Tag: politics

Spinlaunch releases video of its 7th test launch

9:41 am

Capitalism in space: Spinlaunch on April 18th released a video providing what it calls “an inside look” at the company’s procedures during its 7th test launch on March 22, 2022.

I have embedded the video below. Note that on this test launch, the projectile was lifted to only about 30,000 feet, which does not qualify it as a suborbital space flight. Still, the video also indicates that their test projectile not only survived the launch’s extremely high accelerations, reaching a speed of 1,200 miles per hour in mere seconds, but once it hit the ground it was in good enough shape to reuse.

The video also reveals one other interesting fact. Their mission control consisted of only two people, significantly less than the mission control staffs used by the commercial rocket companies, which are themselves significantly less that the mission control teams that NASA has used.
» Read more

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Pushback: College that demanded professor use fake pronouns loses lawsuit, must pay him $400K

1:14 pm

A victory for free speech
A victory for free speech

Don’t comply: When in 2018 the public college Shawnee State University in Ohio tried to force philosophy professor Nicholas Meriwether to use a student’s preferred female pronouns, even though the student was a biological male, Meriwether refused.

The school then performed “a formal investigation” which declared that Meriwether was creating “a hostile environment” for the student, simply because Meriwether refused to let that student force him to say things he disagreed with.

Shawnee State officials then placed a written warning in the professor’s file, demanding he change the way he addresses transgender students to avoid being fired or suspended without pay.

Rather than bow, Meriwether contacted the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a free speech law firm focused on protecting the first amendment rights of Americans. They sued, and have now won a big victory for freedom of speech.
» Read more

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Biden administration vows to cease anti-satellite tests

9:35 am

The Biden administration yesterday announced that it is prohibiting the military from conducting any further anti-satellite tests that would result in the destruction of an orbiting target satellite.

The ban is focused entirely on preventing further space junk produced by such tests.

It … is extremely limited in scope to testing of direct ascent destructive ASAT missiles — a formulation that leaves open the possibility of using such ASATs in conflict, not to mention testing and use of a host of other types of both destructive (think directed energy) weapons and those such as jammers that create temporary disruptions to functionality.

The goal appears to be to encourage other nations, such as China and Russia, to agree to their own bans. Considering the present state of world tensions, I think that is a pie-in-the-sky expectation. Both Russia and China have made it clear they are pursuing this space military capability aggressively. Neither has indicated the slightest interest in backing off.

The result? The U.S. under our bankrupt establishment leadership has once again unilaterally weakened its capabilities to protect itself, even as other hostile powers work to become stronger. And I say “once again” because this has been the pattern from Washington and Europe now for five decades. Except for outsider Trump, all western leaders have repeatedly acted as if they lived in a fantasy world of unicorns and rainbows. Consider for example Europe’s decision in the past decade to rely on Russia energy. They now find themselves at Russia’s aggressive mercy.

This decision is another example of this pie-in-the-sky approach. Since every previous American anti-satellite test had aimed at satellites already about to burn up in the atmosphere, those tests produced no space junk. Thus, banning the military’s ability to conduct such tests has done nothing to reduce future junk. All it has done is tied the U.S.’s hands, under a fantasy that acting nice will somehow get the Russians and Chinese to do the same.

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SLS launch now definitely delayed until July, at the earliest

9:05 am

NASA yesterday admitted that with the decision to return SLS to the vehicle assembly building (VAB) before completing its dress rehearsal countdown, it is now impossible to launch SLS in the June launch window as planned, and that the earliest the rocket could launch would be July.

This summary of the issues that dogged the rocket during the three attempts to complete that dress rehearsal illustrates the likelihood that SLS has many engineering loose ends still unresolved:

On April 3 it was malfunctioning fans on the Mobile Launcher needed to clear hazardous fumes. On April 4, it was a defective helium check valve on the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage, ICPS, the Space Launch System’s second stage. On April 14, it was a hydrogen leak on the SLS first stage, or Core Stage.

Once again, having such problems during the first countdown of a new rocket is not unusual. What is questionable is only finding them now, at the very end of the rocket’s development.

I predict the launch will be further delayed until the fall, at which time NASA might face a much more serious issue regarding SLS’s two strap-on solid rocket boosters. During the shuttle era NASA had always placed a one year limit on their use once they were stacked, because it was believed that standing in a vertical position for too long could warp and distort the solid rocket fuel, thus causing it to burn improperly during launch.

These boosters were first stacked near the end of 2020, so their use-by date should have been January 2022, at the latest. Not launching until the fall will place them nine to eleven months past that date. And since these boosters are taller than the one’s used by the shuttle, they are heavier which makes extending that lifespan even riskier.

Thus, if NASA decides it must replace the boosters, that will likely delay the launch another three to six months, pushing it into ’23 at the earliest. If NASA decides to go with these boosters, it poses a real risk of failure during launch, a failure that will certainly destroy the rocket.

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Pushback: Threatened with blacklisting, a conservative student fought back so hard she is now in charge

12:20 pm

Olivia Gallegos
Gallegos is also participating in Wichita State’s
first Collegiate Leadership Competition

Don’t comply! In February I wrote a pushback story about Olivia Gallegos, an Hispanic conservative at Wichita State University who, when denied nomination as a candidate for the student government for daring to nominate a conservative for recognition, not only refused to take a racial sensitivity class, put together a write-in campaign and won election to the student government anyway.

