Tag: politics

Ariane-6’s core stage completes full 7 minute engine test

8:45 am

Engineers yesterday successfully completed a two-hour dress rehearsal countdown and fueling of an Ariane-6 first stage followed by a full seven minute engine burn, simulating what that stage would do during a launch.

The test took place on Ariane-6’s launchpad in French Guiana.

The November 23 test sequence was run the same way as the previous ones, with a launch sequence and final countdown representative of a launch, including removal of the mobile gantry and filling the launcher’s upper and core stage tanks with liquid hydrogen (-253° Celsius) and liquid oxygen (-183° Celsius). The test ended with the ignition of the core stage Vulcain 2.1 engine, followed by more than 7 minutes of stabilized operation covering the entire core stage flight phase. All functional aspects of Ariane 6’s core stage during the flight phase were tested.

According to the European Space Agency, only one more engine test of the Ariane-6’s upper stage remains before the spring launch can be attempted, and that engine test is planned for next month in Germany.

With the retirement of the Ariane-5 rocket in July, Europe has had no large rocket to launch payloads. Originally Ariane-6’s first launches were supposed to be in parallel with Ariane-5’s last launches, but its development is four years behind schedule.

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China launches classified satellite

9:23 am

China today used its Long March 2D rocket to launch what it described as “a technology experiment satellite for satellite internet technologies”, the rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in the southwest of China.

No other information was released. While the satellite could be a test satellite for a constellation comparable to Starlink, the lack of information suggests otherwise.

No word also on whether the rocket’s first stage, using toxic hypergolic fuels, landed near habitable areas. The drop zone was over heavily populated areas in China.

Furthermore, China’s Kuaizhou-1 rocket had also been expected to launch today from Xichang in the wee hours of the morning, also carrying a classified payload. No word yet on whether that launch occurred, was scrubbed, or was simply the Long March 2D launch, the name of the rocket misunderstood prior to launch because of China’s secrecy.

Putting that unknown launch aside, here are the present leaders in the 2023 launch race:

86 SpaceX
53 China
14 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China 98 to 53 in successful launches, and the entire world combined 98 to 83. SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 86 to 83.

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Abraham Lincoln proclaims a day of Thanksgiving in the middle of the Civil War

8:00 am

Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln

The date was October 3, 1863. The Civil War was at its height, with no end in sight and no clear sign yet of victory for the Union. For all anyone knew, the great American experiment in self-government, freedom, and constitutional law was about to end in failure, with one half of the nation continuing on founded on the idea that it was okay to enslave other human beings, based on their race.

In such a moment, President Abraham Lincoln did what all past leaders in America had done, call for a day of prayer to God for the future while giving thanks for the blessings still abounding. For this purpose he set aside the last Thursday of November of that year.

Since then, Americans have never stopped celebrating Thanksgiving on that day. Today comes another Thanksgiving during a time of chaos, hate, violence, and oppression. There is much to invoke horror and outrage.

There is much more to be thankful for. As much as some have tried to squelch freedom here in America and abroad, all signs say that freedom-lovers everywhere are refusing to go down without a fight. Let us join together to renew that effort, so that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Below is Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation. If only we had leaders today who could think and write with similar elegance and humility.
—————————–
A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.
» Read more

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Real pushback: Soldiers punished by Biden for refusing jab now sue for billions

11:48 am

Fighting the left's playbook
Fighting the left’s playbook

Bring a gun to a knife fight: The many military soldiers punished by Biden for refusing the Covid jab have now filed a class action lawsuit for what they expect to be worth billions.

Former troops are suing the U.S. government for lost pay and benefits due to the Biden administration’s military vaccine mandate, one of the lawyers who successfully brought down the Anthrax vaccine told Breitbart News.

Attorney Dale Saran, a retired Marine, and fellow attorneys Andy Meyer and Brandon Johnson are representing the former troops in three separate lawsuits they plan to turn into a class action lawsuit on behalf of all service members who were either kicked out or illegally ordered to stop drilling, resulting in loss of pay or benefits. Saran said the amount is in the “billions.”

“It’s worth billions. That’s just flat-out. That’s what it is in backpay. It’s billions of dollars,” he said.

Though only about 8,000 active-duty troops were kicked out of the military due to the Biden jab mandate, the lawyers estimate another 80,000 to 100,000 soldiers are due compensation for lost benefits because they were made inactive or forbidden from participating in drill activities.

The lawsuit has been filed in U.S. Court of Federal Claims, a specialized court where illegal military discharges are heard. Lawyer Saran won a similar suit in that court over the military’s anthrax mandates back in the late nineties. The case now is likely stronger because, as he notes,

They were basically [without] the benefit of any due process. No boards were held. They didn’t hold any administrative separation boards; they didn’t hold any hearings. They didn’t do any federal recognition boards; none of the administrative or judicial procedures were used. They just flat-out did it.

