Tag: politics

Air leak in Russian section of ISS continues

8:27 am

Dmitri Rogozon, the head of Roscosmos, yesterday announced that they will be sending to ISS special equipment for investigating a new air leak in the Russia section of ISS.

This apparently is not the 1-2 inch long crack in the Zvezda module that leaked previously and was found and sealed. Moreover, the article at the link admits that their astronauts found no sign of damage on the outside of Zvezda when they did a space walk in November, suggesting that this first leak was not caused by a micrometeorite hit.

All the known facts so far strongly suggest that the leaks are because of Zvezda’s 20-year-old age, and might be stress fractures caused by the three dozen or so dockings and undockings that have occurred there since its launch.

That the Russians are being so vague about the entire matter reinforces that conclusion. They have never released an image of the first leak, and provided no details about the equipment being sent to the station.

And if Zvezda is beginning to crack due to age, I am not sure what repairs they can do to stop it.

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Puerto Rican government commits $8 million to rebuild Arecibo

8:16 am

The government of Puerto Rico earlier this week announced that it has allocated $8 million to rebuild the Arecibo Observatory.

Via an executive order, Gov. Wanda Vazquez made reconstruction of the observatory public policy. In a ceremony at La Fortaleza, the seat of the island’s government, Vazquez said that the Puerto Rican government believes that the telescope’s collapse provides a great opportunity to redesign it, taking into account the lessons learned and recommendations from the scientific community so that it remains relevant for decades to come.

…Vazquez said that she and her administration want the scope to once again become a world class center and the $8 million being allocated for reconstruction includes funds to repair the environmental damage caused by the collapse, something that has already begun under the supervision of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

We shall see what happens. $8 million is not really enough to rebuild Arecibo. And the NSF has been trying to unload it from its budgetary responsibility for almost a decade. I would be shocked if that agency now suddenly decided to fund its reconstruction.

Only if Congress gets involved will this likely change, and that wouldn’t surprise me, considering how nonchalant our present Congress is about spending money that doesn’t exist.

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Arianespace uses Soyuz rocket to launch French military satellite from French Guiana

9:51 am

Arianespace today successfully launched a French military reconnaissance satellite from French Guiana using a Russian Soyuz rocket.

This is the last launch for Europe in 2020, their sixth total. It is also the last publicly scheduled launch for the year. My annual worldwide launch report will follow in a day or so.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

35 China
25 SpaceX
15 Russia
6 ULA
6 Rocket Lab
6 Europe (Arianespace)

The U.S.’s lead over China in the national rankings remains 40 to 35.

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PA: Number of votes exceeds the number of voters by more than 200K

5:36 pm

How convenient: A comparison of the number of actual voters logged in Pennsylvania versus the number of votes counted has discovered a 200k discrepancy, with the number of votes exceeding the number of voters by that amount.

A comparison of official county election results to the total number of voters who voted on November 3, 2020 as recorded by the Department of State shows that 6,962,607 total ballots were reported as being cast, while DoS/SURE system records indicate that only 6,760,230 total voters actually voted. Among the 6,962,607 total ballots cast, 6,931,060 total votes were counted in the presidential race, including all three candidates on the ballot and write-in candidates.

The difference of 202,377 more votes cast than voters voting, together with the 31,547 over- and under-votes in the presidential race, adds up to an alarming discrepancy of 170,830 votes, which is more than twice the reported statewide difference between the two major candidates for President of the United States.

In other words, the count somehow found about 200K extra votes that do not belong to any known voters. We don’t know to whom these extra votes went, but who cares? They make the final tally very suspect.

The analysis was done by a group of Republican state lawmakers, who then said this:

“We were already concerned with the actions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the Executive branch, and election officials in certain counties contravening and undermining the Pennsylvania Election Code by eliminating signature verification, postmarks, and due dates while allowing the proliferation of drop boxes with questionable security measures and the unauthorized curing of ballots, as well as the questionable treatment of poll watchers, all of which created wholesale opportunities for irregularities in the 2020 presidential election.”

“However, we are now seeing discrepancies on the retail level which raise even more troubling questions regarding irregularities in the election returns. These findings call into question the accuracy of the SURE system, consistency in the application of the Pennsylvania Election Code from county to county, and the competency of those charged with oversight of elections in our Commonwealth.

“These numbers just don’t add up, and the alleged certification of Pennsylvania’s presidential election results was absolutely premature, unconfirmed, and in error.”

That’s nice, but what is the state legislature going to do about it? It is their responsibility, and just whining about voter fraud allegations accomplishes nothing. They need to actually vote to decertify the election if they are convinced it “was absolutely premature, unconfirmed, and in error.”

The problem of course is their Republican leadership, which doesn’t want to do that, because it might hurt the feelings of the Democrats. God forbid! It is all right to disenfranchise millions of Republicans and allow for election fraud, but allowing Democrat feelings to be bruised cannot stand!

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California, home of masks and harsh lockdowns, has highest COVID-19 infection rate in nation

3:50 pm

Chicken Little report: New data reveals that California, the home of insane mask mandates and irrational and harsh lockdowns, also has the worst COVID-19 infection rate in nation, with the most daily new cases per capita.

