Tag: SpaceX

Elon Musk’s SpaceX to Launch 2,824 Satellites to Provide Global High Speed Internet

Article by Malvika Gurung                                                May 1, 2021                                                  (trak.in)

• The FCC has given the American aerospace company SpaceX approval to deploy 2,824 Starlink satellites at a lower earth orbit, to provide high-speed internet connectivity services for rural areas and those where fiber optic cables and cell towers are unable to reach. With the Starlink satellites in place, internet speed will increase up to 100 megabytes per second.

• Lowering the altitude of satellite positioning will improve space safety and reducing power flux density emissions, thereby improving the interference environment and lower elevation angles to improve the customer experience. Lower altitudes and significant maneuverability should result in lower collision risk and an improved orbital debris environment.

• On April 28th, SpaceX launched 60 more Starlink satellites from the Space Launch Complex at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. SpaceX has transcended its initial internet constellation of 1,440 broadband satellites. The company ultimately aims to deploy about 12,000 satellites in all. The Starlink constellation will cost it roughly $10 billion.

 

In an attempt to provide high-speed internet connectivity services for rural areas and those where fiber optic cables and cell towers are unable to reach, the American aerospace company SpaceX has gotten approval to deploy over 2000 Starlink satellites at a lower earth orbit, by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

On April 28, SpaceX launched 60 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, United States.

  deploying Starlink satellites above Earth

FCC has approved SpaceX to deploy 2,824 satellites at a lower earth orbit, as part of

 a ‘train’ of Starlink satellites in the night sky

its Starlink project, to deliver high speed broadband internet to untethered regions.

SpaceX Gets Approval on Tuesday

The centibillionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX had asked FCC for approval to fly 2,824 satellites at a lower orbit of Earth, as part of its Starlink project, as per which the internet speed will increase up to 100 megabytes per second.

According to Starlink’s website, “Starlink will deliver high speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable, expensive or completely unavailable.”

57 second video of SpaceX deploying Starlink satellites into orbit (‘Chris Danelon’ YouTube)

 

1:58 minute video of a train of Starlink satellites across the sky, April 2020 (‘ViralVideoLab’ YouTube)

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Elon Musk’s Girlfriend is ‘Ready to Die With Red Dirt of Mars Beneath’ Her Feet

Article by Bhavya Sukheja                                         March 31, 2021                                                (republicworld.com)

• On March 30th, SpaceX’s Starship prototype, SN11, blasted off from the Starbase test site near Boca Chica Village, Texas. (see 5:44 minute video below) The rocket reached a height of 6.2 miles (10 kilometres) before beginning the landing procedure. About six minutes into its test flight, the stainless steel prototype Mars rocket failed and blew up over Texas. Space X CEO Elon Musk optimistically tweeted that a “significant” event took place before the landing sequence involving the engines.

• Before the launch, Musk’s 33-year-old girlfriend, Grimes (aka Claire Elise Boucher, pictured above with Musk), posted an image on Instagram posing in front of SpaceX CEO’s Starbase facility in Texas. In the caption, the Canadian singer wrote that she is “ready to die with the red dirt of Mars beneath my feet Starbase Tx”.

• The Canadian pop singer Grimes shares a son with Musk, named ‘X Æ A-Xii’. Grimes had previously admitted that she wants to help bring life to Mars. She had even confessed that she wants to relocate to the planet after she turns 50 in a bid to help erect a human colony there. Grimes said that she expects the move to the Red Planet will be “a case of manual labor until death, most likely,” but hoped that could change.

• Meanwhile, Grimes’ partner, Musk, claims that SpaceX will touch their spaceships down in Mars “well before 2030”. Musk plans to send one million people to Mars by 2050 and build a city there.

 

                     SpaceX’s Starship

Elon Musk’s girlfriend, Grimes, on March 30, took to Instagram to express her

              previous Starship test flight

extraterrestrial interests and reveal that she is “ready to die on Mars”. While her partner Musk continues with his efforts to touch down on the Red Planet, the 33-year-old singer posted an image on social media, posing in front of SpaceX CEO’s Starbase facility in Texas. In the caption, Grimes wrote that she is “ready to die with the red dirt of Mars beneath my feet Starbase Tx”.