This willful refusal to follow the law has been typical behavior by the left since the start of the Wuhan panic. The law no longer applies to them. They want to do something, they do it, even if it is illegal and hurts someone else. Shutter businesses illegally, silence opponents illegally, favor some races illegally, fire soldiers illegaly, mandate jabs and masks illegally, demand health records illegally: All okay because the good people are doing it! How dare you question their righteousness?

The worst aspect of these violations of law has been the meek willingness of everyone to go along with them. Most shameful.
» Read more

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Eutelsat-OneWeb gets license approval in India

9:21 am

Less than two weeks after SpaceX obtained regulatory approval to offer its Starlink system in India, Eutelsat-OneWeb (newly merged) has now gotten its own approval.

Eutelsat-OneWeb is half owned by an Indian investment firm, so it is no surprise it obtained this approval soon after SpaceX. The two companies will now be competing aggressively for business in this giant country, whose technological capabilities has been renewed in recent years by the abandonment of a socialist/communist government for a leadership focused on encouraging freedom, capitalism, and competition.

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North Korea launches spy satellite

8:59 am

In its third attempt this year to launch a spy satellite, North Korea today succeeded at last, its new Chollima-1 rocket lifting off from Sohae spaceport on the country’s western coast and placing in orbit what is probably a relatively primitive spy satellite with a limited lifespan.

Though launched on the coast, the flight path crossed over North Korea, with drop zones for the rocket’s lower stages in the Yellow and East China seas. The previous two launch failures (in May and August) did the same, with South Korea salvaging stages and the satellite from the first failure. The data recovered suggested the spy satellite was of “no military utility” according to the South Korean military.

As usual, U.S. and South Korean officials condemned the launch, calling it a violation of UN sanctions. Note too that this was not North Korea’s first successful launch, having managed launches in 2012 and 2016 previously, with a different rocket.

Because this was North Korea’s first success in 2023, the leader broad in the 2023 launch race remains unchanged:

86 SpaceX
52 China
14 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

However, the launch was the 180th in 2023, setting a new global record for the launches in a single year, eclipsing the record set last year. Since Sputnik in 1957 the average number of successful launches globally was generally less than a hundred. This year it is very possible the world will double that average, almost entirely because of American private enterprise, which leads China 98 to 52 in successful launches, and the entire world combined 98 to 82. SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 86 to 82.

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Will libertarian Javier Milei actually be able to institute his revolution in Argentina?

1:18 pm

The victory of libertarian and outsider Javier Milei in Argentina this past weekend has been met with joyous approval on the right and outright horror on the left. Both expect Milei to immediately begin imposing his radical anti-government polices that will eliminate whole agencies of Argentina’s federal government.

This video by Paul Joseph Watson I think provides an excellent summary of Milei’s agenda. Though Watson sees the agenda from a wholly conservative perspective, he also covers the wide range of Milei’s goals and ideas quite nicely.

After Milei’s election many other news sources did the same, describing his goals in detail. Practically none however took a close look at the reality of Argentina’s new government, and how that reality might impringe on Milei’s plans.

You see, Argentina still has a constitutional government with a federal legislature made up of a Chamber of Deputies (its House of Representatives) and a Senate. Any analysis of Milei’s future plans has got to consider the political make-up of these bodies.

And yet, though I searched hard, I could find almost news reports that discussed that make-up in any way. Politico, NPR, and CNN didn’t mention it all. The only mainstream source I could find that even mentioned the make-up of that legislature was Reuters, but it did so in a short paragraph near the end of its report, with few details.

So, though this is not my area of expertise, I decided to try to find out, both for myself and my readers.
» Read more

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North Korea announces it will attempt orbital launch of spy satellite this week

10:26 am

North Korea has announced that it will make a third attempt to place a spy satellite into orbit this week, lifting off anytime between November 22nd and December 1st, with drop zones of the rocket’s lower stages over the Yellow and East China seas.

The North initially planed to make the third launch attempt in October following two botched launches — in August and May. But it did not press ahead with the plan last month, raising speculation that it might need more preparation time.

As expected, South Korea has protested. It is also likely gearing up to attempt to recover as much debris from the launch as possible, as it did successfully on the previous launches.

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Rocket engine startup Ursa Major enters solid-rocket motor business

10:08 am

Recognizing a desperate need of the military to ramp up production of solid rocket motors after much of its missile stockpile has been depleted by President Biden’s large gifts to the Ukraine, the rocket engine startup Ursa Major has now announced it is entering solid-rocket motor business.