Her victory also included getting the Wichita student supreme court to overturn the decision of the student government to deny her conservative student club from getting official status at the college.

It appears Gallegos did not take even these victories lying down. She followed them up by running for president of that student government, and then winning that election on April 6th. The election also saw the defeat of one of the main accusers against Gallegos who had led the charge to block the conservative student club.

As a result, Gallegos is now the leader of the student government that only six months earlier had been dedicated to censoring and blacklisting conservatives.

Gallegos did not campaign and win as a conservative, however, but as someone dedicated to “a four-point platform of transparency, financial literacy, mental health and safety.” As she said during a public town hall meeting during the campaign:
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Pieces of old Long March 3B rocket fall in India

9:09 am

It appears that pieces of an old Long March 3B rocket, launched on February 4, 2021, have fallen in India earlier this month.

On April 2, locals of Sindewahi tehsil were shocked to see six metallic spheres, metal balls and a metallic ring falling from the sky. Similar objects fell from the sky simultaneously in parts of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat.

This is not an example of China dumping the expendable first stage of a rocket on the ground during launch. These pieces came from the rocket’s upper stage, which reached orbit in ’21 and only now fell to Earth when its orbit decayed. Usually, most of the upper stage of a rocket burns up upon re-entry. However, certain pieces, such as the inner helium tanks that keep the larger fuel and oxidizer tanks pressurized, are sometimes strong enough to survive re-entry. It is likely that these tanks are the metallic spheres.

To avoid this, the rocket’s upper stage engine needs to be fired one last time to aim the re-entry over the ocean. SpaceX does this routinely. It appears at least in this one case China did not.

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NASA abandons 4th attempt to complete SLS dress rehearsal countdown

9:15 am

UPDATE: NASA today decided to scrub a fourth attempt to complete a full dress rehearsal countdown of its SLS rocket on April 21 later this week, and roll the rocket back to the vehicle assembly building (VAB).

NASA said that its contractors, as well as its agency’s, will use the next several weeks to address problems that cropped up during the fueling tests when the SLS rocket returns to the large Vehicle Assembly Building. For example, gaseous nitrogen system supplier Air Liquide will upgrade its capabilities. NASA will also replace a faulty check valve on the upper stage of the rocket, as well as fix a leak on the mobile launch tower’s “tail service mast umbilical,” a 10-meter-tall structure that provides propellant and electricity lines to the rocket on the pad.

This situation is increasingly becoming a big problem for NASA, and the SLS rocket. After returning it to the VAB it will take several weeks to address the issues that caused the aborts on the previous attempts. If the agency then repeats the wet dress rehearsal to make sure all is well and then returns the rocket again to the VAB, it would delay the actual launch to late summer or early fall. At that point the two strap-on solid rocket boosters will have been stacked almost two years, almost twice as long as they are supposed to before launch.

The agency could attempt to roll out the rocket for a dress rehearsal, and then proceed directly to launch. That would allow the possibility of a launch in the early summer, but for that plan to work everything must work perfectly.

The many problems during the dress rehearsal were in themselves not bad marks against the rocket or program. This was a test to iron out kinks in the launch procedures, and such issues should be expected. The real problem is that these kinks during launch countdown are being worked out now, at the very end of development, rather at the beginning. They suggest that the rocket has a lot of engineering loose ends that were not thoroughly tested and worked out in development, thus increasing the likelihood of a complete failure during actual launch.

This rocket was first conceived in 2004. Its development, in fits and starts, has now been on-going for 18 years. The total cost exceeds $30 billion (not including the $20 billion or so spent on the Orion capsule). That it is not ready to launch is a striking condemnation of our entire government. The rocket was designed by Congress, and NASA’s program to build it has been costly, slow, and poorly managed, from the beginning.

As I wrote in 2011, it should have been scrapped more than a decade ago, replaced with rockets from the private sector. Had our incompetent federal government done that we would likely be launching humans to the Moon, now, and saved a lot of money in the process.

Original post:
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NASA has now scheduled for no earlier than April 21, 2022 its fourth attempt to complete a SLS dress rehearsal countdown, stymied the last time by a hydrogen fuel leak.

Each delay puts further pressure on the agency’s hope of launching in June. And each launch delay puts the rocket’s solid rocket boosters farther and farther past their use-by date that officially arrived in January.

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Astronauts return from Chinese station; China launches satellite

9:06 am

Late yesterday China’s Shenzhou descent capsule successfully brought home three astronauts from its Tiangong-3 space station after spending six months in space.return from Chinese station.

During their stay they completed two spacewalks and prepared the station for the arrival of two more large modules in the next six months.

China yesterday also used its Long March 4C rocket to launch a new radar satellite designed to observe the Earth’s atmosphere.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

13 SpaceX
11 China
5 Russia
2 ULA
2 Rocket Lab

The U.S. still leads China 20 to 11 in the national rankings. Note that at this moment the U.S. total is more than all other nations combined (19).

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The Ukraine War: Little change in the past week

5:30 pm

The Ukraine War as of April 7, 2022
The Ukraine War as of April 7, 2022. Click for full map.

Since my last weekly report on the Ukraine War, so little has changed that I am not bothering posting a new map. The one to the right is from April 7th, and other than some minor changes, including the completion of Russia’s full withdrawal from the entire northern regions, the front line in the east remains essentially the same. The most recent map from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) can be found here for comparison. In one place Russia appears to have pushed forward, while in another it has pulled back. Meanwhile, ISW reports increased Ukrainian resistance efforts in one large area.