In fact, the infection rate in California appears to be between two to three times the rate in Florida, where the restrictions have been few in the last six months.

Gee, I wonder if there might be a connection between these insane lockdown rules and mask mandates and the increase in cases. Could it be that because the lockdowns force people indoors, where the virus can thrive, rather than being out in the open air and sunlight, where such viruses easily die, they are increasing the disease’s spread? Could it be that forcing everyone to wear unsanitary masks indiscriminately might actually be exposing them more to infection?

Could it? If you have an open mind you ask such questions. If you don’t, you huddle in your basement with a mask on in terror and fear, even as the virus explodes around you.

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Fauci admits to lying in his public statements about COVID-19

9:39 am

Our corrupt and dishonest government experts: Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984, has now admitted that he changed his estimates of the required level of herd immunity needed to stop the epidemic based not on any science but on poll numbers and on “his gut feelings.”

In a Christmas Eve interview with the New York Times, Fauci acknowledged he had offered a lower estimate of the level of herd immunity necessary to stop the COVID-19 pandemic because he thought Americans would be discouraged by hearing his true thoughts on the issue.

He recently raised his estimate on the herd immunity threshold “partly based on new science,” the newspaper reported, “and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.”

Fauci himself told the paper that he had withheld the higher estimates because polling results made him think such estimates would be viewed unfavorably. “When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” he told reporter Donald McNeil. “Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.”

Fauci admitted that scientists “really don’t know what the real number is,” though he himself estimated that the “real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent.”

“But, I’m not going to say 90 percent,” he added, because “doing so might be discouraging to Americans,” according to the Times. [emphasis min]

The highlighted words tell us everything we really need to know about this fraud. He is not only a liar, he is an ignorant liar who cloaks that ignorance by loud declarations based not on knowledge but his own political goals.

Why are we still listening to this idiot? More important, why does he still have a job? Such dishonesty and two-timing should have gotten him fired instantly.

That he is still employed in such a powerful post and is still relied on by others in the media and government for guidance tells us much about the corruption and dishonesty of both those institutions. They support his lying, because it has also served their corrupt political purposes.

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Indian private company test fires its own solid rocket motor

9:00 am

Capitalism in space: Skyroot Aerospace, an Indian private company, has successfully test fired its own privately-built solid rocket motor, as part of an effort to develop its own private rocket dubbed Vikram, with its first launch set for December ’21.

The solid rocket motor is for either the rocket’s second stage or for strap-on boosters. The company has already successfully tested the first stage engines.

The most interesting quote from the story however is this:

Founded by former scientists of the Indian Space Research organization (ISRO), Skyroot has raised $4.3 million till now and is in process of raising another $15 mn in 2021. In the past the company has raised investments from: Mukesh Bansal (Founder Myntra, CureFit), Solar Industries (India’s largest explosives manufacturer and renowned Space & Defence Contactor), Vedanshu investments and a few other Angel investors.

The Modi government has been making a strong effort to mimic the transition that NASA has gone through in the past decade whereby it shifts from having all its spacecraft and rockets designed, built, and owned by the government to having the government act merely as the customer buying those products from privately-run and independent companies. Like NASA, there has been strong resistance to this change within India’s government bureaucracy. Skyroot’s success, including its foundation by former ISRO engineers, is a very good sign that they are overcoming that resistance.

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China’s Long March 4C rocket launches military reconnaissance satellite

12:36 am

In what is likely China’s last launch in 2020, a Long March 4C rocket today successfully launched what is thought to be a military reconnaissance satellite into orbit.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

35 China
25 SpaceX
15 Russia
6 ULA
6 Rocket Lab

The U.S. still leads China 40 to 35 in the national rankings. At the moment only one launch is publicly scheduled for the rest of the year, that by Europe’s Arianespace of a Soyuz rocket tomorrow from French Guiana.

My annual worldwide launch report will likely be posted on December 31st, as a New Year’s Eve gift to my readers.

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Georgia election officials predict senate election count will take weeks

9:35 pm

The fix is in: Georgia election officials are now predicting that a final count on the two senate runoff elections in early January will take weeks to complete.

What they are actually doing is preparing the public for a suspicious vote count that will give victories to both Democratic Party candidates, similar to the suspicious vote count that gave the state victory to Joe Biden in the presidential election. Expect more allegations of fake ballots, blocked poll watchers in Fulton County districts dominated by Democrats, and the misuse of Dominion machines whose trustworthiness is very suspect. Those allegations, the same as seen from the November 3rd vote, will result in legal battles because the election board and the quisling Republican governor Kemp will fight any effort to investigate the allegations.

If those allegations carried no weight, these crooks would not fight a full investigation. That they are resisting strongly suggests they are hiding something. And any Democrat victories, with polls showing both Republicans in the lead, will reinforce that suggestion.

Note too that these crooks have also done nothing to make sure these allegations do not get repeated. Nothing.

The fix is in. This is the Republicans last hill to fight on. If they don’t fight here, and win, there will be no more fights. They will never win another election ever. The Democrats will use their majority in the House and Senate, combined with the fake President Biden, to pass laws that will make political opposition impossible, as they have done in California and New York and Chicago and anywhere where they had the power to do so.