Describing the solid rocket motor [SRM] market as “plagued by a broken supply chain and an overextended industrial base,” the Colorado startup today announced its plans to use its 3D printing techniques developed for liquid rocket engines to speed production of solid-fuel propulsion systems. Ursa Major has received several contracts from the Air Force Research Laboratory for its work on a new rocket engine for heavy space launch vehicles, as well as a hypersonic engine.

“Traditional SRM providers rely on production lines that are difficult to re-tool, expensive to ramp up, and dependent on a significant workforce to operate,” the company said in a press release touting its “new approach” to manufacturing, dubbed Lynx. “Ursa Major is offering a new way to scale production of SRMs,” Ursa Major CEO Joe Laurienti said in the press release. “Lynx meets the defense industry’s need for a faster, cheaper, scalable, and flexible SRM production process that results in better-performing solid rocket motors.”

The article also notes that at present the military is dependent on only two companies for new solid rockets, Northrop Grumman and Aerojet Rocketdyne (now L3Harris). The article also notes that it could take anywhere from five to eighteen years for these companies to replenish the depleted stocks.

The bottleneck however has brought several new players into the field, with the military eager to issue contracts to these new players. This decision by Ursa Major is thus a very good one.

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India now plans robotic lunar sample return mission

9:58 am

Following the successful landing of Vikram on the Moon, officials of India’s space agency ISRO have announced it is considering a much more ambitious follow-up, Chandrayaan-4, that will not only land on the lunar surface with a much larger rover, it will also dig up some samples and return them to Earth.

The spacecraft will travel to the moon, land, collect samples, and then connect to another module in space. The module will then return to Earth orbit. As the two modules approach Earth, they will separate, with one part returning to Earth and the other will keep orbiting the planet. Desai described the mission as ambitious, stating, “Hopefully, in the next five to seven years, we will meet the challenge of bringing samples from the moon.”

For return to Earth, Desai said that the mission would need two launch vehicles containing four modules (Transfer module, Lander Module, Ascender Module and Re-entry module). RM and TM would be Parked in the lunar orbit and two will go down from which Ascender Module will get separated from lander module and would collect the sample.

If India does this mission, while also completing its first manned mission during that time frame, it will place itself in direct competition with China and the U.S., and in fact will be getting close to matching both in capabilities.

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Musk: Next Starship/Superheavy test launch could happen in only 3 to 4 weeks

9:50 am

Superheavy & Starship, on their way
Superheavy & Starship, shortly after liftoff on November 18th

In a tweet on November 19, 2023, Elon Musk revealed that SpaceX could be ready for its next Starship/Superheavy test launch in only a matter of weeks, assuming federal red tape doesn’t get in the way.

Starship Flight 3 hardware should be ready to fly in 3 to 4 weeks. There are three ships in final production in the high bay (as can be seen from the highway).

In reporting on the second test launch on November 18, 2023, I noted that with prototypes ready to go SpaceX could probably launch within a month. Musk has now confirmed that assessment.

I also predicted that the FAA and Fish & Wildlife would not allow such a thing, and though they will determine there is no reason not to launch again, they will not issue a launch licence until the February/April time frame.

I want this prediction clearly on the record. It is important for the public to know the source of these delays.

It is also important for the press to apply pressure on these government paper pushers so they don’t feel encouraged in their intransigence. When I made a similar (and wholly accurate) prediction in May about the second launch, many in the press criticized that prediction (directly and indirectly) for daring to say bad things about government regulators. Now it appears that others in the press are no longer so naive, and are willing to note the slowness of the licensing process.

The regulators might not want to stand in the way and are simply following procedure. The press however mustn’t treat them gently. It must hold their feet to the fire to make sure they don’t take their time doing so.

Moreover, we have seen fewer headlines claiming falsely that the rocket “blew up” or “exploded.” Instead, a large percentage of the press now got it right and noted the mission’s success and that the destruction was not an accident but part of the self-destruct system.

After the last launch I lambasted the press for getting these facts wrong. Maybe holding their feet to the fire forced a reassessment and better reporting this time around.

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Musk: Starship/Superheavy launchpad essentially undamaged after launch

12:37 pm

Superheavy launchpad post launch
Click for original image.

In a tweet posted only a short time ago, Elon Musk announced that the redesigned and rebuilt Boca Chica launchpad experienced little or no damage during the launch of Superheavy/Starship on November 18, 2023.

Just inspected the Starship launch pad and it is in great condition!

No refurbishment needed to the water-cooled steel plate for next launch.

Congrats to @Spacex team & contractors for engineering & building such a robust system so rapidly!

Musk included the picture to the right in the tweet, showing the essentially undamaged launchpad pad. A close looks suggests there was some damage to the rear pillar near the top, but overall it appears the next launch could occur here very quickly.

