Tag: politics

Venezuela agrees to join China’s lunar base project

9:31 am

During a visit to a new Chinese space facility in China, the head of Venezuela’s space agency announced that it has agreed to join China’s lunar base project.

Marglad Bencomo, executive director of the Bolivarian Agency for Space Activities (ABAE), visited China’s new, national Deep Space Exploration Laboratory (DSEL) March 30 to discuss cooperation and exchanges. She was met by Wu Yanhua, former deputy director of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) and now executive vice chairman of DSEL. The two sides exchanged in-depth views on international cooperation in the field of deep space exploration, according to a DSEL statement.

Bencomo said that Venezuela was willing to sign a China-Venezuela Memorandum of Understanding as soon as possible to jointly promote the construction of international lunar research stations, according to the DSEL statement.

If this partnership agreement is signed, Venezuela would be the first nation outside of Russia to join China’s project. China has offered a similar partnership deal to Brazil, which will likely not agree because it is a signatory to the Artemis Accords and working with China will threaten any work it does with the U.S. For example, the UAE recently ended a project to fly a rover on a Chinese rocket for these very reasons.

This deal with Venezuela is largely empty blather, since Venezuela is presently a bankrupt communist state, barely able to feed its own people.

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Chinese pseudo-company succeeds in reaching orbit again after three straight failures

9:09 am

China's spaceports
China’s spaceports

The Chinese pseudo-company I-space has finally reached orbit again with a launch today of its Hyperbola-1 (SQX-1) solid-fueled rocket, lifting off from China’s Jiuquan inland spaceport in the Gobi Desert.

After an initial launch success in 2019, the company had failed three straight times until today. No word on whether the first stage landed near habitable areas in China. Nor did the pseudo-company reveal whether the rocket carried an actual satellite into orbit.

Jiuquan is presently the only spaceport where China permits these pseudo-companies to launch, and has been expanding its facilities for these commercial operations. This also means China will be experiencing more first stages dropping on their heads of its people, which is why it is also building a commercial launchpad at the Wenchang spaceport on the coast.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

23 SpaceX
15 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads China 26 to 15 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 26 to 25. SpaceX now trails the rest of the world combined, including American companies, 23 to 28.

UPDATE from BtB’s stringer Jay: Video of the launch can be found here. Jay also notes the lack of any mention of I-space in the official Chinese press, announcing this launch. Adds weight to the conclusion that these companies are not really real, but simply divisions of the Chinese government.

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Tennessee House expels two of three representatives who aided rioters

5:56 pm

The Tennessee House today successfully voted to expel two of the three Democrat representatives who aided the gun control rioters attempting to take over the statehouse on March 30, 2023.

This is an update of my blacklist column yesterday. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson were expelled, while the vote to expel Gloria Johnson fell one vote short.

Both representatives could be reappointed to their seats, and can also run in the special election to fill the now-empty seats. Both made it clear before the vote that they do not consider anything they did was wrong, and intend to return.

All power to them. They just better realize that using a bullhorn to take over the statehouse, when they have not been given the floor to speak, is wrong, and if they do it again they will be expelled again.

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April 6, 2023 Quick space links

5:21 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

  • China invites Brazil to participate in its lunar base project

    • There is no indication Brazil accepted the offer. The offer took place during a meeting between officials of the Brazil Space Agency and one of China’s pseudo-companies, China Great Wall Industry Corporation (which according to Jay “is the international launch service subsidiary” for China). Thus, this could be an effort by that pseudo-company to gain launch access to Brazil’s recently reactivated Alcântara spaceport.

 

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Pushback: Missouri school libraries sue to keep porno on their shelves; Missouri lawmakers zero out library budget

4:57 pm

Cody Smith
Missouri House Republican Cody Smith

Bring a gun to a knife fight: In 2022 the Missouri legislature passed a law that made it illegal to provide any student with books containing images “‘showing human masturbation, deviate sexual intercourse,’ ‘sexual intercourse, direct physical stimulation of genitals, sadomasochistic abuse,’ or showing human genitals.” The aim of the law was to put reasonable limits on the kind of material available in school libraries, and was passed in response to the recent nationwide effort by teachers and librarians to include such smut in these places.