Overall, the Russians appear bogged down, while the Ukrainians show renewed military strength.

The Institute today also published its weekly summary of the entire war situation. The most important takeaway is that it appears all negotiations between the two nations have collapsed.

Ukraine and Russia are both unlikely to advance ceasefire negotiations until the ongoing Russian campaign in eastern Ukraine develops further. The Kremlin likely seeks to capture at minimum the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, while Kyiv seeks to further degrade the Russian military and potentially conduct major counteroffensives.

This fact suggests strongly to me that the Ukraine has concluded its military situation is excellent, and that negotiations serve it no purpose. While Russia has been focusing its invasion effort entirely in the east in the hope it might make more gains that way, it has also made very little progress. While it continues to slowly take control of Mariupol street-by-street, the city has remained unconquered now many weeks longer than expected. This failure of Russia to quickly take the city not only ties up a large part of their military, it sows morale issues in its own army while the Ukraine resistance is enlivened by it.

The next few weeks will reveal whether Russia will be able to harness the necessary forces to make further gains in the east, or whether the Ukraine will begin to retake territory back from Russia. Right now it is difficult to predict which way the war will go.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Two colleges hold segregated debate tournament that bans whites from competing

1:28 pm

Academia: dedicated to segregation!
Modern academia: dedicated to segregation!

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” Boston College and Northeastern University partnered together to run a debate tournament in October 2021 that explicitly banned whites from participating, merely because of their race.

In an email obtained by Campus Reform, Devesh Kodnani, president of the Chicago Debate Society, writes “The goal of this tournament is to promote affinity among non-white APDA debaters and cultivate racial diversity on the league.”

The email was sent to members of the University of Chicago Debate Society and clarified that “BIPOC is defined as anyone who does not identify as white.”

Topics for the debate tournament include “issues relating to race and social justice.”

While White students were ineligible to compete in the event, they were able to apply for a judging position, though the university clarified that White students would be “selected with lower priority” than students of color, Chicago Thinker reported. [emphasis mine]

More information here.
» Read more

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China’s astronauts to return after six month mission

12:40 pm

The new colonial movement: The three astronauts who have been on China’s Tiangong space station are about to return to Earth after completing a record six month mission.

Airspace closure notices indicate that Shenzhou-13 will return to Earth between 9:35 and 10:05 p.m. Eastern April 15 (9:35-10:05 local time, April 16) following departure from Tianhe.

The Shenzhou return capsule is planned to set down in a designated landing zone near Dongfeng in the Gobi Desert, Inner Mongolia.

Previous landings occurred in the grasslands of Siziwang, Inner Mongolia. Factors for the change include increasing population density around Siziwang, and the need to optimize for astronaut recovery as the duration of China’s spaceflight missions increases.

I suspect the change in landing location to inside China is also for security reasons. Tensions created by the Ukraine War has probably made China’s leaders reluctant to have their astronauts land anywhere but in China itself.

The article also outlines the upcoming plans for the next crew to Tiangong, which will be on board during the arrival of the station’s next two large modules.

The three-person Shenzhou-14 crew will be aboard the Tianhe space module for the arrival of two new modules, named Wentian and Mengtian, which will complete the three-module, T-shaped Chinese space station, later in the year.

Both of these large modules will be launched by China’s Long March 5B rocket. The previous launches of this rocket resulted in the crash of an out-of-control core stage because once it reached orbit it could not restart its engines to control its de-orbit. Though there have been hints that China may have upgraded the core stage’s engines, we do not know yet for certain if that includes the ability to restart it. If not, China should once again be prepared for some bad press as it threatens populated areas worldwide with these stages.

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Boeing and NASA set May 19th for second Starliner unmanned demo launch

10:21 am

NASA yesterday announced May 19th as the new launch date for Boeing’s second attempt to complete the first unmanned Starliner demo mission to ISS.

The uncrewed mission will test the end-to-end capabilities of the Starliner spacecraft and Atlas V rocket from launch to docking and return to Earth at one of five designated landing zones in the western United States. Following a successful completion of the OFT-2 mission, NASA and Boeing will determine a launch window for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT), Starliner’s first flight with astronauts aboard.

The first unmanned demo flight in December 2019 failed to dock with ISS and had to be cut short due to serious software issues. The launch of the second unmanned demo flight was scrubbed mere hours before launch in August of 2021 due to serious valve issues.

Thus, Boeing’s manned capsule is more than two years behind schedule. Not only has Boeing had to pay more than $400 million for a second demo mission, the delays have caused a lot of business with NASA and with tourists to instead go to SpaceX. Hopefully, the company has finally fixed all issues and will succeed and begin manned operations later this year.

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TASS: China has suspended science partnerships with Russia

9:59 am

According to Alexander Sergeev, President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Chinese scientists have also suspended all cooperation with Russia’s Academy of Sciences, as have all western nations due to its invasion of the Ukraine.

“If we talk about the southern or eastern directions, unfortunately, I can say directly that our Chinese scientific colleagues have also pressed the pause [button], and over the past month we have not been able to enter into serious discussions, despite the fact that we had excellent cooperation along with regular communication,” Sergeev said.

