. Your liberal friends might not really be your friends. Instead, they may be people who enthusiastically endorse McCarthyism and the blacklisting of innocent Americans, merely because those Americans disagree with them.

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Abraham Lincoln and George Washington

1:23 pm

They’re coming for you next: Even as Democrats nationwide embrace blacklists of ordinary Americans for daring to express dissent from that party’s leftist agenda, the extremely leftwing school board in San Francisco is moving to blacklist as many of America’s historical national figures as possible, including Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Paul Revere.

Cancel culture is going after our Founding Fathers and other American leaders. Just this week, the San Francisco Board of Education voted to rename 44 public schools in a vote of 6 to 1.

The names on the chopping block are familiar and belong to important American leaders. Lincoln, Washington, and Roosevelt will no longer have their names attached to schools in the Golden Gate City. Dianne Feinstein’s name will also be removed.

Francis Scott Key, who penned the national anthem, former presidents William McKinley, James Garfield, James Monroe, and Herbert Hoover, and even Paul Revere were viewed as being too controversial and incendiary to have the honor of having a school named after them.

The school board can’t argue that these were supporters of slavery, since Lincoln freed the slaves, and Roosevelt, Key, McKinley, Hoover, and Revere never owned them and lived either in places that did not permit slavery (colonial New England) or outlawed it (post-Civil War America).

No, what this school board is doing is banning history, so that the students it “educates” will be guaranteed to know nothing about the past noble Americans who made this country a great and free land, for all. Instead, San Fransisco students will be indoctrinated into the Marxist philosophy of hate and envy, hating anyone who doesn’t agree with that ideology and having envy for anyone who works hard to achieve success instead of relying on the central government to feed them.

And most of all, they will be taught that America is, was, and always will be an evil land. They will be taught to hate it, so they can be enlisted in the war to destroy it.

So while today’s blacklisted Americans are dead and thus cannot be oppressed, the destruction of their names and good works is still possible, and the modern fascist Democratic Party is there to gladly oblige.

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SpaceX and Amazon in cat-fight over internet satellite constellations

10:19 am

Capitalism in space: Even as SpaceX is rolling out the internet service from its growing Starlink satellite constellation while Amazon’s own Kuiper constellation languishes in development, the two companies are in a battle over the orbits of their respective constellations.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter on Tuesday, as his company works to persuade Federal Communications Commission officials that it should allow SpaceX to move some of its Starlink satellites to lower altitudes than originally planned.

Jeff Bezos’ Amazon has been among companies that have disputed SpaceX’s request, on the grounds that the modification would interfere with other satellites.

“It does not serve the public to hamstring Starlink today for an Amazon satellite system that is at best several years away from operation,” Musk said in a tweet.

Amazon responded to Musk’s comment in a statement to CNBC. “The facts are simple. We designed the Kuiper System to avoid interference with Starlink, and now SpaceX wants to change the design of its system. Those changes not only create a more dangerous environment for collisions in space, but they also increase radio interference for customers. Despite what SpaceX posts on Twitter, it is SpaceX’s proposed changes that would hamstring competition among satellite systems. It is clearly in SpaceX’s interest to smother competition in the cradle if they can, but it is certainly not in the public’s interest,” an Amazon spokesperson said.

SpaceX in its own response to the FCC has noted “that Amazon representatives have had ’30 meetings to oppose SpaceX’ but ‘no meetings to authorize its own system,’ arguing that the technology giant is attempting ‘to stifle competition.'”

Both companies appear to have a point. Amazon is planning its system under an agreed-to arrangement where its orbits would not conflict with SpaceX’s. To permit SpaceX to change the deal and expand its orbital territory into Amazon’s threatens their system.

At the same time, that Amazon has been so slow to launch its system is something the FCC will not take kindly to. Companies get FCC licensing approval on the condition that they deliver within a certain time frame. Amazon appears to be taking a bit too much time, and SpaceX is trying to take advantage of this fact.

I suspect the FCC will deny SpaceX’s request, but will also tell Amazon that it had better start launching its satellites soon, or else the FCC will change its mind and give SpaceX that orbital territory.

Overall, the slowness of Amazon to launch Kuiper seems to fit the operational pace of Jeff Bezos’ other space company, Blue Origin. Lots of talk, but relatively little action. At some point the talk has to stop and Bezos’ companies have got to start delivering.

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Space Force ends development contracts with Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman

9:33 am

The Space Force, having chosen SpaceX and ULA as its sole launch providers, officially ended on December 31, 2020, its rocket development contracts with Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman.

The Air Force awarded Launch Service Agreements to Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman and United Launch Alliance. These were six-year public-private partnerships where both the government and the contractors agreed to invest in rocket development and infrastructure required to compete in the National Security Space Launch program.

The plan from day one was to discontinue the LSAs with companies that did not win a National Security Space Launch procurement contract. Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman lost to ULA and SpaceX, which were selected in August 2020. The Space and Missile Systems Center confirmed in a statement to SpaceNews that the LSAs with Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman ended in Dec. 31, 2020.