A normal person’s response should be, “Gee, why do we need a law? What sane adult would ever give this stuff to kids? Isn’t that why we have a movie rating system?” A normal person would also note that anyone who did want to distribute this kind of porno to kids is really nothing more than a pedophile.

Well, it looks like the Missouri Association of School Librarians, the Missouri Library Association, and the ACLU are all pedophiles, when you get right down to it. These organizations immediately banded together to sue to overturn the law. They want to give kids porno.

On March 28, 2023 the Missouri House responded in turn to these pedophiles by passing a budget that cuts the entire $4.5 million budget for all public libraries. The cut was put forth by the House budget chairman Cody Smith, who said this:
» Read more

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University of Arizona opens major facility for building and launching satellites

12:27 pm

anechoic chamber at UA's Applied Research Building
ARB’s anechoic chamber

Yesterday I attended the grand opening of the University of Arizona’s (UA) new Applied Research Building (ARB), designed to provide satellite builders as well as its students an almost completely comprehensive facility for the assembly, testing, and launching of satellites. From this event announcement:

To keep the university at the forefront of space science and exploration, ARB will serve as a world-class test and integration center for satellites, probes, and spacecraft, including:

  • A 40-foot tall high-bay payload assembly area used for constructing high-altitude stratospheric balloons and nanosatellites also known as “CubeSats.”
  • A thermal vacuum chamber that simulates environmental conditions in space to test balloon and satellite performance that is the largest of its kind at any university in the world.
  • A non-reflective, echo-free room called an anechoic chamber to test antennae for command, control, and data relay purposes.
  • A large lab for testing the performance of a range of objects, from airplane wings to sensors.

The anechoic chamber is pictured above. For scale, if a person was standing in the middle of the chamber their height would reach about six rows up. The carbon-infused styrofoam pyramids are designed to dampen reflections of radio signals in order to simulate the space environment while testing the antennas on a satellite. This is apparently is of the largest such chambers in the United States.
» Read more

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Global warming scientists whine about India defunding climate research center

11:29 am

According to this Nature article, scientists worldwide are outraged by the decision of the Modi government in India to suspend all foreign funding to its Centre for Policy Research (CPR) for the next 180 days.

Why might the Modi government have done this? First, this is how Nature describes CPR’s work:

The CPR conducts research into public policy in India, including climate change, social and economic policy, governance and infrastructure. Last year it received about three-quarters of its grant funding from influential global organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank. Its domestic researchers have contributed to high-profile international studies such as the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

…The CPR “has played an enormously important role in informing public policy debate in India and internationally”, says Frank Jotzo, an environmental economist at the Australian National University in Canberra. Jotzo says that CPR, established in 1973, has a long and esteemed history in providing objective and honest analysis of government policy in India, and has at times criticized Indian government policy and plans. “That is invariably the case with any independent, impartial think tank or organization anywhere in the world,” he says. [emphasis mine]

In other words, CPR routinely advocates leftist policy positions. When a leftwing government is in power, its policy papers will glow with pride about the achievements of government. When a rightwing government is in power — such as the Modi administration — its policy papers will be suddenly “objective and honest” and hard-hitting, attacking the government for daring to challenge its assumptions about “climate change, social and economic policy, governance and infrastructure.”

This is typical political garbage from Nature and the leftist culture it routinely represents. CPR appears to have violated Indian law with its foreign funding, using the “funds for purposes other than those permitted under its licence.” Moreover, Modi is the elected head of India’s government. CPR works for him and the Indian public who elected him. If he decides this agency should be defunded, then so be it. For far too long leftists worldwide have claimed a permanent right to government funds. This needs to stop, and it is refreshing to see the Modi government is willing to take action in this regard.

If only Republicans in America has as much courage.

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China tests vertical landing of small rocket from barge at sea

9:51 am

China's own version of SpaceX's Grasshopper

A commercial division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has successfully test flown its own a very small version of SpaceX’s Grasshopper, doing a vertical lift off from a barge at sea and then landing vertically on that barge.

The rocket prototype flew at an altitude of more than 1,000 meters, descended in a smooth hovering fashion and then decelerated thanks to the engine reverse thrust. The landing speed was reduced to less than two meters per second at the final stage before the rocket touched down steadily with a landing precision of under 10 meters.

The landing test took about 10 minutes, the CAS institute revealed.