It is impossible to say at this point whether the actions of these Chinese scientists to refuse cooperation with Russia is based on a decision of the Chinese government, or simply reflects the decision of the scientists themselves. I would suspect the former, but if so it is quite surprising, as China’s communist government has made no such announcement. It could also be that China has decided it does not want to appear a party to Russia’s invasion in any way, but also does not want to make that decision public. Thus, it might have told its scientists to pause all work, but do this quietly.

Let me add that this statement by Sergeev could also be simply disinformation, demanded on him by Putin’s government. While Russian scientists tend to deal straight with other scientists, the situation is unique. For example, Dmitry Rogozin today claimed in TASS that the private space company Axiom owes Russia about $25 million for the nearly year-long flight of Mark Vande Hei to ISS. The problem is that this is utterly wrong. Axiom had nothing to do with Vande Hei’s flight. He was a NASA astronaut. Rogozin’s statement however is aimed at the Russian public — which has limited resources to question his statements — and is designed to slander both NASA and the private companies that now compete with Roscosmos.

If Rogozin can so nonchalantly issue false statements like this for propaganda reasons, so can Sergeev.

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China’s Long March 3B/E rocket launches communications satellite

9:50 am

China today successfully placed a commercial communications satellite into orbit using an upgraded version of its Long March 3B rocket, dubbed the Long March 3B/E.

The 3B/E includes a larger first stage using more powerful engines as well as upgraded strap-on boosters. No word if these upgrades included either grid fins or parachutes or any ability to control the crash of the stage or boosters. As the launch was from one of China’s interior spaceports, these stages crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

13 SpaceX
10 China
5 Russia
2 ULA
2 Rocket Lab

The U.S. still leads China 20 to 10 in the national rankings.

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Third SLS dress rehearsal countdown scrubbed before completion

1:29 pm

NASA engineers today scrubbed their third attempt to complete a dress rehearsal countdown of the agency’s giant SLS rocket when a leak was detected in a hydrogen fuel line.

The team will not conduct the terminal countdown activities today as planned and will assess next steps after today’s operations.

The problem appears to be “a leak … in the tail service mast umbilical.”

It is not clear yet how much of the countdown and fueling will be completed. Because of a faulty valve in the upper stage, NASA management had already decided to eliminate fueling of the rocket’s upper stage from the rehearsal. The problem today appears to involve the core first stage’s hydrogen tanks, which are presently partly filled only about 5%. Based on their last tweet, it appears they have not drained the tank, though they apparently will not continue the rehearsal today.

UPDATE: NASA just tweeted the following:

Teams have confirmed they have satisfied the test objectives for the ICPS [upper stage] LH2 [hydrogen tank] chilldown and after gathering additional data, will work to drain propellant from the rocket. They will inspect the TSMU umbilical connection, review data, and establish a go-forward plan.

This sounds as if the agency might decide they have completed enough of the dress rehearsal to consider it complete, and will now roll the rocket back to the vehicle assembly building for further check out.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Twitter blocks Libs of Tik Tok for the crime of reposting actual leftist statements

11:44 am

Twitter: Home for censorship
Twitter: Home for censorship.

The new dark age of silencing: Twitter yesterday suspended for twelve hours the account of “Libs of Tik Tok,” preventing the anonymous woman who runs it from continuing to post actual Tik Tok rants by leftists as well as the public school teachers who insist on promoting sexual perversion to children (but then I repeat myself).

The account was suspended for “hateful conduct,” which is a broad and vague category used by Twitter to suspend accounts that violate a policy that is equally broad and vague.

The policy says that “You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.”

So what specifically was Libs of Tik Tok’s “hateful conduct?” We do not know, since Twitter as usual did not provide any specific information. However, Libs of Tik Tok has been in the forefront of making the public especially aware of the large number of very sick and dangerous people who now teach in the public schools. And she does this with very little commentary. Instead, she simply digs about in Tik Tok and finds their own rants, and simply republishes them on Twitter. As they tend to be ugly hateful screes that actually promote the idea of perverting young children without the knowledge of their parents, no commentary is needed. They condemn themselves. More important, their own words have done much to energize parents nationwide to retake school boards and force such evil people from the schools.

If you don’t believe me just take a look at the site. Right now there are several such rants from leftist teachers, insisting that parents should have no say in what the schools teach their young children.

Of course, the leftists who run Twitter cannot have this, since they are allied with these corrupt teachers. Too much free speech reveals their agenda, and that is a threat. So yesterday Libs of Tik Tok was shut down temporarily, though you can bet this is only a shot across the bow. As Libs of Tik Tok has previous written:
» Read more

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SpaceX goes full speed ahead on construction of Starship launchpad in Florida

9:17 am

Capitalism in space: Faced with regulatory delays caused by the Biden administration that are preventing further Starship launches from Boca Chica, SpaceX has accelerated construction of a new Starship launchpad at its facility in Florida.

Compared to SpaceX’s Starbase tower assembly [in Boca Chica], Florida Starship work appears to be proceeding at a similar pace. SpaceX began assembling the fourth Florida tower section about 30 days after starting the first, while Starbase took about 25 days to reach the same point. However, SpaceX does appear to be taking a slightly different approach for Pad 39A. On top of tower section assembly, SpaceX is constructing an extra four sets of the small concrete foundations and steel frames each tower section is assembled on, implying that Starship’s Florida launch tower could be almost entirely prefabricated before SpaceX begins to combine those sections.