In the picture, the Canadian singer, who shares son X Æ A-Xii with Musk, wore a long-sleeved black top with a red plaid skirt with black boots and floral leggings while posing in front of both massive cranes and the interior of Musk’s Starbase facility in Texas. It is worth mentioning that Grimes had previously admitted that she wants to help bring life to Mars. She had even confessed that she wanted to relocate to the planet after she turns 50 in a bid to help erect a human colony there.

According to Daily Mail, Grimes, whose real name is Claire Elise Boucher, had even said that the move to the Red Planet would be a case of manual labour until death most likely but admitted that she hoped that could change. Meanwhile, her partner, Musk, earlier this month had claimed that his company will touch their ships down in Mars “well before 2030”. Musk plans to send one million people to Mars by 2050 and build a city there, however, it hasn’t all been plain sailing so far in his plans.

 

5:44 minute Space X Starship SN11 launch and flight test (‘Space Videos’ YouTube)

 

5:32 minute Grimes music video ‘Genesis’ (‘Grimes’ YouTube)

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Why Elon Musk Believes Aliens Do Not Exist – For Now

Article by Kirsty Card                                     March 24, 2021                                      (dailystar.co.uk)

• SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has tweeted in the past that he IS an extraterrestrial alien. But in a March 23rd post, Musk tweeted: “Strongest argument against aliens’ … (modern) camera resolution has advanced, but UFO pictures have remained the same.” In other words, Musk concludes that extraterrestrials do not exist since the images of UFOs that we see are just floating blobs of light.

• Many Twitter followers concurred with Musk’s denial of an extraterrestrial presence. One ‘explained’ that most cameras “are only capturing 400-700 nanometers” and are not capable of capturing “true reality”. Entrepreneur Amit Paranjape added that since the birth of smartphones, random UFO sightings have dropped.

• Due to Musk’s reputation in the space industry, his tweet has sparked a debate. Of the more than 11,000 comments, artificial Intelligence scientist Lex Fridman was among his detractors, tweeting: “that’s exactly what an alien would tweet”.

• Twitter user ‘Evilspot’ seems to think that Musk is only kidding. “He does believe aliens are real,” said Evilspot… “it’s just kind of upsetting that every ‘ufo sightings’ is like 180p or something..why are the images always look like crap!” Twitter user ‘Ash WSB’ responded that “aliens move very fast.”

• In 2020, Musk claimed that the Egyptian pyramids were made by extraterrestrials. This prompted a Twitter response from Egypt’s Minister of International Cooperation, Rania al-Mashat: “I follow your work with a lot of admiration. I invite you & SpaceX to explore the writings about how the pyramids were built and also to check out the tombs of the pyramid builders. Mr. Musk, we are waiting for you,’ she added. Musk seemed to take the claim back, responding by linking an article describing how the pyramids were more likely built by humans living in an Egyptian settlement. “This BBC article provides a sensible summary for how it was done,” Musk wrote with the link.

• Musk’s current opinion that aliens do not exist comes just two days after the US government said it has evidence of UFOs breaking the sound barrier without a sonic boom. And the former Director of National Intelligence (John Ratcliffe) recently claimed that UFOs are making maneuvers that are impossible with our known technology.

• [Editor’s Note]   UFOs – both alien and those belonging to various secret space programs – use electromagnetic, anti-gravity warp drive propulsion, such as that patented several years go by Salvatore Pais with the US Navy. This creates an electromagnetic force field around the UFO craft, creating a cocoon of its own internal environment. From the ground, this looks like a blob of light, and that’s what people often capture in their photos. No doubt, Musk is aware of this.

While it appears that Musk is constantly flip-flopping on the UFO issue, he is simply parroting what his deep state handlers tell him to say so that he can hang onto his multi-billion dollar government-financed space travel, tunnel boring and artificial intelligence projects. Once the deep state is defeated and eradicated (soon hopefully), Musk will say whatever his new masters tell him to say – perhaps even the truth. But it hardly matters to Musk.

 

The billionaire CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, has previously stated on Twitter that he is an alien – but seems to have changed his mind on the subject.

On Tuesday, Musk tweeted: ‘Strongest argument against aliens’ along with two charts that shows camera resolution has advanced, but UFO pictures have remained the same.

The post in the early hours of the morning on March 23 concludes that extraterrestrials don’t exist, due to most images showing floating blobs, but many of the comments argue otherwise.