And since it appears the Republicans are not fighting, the war is over. Freedom and democracy in America is about to die.

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James Doohan’s ashes have been on ISS for the past dozen years

3:34 pm

Video game developer Richard Garriott admitted in an interview this week that when he flew to ISS as a space tourist in 2008 he smuggled some of the ashes of the late James Doohan, who played Scotty on Star Trek, to hide there.

[Garriott] printed three cards with Doohan’s photo on them, sprinkling ashes inside and then laminating them. He then hid the cards within the flight data file, which was cleared for the flight (the cards were not). “Everything that officially goes on board is logged, inspected and bagged — there’s a process, but there was no time to put it through that process,” he said.

…According to Garriott, one of the cards is on display in Chris Doohan’s home, while another was sent floating in space, where it would have inevitably burned up when re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

The third card, however, remains in the ISS, hidden beneath the cladding on the floor of the space station’s Columbus module, where Garriott hid it. “As far as I know, no one has ever seen it there and no one has moved it,” he said. “James Doohan got his resting place among the stars.” Since being hidden in the ISS, Doohan’s ashes have travelled nearly 1.7 billion miles through space, orbiting Earth more than 70,000 times.

I hope that now that Garriott has revealed the location of that third card, the petty dictators at NASA and Roscosmos won’t insist that it be removed. For ISS having the ashes of the world’s best space engineer on board can only be good luck.

And it might encourage the government workers at NASA and Roscomos to follow Scotty’s most sage advice, which to paraphrase is “Always under-predict and over-perform. It keeps their expectations low.”

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Thailand government proposes space program

3:22 pm

The new colonial movement: In an effort to stimulate and diversify their economy, the Thailand government has proposed a space program whose long term goal will be sending an unmanned spacecraft to the Moon.

[The Minister for Education, Science, Research and Innovation Anek Laothamatas] on Thursday outlined a plan to develop, first of all, advanced satellites in the 50 kg to 100 kg range which the kingdom will launch into orbit. This will take five years.

He then explained that Thailand will aim to build a spacecraft which can travel to the moon and enter into lunar orbit. This will take a further three years. ‘The new economy of space travel will be a way for Thailand to overcome the economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and then to escape the middle-income trap, and the ministry will embrace creativity and innovation,’ Minister Anek disclosed.

The plan is expected to be based on the use of a xenon ion thruster rocket used by NASA and a 300 kg spacecraft which can be launched effectively out of the earth’s orbit. It would then travel to the moon at 11km per hour. Once there, it would slow to 2km per hour and enter the moon’s orbit.

The article is essentially a propaganda puff piece for this minister and his proposal. Whether it actually flies is unknown, as it appears right now to mostly be a vehicle for this guy to build his own government empire rather than actually accomplish anything. I was especially amused by this quote from the article, based on this education minister’s goals:

So this is why Thailand is keen to develop its credentials in the race to space as well as other social reforms currently being introduced by the government such as greater rights for the LGBT community, welfare schemes, a move this week to liberalise the kingdom’s abortion laws and radical plans to update the education system with an emphasis on English. [emphasis mine]

Yeah, right, space technology falls right in line with LGBT rights. Forgive me if I am skeptical.

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Nationwide analysis suggests masks increased the spread of COVID-19

2:44 pm

WHO's do's and don't's for mask use
For the full images, go here and here.

A analysis of all fifty states suggests the mandate to wear masks might have actually increased the spread of COVID-19 rather than reduced it.

They studied the number of cases over a 229-day period from May 1 through Dec. 15 and divided the results of the two study groups by days with mask mandates and days without mask mandates. The non-mandate data group includes both states that never had a mandate and those that did at some point, but data set included only the days they did not have a mask mandate.

The results: When comparing states with mandates vs. those without, or periods of times within a state with a mandate vs. without, there is absolutely no evidence the mask mandate worked to slow the spread one iota. In total, in the states that had a mandate in effect, there were 9,605,256 confirmed COVID cases over 5,907 total days, an average of 27 cases per 100,000 per day. When states did not have a statewide order (which includes the states that never had them and the period of time masking states did not have the mandate in place) there were 5,781,716 cases over 5,772 total days, averaging 17 cases per 100,000 people per day.

The reverse correlation between periods of masking and non-masking is remarkable.

That’s right. With mandates in place states say 10 more cases per 100K population. [emphasis mine]

It is very important to make it clear that this result has many uncertainties. It also is probably telling us more about the widespread improper use of masks that the mandates encourage and in fact literally require than the usefulness of masks when used properly.

Under the mandates, everyone uses and reuses the same mask, wearing it continuously for hours, or if not, putting it on and off and storing it in an unsanitary manner in-between. People also touch the mask continuously, and allow it to get wet and dirty without a second thought.

As the above WHO graph (that I have repeatedly posted) bluntly notes, doing this actually makes the mask a pathogen bomb that you wear on your face. The data of the above report reinforces this fact. That this reality has also been documented by scientific research and common sense for more than a century should also carry some weight as well. Sadly, in today’s society it does not.