Meanwhile, Boca Chica remains blocked. While the FAA says it will issue approval of its environment reassessment by the end of this month, SpaceX would be foolish to believe this. It has become very clear that the Biden administration has so far allowed the federal bureaucracy free rein to obstruct SpaceX. For the company to think things will suddenly change now is to be living a fantasy. It must move forward to satisfy its investors.

Worsening the situation in Texas was the decision by the Army Corps of Engineers to suspend the permit process on a request by SpaceX to expand its Boca Chica facility. It appears SpaceX failed to provide the Corps some required information, possibility because the company sees no reason now to complete this expansion if the Biden administration is going to ban Starship launches from Texas.

Faced with this political situation, Texas governor Greg Abbott yesterday claimed he is fighting the stonewalling by the Biden administration, but provide no specifics:

“What I am going to do if Biden interferes with the ability of SpaceX to launch from Boca Chica; I am going to be working every step of the way to make sure that they are going to be able to launch from Boca Chica. We heard the vision from Mr. Patel himself about what they are working on and our job is to make sure they are able to achieve their vision. And I have worked with Elon Musk very closely with regard to Tesla and the Giga factory in Austin, Texas. And we will be working with him very closely, every step of the way in Boca Chica for the future of SpaceX. We want that future and that vision to come from Boca Chica, from Brownsville, Texas.”

Allow me to translate this political blather into plain English: “I can’t or won’t do anything, but I am now going to make a superficial claim of action so my Texas constituents won’t get angry at me.”

It appears more and more that the first orbital test flight of Starship will take place in Florida, not Texas. And if so, it will be delayed for at least another six months because of this government interference.

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Europe removes its science instruments from future Russian lunar missions

8:43 am

The Europe Space Agency (ESA) yesterday announced that because of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine it will no longer fly any science instruments on three upcoming Russian unmanned lunar probes.

ESA will discontinue cooperative activities with Russia on Luna-25, -26 and -27. As with ExoMars, the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the resulting sanctions put in place represent a fundamental change of circumstances and make it impossible for ESA to implement the planned lunar cooperation. However, ESA’s science and technology for these missions remains of vital importance. A second flight opportunity has already been secured on board a NASA-led Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) mission for the PROSPECT lunar drill and volatile analysis package (originally planned for Luna-27). An alternative flight opportunity to test the ESA navigation camera known as PILOT-D (originally planned for Luna-25) is already being procured from a commercial service provider.

In other words, Europe is switching to the many private American companies that are developing lunar landers for NASA science instruments. It has also signed onto a Japanese lunar mission. All have payload space, and all are willing to take the cash of a new customer.

Meanwhile, this is how Dmitry Rogozin responded to this decision:

“Good riddance! One less European dame off our backs, so Russia should go far with a lighter load,”

To sum this all up, when it comes to space, the Ukraine invasion has been Russia’s loss, and everyone else’s gain. Even if the invasion were to end today, it will take at least a decade to re-establish Russia’s business ties with the west.

Unfortunately, the invasion will cost the Ukraine as well. In making the above announcement ESA officials also said that it is looking for alternatives to the Ukrainian rocket engines used in its Vega-C upper stage.

At the news conference, ESA also discussed the future of its small Vega rocket, which relies on Ukraine-built engines in its upper stage. The engines are manufactured by the Ukrainian company Yuzhmash, which is based in the tech city of Dnipro. Although Dnipro has been under heavy bombardment, there have been no official reports so far about damage to Yuzhmash. It is, however, clear that ESA doesn’t expect to continue its partnership with the company in the future. “We now have sufficient engines for 2022 and 2023,” Aschbacher said. “We are working on options for 2024 and onwards based on different technologies.”

Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA’s director of space transportation, added: “We are working on engine opportunities within Europe and outside of Europe, which are either tested or, even better, already existing and fully qualified.”

Whether ESA completely breaks off its partnership with the Ukraine however is not certain. Should the war continue to favor the Ukraine, then it could be that partnership will continue. Only time will tell. Right now, it is simply prudent for ESA to look for more stable alternatives.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Seattle’s public schools to hold “listening tours” that exclude whites

3:22 pm

Jim Crow celebrated in Seattle!
Seattle, home of the new Jim Crow!

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” The public school system of the city of Seattle (SPS) has now scheduled a number of “listening sessions” for parents that, while designed to discuss ways to make the schools more welcoming, specifically exclude whites from the sessions, and divide the sessions by race and ethnicity.

SPS and the Seattle Council of Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA) is hosting seven listening sessions with superintendent Dr. Brent Jones. The remote tour starts on April 19. One of the sessions is for Black families and a second for Native American families. They also recently added meetings specifically for East African and Black Immigrant Families, plus Multigenerational African American Black Families. The district and PTSA believe these race-exclusionary meetings promote equity. But they may represent illegal discrimination.

While there are sessions open to the general public, most of the sessions are segregated and discriminatory. And God forbid Seattle run a listening session just for whites! Why, that would be racism!

In a sense, this story out of Seattle is not news. I have repeatedly reported stories of Seattle government and corporate officials discriminating illegally against whites while unfairly providing their favorite minorities special privileges. Some examples:
» Read more

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Pushback: Black waitress sues NYC mayor over COVID shot mandate

12:10 pm

Virginia Alleyne, blacklisted by the Democratic Party
Virginia Alleyne, blacklisted by
the Democratic Party

Don’t comply! A waitress who formerly worked at Yankee Stadium but lost her job because of the COVID shot mandate imposed by New York City mayor Eric Adams is now suing him and the city. Her suit is also fueled because of Adams’ arbitrary decision to cancel the mandate for wealthy athletes.