Musk of course is wrong about who he credits for redesigning and rebuilding this launchpad. The real credit must go to the FAA bureaucrats who led the investigation and must have clearly guided those SpaceX engineers and contractors. To expect private citizens to think for themselves and come up with such difficult engineering without supervision from government paper-pushers in Washington is unreasonable and unfair. Maybe the Biden Justice Department should consider another lawsuit against Musk, this time for spreading more disinformation!

Moreover, who cares that the launchpad deluge system worked exactly as planned? We must allow Fish & Wildlife to spend several months now to investigate this launch — as well as write a long report of many words — to make sure that deluge of water did not harm any of the wildlife that lives on this barrier island, which has a water table of essentially zero and is flooded regularly and repeatedly by storms over time.

Anyone who disagrees is clearly a bigoted racist who wants to harm little children!

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Jan 6th tapes prove Biden prosecutors knowingly falsified the charges that caused Matthew Perna to kill himself

12:11 pm

Matthew Perna, dead because he expressed his opinion
Matthew Perna, essentially murdered by the Biden Justice Department

They’re coming for you next: Thirty-seven-year-old Matthew Perna came to Washington DC on January 6, 2021 to peacefully protest Joe Biden’s election. During those protests, Perna admitted he entered the Capitol through a door that had been opened by others (possibly government security police themselves). While inside he said he had walked through the building for a few minutes, didn’t touch or damage anything, and simply stayed within the normal walking path for visitors as he took pictures.

For this “criminal activity,” Biden prosecutors at the Department of Justice had charged him with multiple crimes, including a felony for committing terrorism that could have resulted in a twenty-year prison sentence. While Perna was willing to accept a trespassing misdemeanor — he recognized he had entered a closed facility without clear authority — the felony for terrorism crushed him. He knew the January 6th trials were imposing the harshest penalties. He knew the prosecutors and judges were not taking reasonable plea deals. And he knew that even if he agreed to a deal, the best he could expect would still be many months or even years in prison.

This unjust fate was something he could not face. On February 25, 2022 he killed himself.

Biden prosecutors immediately thereafter dropped the trumped-up charges against him, admitting that the felony charge itself would likely have been dropped during trial.

In other words, the government not only rubbed salt in the wounds of his family, it admitted openly that its charges against Perna were a sham to begin with.

We now have visual proof that Perna was innocent, and that proof was in the hands of federal prosecutors from day one.
» Read more

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Researchers confirm it was a Chinese rocket stage that impacted Moon in 2022

9:35 am

Impact, before and after
The crash site is the double crater in the
lower image.

Researchers have now confirmed that the unknown rocket stage that impacted the Moon in 2022 was from a Chinese rocket, a Long March 3B that launched China’s Chang’e-5 lunar sample return mission in November 2020.

“In this paper, we present a trajectory and spectroscopic analysis using ground-based telescope observations to show conclusively that WE0913A is the Long March 3C rocket body (R/B) from the Chang’e 5-T1 mission,” the researchers, led by Tanner Campbell, a doctoral student in the UA’s Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, wrote in a study that came out Thursday (Nov. 16) in the Planetary Science Journal. These two lines of evidence — how the object was moving and what it was made of — leave little doubt about WE0913A’s provenance, Campbell and his colleagues report.

The data, combined with the unusual double crater caused by the impact, also suggests that this stage had additional unknown equipment at its top, matching the mass of its engines at the bottom. Since the Chinese continue to deny it was their stage and have said nothing about it, we have no idea what that extra equipment might have been.

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German rocket startup signs deal with Norwegian spaceport

9:23 am

Map of northern European spaceports

The German rocket startup Isar Aerospace has signed a deal to provide the Andoya spaceport in the north of Norway with a new flight tracking and safety system, to be used by all launches including Isar’s own Spectrum rocket.

The purpose of the autonomous flight tracking system is to precisely and reliably keeping track of the Spectrum launch vehicle’s position, speed and direction of travel as it ascends to orbit, which is important to guarantee Andøya Spaceport’s flight safety requirements. The objective is to further evaluate the use of the system in enabling automated flight termination functionality for launches by Andøya Spaceport’s ground system, autonomously triggering an abort of the mission if ever operational parameters of the launch vehicle are out of bounds.

This announcement today illustrates the rising competition between German rocket startups and European spaceports. Yesterday the Saxavord spaceport in Scotland and another German rocket startup, HyImpulse, announced their own launch deal. Today’s announcement is the response from Andoya and Isar.

Today’s announcement also increases the pressure in the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to get its regulatory act together. Andoya is positioning itself as a good alternative to the two new British spaceports in Scotland, as shown by the red dots on the map above, should red tape in the UK slow launches there.