The small scale of the rocket, as shown by the screen capture above, taken from the short video CAS produced of the flight, shows that CAS is a long way yet from using this technology in an orbital flight. Nonetheless, it demonstrates that at least two Chinese pseudo-companies are working hard to copy SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 first stage. With this test CAS has demonstrated it now has the software and fine engine control for vertical rocket landings. Based on the image of its proposed rockets at this tweet, this prototype will eventually lead to the development of larger orbital versions that look remarkably similar to what SpaceX produces.

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April 5, 2023 Quick space links

2:34 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

  • Tianzhou freighter will fly in formation with China’s Tiangong-3 space station

    • The plan is to periodically redock the freighter to the station “when inventories stored inside are needed.” Jay wonders whether this is a test of the similar formation flying that will be required when China’s space telescope arrives next year to orbit near the station for periodic maintenance and repair. I think he is correct.

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Pushback: Republicans move to expel Democrats who gave aid to rioters in Tennessee statehouse

12:59 pm

Riot in Tennessee Statehouse
L to R, Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson stand at
the podium, using a bullhorn to lead protester chants.

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Wasting no time following the riot by protesters that invaded the Tennessee statehouse on March 30, 2023, Republican state legislators have removed from all committees the Democratic Party legislators who gave aid to rioters and are now moving to have them expelled from office.

Resolutions have been filed against Reps. Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson after they led chants from the House floor with supporters in the gallery last Thursday. The resolution declared that the three had participated in “disorderly behavior” and “did knowingly and intentionally bring disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives.”

Republican Reps. Bud Hulsey, Gino Bulso, and Andrew Farmer filed the resolutions. They successfully requested Monday that the House expedite the process and vote on the resolutions Thursday.

Not surprisingly, the three legislators threatened with expulsion claimed they did nothing wrong, even though all three shared a bullhorn in the chamber (as shown in the picture above), leading chants for the demonstrators. Justin Pearson proudly touted what he did in a tweet:
» Read more

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Shetland Spaceport now faces same regulatory hurdles that destroyed Virgin Orbit

9:37 am

The new Shetland spaceport, Saxavord, is right now attempting to get launch approvals from United Kingdom’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the same agency that dithered for six months approving a Virgin Orbit launch, thus causing the bankruptcy of that company.

According to Saxavord’s CEO, the spaceport has two launches aiming to launch before the end of this year, assuming the CAA can get its act together and give its approval. This quote however is worrisom:

The Saxavord spaceport says it is “still on track” to receive its necessary licences from the sector’s regulator before the summer. This relates to applications to the Civil Aviation Authority for range and spaceport licences.

Meanwhile SaxaVord CEO Frank Strang said the company is also on track for two rocket launches this year – “albeit they have moved slightly to the right”. [emphasis mine]

The delays could be coming from the rocket companies themselves. One of those companies is the German startup, Rocket Factory Augsburg, which has leased exclusive use of one launchsite. The other is the American startup ABL, which has had one launch attempt from the U.S. that failed.

Based on the CAA’s track record however the delays are just as likely coming from it. The CAA began this licensing process in November 2022, and is not done yet six months later.

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Judges expand hiring boycott of elite law colleges that allow violent protests and censorship

12:24 pm

Judge James Ho
Judge James Ho

Two federal judges have now expanded their hiring boycott to include Stanford Law School along with Yale Law School because the administrators at both schools have refused to punish violent student protesters who acted to silence others.

The judges, James C. Ho of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Elizabeth Branch, a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, will hire no graduates from these schools, thus reducing the whole reason for going there. Law students graduate hoping this diploma will get them jobs working for important judges, an early step to becoming a judge themselves.

The question that Ho and Branch raise, however, is whether any judge would want to hire any students from these particular schools. As Judge Ho noted in a speech on April 1st at the annual meeting of the Texas Review of Law & Politics.
» Read more

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FAA issues travel advisory for Boca Chica for April 10, 2023 Starship launch

10:30 am

Though the FAA has not yet issued the launch license to SpaceX, allowing it to do the first orbital launch test of its Superheavy/Starship rocket, the agency today did issue a travel advisory for the Boca Chica area for April 10-11, 2023, in connection with this launch.