I have repeatedly agreed that it is likely true that if everyone wore the right kind of masks, and wore them properly, for short periods and only when exposed to a symptomatic individual or when symptomatic themselves and in the presence of others, than maybe, maybe, masks would have a benefit. (Note that the data now confirms that only symptomatic individuals can infect others, and that if you have no symptoms you are almost certainly not going to spread the disease to others.)

Right now, mask mandates are likely causing more harm than good, and are really nothing more than feel-good nonsense that are being imposed by the petty dictators and control freaks of our society not to reduce the spread of disease but to increase the spread of their totalitarian power. If you go along, than you deserve the oppression you are certainly going to experience in the coming years.

As well as the increased likelihood that you will also get sick.

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Another SLS core stage abort during dress rehearsal

1:33 pm

NASA today revealed that engineers were forced on December 20th to abort at about T-5 minutes their second attempt to do a fueled dress rehearsal countdown in preparation for the full core stage static fire test.

[S]ources said the terminal countdown started at T-10 minutes and counting and ran down to T-4 minutes and 40 seconds where an unplanned hold occurred. … The criteria for how long it should take for a liquid hydrogen replenish valve to close was violated at that point in the countdown when the valve was commanded to the close position as a part of the process to pressurize the liquid hydrogen tank for engine firing. After holding at the T-4:40 point for a few minutes, teams decided the terminal countdown test couldn’t continue.

Vehicle safing and recycle sequences were then executed.

Although the countdown ran for over half of its intended duration, the early cutoff left several major milestones untested. With the countdown aborted at that point, the stage’s propellant tanks weren’t fully pressurized, the hydraulic Core Stage Auxiliary Power Units (CAPUs) were never started, the final RS-25 engine purge sequence was never run, and the vehicle power transfer didn’t occur.

NASA management is debating now whether they can proceed directly to the full core stage static fire test, where the core stage engine will fire for the full duration of a normal launch. It could be that they will decide to waive testing what was not tested on this last dress rehearsal.

If they delay the full test to do another dress rehearsal, they risk causing a delay in the fall launch of SLS, as they need a lot of time to disassemble, ship, and reassembly the stage in Florida. If they don’t delay, they risk either a failure during the full static fire test, or (even worse) a failure during that first launch.

Considering the number of nagging problems that have plagued this test program, it seems foolish to me to bypass any testing. They not only do not have enough data to really understand how to fuel the core stage reliably, they don’t even have a lot of practice doing the countdown itself. All this bodes ill when they try to launch later this year, especially if they decide to not work the kinks out now.

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Arizona GOP responds (?) to election board’s defiance to subpoenas

11:15 am

The Arizona Republican Party yesterday announced that in response to the refusal by the Maricopa County election board to obey subpoenas that “the state’s GOP electors will intervene in the case.”

The reason I have put a question mark in the headline is that I really have no idea what this means, or if it is simply another example of failure theater by the Republican Party. Who are these electors? Are they the legislators? Are they the alternative slate of Trump electors chosen by legislature? What power do they have? How is this actrion going to do anything to get those subpoenas obeyed and a real audit of the election in Maricopa County accomplished?

Based on the story at the link, I have no idea, and instead have the impression that it is all for show, and will accomplish nothing. Moreover, for unelected bureaucrats to defy an order by the elected legislature is blatantly unconstitutional, and should have prompted immediate action by law enforcement to secure the audit machines, the ballots, and any evidence. None of this has happened, which suggests to me that our elected officials here in Arizona are impotent and powerless and rule only at the whim of those unelected bureaucrats.

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Georgia state senate: Election “untrustworthy” and should be decertified

10:22 am

After reviewing the available evidence the chairman of the Georgia state senate’s judiciary committee has issued a report calling the election results “untrustworthy” and demanding that the election certification be rescinded.

You can read the report here [pdf] The article at the link above provides a nice summary.

Georgia State Senator William T. Ligon, Chairman of the Election Law subcommittee, reached that conclusion after reviewing the recount process, the audit process, current investigations taking place, and litigation that is moving forward. His Subcommittee also heard testimonies from witnesses during an open hearing at the Georgia State Capitol on Thursday, December 3, 2020.

“The November 3, 2020 General Election (the “Election”) was chaotic and any reported results must be viewed as untrustworthy,” Sen. Ligon wrote in his executive summary.

The report itself lists in detail all the documented allegations, either from witness affidavits or testimony or from actual videos showing corruption, misbehavior, or very suspicious behavior. It is important to note that we are not talking about one or two allegations by only a few witnesses. We are talking of a giant stack, in the hundreds, many backed up by video evidence.

It does appear possible, from statements in the article above, that the Georgia state legislature might act to reject the certification and the chosen Democratic electors before January 6th.

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New Mexico sheriff covering Albuquerque rejects lockdown order

10:08 am

Watch this December 18th statement by the elected sheriff of Bernalillo County, the most populous county in New Mexico that covers Albuquerque. He states unequivocally that his officers will not enforce the draconian edicts of his governor and local authorities. They will instead focus on “apprehending actual criminals.” He also added quite forcefully, “We will not follow along with any order that subverts [the public’s] constitutional rights.”

We need more sheriffs like him. These unlawful and unconstitutional edicts must end, and the best way to do that is for everyone to tell the petty dictators who are issuing them that we will no longer comply. This sheriff demonstrates how.

