Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. SpacxeX
2. Eucharist
3. Drones
4. Soros
5. Aurora
6. Univision
7. SMRs
1. SpaceX. The back story of bureaucratic obstruction to last week’s Starship integrated flight test (IFT) 5 may be more interesting than the flight was. It is a tale of what appears to be wanton political payback masquerading as actual interest in the environment. Afterwards, count on California, ever the trend setter, to join the fray by voting to deny SpaceX an increase in the number of yearly flights out of Vandenberg (polar launches) because Elon Musk endorsed Donald Trump.
- The launch license for IFT 5 was issued Saturday Oct 12 for a flight the next morning. Rationale in the 61 page approval essentially concluded that SpaceX proposed actions had already been approved by the 2022 Environmental reassessment. After wasting more than two months and then essentially retyping the two year old conclusions, the license opinion concludes that there are no significant changes. It does leave them a hook to require a similar workup if SpaceX changes anything in future flight requests. This is an awful precedent, as they are doing little more than protecting their phony baloney jobs (Mel Brooks as Gov Lepetomane in Blazing Saddles). When SpaceX makes future changes, and they will, the FAA will almost certainly shut things down once again unless a new president puts them in fear of losing their phony baloney jobs.
- Zimmerman writing in Behind the Black followed a couple days later with a piece concluding that FAA top management is actively working to sabotage SpaceX. The paper trail for IFT 3 lasted Jun 2023 – Mar 2024. The paper trail for IFT 4 lasted Mar 2024 – Jun 2024. Paper trail for IFT 5 lasted Jul 2024 – Aug 12, 2024 at which point the FAA suspended the approval process under the excuse that there were new regulatory concerns (water deluge system and sonic booms). The EPA and Texas Historical Commission signed off on sonic booms by Sept 5 and the TCEQ signed off on the water deluge. Not wanting to accept yes for an answer, the FAA continued obstructing, but promising approval by late Nov. SpaceX loudly and publicly blamed the FAA for all delays on Sept 12. Sept 12 is an important date as the EPA signed off on everything then. FAA administrator Whittaker testified before congress on Sept 24, claiming there were safety concerns. Two days later, the FAA initiated another investigation, asking NFMS questions about the Starship splashdown in the Indian Ocean (FAA is now trying to regulate activity in the Indian Ocean). Whittaker ordered his people to bring NMFS back into the festivities. NMFS refused to play, as did all the other federal agencies, leaving Whittaker no choice but to issue the license on Oct 12. The administrative state is ready, willing and able to use the complex environmental regulatory framework to arbitrarily damage the efforts of a single company because its founder has expressed Double Plus Ungood political opinions. This is lawlessness and needs to be responded to with things like trees and ropes or tar and feathers or both.
- As if all the Starship licensing wasn’t enough, the FAA also grounded SpaceX due to a reentry anomaly on its second stage Sept 30. While the stage did reenter, it was not within the predicted reentry flightpath. I haven’t been able to find a lot out about the malfunction other than it seemed to be a bit more powerful than expected and fell short of the predicted flightpath, though it still was in the Pacific Ocean, well away from land. Contrast this grounding with FAA’s treatment of ULA’s Vulcan, Oct 4 which lost part of a nozzle on one of its solid strap-on rockets during launch. While the failure was not catastrophic, it was completely ignored by the FAA. The SpaceX grounding lasted until the following weekend, Oct 7, when the NASA / ESA Hera launch was approved. This was a one-time approval, due to a tight interplanetary window on an international mission. The FAA allowed the Hera launch while specifically grounding everything else. Hera went off without a hitch, embarrassing the FAA sufficient to reverse the grounding in time for another international probe Europa Clipper the next weekend.
- Final piece of foolishness aimed at SpaceX came from the California Coastal Commission, an unelected, unaccountable Board of busybodies empowered to protect all things that might impact the Cali coastline. Space Force requested an increase in SpaceX launches out of Vandenberg from 34 – 50 flights per year. The Commission voted 6-4 to reject the request. Reason given by at least three of the Commissioners was that Elon Musk had gotten too political and was campaigning for Trump. Yes, they said this in public and there is video. Musk filed suit against the Commission. He was supported by Cali governor Gavin Newsom who opined that the Commission was out of its lane.
2. Eucharist. What better way to get Catholics (and other Christians) on your side than by mocking the Eucharist, commemorating Jesus sharing his blood and body with his disciples at the Last Supper. MI governor Gretchen Whitmer managed to do this with Canadia journalist, author and influencer Liz Planik in a video last week. Planik was on her knees receiving a Dorito from Whitmer. Whitmer and her mouthpieces claimed that the act was intended to mark the important of the CHIPS Act to Michigan jobs. Catholics were enraged, as they should have been. In a related story, someone yelled Jesus is Lord, Christ is King at a Kamala rally over the weekend. She immediately responded “Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally.” “I think you meant to go the smaller one down the street.” Nice to see a professed Christian like Kamala belittling Christianity. While I understand heckling, it is the reaction to it that gives the entire game away, as Kamala could have smiled and said “Yes, He is.” She didn’t and chose to fire back rather than go with the heckler. This confirms once again that she is nothing like she pretends to be, making a show for everyone watching.