The FAA advisory is here. Scroll down to see the space activities section, which includes this information:

SPACEX STARSHIP SUPERHEAVY BOCA CHICA, TX
PRIMARY: 04/10/23 1310-1745Z
BACKUP(S): 04/11-12/23 1310-1745Z

Based on this information, we should expect the FAA launch license to be publicly announced any moment.

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

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Pushback: University will hire no one who supports “critical race theory”

11:41 am

SouthernWesleyan University: still a supporter of Christianity and western civilization
Still a supporter of Christianity and western civilization

Bring a gun to a knife fight: According to the president of Southern Wesleyan University, it refuses to hire anyone who supports “critical race theory”, and instead seeks out scholars who support the basic tenets of Christianity and western civilization.

[A]s Southern Wesleyan University President Bill Barker enters his eighth month at the helm of the private, four-year institution, he said he has made it a priority to educate critically on critical race theory. … “I made it very clear where SWU stands on critical race theory, and we made it very clear in our hiring processes,” Barker said in a Zoom interview with The College Fix. “Personnel is policy.”

“We’re not hiring people – and I’ve been clear since I came here and the Board of Trustees has supported this – who endorse critical race theory. We will have the courage to let faculty or staff go if they are teaching critical race theory.” Barker took the helm of the South Carolina-based campus in July 2022.

Barker’s policy is more than words. » Read more

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NASA policy for naming missions now discourages honoring individuals

9:39 am

In a change apparently brought about by the fake and bigoted slanders against James Webb, who led NASA brilliantly for almost the entire 1960s space race and was thus honored by NASA when it named the James Webb Space Telescope after him, NASA has now changed its policy for naming missions in order to discourage any future missions to be named after individuals.

According to the new policy, a NASA historian must be involved, and “The historical analysis led by [the naming committee] will include a human capital review to ensure diversity, unity, inclusion, and inspiration are considered.” The policy also states:

Where possible, limit the practice of naming projects, missions, instruments, etc., after individuals. (a) Instead use the theme of unity, inspiration, or the accomplishments of a person as the primary criterion for a project or mission name. (b) Except in extraordinary circumstances will names of individuals be considered and, only in more rare circumstances, may individuals who are still living receive consideration. (c) The use of an individual’s name should be based on their contributions to America, NASA, and humanity, and therefore be so extraordinary that any other form of recognition by the Agency would be considered inadequate. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted phrase is typical jargon used by the “diversity, unity, inclusion” crowd, and indicates that any past great American who did something great for America but not for the rest of the world, will be considered unqualified. Thus, do not expect any missions to be ever named after our Founding Fathers, or other great Americans. Instead, I expect any individuals who get honored in the future will be chosen in order to push “diversity, unity, inclusion”.

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NASA names four astronauts to fly on first manned Artemis mission around Moon

9:23 am

NASA today named the four astronauts who will fly on its Artemis-2 in a 10-day mission around the Moon, launched on SLS’s second launch in an Orion capsule and tentatively scheduled for late 2024.

The crew assignments are as follows: Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist 1 Christina Hammock Koch, and Mission Specialist 2 Jeremy Hansen. They will work as a team to execute an ambitious set of demonstrations during the flight test.

The approximately 10-day Artemis II flight test will launch on the agency’s powerful Space Launch System rocket, prove the Orion spacecraft’s life-support systems, and validate the capabilities and techniques needed for humans to live and work in deep space.

The flight, set to build upon the successful uncrewed Artemis I mission completed in December, will set the stage for the first woman and first person of color on the Moon through the Artemis program, paving the way for future for long-term human exploration missions to the Moon, and eventually Mars. This is the agency’s Moon to Mars exploration approach. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words illustrate some important facts. First, this first manned flight of Orion will also be the first that will use the capsule’s life-support systems, which were not included the first flight around the Moon in December. Thus, these four humans are essentially guinea pigs for this engineering. Seems such a plan should have been questioned by NASA’S corrupt safety panel, but then, it is corrupt, and never seems to have much problem with unsafe practices done by NASA itself. Instead, it spends a lot of time making up problems for SpaceX and missing problems at Boeing and NASA.

Second, note NASA’s emphasis on race and sex for the first landing on the Artemis-3 mission. Note too that Artemis-2 crew also includes a black and a woman. Though the press release wisely and correctly makes no mention of race when describing the four astronauts, it does tout the achievements of Christina Koch as a woman, not as a person.