It only takes a little courage. I applaud this man for showing that he has that courage.

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NASA budget passed by Congress rejects ’24 lunar landing

9:09 am

No surprise: The NASA budget that was passed by Congress this week as part of a giant omnibus bill only gave NASA 25% of the requested funds the agency says it needs to develop a human lander required for an Artemis manned mission to the Moon by ’24.

Overall, NASA will receive $23.271 billion, almost $2 billion less than requested. Importantly for the Trump Administration’s Artemis program to return astronauts to the Moon by 2024, it provides only $850 million instead of $3.4 billion for Human Landing Systems.

…The Trump Administration requested a 12 percent increase for NASA in order to fund the Artemis program: $25.2 billion for FY2021 compared to the $22.9 billion it received in FY2020. While the goal of returning astronauts to the Moon has broad bipartisan support in Congress, the Trump deadline of 2024 — set because it would have been the end of his second term if he had been reelected — won lukewarm support at best from Republicans and none from Democrats who pointed to both budgetary and technical hurdles.

It was always clear that the Democrats were not going to cooperate with Trump to could get that lunar landing during his second term. Moreover, the real goal of Artemis is not space exploration, but distributing pork. Stretching out these missions so that they take many many years achieves that goal far better than a tight competitive schedule that gets things done. This is why SLS and Orion have been under construction, with no flights, for decades, even as SpaceX moves forward with Starship/Super Heavy in only a few years.

A Biden presidency actually increases the changes that Artemis will get better funding, but that funding will always be designed to stretch out the program for as long as possible. Our policymakers in Washington really do not care much for the interest of the nation. What they care about is their own power and aggrandizement.

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Chang’e-5 lunar orbiter heading to Sun-Earth Lagrange point

8:56 am

The new colonial movement: Chinese engineers have decided to extend the mission of the Chang’e-5 lunar orbiter by shifting its orbit so that it is transferred to one of the five Sun-Earth Lagrange points.

Amateur radio operators first confirmed the Chang’e-5 orbiter was still in space and heading towards the moon. Official confirmation has now been provided as to the spacecraft’s status.

Hu Hao, a chief designer of the third (sample return) phase of the Chinese lunar exploration program, told China Central Television (Chinese) Dec. 20 that the orbiter is now on an extended mission to a Sun-Earth Lagrange point. Hu said the extended mission was made possible by the accurate orbital injection by the Long March 5 launch vehicle, the same rocket which failed in July 2017 and delayed Chang’e-5 by three years. The Chang’e-5 orbiter has more than 200 kilograms of propellant remaining for further maneuvers.

While unspecified, it is believed that the Chang’e-5 orbiter will enter orbit around L1, based on the reference to planned solar observations. The orbiter is equipped with optical imagers. The team will decide on a further destination after tests and observations have been conducted, Hu said.

It makes great sense to keep the orbiter operating, and since lunar orbits tend to be unstable, going to a Lagrange point makes even more sense.

However, this decision raises an interesting point for the future. There are only five Lagrange points in the Earth-Sun system. All have great value. All also can likely sustain a limited number of satellites and spacecraft. Who coordinates their operations? What happens if China fills each with its spacecraft? For example, the James Webb Space Telescope is aiming for Lagrange point #2, a million miles from Earth in the Earth’s shadow. While Chang’e-5 is presently heading to a different point, what happens if China changes its mind and puts Chang’e-5 in Webb’s way?

As far as I know, there has been no discussion of this issue in international circles.

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Russia recovers boosters dropped on Russia

8:42 am

The new colonial movement: Dmitri Rogozin, head of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, announced this past weekend the recovery of the first stage and boosters from a December 18th Vostochny launch that, because of the polar orbit of the satellite, were dropped on Russian territory.

On Friday, a Soyuz 2.1b rocket launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, carrying its payload of 36 OneWeb satellites into space. Although Russia’s newest spaceport is located in the far eastern part of the country, it still lies several hundred kilometers from the Pacific Ocean.

This means that as Soyuz rockets climb into space from this location, they drop their stages onto the sparsely populated Yakutia region below. With the Soyuz rocket, there are four boosters that serve as the rocket’s “first stage,” and these drop away about two minutes after liftoff. Then, the “Blok A” second stage drops away later in the flight.

Although the Yakutia region is geographically rugged and sparsely populated, the Russian government does a reasonably good job of establishing drop zones for these stages and keeping them away from residential areas. This is what happened, as usual, with Friday’s launch. [emphasis mine]

The focus of the article at the link is the silly jabs at SpaceX that Rogozin included in his announcement. The real story, however, is that the Russian government, in deciding to build a new spaceport in Vostochny, made the conscious decision to place it where it would have to dump rockets on its own territory. They could have instead built this new spaceport on the Pacific coast, and avoided inland drop zones, but did not for reasons that escape me.

Tells us a lot about that government and what it thinks of its own people. But then, governments rarely care much about ordinary people, as those who revel in the power of government are generally more interested in that power than in doing what makes sense or is right.

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China completes first launch of Long March 8 rocket

8:28 am

The new colonial movement: China today successfully launched for the first time its new Long March 8 rocket, designed at some point to mimic the Falcon 9 by vertically landing its first stage and reusing it. (Note: link fixed!)