3. Drones. One of the odder stories out there is the ongoing drone activity over US military installations. This was triggered by 17 days of drone overflights over Langley AB Dec 2023. There were a dozen or more drones involved with each incursion. The number of incursions fluctuated daily. Drones did not appear to exhibit hostile intent. Identity of the operators is unknown. Note that Langley is located in a real hot spot for military installations, with at least 10 in the local area. Chief among them are US Fleet Forces Command at Norfolk. Air Combat Command (fighter guys) for the USAF are located at Langley. Newport News is also located at Norfolk. There are two more Naval Air Stations in the area along with the Coast Guard Hampton Roads. Official military response available for public consumption has been to monitor the situation and procure anti-drone nets for the 42 aircraft shelters on the flight line. Note that a Chinese national was arrested for drone activities near Langley, pled guilty under the Espionage Act and was sentenced to six months in Club Fed. Who would have the temerity to conduct this sort of military operation within the borders of the US? I can think of only two: the CCP (China) and Iran. Given that the CCP is a bit more careful than this, conducting their operations in singles or pairs, espionage style. Iran is sufficiently stupid and arrogant to do the in-your-face routine, gleefully and regularly. Only thing that mitigates this is that they are not out there bragging about it. Yet. While there may be other Bad Actors involved, my dime this morning is on Iran. What is or should the US be doing about this? I would use the opportunity to develop and field test new capabilities including some combination of directed energy / laser weapons with some sort of EMP weapon for wider use. None of these play all that well with operational F-22 jets flying regularly out of Langley. It will be a while until we hear what is actually being done. I certainly hope it is more than nothing.
4. Soros. Ever busy destroying the foundations of our nation like a giant termite, George Soros invested over $400 million in the Audacy radio network which is emerging from bankruptcy. Controlling the network will give him operational control of over 200 radio stations nationwide. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) via a 3-2 majority appointed by Joe Biden has so far fast tracked the purchase, going so far as to make an exception to the normal security review which typically takes a year to complete. Note that a similar review process was used under the Trump-controlled FCC to allow at least 7 networks to emerge from bankruptcy 2018 – 2021. Is this real? Likely, and concerning, as Soros fingerprints on anything will tend to corrupt. I would view this as popup traffic, something to watch carefully and ask a lot of questions about. My guess is the democrat majority on the FCC will try to force the approval, and that approval will be delayed a bit due to congressional interest which will in turn force the appropriate security review.
5. Aurora. Speaking of joy, Trump announced Operation Aurora. Should he be elected, Operation Aurora will aim at identifying, targeting, dismantling and removing every criminal network operating in the US. The operation will use the 1789 Alien Enemies Act to target criminal gangs of illegals Harris – Biden have imported over the last 4 years. The operation will go further and identify illegal aliens with criminal records for deportation. I expect they will be flown back and deposited on runways in their countries of origin. As much as I like this sort of thing, I do worry about these sorts of global expansions of federal power, as it echoes the very real failures of the War on Drugs which has been lost for decades. We didn’t get rid of the drugs, but we most certainly did manage to grow the power, scope and intrusiveness of federal law enforcement. Try not to make the same mistake. And whatever you put into place, sunset it so it can’t be turned against you like O’Bama managed to do with the Patriot Act in 2009.
6. Univision. Over the last couple weeks, the Kamala – Walz campaign reversed their basement campaign, deciding to go on as many media shows as possible. It hasn’t worked well, as Kamala isn’t good at it and doesn’t like doing it a lot. While the campaign goes to great lengths to only go in front of friendly interviewers, this hasn’t helped the campaign much, though viewers with popcorn who enjoy dumpster fires seem to have enjoyed themselves. One of these was an Oct 10 town hall at UNLV hosted by Univision. The crowd was ostensibly undecided Latino voters gathered from the Las Vegas streets. As with all things Kamala, this wasn’t quite the case as the crowd was either hired or selected by the network to populate the audience. Univision flew in half the attendees at their expense. These included participants from FL, WI and CA. The other half were hired by a company called FansOnQ, which provided people to attend various public events. The company is known for creating an engaging atmosphere for concerts or political events.
7. SMRs. One of the biggest stories in the energy world has been the collapse of the renewables hoax, the collapse of anti-nuclear sentiment, and the near universal embrace of nuclear as a reasonable, clean approach to generation, in this case, Small Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) as the energy solution of choice. It is Big Tech leading the charge here, as they find themselves in dire need for new power to run their data centers and most importantly, their burgeoning AI operations. AI needs energy, a Lot of energy. Amazon and Google have signed contracts with SMR providers even though those providers do not yet have operational SMRs deployed. While they are more expensive per MW-hour to operate than the larger light water reactors, they can be developed, built and operated much quicker. Of course, this assumes that the NRC will get out of the way and actually license the new machines in a timely manner. My guess is that they will have no other choice. Ironic that Big Tech, which helped spawn and spearhead the renewables hoax, will be the ones leading us out of the box canyon they flew us into. Solve energy and you go a long way to solving for the future.
More later –
- AG