Don’t get me wrong. It is good that a black and a woman are flying to the Moon. It just appears very clear that NASA now has a firm quota system, requiring one of each for every mission.

Finally, there is something not mentioned in the press release or on the Artemis-2 webpage that is very telling. Neither says anything about a launch date, which NASA had previously announced as November 2024. I have been predicting from the beginning that this date is a fantasy. It now appears NASA realizes it but is not yet ready to admit it publicly.

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Japan officially delays next H2A rocket launch because of H3 launch failure

10:07 am

Japan’s space agency JAXA has now officially delayed its next H2A rocket launch, scheduled for May and carrying a Japanese lunar lander dubbed SLIM, because that rocket shares some components of Japan’s new H3 rocket, which failed during its inaugural launch in March.

No new launches are currently planned after a series of setbacks for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, including the next-generation H3 rocket’s failure and that of the smaller Epsilon-6 in October, which was ordered to self-destruct after deviating from its intended trajectory shortly after takeoff.

The earliest the H2A launch can be rescheduled for is August, due to the orbital mechanics for getting it to the Moon. There are indications however that even this date will not be met.

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India successfully lands its own version of the X-37B on a runway

10:00 am

LEX landing

India’s space agency ISRO today successfully landed its own version of the X-37B on a runway.

The flight was a test of the landing system. The spacecraft, dubbed LEX, was dropped from a helicopter at an elevation of 2.8 miles above sea level. It then autonomously guided itself to the runway to land smoothly. The picture to the right shows LEX as it approaches the runway. Note how similar it looks to the X-37B.

ISRO had demonstrated the re-entry of its winged vehicle RLV-TD in the HEX mission in May 2016. … In HEX, the vehicle landed on a hypothetical runway over the Bay of Bengal. Precise landing on a runway was an aspect not included in the HEX mission. The LEX mission achieved the final approach phase that coincided with the re-entry return flight path exhibiting an autonomous, high speed (350 kmph) landing.

The next step will of course be to launch an orbital version, and bring it back to Earth for reuse.

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SpaceX and Chinese pseudo-company complete launches

9:46 am

Two launches today. First, a new Chinese pseudo-company, dubbed Space Pioneer, completed the first launch of its liquid kerosene-fueled Tianlong-1 rocket, putting a military surveillance satellite into orbit.

Space Pioneer is the third Chinese pseudo-company to achieve orbit, but the first to do it with a liquid-fueled rocket. The previous two, Ispace and Galactic Energy, used solid-fueled rockets based on military missile technology. All of these Chinese companies follow a private model. An individual or a group of individuals creates the company, obtains private investment capital, and then wins contracts from the Chinese government. What makes them pseudo is that they do not work independently and freely, and really do not own their products. The Chinese government supervises and approves everything, and can take over at any time.

The second launch today was by SpaceX, using its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California to put a new smallsat constellation of ten military satellites, designed to test the quick development (under two years) of such smallsats for use by the military.

The first stage successfully completed its second flight, landing back at Vandenberg. The fairings completed their fourth and sixth flights, respectively.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

22 SpaceX
14 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads China 25 to 14 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 25 to 24. SpaceX by itself trails the entire world, including American companies, 22 to 27.

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Stratolaunch’s Roc airplane completes another test flight

9:31 pm

Stratolaunch today announced that it has successfully completed the third capture-carry test using its giant Roc airplane, carrying an engineering test version of its Talon vehicle, designed to do hypersonic flight tests for the Air Force.

The flight was the tenth for the company’s launch platform Roc and marks the beginning of routine flight operations in Vandenberg Space Force Base’s Western Range off California’s central coast. The flight, which lasted a total of five hours, performed risk reduction by practicing a variety of separation profiles and confirming telemetry between Roc and Talon-A vehicles and Vandenberg Space Force Base’s communication assets, assuring that back-up telemetry data collection will occur during future flight tests.

Pending results of post-flight data analysis, the team will progress toward a separation test in the coming weeks, enabling the company to perform its first hypersonic flight in 2023.

There is a lot of potential test capability for Roc and Talon, not just with hypersonic missiles and aircraft. If Stratolaunch succeeds in fulfilling this Air Force contract, it will likely garner a good amount of additional business.