On this launch the rocket had no such recovery capability.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

34 China
25 SpaceX
15 Russia
6 ULA
6 Rocket Lab

The U.S. still leads China 40 to 34 in the national rankings.

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Maricopa County election board defies state subpoenas

2:18 pm

And they expect the public to trust them? The election board of Maricopa County has decided to defy the subpoenas issued by the state’s legislature for getting a full audit of its election results, and will instead file a lawsuit against those legislators.

It seems to me that if there was nothing wrong with the Dominion tabulators and the count, than the board would welcome this audit. That they are stonewalling it is if anything evidence that there is likely something they are hiding.

We have now reached the Rubicon. Are our elected officials truly in charge, or are they to be ordered around by unelected bureaucrats like mere serfs? If the state legislature and the governor does not act here, then they are no more than figureheads, and we are now ruled by fiat, by the bureaucracy. Arizona does not have a democracy ruled by law any longer.

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NASA decides to fly Orion with failed power unit

1:59 pm

Because a repair would delay the first SLS launch for months if not a year, NASA has decided to fly Orion on that November ’21 mission with failed electronics power unit.

In a Dec. 17 statement, NASA said it had decided to “use as is” one of eight power and data units (PDU) on the Orion spacecraft, which provide communications between the spacecraft’s computers and other components. One of two redundant channels in one of two communications cards in that PDU is not working.

…NASA, in its statement about deciding not to replace the PDU, did not go into details about the repair options, but said that the risks of damaging the spacecraft during the PDU repair outweighed any loss of data should the unit completely malfunction.

Engineers, the agency stated, “determined that due to the limited accessibility to this particular box, the degree of intrusiveness to the overall spacecraft systems, and other factors, the risk of collateral damage outweighed the risk associated with the loss of one leg of redundancy in a highly redundant system.”

“NASA has confidence in the health of the overall power and data system, which has been through thousands of hours of powered operations and testing,” the agency added, noting that the PDU in question was still “fully functional.”

Let’s then assess Orion. The contract was issued to Lockheed Martin in 2006. In the fourteen years since Congress has spent about $17 billion on this manned capsule. In that time it has flown once, during a test flight that was intended to test its heat shield, even though when that flight happened NASA had already decided that it was not going to use the heat shield design it was testing.

Orion’s second flight in November ’21 will be unmanned, but it will be flying with this failed unit. The next time it is supposed to fly will be in ’24, when NASA is hoping to send astronauts on a lunar landing missions. By that time NASA will have spent about $20 billion on Orion, and gotten two test capsules (both unrepresentative of the flight model) plus one manned mission.

Would you fly on this capsule under these circumstances? I wouldn’t, especially considering the non-track record of its rocket, SLS.

As the taxpayer, do you think you’ve gotten your money’s worth from this capsule? I don’t. I think it has been an ungodly waste of money, and a demonstration of the incapability of NASA and the big space contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin of getting anything accomplished. Depend on them, and you will never go anywhere.

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Dominion CEO responds to Antrim audit in hearing

1:05 pm

All trust is lost: John Poulos, the CEO of Dominion, the company that provided the software and tabulators used to count ballots in numerous states and which have been accused of being unreliable and subject to vote tampering, responded to those charges in a legislative hearing in Michigan.

Poulos told legislators in Michigan via video link on Dec. 15 that his company’s machines and software were not involved in any “switched or deleted votes.” He said that because of a rule change, the machine programming needed to be updated in October. But Antrim County officials failed to update all 18 tabulators, meaning some had new programming while some still had the old programming.

Officials then forgot to conduct the logic and accuracy tests on the programming, he said. A third error took place when a contracting firm in October programmed the tabulators in a way that allowed memory cards with both the old and new programming to count votes. “If all of the tabulators had been updated as per procedure, there wouldn’t have been any error in the unofficial reporting,” he said.

Poulos also said any discrepancies with the counts from its machines can be investigated by referencing paper ballots and insisted that all audits and recounts of Dominion technology used in the 2020 election have “validated the accuracy and reliability” of the election results. “No one has produced credible evidence of vote fraud or vote switching on Dominion systems because these things have not occurred,” he insisted.

In the normal civilized America that once existed, I would be more prone to believe him. Considering the four years of outright lying that Democratic Party officials and their supporters have subjected us to, from a Russian collusion hoax to a fake Ukrainian impeachment of Trump to endless lies relating to COVID-19 lock downs to lying about the actual spying on Trump by the Obama administration to lying to the FISA court to obtain fake warrants to lying about Brett Kavanaugh and others, it is unreasonable for anyone to trust this man’s word. It is worthless.

And my opinion in this is not alone. Consider this response to his testimony by one Michigan Republican leader:

Linda Lee Tarver, president of the Republican Women’s Federation of Michigan and former election integrity liaison in the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office, said Thursday that Dominion chief John Poulos’s recent testimony left more questions unanswered than it clarified.

Tarver, who testified at a Michigan election integrity hearing on Dec. 2, said Poulos’s Dec. 15 testimony to lawmakers boiled down to reiterating that “human error” was to blame for an initial Election Day vote discrepancy in Michigan’s Antrim County, where Dominion products were used.

