Tag: politics

SpaceX has about 100 Starlink terminals working in Iran

8:47 am

Though the Iranian government opposes their use, according to a tweet by Elon Musk SpaceX now has almost 100 Starlink terminals working in Iran.

Elon Musk announced that SpaceX has almost 100 Starlink terminals active in Iran. SpaceX activated Starlink services in Iran in September, supporting the United States’ stance on providing internet freedom and free flow of information to Iranians.

Unlike Ukraine, SpaceX does not have the cooperation of the Iranian government to expand Starlink services in the country. In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zlenskyy and the Minister of digital transformation Mykhailo Feorov have actively supports Starlink connection during the war with Russia.

In contrast, the Iranian government is actively trying to limit its citizens’ internet access. The United States government has taken a stance against the Iranian government’s decision regarding internet access for its people.

SpaceX has routinely cooperated with foreign governments before selling terminals, likely because to do otherwise would get it in trouble with the U.S. State Department. In this case however the State Department appears to have approved this action, and SpaceX then made it happen.

9 comments

China launches Earth observation satellite

8:41 am

China today successfully launched a classified Earth observation satellite using its Long March 4B rocket.

As the launch was from an interior spaceport, the rocket’s lower stages landed somewhere in the interior of China.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

61 China
59 SpaceX
21 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA

The U.S. still leads China 83 to 61 in the national rankings, but trails the entire world combined 93 to 83.

At the moment, the only known remaining launches in 2022 are two SpaceX Falcon 9 launches. However, China routinely launches a lot in the November/December timeframe, so we should not be surprised if they complete one or two launches as well in the next few days.

1 comment

Today’s blacklisted American: Violence against churches and religious institutions skyrockets since 2018

11:44 am

The increase in violence against churches since 2018

The modern dark age: According to a recently published 84-page report [pdf] by the Family Research Council, vandalism, violence, and arson against churches and religious institutions has nearly tripled since 2018.

From the report:

Family Research Council identified a total of 420 documented acts of hostility that targeted 397
individual churches. These incidents occurred between January 2018 and September 2022 across 45 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. To conduct this research, we analyzed open-source documents, reports, and media outlets to assess the number of acts of hostility against churches over a five-year span.
» Read more

7 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: Professor fired by a North Carolina school for having opinions

2:46 pm

David Phillips
Dr. David Phillips

They’re coming for you next: Officials at the North Carolina Governor’s School (“a residential summer program for the state’s most talented rising high-school seniors.”) fired David Phillips, a professor there for eight summers, because they did not like the content of the optional three session seminar he held critiquing critical race theory.

In other words, they decided to blackball him simply because they did not agree with his opinions.

Phillips has now sued, with the Alliance Defending Freedom acting as his legal firm. The preamble of his lawsuit [pdf] describes what happened.

At the conclusion of each lecture, members of the audience — including staff members — reacted with open hostility to the ideas and viewpoints discussed. And they attacked whiteness, maleness, heterosexuality, and Christianity — none of which should have been relevant — in their comments and questions. Despite the hostility, Dr. Phillips stayed long after the published end time for each lecture to respond calmly to each question, and he even offered to meet with students and staff members later for further discussion.
» Read more

11 comments

Attack that injured Rogozin in the Ukraine also killed two

12:59 pm

Dmitry Rogozin playing soldier in the Ukraine
Dmitry Rogozin playing make-believe soldier
recently in the Ukraine

More details have now emerged about the explosion that injured former Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin, including the fact that the attack, in Ukrainian occupied territory in Donetsk, also killed two.

The former head of Russia’s space agency was wounded when an artillery shell exploded as he celebrated his birthday in a hotel near the front line in Ukraine. Dmitry Rogozin, a flamboyant Russian politician who was once a deputy prime minister, was reportedly hit in the buttocks, head and back by shrapnel.

Two people were killed in the attack and several others were wounded, authorities in Donetsk said on Thursday, and Mr Rogozin said he was due to be operated on. Russian state news channel Rossiya 24 TV said the former space chief was celebrating his 59th birthday at the Shesh-Besh hotel and restaurant with several other separatist officials.

But Mr Rogozin insisted the incident took place during a “work meeting”.

Russian investigators think the shell came from a French-made Caesar self-propelled howitzer.

The criticism of Rogozin concerning this story has been quite ugly.