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Lunar rover startup signs deal to send rover to the Moon using Starship

9:25 pm

The lunar rover startup Astrolab has signed a deal with SpaceX to send its FLEX rover to the Moon’s south pole region using a lunar lander version of Starship.

Jaret Matthews, founder and chief executive of Astrolab, said in an interview that the mission, which will include 1,000 kilograms of customer payloads, will be the first flight of the FLEX rover. It will be a rideshare payload on a Starship mission landing somewhere in the south polar region of the moon.

“Because our rover can traverse up to a couple thousand kilometers in a given year, we’re less sensitive to exactly where we land,” he said. “’It is definitely optimized for the south polar region because that’s fundamentally where we think that the bulk of the activity is going to be.”

The company unveiled a full scale prototype of its rover one year ago, when it made it clear it intended to compete for the rover contract in NASA’s Artemis program, competing against several big established players. Since then there has been little news. The story today sadly reeks to me of a lot of blarney. For example, the company has only 20 employees. Astrolab might have signed this deal, but I suspect it is a very tentative deal, easily canceled by either party at no cost.

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Update on MOXIE’s two years on Mars, producing oxygen

9:17 pm

Link here. MOXIE is a technology test instrument on the rover Perseverance that has proven it will be possible to practically produce sufficient oxygen from the Martian atmosphere to sustain a human colony.

The link provides a nice summary of everything the engineering team has accomplished since Perseverance landed in testing this technology. As I wrote in my December post about MOXIE’s achievements:

Based on these tests, MOXIE has unequivocally proven that future human explorers will not need to bring much oxygen with them, and will in fact have essentially an unlimited supply, on hand from the red planet itself. More important, MOXIE has also proven that the technology to obtain this oxygen already exists.

All we need to do is plant enough MOXIE trees on Mars.

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Midnight repost: The Democratic Party of thugs and goons

1:01 am

The indictment of Donald Trump this week on bogus charges by a local New York Democratic Party machine politician, done for entirely political reasons, once again illustrates the ugliness of that party. Seems therefore appropriate to repost this August 2022 essay. The only thing that has changed since then an increase in the aggressive, vicious, and violent nature of the Democrats and their allies in the various LBGQTBIBOC etc queer and bigoted identity movements. They are acting with ever greater impunity, while we certainly have not seen any clear evidence that the decent population of the United States has risen up in outrage. Instead, it increasingly appears they are bowing their heads in fear, and letting the bullies win.

It also appears that even if decent Americans finally now step up with outrage, it will be too little too late. For far too long they slept, and now they reap the whirlwind.

The Democratic Party of thugs and goons

Rick, stating the truth in Casablanca
Will the Trump raid finally wake Americans up?

While the outrage and fury has only begun to rise over the unjustified raid of the home of former President Donald Trump yesterday by the FBI, ordered by Biden Justice Department with a warrant issued by an Obama-supporting judge with ties to Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex operation, nothing about that raid was anything new or startling. For the past seven years, since Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, the Democratic Party and its supporters have increasingly acted like Nazi storm-troopers, willing, able, and eager to crush their opponents at every opportunity, and to do so cruelly and with great viciousness.

I therefore ask, shouldn’t we have exhibited the same amount of rage and fury for the hundreds and hundreds of ordinary Americans these same thugs have harassed and ruined since 2016? Why did it take a raid on Trump to finally bring that rage to the forefront?

Two Americans committed suicide because of Biden administration persecution after they dared protest the questionable election of Joe Biden on January 6th. What about them?

Scores of conservative FBI agents in the past two years have been fired from their jobs, simply because they did not agree politically with the Democrats. What about them?

What about the arrest by the FBI of a Republican candidate for Michigan governor, simply because he had also protested on January 6th the questionable election of thug Joe Biden? Or the threats of violence and murder against Supreme Court justices by leftist Democratic Party allies?

What about the effort by Biden’s labor board to shut down the conservative outlet The Federalist, simply because its founder sent out an anti-union joke?

What about the former Trump lawyer whose career was destroyed, simply because he was a former lawyer of Trump?

These stories are only a small sampling of the political abuses of power exercised by Democrats and the Biden administration time after time against their political opponents in just the last eighteen months. The list is long and painful to read.
» Read more

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Spain’s government officially establishes a Spanish space agency

9:41 am

Spain’s Council of Ministers has voted to officially established a Spanish space agency, with operations beginning on March 7, 2023 with an initial budget of $753 million.