She said some of the questions that Poulos did not address include whether poll workers received proper training on the Dominion system, concerns about whether vote tabulators could use a USB stick to add votes to a candidate, and how prone Dominion systems are to hacking. Tarver also said chain-of-custody questions remained unanswered, and raised concerns about the ability of Dominion machines to connect to the Internet. Poulos confirmed that a small percentage of Dominion machines have Internet connectivity.

The only way to satisfy Republicans that the vote was honest is to allow a full and careful audit by their elected officials, to prove no fraud took place. Of course Democrats should be allowed to participate and question everything, but under no circumstances can they be allowed to dictate any terms on such an audit.

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Pennsylvania: zero or little evidence open gyms or restaurants spread COVID-19

10:29 am

Chicken Little report: Pennsylvania health officials in one county admitted today that they have found zero evidence that open gyms spread COVID-19, while with restaurants the only evidence of spread is among restaurant workers, not patrons.

[T]wo local government leaders confirm contract tracing shows these businesses had low incidence of spreading the virus. “We were not able to find transmission in gyms, and we had almost no transmission in restaurants,” Montgomery County Chairwoman Dr. Valerie Arkoosh said at a Wednesday press conference.

There is some incompleteness in the contract tracing, but all the tracing they have done has consistently found no justification for closing gyms or restaurants. This data also confirms other data from other states.

But facts don’t matter to Pennsylvania’s Democratic Party governor, Tom Wolf and his cross-dressing health secretary, “Rachel” Levine, a guy who makes believe he is a woman.

Last week, Wolf and Department of Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine issued new rules saying restaurants could no longer continue with in-person dining or alcohol sales, and “indoor operations at gyms and fitness facilities are prohibited.”

Those rules are set to expire on January 4, but that still amounts to three-and-a-half weeks of what the restaurant industry is calling a de facto shutdown. Restaurants are able to continue with take out and delivery services.

What difference the lock down will destroy lives and ruin businesses? The important thing is to demonstrate the power and majesty of these government officials.

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ESA confirms cause of November Vega launch failure

9:09 am

The European Space Agengy (ESA) has now completed its full investigation of a Vega rocket launch failure in November, and confirmed that the initially announced cause of “human error” was correct.

Engineers had installed cables backwards causing the nozzle in the upper stage to go one way when it should have gone the other.

The press release at the link is a wonder of bureaucratic cover-your-behind gobbly-gook, saying much without providing any concrete information about the corrections imposed. For example, the upper stage structure is built by one company, Airbus, the engine is built by two Russian companies, Yuzhnoye and Yuzhmash, while a fourth company, Avio, supervises the stage’s assembly. The press release makes it a point to not tell us where the error was made by which company, though by vague implication it suggests the error occurred during final assembly by Avio.

If I was a satellite company thinking of buying a Vega launch I would demand a much more straight-forward explanation. Otherwise I’d go elsewhere.

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Lockdowns likely leading to an increase in suicides among the young

4:53 pm

According to new research, the lockdowns that have shuttered all school sports are likely leading to an increase in youth suicides, even as the death rate for young people from COVID-19 is virtually nil.

The article at the link refers to a Washington Post article, which stated:

A survey of high school athletes conducted by the University of Wisconsin this summer found that approximately 68 percent of the 3,243 teens polled have reported feelings of anxiety and depression at levels that typically require medical intervention — nearly 40 percent higher than past studies. The study, which also found that physical activity levels were 50 percent lower for kids than before the pandemic, was labeled “striking and concerning” by one researcher.

The lead researcher of the study at Wisconsin, Tim McGuine, said in an interview in August that “the greatest risk [to student-athletes] is not covid-19. It’s suicide and drug use.”

From the earliest available data in March it was clear that there was no medical reason to shut down the schools (some countries never did and their children did not suffer for it). Since then this early data has been confirmed repeatedly.

Thus, the only reason to shut the schools and youth sports was an expression of unbridled power and panic by elected leaders not interested in data but very much interested in having control over everyone’s lives. Furthermore, that expression of power was not really interested in saving lives in the least, because if it was by this time these corrupt leaders would have rethought their policy and not only opened up the schools but would have ended many of their irrational lock down policies. Instead, they have been doubling down.

And if you don’t think these shutdowns are irrational and merely an expression of power, consider this: In Ohio the government has ruled that high school wrestlers can grapple and fight, but if they dare shake hands after the match they will be violating social distancing rules.

But it’s “SCIENCE!” they scream! I say, they are liars, both to us and to themselves.

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United kicks family off plane because 2-year-old won’t wear mask

10:59 am

Insanity: United Airlines last week removed a family from a flight heading to New York because they were unable to get their 2-year-old child to wear a mask.

In a two-minute video posted on Dec. 11, since removed for no apparent reason by Instagram and Twitter, mother and Colorado resident Eliz Orban tearfully describes the experience then inserts footage of her masked husband attempting to put a surgical mask on the little girl while seated in the plane. The girl holds her hands up to her face, cries, and buries her head in his arm to avoid the mask.