“A party 10 kilometres away from the front line with the Ceasar’s range of 40 kilometres? I would reprimand him for being childish,” [wrote Yuri Podolyaka, a prominent pro-Kremlin blogger.] “Two people have died in that restaurant, which, I think, is on his conscience.”

Rogozin’s path has been steadily downward since he was deputy prime minister of Russia’s defense department from 2011 to 2018. First he was demoted to head of Roscosmos, where he ended up losing Russia more than a half billion in income by his cancellation of the launch contract with OneWeb. Worse, that cancellation, and Rogozin’s confiscation of 36 OneWeb satellites, ended any chance of Russia getting any international business for years to come.

These actions caused him to be fired from Roscosmos in July, and shipped to the Ukraine (the modern equivalent of Siberia) to act as an envoy in the Russian-occupied territories. Once there, he did nothing to enhance his reputation. By holding this very public birthday party, at a public place so close to the front lines, was almost guaranteeing he and his party would be attacked.

I wish he quickly recovers from his injuries, but I also think Putin would be foolish to give this guy any further positions of authority.

15 comments

Newly passed Senate bill requires consultation between industry and government on space junk

9:50 am

Though the bill still needs to be passed by the House, a just passed Senate bill requires consultation between industry and government on space junk, short circuiting recent attempts at the FCC as well as in the House to impose arbitrary government regulations.

You can read the Senate bill here [pdf].

The final result will still be government regulation on the lifespan and final deposition of any object placed in orbit, from nanosats to large manned space stations, but unlike the earlier FCC proposal and House bill, NASA and other government agencies will have to obtain feedback from the commercial space industry before such regulations are imposed.

Sounds great, eh? In truth, this bill in the end still gives full power to the federal government to control the launching of future spacecraft of all sizes. It also leaves the details entirely up to the bureaucracy. If passed Congress would cede its regulatory power to unelected bureaucrats in the executive branch.

The requirement that industry consultation occur simply means that the initial regulations will likely make some sense. Beyond that however the power it bequeaths to the federal bureaucracy in NASA, FAA, FCC, and other agencies will in the long run be still abused.

The need for the establishment of an independent space-faring society, free from odious Earthbound regulation, continues to grow.

4 comments

Soyuz hole not caused by a Geminid meteor

9:29 am

According to an analysis by both NASA and Russian engineers, the 0.8 mm hole in the coolant system on the Soyuz docked to ISS was not caused by an object from the Geminid meteor shower that had occurred about the time the leak appeared.

The Soyuz vehicle, known as MS-22, sprayed its coolant into space on Dec. 14, the same day that the annual Geminid meteor shower peaked. But there’s no causal connection, NASA and Russian space officials said. “We did look at the meteor showers that were occurring,” Joel Montalbano, NASA’s International Space Station program manager, said during a press briefing on Thursday (Dec. 22). “Both the trajectory team in Houston and the trajectory team in Moscow confirmed it was not from the meteor showers; it was in the wrong direction.”

The engineers claim the hole could still have been caused by an impact, just not from these meteors.

0 comments

NASA requesting proposals for raising Hubble’s orbit

9:23 am

NASA has published a request for proposals from the private commercial space industry for a possible future mission to raise Hubble’s orbit.

NASA published a request for information (RFI) Dec. 22 asking industry how they would demonstrate commercial satellite servicing capabilities by raising the orbit of Hubble. The agency said it is looking for technical information about how a company would carry out the mission, the risks involved and the likelihood of success.

NASA emphasized in the RFI that it had no plans to procure a mission to reboost Hubble. “Partner(s) would be expected to participate and undertake this mission on a no-exchange-of-funds basis,” the document stated, with companies responsible for the cost for the mission.

Apparently, this RFI was issued as a direct result of the agreement between NASA and SpaceX to study a Dragon mission to do exactly this, which in turn was prompted by Jared Isaacman, as part of his private Polaris program of manned Dragon/Starship space flights. I suspect that NASA officials realized that not only were their engineering advantages to getting more proposals, there were probably legal and political reasons for opening the discussion up to the entire commercial space community.

Ideally, a Hubble reboost mission should occur by 2025, though the telescope’s orbit will remain stable into the mid-2030s.