This announcement comes only a month before the private Spanish company, PLD, attempts its first suborbital launch from a Spanish spaceport of its Miura-1 rocket, its first stage designed to come back to Earth by parachute, recovered, and then reused. If successful the company hopes to then develop an orbital version.

The news from Europe increasing suggests that the members of the European Space Agency (ESA) are beginning to go their own way, relying less upon it. In addition to these developments in Spain, Germany now has three private companies developing rockets while Italy’s government has provided $308 million to its own Italian rocket company Avio. The United Kingdom meanwhile has had its own space agency for several years, is building several spaceports, and has been trying to develop its own space industry, with very mixed results. In addition, both Norway and Sweden are building spaceports for commercial operations.

ESA, while mouthing support for commercial space, has so far not done well in the past decade in transitioning from a government run, built, and owned operation to one owned by commercial companies. Its new Ariane-6 rocket, built and controlled by ArianeGroup but heavily managed by ESA, is still too expensive to compete with the new commercial rockets from the U.S. Nor does it appear ESA is moving very fast to fix this situation. It appears many people in Europe have recognized this state of affairs, and are looking for alternatives.

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Two launches by China

9:15 am

China's spaceports
China’s spaceports

China yesterday and today successfully completed two launches using two different rockets from two different spaceports.

First, a Long March 2D rocket yesterday launched a set of four satellites establishing a new constellation of radar satellites designed to measure the Earth’s surface topography. Lift off was from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in the northeast of China. No word on where the rocket’s first stage crashed.

Next, a Long March 4C rocket today placed in orbit a classified military “remote-sensing” satellite, lifting off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China’s northwest. Once again, no information was released on where the first and second stages of the rocket crashed to Earth.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

21 SpaceX
13 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads China 24 to 13 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 24 to 23. SpaceX now trails the entire world combined, including American companies, 26 to 21.

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Virgin Orbit shuts down

5:12 pm

Unable to secure new funding, the managers of Virgin Orbit have shuttered the company, possibly forever.

Virgin Orbit is ceasing operations “for the foreseeable future” after failing to secure a funding lifeline, CEO Dan Hart told employees during an all-hands meeting Thursday afternoon. The company will lay off nearly all of its workforce. “Unfortunately, we’ve not been able to secure the funding to provide a clear path for this company,” Hart said, according to audio of the 5 p.m. ET meeting obtained by CNBC.

The layoffs include all but 100 positions, about 85% of its workforce.

The company was killed because the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) took an extra six months approving a launch license, during which the company could launch nothing and thus make no money. Lacking revenue, it ran out of cash. If the company goes into bankruptcy, this detail is most intriguing:

Branson has first priority over Virgin Orbit’s assets, as the company raised $60 million in debt from the investment arm of Virgin Group.

In other words, Branson will be able to walk off with everything, and even resurrect the company as his own, for pennies on the dollar. If he does, I guarantee our bankrupt mainstream press will shower him with praise, calling him a hero.

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Frank Rubio’s flight to ISS will exceed a year, setting a new American record

10:25 am

Frank Rubio
Frank Rubio

Initially, Frank Rubio’s first flight in space was intended to be a standard six month mission on ISS. Launched on September 21, 2022 on a Soyuz-2 rocket inside a Soyuz capsule, the plan was for him and his two crewmates to return in March, 2023.

Then their Soyuz capsule developed a leak in its coolant system in December 2022. Not knowing if it was safe to use this capsule with humans inside, a replacement unmanned Soyuz capsule was launched by the Russians to ISS in February 2023, with the leaking Soyuz capsule brought back unmanned earlier this week.

The Russians however decided that this new capsule, designed for a six month mission, would stay in orbit for six months, so that it would be used to its planned capability. This decision also hinged on the lack of a new crew arriving on this new capsule. If it brought Rubio and his crew home earlier, ISS would be short three crew members for at least several months.

The planned return date, September 27, 2023, now means that Rubio’s mission will be at least 371 days long, making him the first American to fly a full year in space. Previously NASA falsely touted Scott Kelly’s 340-day mission as a year-long mission, when it never was. Later, Mark Vande Hei’s mission, also launched on a Soyuz, was extended to 355 days, still just short of a year, because the Russians wanted to send a film crew to ISS and return them on the capsule which Vande Hei was intended to come home on.