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House committee delays vote on commercial space bill due to new White House proposal

8:59 am

Because of the sudden announcement by the White House of its own version of a new commercial regulatory space bill, the House Science committee was forced to delay the voting on November 15, 2023 of its own new commercial space bill, put forth by Republicans.

The committee met Nov. 15 to mark up the Commercial Space Act of 2023 and one other bill. At the end of the markup, lasting more than three and a half hours including a recess, the committee’s chairman, Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) said the committee would delay votes to advance both bills until after the Thanksgiving break because of votes on the House floor and “and the nature of additional information that has become available to us.”

The latter comment appeared to be a reference to a legislative proposal released by the White House’s National Space Council less than an hour before the markup regarding a mission authorization concept for new space activities. That proposal would establish a system where both the Commerce Department and the Transportation Department would oversee activities not regulated today, based on the type of activity.

The House bill, introduced Nov. 2 by Lucas and space subcommittee chairman Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), would create its own mission authorization system at the Commerce Department. It would also direct Commerce to hand over responsibility for a civil space traffic coordination system to a consortium led by an academic or nonprofit organization, rather than keeping it within the Office of Space Commerce as currently planned. Lucas, in his opening remarks, said he was aware of the new White House proposal but has reservations about it. “These proposals, I fear, simply go in the wrong direction and hurt rather than support America’s space industry,” he said.

Both bills were aimed at realigning the regulatory regime governing private space activities. The House bill’s final form apparently had been written with a lot of industry input. The White House bill, supported by Democrats, appears designed instead to clamp down on commercial space by allowing the federal bureaucracy to regulate everything.

Both bills unfortunately give too much power to the federal government, though the Republican bill at least tries to shift some of that power to the private sector, where it belongs.

One of the main reasons we have had a rennaisance in commercial space in the past decade is that there has been little regulation. The private sector has been left to regulate itself, and it has generally done so very successfully because of the invisible hand of free market forces. Build things right and the world beats a path to your door. Do it badly and no regulation is needed, you go out of business.

Modern Americans no longer trust these fundamentals of freedom and capitalism, and so we have a rush by government to establish “rules,” none of which will really accomplish anything but slow development and innovation and squelch this emerging industry.

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November 16, 2023 Quick space links

3:10 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who notes it has been “a slow news day. I guess everyone is waiting to see SpaceX launch.” For me this has been good, as the day has mostly been tied up with doctors (nothing serious).

 

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Saxavord spaceport gets launch deal from German rocket startup

2:07 pm

The Saxavord spaceport, one of two being built in Scotland, has signed a launch deal from the German rocket startup Hy-Impulse, with two suborbital test launches scheduled for next year and an orbital launch targeting 2025.

HyImpulse, a launch services provider and DLR spinoff based in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, is currently gearing up for its inaugural suborbital launch early next year from Australia. It will however look to conduct two suborbital launches from SaxaVord Spaceport, located in Scotland’s Shetland Islands, from August 2024 onwards. HyImpulse has already secured an Air Navigation Order (ANO) license from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority for one launch.

These will be followed by first orbital launches from late 2025 onwards. The plan envisions rising to full commercial operations by 2030.

All this assumes that the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) can issue the launch licenses in time. After all it only six to ten months to approve those suborbital launches, and almost two years to approve the orbital launch. So far the CAA has proven unable to approve anything within even those long time frames.

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Biden White House proposes major expansion of the regulations governing commercial space

9:23 am

We’re here to help you! The Biden White House yesterday proposed a major expansion of the regulations that govern commercial space, with the changes aimed at splitting all regulation within the Transportaion and Commerce Departments, but expand the regulations to so as to increase the power of the government over all future activitives, from rockets to spacecraft to space stations.

According to the White House’s statement [pdf]:

Specifically, this proposal would amend 51 U.S.C. 50902 to define a “human space flight vehicle” as a vehicle, including a launch vehicle or reentry vehicle, habitat, or other object, built to operate in suborbital trajectory or outer space, including on a celestial body, with a human being on board. A license would then be required for a citizen of the United States to operate a human space flight vehicle in outer space. (51 U.S.C. 50904).

DOT would authorize the operation of a human space flight vehicle consistent with public health and safety, safety of property, space sustainability, international obligations of the United States, and national security, foreign policy, and other national interests of the United States. (51 U.S.C. 50905). This proposal adds “space sustainability” and “other national interests” to DOT’s current authority. Including “space sustainability” would allow DOT to include debris mitigation and require measures to protect the sustainable use of outer space in their regulations, to include the mitigation and remediation of orbital debris and consideration of impacts to the space operational environment. [emphasis mine]

Essentially, these new rules — purposely written to be vague — will allow the government to forbid any activity in space by private citizens it chooses to forbid. No private space station could launch without government approval, which will also include the government’s own determination that the station will be operatied safely. Once launched, the vagueness of these regulations will soon allow mission creep so that every new activity in space will soon fall under its review.