Virginia Alleyne’s Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit claims Hizzoner’s exemption for athletes and performers is “arbitrary and capricious” and an “abuse of discretion.”

“For him to allow millionaires to work and to punish the workers who are the lifeblood of this city is just horrendous,” Alleyne told The Post. “So many workers have lost their jobs, yet he’s rewarding the millionaires because he doesn’t want them coming after him,” she continued. “We are being punished by a blatant and egregious double standard.”

The 57-year-old Upper East Side single mom said she was placed on unpaid leave from her job as a waitress at the stadium’s high-end restaurant Legends Suite Club in September because she is unvaccinated.

This quote from her lawyer illustrates quite starkly how incredibly arbitrary and capricious Adams’ edict is:
» Read more

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Russia backs off its threats to leave ISS partnership

10:19 am

In several short news posts on Russia’s state-run press today, the Putin government indicated that it has backed off from its threats to end the partnership at ISS quickly.

First, Roscosmos’s head, Dmitry Rogozin, announced that it will proceed with its barter deal with NASA and allow astronauts from NASA and others to fly on Soyuz while Russian astronauts fly on Dragon and eventually Starliner.

“Why give up something that is useful? Anna Kikina [Russian woman cosmonaut] flew to Houston (USA) to familiarize herself with the design of the modules of the ISS American segment and the Crew Dragon spacecraft whose crew she may join. On our part, we are not ruining anything and keep to preliminary accords, although we continue waiting for the government’s decision on the program of cross flights,” Rogozin explained.

Second, Rogozin made statements that suggested Russia will maintain its full partnership on ISS through ’24, and maybe beyond.

Now Russia has to set up its mind about the year until which it cooperates on the ISS project, Rogozin said. “Yes, the Americans want it [cooperation] to last until 2030. The previous talks said that it would be until 2028. But let me repeat again that we have to decide on the main thing: to continue cooperation on the ISS or switch to the ROSS [Russian Orbital Service Station]. Subsequently, we will decide on what to do with our two new modules on the ISS that we docked last year,” Rogozin said.

In other words, Russia ain’t going no where. It might decide eventually to launch a new core module for their own station, and then transfer the newer modules on ISS to it, but none of this will happen until a final date for ISS’s deorbit is established.

Based on Rogozin’s earlier bombastic threats, I had expected Russia to take a harder position. It appears cooler heads in Roscosmos convinced Rogozin and Putin that in terms of cost and safety, a quick exit made no sense.

This decision to back off was also probably influenced by Russia’s losses in the Ukraine. It is no longer in a strong negotiating position in anything, has lost almost all its economic partnerships with the west, and thus does not wish to lose the one partnership that remains, on ISS.

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ISRO hires company to build future PSLV rockets

9:13 am

Capitalism in space: For the first time, India’s space agency ISRO is about to hire a private company to build five PSLV rockets, rather than supervise the construction in-house.

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and L&T consortium has emerged as the lowest bidder to make 5 Polar Space Launch Vehicles (PSLVs) for ISRO. “The company is the lead partner with L&T sharing the work. Other vendors too will be involved with the consortium in the manufacturing of the launch vehicles (LVs). However, the contract is yet to be formalised/ awarded,” HAL said in a statement.

If all goes as planned, the first rockets will be delivered late in ’24.

This contract changes less than it seems, though it is a step in the right direction. ISRO has for years hired private subcontractors to build its rockets and components. What is different now is that it appears that HAL is now the lead contractor, not ISRO. HAL however does not appear to own the rockets it builds, and thus will not be able to build more to sell launches to others. Until this happens, India’s space industry will remain wholly government run.

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Today’s blacklisted American: News staffers at CBS demand network blacklist Republican

1:12 pm

CBS NEWS: Home of blacklisting

The new dark age of silencing: When the news division at CBS recently decided to hire Mick Mulvaney, a former Republican congressman and a former chief of staff for President Trump, there was a outraged revolt among the network’s news staff, demanding that the hiring be cancelled and that CBS blacklist all such partisan Republicans.

[Jeremy Barr, liberal Washington Post media reporter,] “obtained” a recording of a staff meeting led by CBS News co-president Neeraj Khemlani. Surely, the staffer recording this meeting was outraged that Khemlani said “getting access to both sides of the aisle is a priority because we know the Republicans are going to take over, most likely, in the midterms.”

Anonymous CBS News Democrats were alarmed “the network was jeopardizing its long history of journalistic excellence.” And you thought Dan Rather already did that.

“I know everyone I talked to today was embarrassed about the hiring,” said a CBS News employee who “spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment.” This is the most ridiculous use of anonymous sourcing – to protect liberals while they publicly campaign against their bosses.

» Read more

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NASA will not load fuels in SLS upper stage in next dress rehearsal countdown attempt

12:29 am

In the next attempt to complete the first “wet dress rehearsal” of NASA’s SLS rocket tomorrow, April 11th, the dress rehearsal will not be as wet as originally planned.