From October 2018 through December 2020, Blue Origin was paid $255.5 million. The original six-year agreement was worth $500 million. Northrop Grumman got $531.7 million over that same period, nearly two-thirds of the total value of the LSA which was $792 million.

This whole deal stinks to high heaven. First, it never made any sense for the military to restrict bidding on future launches to just two companies. Such a restrictions smells of a cartel deal designed to play favorites, something the government should not do. It also ends up costing the government more, as it limits competition.

Second, the money handed out sure looks like nice pay-offs to all these big companies, designed to pay company salaries rather than real design work. SpaceX chose not to take it, because it did not want to be beholden to the military’s bureaucracy in how it developed Starship/Super Heavy. That choice has proven wise, as the deal slowed development of both Blue Origin’s New Glenn and ULA’s Vulcan rockets by at least a year, while SpaceX Starship development has moved forward far quicker.

Moreover, its seems very inappropriate for ULA to still be getting this government cash while SpaceX does not. In truth, neither should get a dime unless they actually sign a contract to launch something for the Space Force. Otherwise it is just a form of kickback and a misuse of the taxpayer’s money.

Not that my complaining here will change anything. The big aerospace industry has been addicted to these kind of government payoffs for decades, and apparently will continue to be so addicted for the foreseeable future.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Evangelist Franklin Graham

1:46 pm

They’re coming for you next: A mob of more than 17,000 people have signed a petition to get evangelist Franklin Graham fired from his jobs at two different Christian organizations, merely because he has strongly supported President Trump during his term in office.

As is usual in these efforts to blacklist people, the charges are not based on substantive facts, but on the modern use of slander and bigotry, first made normal during the Obama administration. From the petition:

“Graham gets away with his hatred and conspiracy-theories by hiding behind the humanitarian work of Samaritan’s Purse and his late father’s name,” Faithful America said in the petition. “It’s time for Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) to realize that by propping up Franklin’s unchristian extremism, they are abandoning their Gospel missions, undermining democracy, and helping incite white-nationalist sedition.”

The petition encourages board members to fire Graham or resign in protest. [emphasis mine]

For these leftist thugs, “hatred” and “extremism” is simply disagreeing with them. For these storm-troopers, “conspiracy-theories” and “undermining democracy” is simply expressing concerns about the numerous serious allegations of voter fraud in the November 3rd election, none of which have been properly investigated by any civil authorities.

And “inciting white-nationalist sedition” is merely refusing to bow to the bigoted racist identity politics of the Marxist Black Lives Matter movement, which only cares about leftist black lives, and hates all others, including conservative blacks, in turn.

Fortunately, the two religious organizations being petitioned have dismissed the petition for the slander that it is, expressing full support for Graham.

That 17,000 people were willing to sign such a petition however is truly horrifying, and shows their willingness to oppress their opponents, simply because they disagree on policy and politics. It also suggests these signatories are incredibly ignorant about politics, and are thus easily led by lies told to them.

Despite the support of his employers, this effort will do harm to Graham’s future work, as he now has to continually answer bogus questions about his beliefs, questions not unlike the old political-destroying question, “Do you still beat your wife?” No matter what you say, you will be quoted in a manner that will make you look evil.

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New Democrat head of House subcommittee covering NASA says he supports Artemis

9:32 am

The new Democrat head of the House appropriations subcommittee that covers NASA funding, Matt Cartwright (D-Pennsylvania), appears to support the Artemis program established during the Trump administration, though he has also indicated that he does not favor the timeline imposed by Trump to land a manned mission on the Moon by ’24.

Cartwright’s embrace of Artemis during [a] July 2020 webinar was a change from 2019 when he was one of several members reacting skeptically to a supplemental budget request from the Trump Administration after it unexpectedly accelerated the timeline for putting people back on the Moon from 2028 to 2024. He complained NASA did not even have a cost estimate for the entire effort, yet expected Congress to embrace it.

In 2018, he expressed concern about proposed cuts by the Trump Administration to NASA’s earth and space science activities especially climate programs and WFIRST (now the Roman Space Telescope). He urged NASA to follow the Decadal Surveys produced by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

What his prior views presage now that he chairs the subcommittee remains to be seen. It is widely expected the 2024 deadline will be pushed back, perhaps to the 2028 date NASA originally planned, but Cartwright appears favorably disposed towards the agency overall.

Delaying the Moon landing by SLS forever is the real goal, so the jobs program can be extended without any risks. To actually fly might result in a failure, something that no politician wants.

In the end it will not be SLS anyway that gets Americans back to the Moon. It costs too much and is badly designed. It might fly once or twice, but after that Congress will drop it while keeping Artemis, albeit in a very different form. Instead of having NASA design and build things, the new Artemis will be built by the many companies who were awarded fixed priced contracts during the Trump administration to develop their own hardware as fast as possible and as inexpensively as possible.

The distinction is important, because the latter is more likely to succeed in a reasonable amount of time.