As a flight attendant advises passengers over the comms to stow their baggage. A male flight attendant arrives at the aisle and demands the couple “grab their belongings and exit the aircraft,” saying he gave the couple “every opportunity” to get a mask on the child.

“We’re over here holding this mask over her face,” the father objects as he cradles the little girl. The video clearly shows him holding a neck gaiter over his daughter’s mouth and nose with a clasped hand. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he says quietly.

The attendant states firmly that “if there’s non-compliance,” it is United’s policy to remove passengers from the flights. “This is compliance,” the father pleads, as the mother, holding the camera, reiterates their attempts to keep their toddler’s face covered.

You must watch the video to see how crazy and irrational this is. The father is holding her with a mask covering her face, even if it isn’t on her. More important, children don’t get COVID-19. Children don’t infect others. And the child is clearly not sick. To demand a mask on her makes no sense.

And yet, this is what airlines are demanding, even though the article also outlines further the technical reasons that make this policy pointless, including the documented claim by United that the passenger areas are already far more free of any aerosols that might carry the virus than any home or normal indoor space.

It is all empty panic and feel-good nonsense. While it can be argued that used properly in the right circumstances masks can have a limited benefit, this policy, which all the airlines seem to be following, is based on fear, idiocy, and irrationality. If anything, the misuse of masks in this situation (note in the video that the father has to hold the mask with his hands, which are a prime source of infection) might actually be increasing the spread of disease.

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Election fraud in Nevada

10:12 am

The testimony embedded below by Jesse Binnall, one of the lawyers for Trump that conducted research into the election in Nevada, is quite shocking if true. He is speaking to the state’s senate’s Homeland Security and Government Committee at a hearing this week.


[Youtube, being a tool of the Democrat Party election machine, has removed the first upload. I have found it elsewhere.]

Part of his testimony is further confirmed by a separate investigation that found almost 4,000 non-citizens voted illegally.

Under a subpoena, the state’s GOP obtained data that showed green card holders and non citizens who had obtained driver’s licenses. From this official data set, the Nevada GOP “compared this detailed information against the county voter records in Nevada” and “discovered that 6,260 non citizens were registered to vote and 3,987 non-citizens had voted.”

The worst aspect of this is that it is consistent with similar stories and evidence in other states. Such allegations must not be ignored or simply dismissed. They must be investigated, hard.

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An update on the testing of SLS’s core stage

9:38 am

Link here. The article provides more information on the temperature issue that caused the seventh of eight fueling tests of the core stage to abort early.

The temperature issue arose when NASA transferred superchilled liquid oxygen, to fuel the rocket, from a holding facility to the core stage of the SLS. This procedure has been modeled and verified before, Julie Bassler, SLS stages manager at Marshall, told reporters during the same teleconference. But this was the first time the transfer actually took place.

“We were actually just a few degrees different than what we wanted to see coming in,” she continued, but said the temperature must be precise during the initial phases of filling the tank. The requirement is minus 290.57 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 179.21 degrees Celsius.) But the liquid oxygen was slightly cooler, at minus 296.67 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 182.59 degrees Celsius).

“We filled up [the tank] just enough to pass the phase where we knew we weren’t going to be able to get the temperature to a level that was going to be acceptable to meet the requirement, and that’s when they caught us … in the testing,” Bassler continued.

Despite this issue, NASA still hopes to do the last core stage test, dubbed the Green Run, in the last week in December. During that static fire test they will fuel the core stage entirely and then fire its engines for the full duration of an actual launch — almost ten minutes. If all goes well they will then pack up the stage and ship it to Florida for the planned November unmanned test mission sending Orion around the Moon.

They have no schedule margins, however, because all the components of this very expensive and complex rocket need a lot of time to get anything done. The two solid rocket boosters that will be attached to the sides of the core stage only have a twelve month lifespan once assembled, and they are holding off assembling them pending this test. The core stage itself needs two months to be disassembled, and then two months to be reassembled in Florida. And there remain the issue of a failed power unit in the Orion capsule that could take four to twelve months to repair.

The article however had this telling quote, based on comments from a NASA official, about future launch procedures, that sent a chill up my spine:
» Read more

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House passes bill that attempts to protect Apollo Moon sites

9:10 am

The House today passed a bill that would require any American business planning a Moon mission to agree to not disturb the Apollo lunar landing sites.

[The bill] requires any federal agency that issues a license to conduct a lunar activity to require the applicant to agree to abide by recommendations in the 2011 NASA report “NASA’s Recommendations to Space-Faring Entities: How to Protect and Preserve the Historic and Scientific Value of U.S. Government Artifacts” and any successor recommendations, guidelines or principles issued by NASA.

All well and good, but this does nothing to stop other nations from touching those sites. Moreover, making all of those sites and whatever the astronauts did there totally sacrosanct is not reasonable. On the later Apollo landings the astronauts used a rover to travel considerable distances. Should every spot the astronauts visited by now considered holy? If anything, scientists will wish to return and gather more data at these locations to better understand the initial Apollo results.

Not that any of this really matters. In the long run the decision on how much these sites should be protected will be made by the people who live on the Moon. I suspect, as pioneers living on the edge of survival, they will have less interest in making memorials to past achievements and be more focused on getting things done, now.

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