NASA said April 7 that engineers found a problem maintain helium purge pressure in the ICPS [SLS’s upper stage] after changing out a regulator in the mobile launch platform. At that time, the agency said it was able to restore normal pressure but was still studying the source of the problem, now linked to the faulty valve in the ICPS itself.

Because that issue, NASA now plans to limit the amount of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellant loaded into the ICPS during the WDR. NASA said the countdown rehearsal will be modified with “minimal propellant operations” on the ICPS, but didn’t elaborate on how much propellant would be transferred into the upper stage.

As usual, NASA officials are now making believe that they will achieve all their goals for the dress rehearsal if they complete it without completely fueling the upper stage. This is intellectually dishonest. This dress rehearsal was intended to test all aspects of the rocket’s launch countdown, including the fueling of all its stages. If they complete it without successfully fueling the upper stage, they will not achieve all their goals. Period.

The plan right now is to attempt this revised launch rehearsal tomorrow, then return the rocket to the vehicle assembly building where engineers will replace the faulty valve. At that point it is unclear what the agency will do next.

Though this incomplete test will have taught them a lot, if they do not redo the dress rehearsal with full loading of all stages but instead proceed to a launch attempt in the present target window from June 6 to June 16, they will be doing so with a greater risk. Of course, if the new valve works during that launch attempt, then all should be well. In fact, this risk appears quite reasonable.

Nonetheless, the fundamental problem remains: NASA is under pressure to launch, and held off this kind of testing until very late in the program. Finding these problems now puts serious limits on the ability of the agency to fix them. This in turn puts serious limits on the reliability of SLS.

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Pushback: NJ gym-owners who refused to obey COVID edicts regain business license

11:30 am

Bill of Rights, canceled in New Jersey these past two years
The Bill of Rights, canceled in New Jersey
these past two years.

A profile in courage: The owners of a New Jersey gym, Atilis Gym, who refused to comply with any of the absurd Wuhan flu restrictions imposed by Democratic Party Governor Phil Murphy and his health department have had their business license restored after two years, during which they managed to keep the gym functioning by asking for donations by those who used it.

[Ian] Smith claimed that as a result of not complying with lockdown orders, he and [Frank] Trumbetti received more than 90 citations, along with ten gym members who received citations; 9 criminal charges; that both he and Trumbetti were arrested, as well as one member; that local police changed the locks on the building, backed up their plumbing, and eventually boarded up the gym; that they were fined $15,497.76 every day they remained open, for 5 months; that $173,000 in fundraising for their legal defense was seized by the state; and that they owe more than $300,000 in legal bills. “And they took our business license,” Smith wrote. “Our ability to pursue the American dream. All for what? We were right all along. To date, 391,683 visits to our facility and people got healthier, happier, and better.”

“Well, it paid off,” Smith continued. “The township folded. They reinstated our business license. It took them 2 years to realize that nothing would make us kneel. … We made it. 2 years without charging a single member – just donations and [T-Shirt] sales. All the legal bills, fines, normal overhead, and safety equipment. We were able to do it because of you all. Thank you all again.”

Expect these owners to follow up with lawsuits to recover damages for the state’s illegal acts to try to destroy them.

Their resistance to tyranny was very painful for these brave men, but their courage cannot be applauded enough. They did what more Americans should have done, and did not. They stood up to the idiotic health orders of the state, that were based on no science at all and were completely useless:
» Read more

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Starlink delivers 5,000 terminals to Ukraine; loses license in France

9:03 am

Capitalism in space: Starlink today continued its aggressive support for the Ukraine in its war with Russia by delivering another 5,000 terminals to that beleaguered country.

Space reporter Joey Roulette tweeted Wednesday that the majority of the terminals — 3,667, to be exact — as well as the associated internet service were donated directly by SpaceX at a cost of “roughly $10 million,” with USAID purchasing the remaining 1,333 terminals. These numbers apparently came from an earlier version of the USAID release; the updated release doesn’t give dollar figures and refers only to 5,000 Starlink terminals donated by a public-private partnership.

Roulette also suggested in another tweet that France and Poland had made contributions to the Starlink shipments to Ukraine, citing an earlier conversation with SpaceX president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell. The USAID announcement only refers to the American partnership, however.

In a second story today, however, Starlink lost its ability to provide service in France, when a court ruled its license had been issued improperly.

France’s Conseil d’État ruled April 5 that French telecoms regulator ARCEP should have launched a public consultation before authorizing Starlink in February 2021.

“In law, they should normally cease [providing services] immediately, pending ARCEP’s public consultation” following the court’s decision, a Conseil d’État spokesperson told SpaceNews.

The court case was apparently instigated by two French environmental groups, who are demanding more regulations against the large satellite constellations.

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The Ukraine War: Russia in retreat in the past week

3:43 pm

The Ukraine War as of March 31, 2022
The Ukraine War as of March 31, 2022. Click for full map.

The Ukraine War as of April 7, 2022
The Ukraine War as of April 7, 2022. Click for full map.

In the last week the situation in the Ukraine changed quite radically. Last week there were hints that the Ukrainians were beginning to push back successfully against the Russians, but those gains appeared small and were uncertain.

These small gains in late March are indicated by the green arrows on the first map to the right, a simplified and annotated version of the map provided on March 31, 2022 by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). I strongly advise my readers to read their reports to get a fuller understanding of the overall the war situation. Anecdotal reports from either side do not tell you much.