At the same time, with Congress on board and a Democrat in the White House, it is not surprising that the policy is immediately shifting to a slower timeline. Can’t get this done too fast! I must also add that 2028 was not NASA’s original date for its return to the Moon. Before the Trump administration took control of Artemis, NASA had wanted to complete Gateway first, which based on all of NASA’s previous schedules would have pushed a lunar landing into the 2030s. Do not be surprised if this sluggish schedule is reinstated.

In fact, with the present incompetents in charge in Washington, I fully expect China to own the Moon, while U.S. politicians brainlessly dither on how to spend pork.

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Today’s blacklisted American: A blogger about babies

2:09 pm

They’re coming for you next: A neonatal nurse named Cara Dumaplin, who for years has run very successful website called Taking Care of Babies, is now considered a “racist” and “hater” because she and her husband committed the unforgivable act of donating to the campaign of Donald Trump.

MamaBirdLosAngeles drew attention to Dumaplin’s political donations on Instagram, setting off a flurry of denunciations.

MamaBird identified herself as “part of the #babypeople who are actively using our platforms to speak out about hate, and give you the information you need to not only raise your babies, but to raise them anti-racist. So with that, I recommend y’all consider unfollowing and stop giving your support and $$$ to @TakingCaraBabies, who along with her husband, has been actively donating to Trump and his campaign.”

“We need to out these people, especially because they are profiting off of photos of BIPOC [black, indigenous, people of color] families,” MamaBird added. “I encourage you to share this far and wide!”

This bigot, who automatically assumes, based on no evidence, that Trump is a racist and then slanders anyone with the same lie should they have supported him, is bad enough. She wants to boycott and blacklist anyone who dared back an opponent of the Democrats. You won’t get much freedom of expression under any society that she runs.

What is worse however are the knee-jerk responses from long time fans of Taking Care of Babies, moving quickly to ostracize and destroy this very non-political website. For some reason, crazy and ugly accusations like this must now be accepted with no skepticism or challenge.

Many Instagram accounts moved to blacklist Dumaplin for her political views, assuming that if she supported Trump she must be a hateful racist (even though millions of black and Hispanic Americans voted for Trump). “We as a brand do not stand by these donations and have unfollowed and sent a personal note” to Dumaplin, the Instagram account BigLittleFeelings, which has 1.2 million followers, announced. “If you see something in your feed that is misaligned with your values, create your feed with what you feel is best. For us that meant unfollowing.”

BigLittleFeelings went on to say that the brand dreams of “a world where our next generation, our kids and your kids no matter the color of their skin, their abilities or where they came from, are treated equally. … Empathy, inclusivity, always always.”

Heh. BigLittleFeelings doesn’t appear very empathetic to me, willing so quickly with no evidence to destroy someone. And they are also only one example of the new blacklist mob coming after the Dumaplins. The article at the link gives more.

Hopefully the Dumaplin’s will survive this hate campaign. I am not optimistic. Our modern leftist close-minded culture teaches that no one should be exposed to opinions which they find uncomfortable. Everyone must have a safe space! And if any ordinary American should dare challenge that bubble, they must be destroyed and silenced, now! Freedom of speech is now evil, and most always be squelched!

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Japan’s new H3 rocket is almost ready for launch in ’21

9:32 am

The H3 rocket, jointly made by Mitsubishi and Japan’s space agency JAXA, is almost ready for launch and will be shipped to is launch site shortly for a launch later this year.

According to the link, it will cut the cost of launch by half when compared with Japan’s H2A rocket. They hope this cost reduction will garner them international customers, though I wonder as the rocket is not reusable. To get those international customers they have done something interesting. Rather than putting “Nippon” on the side of the rocket, which is what the Japanese call their country, they have put “Japan” on it instead.

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New leak located in Zvezda on ISS

5:57 pm

Russian astronauts have located the suspected new leak location in the Zvezda module on ISS, and also think there might be another, as yet unlocated.

The specialists have discovered one more crack at the International Space Station and suspect that yet another one exists, ISS Russian Segment head Vladimir Solovyov told Rossiya-24. “So far, we have found one place and suspect another, where as some kind of leak exists. We must bring a powerful microscope on a cargo spacecraft and use to examine this place. We are not totally certain so far,” Solovyov said.

These two leaks are in addition to the one inch crack that caused last year’s leak and has been sealed.

All are pointing strongly to stress fractures in this section of Zvezda, one of the station’s oldest modules at twenty-plus years. The leaks are apparently located in the aft section where ships dock to Zvezda, with over a 100 dockings there since launch.

If the cracks and leaks are caused by stress fractures, the life span of Zvezda is now quite limited. It might be possible to seal the cracks and protect the module from further breaks by ending dockings at its port, but I suspect that will not work. Moreover, if I remember correctly Zvezda has the engines that are used to periodically raise ISS’s orbits. If the stress of firing those engines is too risky than another way must be found to maintain the station’s orbit.

In a few years the private company Axiom will be launching its own modules to ISS, designed in the long run to separate from the station and function independently. If NASA and Axiom are smart, they will make sure this new module matches Zvezda’s capabilities, thus making the Russian module redundant and actually superfluous.

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