Since no one in the government is qualified to supervise things like this, in the end politics and the abuse of power will be the rule.

Moreover, by what constitutional right does the federal government have to supervise the work of all space companies, in all things? It doesn’t have that right, and in fact the Constitution was written expressly to forbid it from attempting such a thing. The Constitution however is nothing more than fish wrap in modern America.

Note that most other news reports on this proposal are making it sound as nothing more than a simple revision of the law to better organize the regulatory system. The assumption is always that the government is all-knowing and all-seeing, and has the ability to act as school teacher for everyone else.

Initially we can expect these regulations will be followed with good faith, but such things never last. Given time they will end up squelching freedom in space and the entire American effort to colonize the solar system. And should any American colony become reasonably self-sufficient under these rules (something not likely), the rules guarantee that they will revolt from American rule as quickly as possible.

At this moment this proposal is simply that. Congress needs to review it and decide if it wishes to do as the Biden White House proposes. Though it is unlikely it will pass as written, it is also likely that our present Congress will simply reword it to accept this expansion of power, in some manner.

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China launches ocean observation satellite

8:52 am

China today successfully launched what it claimed was the first of a new generation of ocean observation satellites, its Long March 2C rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages, which use toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

83 SpaceX
52 China
14 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China 95 to 52 in successful launches, and the entire world combined 95 to 81. SpaceX by itself is still leads the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 83 to 81.

2 comments

The right’s general lack of unity and support

1:29 pm

The right's circular firing squad
The right’s approach to its own side.

Rather than write another depressing essay detailing the uniform madness on the left, with its eager desire to censor, blacklist, and imprison its opponents — now topped by a desire to see Jews slaughtered — I think I will let a short essay by Mark Judge speak for me:

The Left uplifts its artists. Why doesn’t the Right?

Key quote:

When a gifted young singer or filmmaker emerges on the left, the entire media ecosystem works in tandem to lift that person up. They are noticed in Vanity Fair, the Hollywood Reporter, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. There are profiles on the morning shows, grants and financial support. Everybody pulls in one direction.

On the right, it is almost the opposite effect. “There is a lot of gatekeeping,” Roland tells me. “Everyone is protecting their own turf.” Conservative media companies want to promote their own product. Whereas on the left everyone lends a hand to uplift talent, on the right there is more of an effort to ignore it.

Judge notes this pattern based on his own experience, as well as that of a conservative filmmaker he interviews. Judge, a journalist and author, became well known when he was accused falsely during the Kavanaugh hearings of participating in the left’s made-up rape story. Since then his career has moved forward, but as he so correctly notes, not with the kind of support you’d think he should get from the right.

I say he is correct because like him and that filmmaker, I have had the same experience now for decades. » Read more

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FAA and Fish & Wildlife approve further launches of Starship/Superheav at Boca Chica

12:35 pm

Starship/Superheavy flight plan for first orbital flight
The April Starship/Superheavy flight plan. Click for original image.
The slightly revised flight plan for flight two can be found here.

Starship stacked on Superheavy, September 5, 2023
Starship stacked on Superheavy, September 5, 2023,
when Elon Musk said it was ready for launch

UPDATE: The FAA has now issued the launch licence [pdf]. Note it adds that the FAA and Fish & Wildlife have imposed new requirements (as noted in the announcements below) on SpaceX on this and future launches, all of which will have to be reviewed after each launch.

Original post:
————————-
Both the FAA and the Fish & Wildlife department of the Interior Departiment today released their completed investigations of the environmental impacts created by the first test launch of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy rocket in April 2023, and (not surprisingly) concluded that the launch did no harm, and that a second launch can be allowed.

The FAA report can be found here [pdf]. The Fish & Wildlife report can be found here [pdf]. Both essentially come to the same conclusion — though in minute detail — that Fish and Wildlife had determined in April 2023, only a week after that first test launch.

No debris was found on lands belonging to the refuge itself, but the agency said debris was spread out over 385 acres belonging to SpaceX and Boca Chica State Park. A fire covering 3.5 acres also started south of the pad on state park land, but the Fish and Wildlife Service didn’t state what caused the fire or how long it burned.

There was no evidence, though, that the launch and debris it created harmed wildlife. “At this time, no dead birds or wildlife have been found on refuge-owned or managed lands,” the agency said. [emphasis mine]

In other words, the investigation for the past seven months was merely to complete the paperwork, in detail, for these obvious conclusions then.