Whether Rubio truly does spend a year in space however remains uncertain. Two different Russian spacecraft — the Soyuz and a Progress freighter — have developed this coolant leak in the past three months. If this problem is a systemic manufacturing error, which Russia is now investigating, the decision might be to return the new capsule sooner than planned, out of fear it will develop its own leak. We shall likely find out sometime in the next three months.

If Rubio does end up in space for a full year, however, it will likely be a dream come true, having become an astronaut in 2017 but waiting six years for his first flight.

6 comments

H3 failure delays Japan’s entire space program

9:53 am

According to one official of Japan’s space agency JAXA, the failure of the first launch of its new H3 rocket in early March now threatens the schedule of much of Japan’s entire space program, even those missions being launched on the older H2A rocket.

The investigation into the launch failure, when the upper stage of the H3 rocket failed to ignite, remains unfinished with no word when it will be completed.

The H3 upper stage uses an engine designated LE-5B-3 developed by MHI [Mitsubishi Heavy Industries] and similar to the LE-5B engine used on the existing H-2A rocket. That is putting launches of the H-2A on hold while the investigation continues.

That may delay the upcoming launch of two science missions sharing an H-2A. The X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM), an X-ray astronomy spacecraft, and the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), a lunar lander, were scheduled to launch together as soon as May on an H-2A.

The article notes that XRISM replaces a 2016 Japanese X-ray telescope that failed immediately after launch. That failure then was bad, but just as bad is the seven years it has taken JAXA to have a replacement ready.

The H3 failure also threatens a JAXA Mars mission scheduled for launch in 2024, during the next launch window to Mars.

Japan’s space program more and more resembles Russia’s. It is controlled entirely by the government, which it appears does not allow competition within Japan, as all major rocket work is apparently confined to Mitsubishi. There have been unending quality control problems, within many probes as well as in the development of both the H3 and the Epsilon rockets. And the pace of operations is slow, much slower than other nations or companies.

It seems a major reform is needed, and it should start with Japanese government officials reading Capitalism in Space. They need to open up competition and release their space program from the control of JAXA, especially because JAXA is not doing a very good job. Like NASA, it would be better if JAXA stopped being a designer and builder, and become merely a customer obtaining products from many different competing private companies.

4 comments

Psyche asteroid mission now scheduled for October 2023 launch

3:40 pm

After a year delay because certain flight software was not ready on time for its first launch window in the fall of 2022, the science team for the Psyche asteroid mission are now aiming for an October 2023 launch.

The launch period will open Oct. 5 and close Oct. 25. The asteroid, which lies in the outer portion of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, may be the remains of a core of a planetesimal, a building block of a rocky planet.

Due to the new launch date, Psyche has a new mission plan, which includes a flyby of Mars for a gravity assist and arrival at the asteroid in August 2029. The mission then will enter its 26-month science phase, collecting observations and data as the spacecraft orbits the asteroid at different altitudes.

Meanwhile, the two Janus probes that were to launch with Psyche last year remain in limbo, as this new Psyche launch date is useless to that mission’s plan to fly past a different asteroid.

One comment

Boeing & NASA; 1st Starliner manned mission to now launch on July 21

3:34 pm

In a update posted by NASA today, agency and Boeing officials announced that they are now aiming to launch Boeing’s Starliner capsule on July 21, 2023 on its first manned mission to ISS.

The new target date provides NASA and Boeing the necessary time to complete subsystem verification testing and close out test flight certification products and aligns with the space station manifest and range launch opportunities.

The specifics behind this somewhat meaningless press release jargon can be found at this twitter thread. Apparently Boeing & NASA want to do more ground tests of the capsule’s parachute system as well as its flight software. There also appears to be some issue relating to the capsule’s batteries.

Boeing is also mulling a redesign of Starliner’s batteries for after this delayed crewed flight test. It also expects to redesign Starliner’s smart initiator system, which separates the crew from service module. NASA’s paying $24 million for that redesign amid added requirements

Though Boeing has a fixed price contract with NASA, if NASA demands redesigns or changes it has to pay for them. That Boeing and NASA are finding these issues at this late date, four years after Starliner was first supposed to launch, does not speak well of Boeing’s workmanship and quality control systems.

3 comments
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