One user replied ‘that’s exactly what an alien would tweet,’ while another explains that most cameras ‘are only capturing 400-700 nanometers’ and are not capable of capturing ‘true reality.’

Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX received more than 11,000 comments, 41,000 shares and 400,000 likes to the post.
Many of his bizarre tweets typically get a lot of attention, but due to Musk’s reputation in the space industry, this one sparked a debate.

Artificial Intelligence scientist Lex Fridman was among those who disagree with the tweet, who said ‘this is exactly what an alien would tweet.’

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Space – The Next Frontier

March 24, 2021                                      (streetinsider.com)

• Nowhere is time so of the essence than in equipment designed for use in aeronautic and space applications. The list of companies having strong ambitions in the advanced space technology marketplace include space-tech firms, including Boeing Co., SpaceX, Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc, and Amazon.com Inc.

• Boeing Co. has acquired Millennium Space Systems, a provider of agile, flight-proven small-satellite solutions, and has become a major shareholder of Signal Advance Inc., a pioneer in biomedical and cybersecurity applications for Military Defense, presumably involve low-orbit space. This technology can potentially improve the performance of a wide range of devices that process analog signals in areas such as industrial process control, interventional medical devices, alarm/detection systems, flight, and vehicular control, as well as military targeting and weaponry. In short, the company’s technology effectively reduces the time it takes to get a meaningful signal from sensor-based devices or systems. This has huge implications for anything where time is of the essence.

• SpaceX founder Elon Musk said that he plans to make Tesla a publicly traded company once revenues become predictable. Given recent struggles, advancing sensor technology might be the key to SpaceX’s future. As the NYTimes put it: “If it exploded last time, try, try again. They did, and it exploded again… On Tuesday, a test flight of SpaceX’s Starship, a huge next-generation spacecraft that Elon Musk, the founder and chief executive of the private rocket company, dreams of one day sending to Mars, came to an explosive end.”

• Virgin Galactic’s model is tailored to the space tourism market. The company plans to generate billions in revenues in five to ten years carting thousands of wide-eyed space tourists up into orbit.

• Amazon is less well known in the commercial space industry. But the company has announced the establishment of a new unit called Aerospace and Satellite Solutions, led by former US Air Force Maj. Gen. Clint Crosier, who most recently directed the establishment of the U.S. Space Force.

 

               Elon Musk’s SpaceX

Boeing Co (NYSE:BA) was recently awarded contracts (over the past year) totaling

     Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic

$974 million to develop a next-generation seeker for the U.S. Army’s Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) Missile system, as well as continue and expand production on current generations of the PAC-3 seeker, in Huntsville, Alabama, as a subcontractor to Lockheed Martin.

BA also recently completed the acquisition of Millennium Space Systems, a provider of agile, flight-proven small-satellite solutions, to help grant it the underlying technology for some of this expanded air and space defense business. According to Boeing, Millennium Space Systems will operate under Boeing Phantom Works as a subsidiary called “Millennium Space Systems, A Boeing Company” and Millennium’s Founder/ Former CEO is a gentleman named Stan Dubyn.

Boeing first announced the agreement with Millennium Space Systems back in August 2018. The deal has closed in 2019 and Dubyn has gone on to become one of the largest shareholders in Signal Advance Inc., (OTCMKTS: SIGL).

        Jeff Bezos/Amazon’s Blue Origin

Signal Advance story – in terms of tangible catalysts – lies in its Biomedical and Cybersecurity applications. But the company has technology applications for Military Defense, which would presumably involve low-orbit space.

Signal Technology

Signal Advance Inc., (OTCMKTS: SIGL) only recently started to report commercial success and financial performance of note. Hence, it’s difficult to appreciate the story from the standpoint of pure financial data, although the for the first 9 months of 2020 Signal Advance Inc., had revenues of $6,347,811 which translates to an EPS of $0.1622 and currently awaiting 2020 year-end financial report. But the key to evaluating it now is by looking at its unique technology and how it may open up opportunities across a number of high-growth industries.

According to the company’s materials: Sensors are used to detect various physical or physiological properties (e.g. pressure, temperature, speed, heart rate) and convert these properties into analog electrical signals. Typically, these signals are then digitized and processed to generate an output which can be used for monitoring, intervention, process control or similar functions.