As part of the FAA action today, it also issued range restrictions for a November 17, 2023 test launch at Boca Chica. Though there is no word yet of the issuance of an actual launch license, it appears one will be issued, and SpaceX is prepared for launch that day, with a 2.5 hourlong launch window, opening at 7 am (Central). SpaceX has already announced that its live stream will begin about 30 minutes before launch, at this link as well as on X.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay and my reader Jestor Naybor for these links.

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Japan to spend $6.6 billion over ten years to develop its space industry

9:19 am

The Japanese government has created a new $6.6 billion fund that it will provide to its space agency JAXA, spread out over the next ten years, to help develop the country’s commercial space industry.

The very short article at the link provides little additional information. For example, will JAXA be required to act merely as a customer, buying services from competing private companies, or will it be allowed to use this money to create its own projects that it designs, builds, and owns?

The difference is fundamental. Presently JAXA functions like NASA had for decades, partnering with only a handful of big space companies (Mitsubishi for example) to build its own government rockets and spaceships. The results have been comparable to NASA prior to 2010: Little gets built and whatever is built is overbudget and far behind schedule.

Since NASA accepted the idea of capitalism in space, where it no longer builds or owns much but relies on private enterprise to get it done, things have moved fast. Similarly, India and China have followed suit, and both are getting similar good results.

The unanswered question from this story is whether Japan has finally taken the leap to do it as well. Making this transition can be politically difficult, because the space agencies and big space contractors fight to protect their turf. It is not clear if the Japanese government is willing to fight that battle.

If it doesn’t, however, Japan will continue to be a backwater in space, like Russia,as the rest of the world’s space-faring nations increasingly turn to private enterprise, competition, and (most of all) freedom to get results.

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Intuitive Machines will attempt to launch 3 lunar landing missions in 2024

8:52 am

South Pole of Moon with landing sites

According to the company’s CEO, Intuitive Machines is pushing to fly two more Nova-C lunar landing missions next year after its first is launched by SpaceX on January 12th and hopefully lands successfully near the Moon’s south pole on January 19th.

Intuitive Machines is working on two more Nova-C landers for its IM-2 and IM-3 missions, also carrying NASA CLPS payloads. The company has not announced launch dates for those missions, but Altemus said he hoped both could take place by the end of 2024.

“We are planning three missions in 2024,” he said, which will depend in part on NASA’s requirements as well as orbital dynamics. Landings at the south polar region of the moon, the target for IM-2, are linked to “seasons” where lighting conditions are optimal for lander operations. IM-3, he said, would happen “a few months” after IM-2.

Though Nova-C will launch after Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander (launching on ULA’s Vulcan rocket), it will get to the Moon quickly, and will attempt its landing first. If successfully it will therefore be the first private payload to do so.

The company’s ambitions for 2024 are laudable, but depend so entirely on everything going perfectly it will not be surprising if they do not pan out. Nor will it reflect badly on the company if just one mission flies in 2024. Landing a robot on another world is hard. For private companies to do it is harder.

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ESA firms up space station partnership with Voyager Space

8:38 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the American company Voyager Space last week signed an agreement making Voyager’s Starlab space station Europe’s main space station destination, replacing ISS.

Starlab will fulfill that role, at least partially, in the future for the space agencies of individual ESA member states. It’s expected to launch as soon as 2028, with operations set to start in 2029. This will include access for astronaut missions and to conduct research as well as providing opportunities for commercial business development. Starlab is also set to provide a complete “end-to-end” system in low-Earth orbit to which European crews and cargo will journey.

This European deal became more likely when Airbus joined the partnership of Voyager and Lockheed Martin in January 2023. It is also probably why Northrop Grumman in October 2023 abandoned its own space station project and joined this one instead. ESA is a big customer, most likely to guarantee the most profits.

What makes this deal different than ISS is that the station will not be owned by this large government customer. The companies building Starlab — led by Voyager — will be free to sell its services to anyone who wishes to use it. This deal also means that NASA and ESA will be going separate ways after ISS, no longer partnering on a station.

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Real pushback? 1600 Harvard alumni demand the university take action against campus anti-Semitism

11:15 am

Is Harvard really willing to oppose bigotry?
Will Harvard really shut down to its racist programs?

Bring a gun to a knife fight: In what is certainly an encouraging sign that many Americans are finally waking up to the utter bankruptcy of modern academia, a group of 1,600 Harvard alumni on November 11, 2023 sent a letter to Harvard demanding it make some forceful response to the growing anti-Semitism on its campus.