The second map, published today by ISW and once again cropped and simplified by me to post here, shows starkly the retreat of Russian forces in the past week. The blue areas indicate regions now controlled by the Ukraine, with the arrows indicating the fast exit of Russian forces. The hatch-marked red areas surrounded by a black border are regions of the Ukraine captured by the Russians in 2014. The solid red areas are areas they captured in the past month and appear to still hold. The light red and tan areas are regions the Russians have entered but do not yet control with certainty.

The Russian effort to take the Ukraine entirely has clearly failed. Its gains after a little more than a month of battle are now shrinking. It has fled from Kiev so that the entire north and west of the country are no longer under attack. Though its military now claims Russia has finally taken central Mariupol in the south — after weeks of fighting — that capture is still not complete, with large sections of the city still outside of Russian control.

Meanwhile. the focus of the war shifts to the south and east, as both countries redeploy forces there. According to today’s ISW report:

Russian forces are cohering combat power for an intended major offensive in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in the coming days. Ukrainian civil and military officials continued to warn local residents to evacuate prior to a likely Russian offensive. Russian forces will likely attempt to regroup and redeploy units withdrawn from northeastern Ukraine to support an offensive, but these units are unlikely to enable a Russian breakthrough. Russian forces along the Izyum-Slovyansk axis [circled areas just north of Luhansk] did not make any territorial gains in the last 24 hours. Russian forces are unlikely to successfully capture Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts if Russian forces in Izyum are unable to encircle Ukrainian forces on the line of contact in eastern Ukraine.

The next week will tell us whether Russia can successfully shift its effort to this region, or whether the Ukrainian forces can push back and force more Russian retreats, possibly retaking all of Russia’s gains in the past month and even possibly pushing back into territories taken in 2014.

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Connecting the dots of the COVID lie

1:40 pm

What our leaders want us to be
What our leaders want us to be

There were many reasons the world panicked in 2020 when COVID appeared and spread from China. Some of that panic was motivated by natural fear of an unknown disease. Some of it was motivated by a desire for power, harnessing that fear to nullify the Bill of Rights and the legal restraints on dictatorship. Some of it was inspired by a simple blind hatred of Donald Trump, and saw an opportunity to use the virus as a tool for getting him out of power. And some of the actions of our leaders was motivated by pure and simple greed, willing to let millions die so that they could personally get rich, or richer.

To connect the dots to understand the worst players in this terrible story, we need to look at more than one story or report, each telling us something that the fear-mongers have tried to hide from us so that their dishonest and sometimes quite evil motives might not be recognized.

To begin, there are these two stories, showing that we now have solid evidence that the military committed fraud in order to hide data that showed the COVID shots were causing a terrible number of health injuries and deaths to soldiers being ordered to take them.

From the first story, describing a lawsuit that claims the Defense Department committed fraud:
» Read more

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Commercial imaging satellites prove their military worth in the Ukraine War

9:36 am

Capitalism in space: Because of the ability of private commercial satellites to obtain high resolution reconnaissance and radar images of the ground quickly, U.S. intelligence agencies decided right before the Russian invasion of the Ukraine to not only use those satellites, but to funnel that data both to the public and to the Ukraine.

“We partner with over 100 companies, we’re currently using imagery from at least 200 commercial satellites and we have about 20 or so different analytic services in our pipeline,” David Gauthier, director of commercial and business operations at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), said during a panel discussion at the 37th Space Symposium. “Because of all that, when Russia prepared to invade, we and the NRO [National Reconnaissance Office] increased and accelerated several efforts that were underway commercially,” said Gauthier.

The daily flow of intelligence that previously was only available from government sources and seldom released to the public is no accident, said Gauthier. “This moment has really been set up by a lot of hard work by many companies and many in the government to prepare ourselves to take better advantage of commercial capabilities.”

Leading up to the conflict, he said, “we more than doubled the commercial electro-optical imagery that was bought over Ukraine.” Imagery from companies like Maxar, BlackSky and Planet “was able to flow directly to those who need it, EUCOM [U.S. European Command], NATO and directly to Ukrainians,” Gauthier said.

The military’s increased reliance on reconnaissance imagery from these private commercial satellite constellations during this war is likely to accelerate the military’s switch from building its own big and expensive government satellites — which also launch rarely and provide little redundancy — to using the private sector for its needs.

In other words, the success of the private sector in this area during this war has once again proved the validity of the recommendations in my 2017 policy paper, Capitalism in Space [pdf].

The government should stop being a builder and instead become merely a customer. Let competing private companies do the work. Not only will the government get what it needs faster and for far less, the competition will fuel innovation and prosperity for the American people.

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ISRO once again delays first launch of its new SSLV rocket

9:12 am

India’s space agency ISRO today announced that it is once again delaying the first launch of its new Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) rocket.

This rocket, designed to launch cubesats and compete with private companies like Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, and Astra, was first going to launch in the summer of 2019. That launch was delayed until 2020, only to be blocked entirely for two more years because of India’s panic over the Wuhan flu.

Last month ISRO announced the successful completion of static fire tests of the rocket’s solid rocket first stage, suggesting a spring launch in ’22 would occur. That has now been delayed again, now targeting early summer.

The delays have cost India a great deal in market share. Had SSLV launched in 2020, it would have been well positioned to garner business now captured by Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, and Astra, the latter two of which were not yet operational at that time. Now India trails all these companies, with other American companies (Firefly, Relativity, ABL) on the horizon as well.

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