12 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: The FBI’s purge of conservatives forces one agent to sue

12:48 pm

Chris Wray, head of the FBI, the Democratic Party's Gestapo

They’re coming for you next: The effort of the FBI’s management, led by FBI director Christopher Wray, to purge all conservative agents from the agency by using false charges of treason in connection to the January 6, 2021 protests has forced one agent to sue.

Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a lawsuit on behalf of FBI analyst Marcus Allen in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina against FBI Director Christopher Wray for violating Allen’s constitutional rights by falsely accusing him of holding “conspiratorial views,” stripping his security clearance, and suspending him from duty without pay. The FBI revoked his security clearance because apparently the FBI believes that any views contrary to its own regarding what occurred on January 6 constitutes disloyalty to the United States.

You can read the full lawsuit complaint here [pdf].

The FBI suspended Allen in January 2022, claiming in a one page letter [pdf] that:
» Read more

18 comments

India buying land for new spaceport on India’s southern tip

9:06 am

Kulasekarapattinam

The Indian government has now acquired about 80% of the land it needs for new spaceport on that country’s southern tip.

The new spaceport will be built in Tamil Nadu’s southern region. The new spaceport at Kulasekarapattinam will have some advantages over India’s current and only spaceport at Sriharikota.

Rockets launching into polar orbit from Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, must perform a turn manoeuvre to avoid flying over Sri Lanka. This necessitates the use of fuel and reduces the mass that can be carried into orbit. While this has little effect on large rockets, it has a negative impact on the capacity of small rockets such as the SSLV (Small Satellite Launch Vehicle) and those built by Indian start-ups.

A launch from Kulasekarapattinam will allow for a direct flight path to the polar regions (without having to fly over and around Sri Lanka), saving fuel and payload capacity.

Sriharikota’s location is much farther north, beyond the top of the map to the right. It appears this new spaceport is aimed at attracting new private smallsat rocket companies.

0 comments

Webb in safe mode intermittently during the past two weeks

2:49 pm

According to a short update today from the science team, the Webb Space Telescope went into safe mode on December 7, 2022 and was in that state “intermittently” through December 20, 2022 because of a software issue.

The James Webb Space Telescope resumed science operations Dec. 20, after Webb’s instruments intermittently went into safe mode beginning Dec. 7 due to a software fault triggered in the attitude control system, which controls the pointing of the observatory. During a safe mode, the observatory’s nonessential systems are automatically turned off, placing it in a protected state until the problem can be fixed. This event resulted in several pauses to science operations totaling a few days over that time period. Science proceeded otherwise during that time. The Webb team adjusted the commanding system, and science has now fully resumed.

It would be nice to have a more detailed description of that “software fault”, and how it affected the attitude control system. Such things can be very trivial, or they can be disastrous. NASA has a responsibility to tell the public which.

0 comments

The Wuhan panic underlines how scientists have abandoned the search for truth

1:50 pm

Modern science
Modern science

For almost three years I have been documenting endlessly the utter failure of almost every policy imposed by politicians and government health officials in response to the COVID epidemic. From masks to social distancing to lockdowns to COVID shot mandates, none of their draconian rules have done anything to stop the spread of the Wuhan flu, which was always impossible anyway.

Even worse than these bad policies however has been the behavior of the scientific community the past three years. This community has increasingly put politics and narrative above the search for truth, a focus that signals a terrible cultural change that is so horrible its consequences can barely be measured.

To understand this tragedy we must first go back to what science and government once believed about epidemics. The traditional infectious disease policies that doctors and governments had successfully used for more than a century, based on real research and an honest appraisal of the facts by scientists, always recognized that it was impossible to “stop the spread” of a respiratory illness. What worked best was to protect the aged and sick, whom such diseases could kill, while allowing the virus to quickly spread through the rest of the healthy population in order to quickly create a herd immunity that would choke off the virus’s early most virulent strains. The disease would then mutate to milder forms — essentially a cold — that the aged and weak could fight off.

The virus of COVID-19 has done exactly this, but along the way it killed many more older and sick people then necessary, because today’s modern petty tyrants — encouraged by many scientists — decided instead to toss that past knowledge out. Herd immunity was delayed by the lockdown policies, and most governments did little to protect the aged and sick, with some governments even acting to introduce the virus to these threatened populations.

To underline the failure of these policies, here are just a small recent sampling of the growing research outlining the failures of masks, social distancing, and lockdowns:
» Read more

5 comments
1 … 222 223 224 225 226 … 988