Of the group’s six demands, these two stand out as most likely to accomplish some good:

  • An immediate plan and robust commitment by the College and University to curb the dissemination of hate speech and to limit the disruptiveness of rallies so that they do not interfere with students’ abilities to participate in their classes, to enter into their own dorms, and to move peacefully through the campus. In particular, we ask for the addition of religion as a targeted category for harassment in the College Handbook and for the University, and the codification of calls for violence targeting civilians as outside of acceptable behavior for University students or faculty.
  • The creation of a commission to study the roots of antisemitism on campus by investigating whether aspects of the university curriculum, the DEI framework, faculty training (or the lack thereof), and certain campus events perpetuate unreflective narratives about Jewish people and the state of Israel.

» Read more

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NASA “pauses” Mars Sample Return mission

9:11 am

Perseverance's first set of core samples, placed on the floor of Jezero Crater
Perseverance’s first set of core samples,
placed on the floor of Jezero Crater

Faced with a strong threat of major budget cuts from the Senate, NASA has decided to “pause” the Mars Sample Return mission (MSR) by ramping back some work to consider major changes to the project.

We brought Steve [Thibault] downtown to be the chief engineer in the Headquarters MSR program office … leading a team that consists of all the implementing centers and our European colleagues to stand back and take a look at the architecture with a fresh set of eyes and figure out not only just how to improve our technical margins and make the mission more robust, but also to see if there are ways to implement it in ways to potentially save costs. We’re also going off and listening to industry and seeing what ideas they have.

While the House had approved NASA’s budget request that exceeded $1 billion to complete the mission (more than double its original price tag), the Senate responded by only allocating one quarter of that, demanding NASA come up with a plan that would match its original budget number. This Senate pressure was enhanced by an independent review that harshly criticized the present design of the project, which involves three NASA centers, European participation, and multiple American companies, all building different components that must all interact perfectly.

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Musk: Government approval for 2nd Starship/Superheavy launch expected before Friday

8:35 am

According to a tweet today by Elon Musk, he has been informed that the federal government will give its blessing for SpaceX to conduct the second Starship/Superheavy test launch from Boca Chica in time for a Friday November 17, 2023 launch.

The launch window opens at 7 am (Central) and lasts until 11:20 am.

Let us all now bow our heads to our lords and saviors at the FAA and Fish and Wildlife for finally deciding to allow this once-free American to simply do something the government was once forbidden from blocking. The worst part is that the fundamental law that forbids such government interference (its called the Constitution and the Bill of Rights) has not been officially repealed, merely morphed into nothing more than fish wrap while everyone decided to look the other way.

Be warned: Even if by some miracle this second test launch goes perfectly, these government agencies are still not going to allow a quick turn-around for a third launch. No, they will put SpaceX through the same investigatory grind, eating up months. And if the more likely scenario occurs, and the launch does not go perfectly, I guarantee the grind will go on longer.

Sovereign power now resides within Washington, not the people of the United States. The proof is how so many of those people now consider this situation normal and expected.

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Real Pushback: Conservative family sues Biden Justice Department for “‘Malicious and Retaliatory Prosecution”

12:27 pm

The Houck Family: Targets of FBI harassment and arrest
The Houck Family: Targets of FBI harassment and arrest.
It is surprisng the Gestapo FBI didn’t frog march the mother
and her children to prison as well. Can’t have anyone raising
children to be Christian and upstanding, can we?

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Mark Houck, who was arrested by a Justice Department SWAT team aiming guns and rifles at him and his family and was quickly found innocent of all charges, has now sued the Biden Justice Department and Merrick Garland for committing a “malicious and retaliatory prosecution.”

Actually, two lawsuits were filed. While Houck has sued for $1.1 million, his wife Ryan-Marie Houck is seeking $3.25 million in damages for the mental harm the arrest caused herself and her children.

Ryan-Marie Houck’s complaint describes how profoundly her husband’s arrest has impacted their children, Mark Jr., Ava Marie, Kathryn, Therese, Joshua, Augustine, and Imelda.

“Her children have also suffered immense emotional trauma and physical manifestations of stress that Mrs. Houck has carried alone while her husband was away during his imprisonment and prosecution,” the complaint says. Most tragically of all, her complaint says, Ryan-Marie and Mark Houck have lost three babies through miscarriages “due to the stress of the FBI’s conduct and resulting prosecution.”

“The stress of these events was so difficult that the Houcks have been diagnosed with infertility,” the complaint says.

This story is an update of two previous blacklist columns, in September 2022, just after the arrest, and January 2023, after Houck was found innocent of all charges. From the beginning the charges by the Biden Justice Department could clearly be seen as trumped up and malicious. The original minor pushing incident between Houck and pro-abortion activist — in order to stop that activist from harassing his young son — was so minor that a local court had immediately dismissed it. When Justice renewed those charges Houck told them he would be glad to surrender himself peaceable.

Instead, Justice sent a well-armed large SWAT team to invade his home at 6:30 in the morning, pointing weapons at everyone, including the screaming children. » Read more

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