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Indonesian Residents Unhappy With SpaceX Launchpad

Article by Akanksha Arora                                          March 10, 2021                                         (republicworld.com)

• Earlier in March, SpaceX launched a second Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. It was the 6th launch toward completing the ‘Starlink’ mission of a constellation of thousands of small internet communications satellites in orbit around the planet. Musk claims that internet service will improve from here, and officials at launch sites in the United States are content with SpaceX’s progress.

• People living on Papuan Island in Indonesia aren’t so happy. Indonesia has offered Papuan Island to Elon Musk for the launch of his SpaceX project. Indonesia’s coordinating minister for maritime and investment affairs said that Musk and the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, had discussed the plans in December, and that Musk sent a team to Papuan Island in January to look at the potential investment.

• Papuans deny the Indonesian government’s claim that the local Papuan government was consulted about the planned launch facility. The tribal chief of Papuan Island, Manfun Sroyer, said that he fears that Papuan residents will be forced from their homes, and that the spaceport would encroach upon traditional hunting grounds. Papuan residents deny that the SpaceX launch facility would bring a positive economic impact to the community. They say that it will lead to deforestation in the region and devastate the ecosystem. It will also increase the presence of the Indonesian military and if the people protest, they will be immediately arrested.

 

                            Elon Musk

Indonesia has offered its Papuan island to Elon Musk for the launch of his SpaceX

      Indonesian president, Joko Widodo

project. The residents of the island do not seem to be happy about it as they have said that Musk is not welcome on their land. According to the reports by The Guardian, the residents said that Musk’s presence on the island would devastate the ecosystem and also drive people from their homes.

Residents unhappy

Papuans on Biak do not agree with the government representative who told The

                         Papuan village

Guardian that the plan was being developed after consulting the Papuan government and local communities. He also believed that this development would bring positive economic impacts. The residents, however, said that this will lead to deforestation in the region and increase the presence of the Indonesian military. According to the reports by The Business Insider, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for maritime and investment affairs said that Musk and the Indonesian president Joko Widodo had discussed the plans earlier in the month of December. Musk was planning to send a team to the island in

    Falcon 9 rockets with Starlink satellites

January to look at the potential investments.

The tribal chief of the island Manfun Sroyer said that he fears that the residents will be forced from their homes. He further added that the spaceport would cost the people their traditional hunting grounds. He also said that if people protest they will be arrested immediately.

SpaceX Rocket all set to launch

The SpaceX Rocket launch will be taking place on March 11th at 3:13 AM EST. This is the second rocket they are sending for the Starlink Launch this month and the 6th in total for the Starlink mission. The launch will be taking place in their Falcon 9 Rockets from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. SpaceX Launch for Starlink is being highly anticipated by everyone.

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SpaceX Reveals its Starport Plans in South Texas

Article by Eric Berger                                           March 8, 2021                                             (arstechnica.com)

• The US Army Corps of Engineers has posted a public notice about the spaceport that Elon Musk’s SpaceX proposes to construct in Boca Chica, Texas, at the southern tip of the state along the Gulf of Mexico. The major hardware includes orbital and suborbital launch pads, landing pads, structural test stands, and a ground support “tank farm”.

• What is striking about this architectural drawing is the relatively limited amount of land that SpaceX has to work with, as a substantial portion must be devoted to stormwater flooding ponds. All of these facilities will be concentrated within a couple dozen acres, in stark contrast to the expansive launch sites in Florida at the Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

• Since acquiring the south Texas launch site in 2014, SpaceX’s planned scope of activities has grown from planning about 10 Falcon 9 launches a year to launches of the massive Starship vehicle. SpaceX has acquired two floating oil rigs, named Phobos and Deimos, that are being converted at shipyards along the Texas coast into massive floating launch pads (see video below). The plan is to launch Starships on suborbital hops from the ground launch pad in Texas to the floating platforms towed and anchored out in the gulf waters. The Starships can be launched from there into space without collateral damage.

• Musk has also proposed the incorporation of nearby Boca Chica Village into a new city, called Starbase, Texas. Such a city would need to have at least 201 residents and follow state rules for incorporation. Prior to SpaceX’s arrival, the small Boca Chica community consisted of several dozen homes. In recent years, the company has sought to buy out or otherwise remove residents so that it has more control over its nearby launch activities. SpaceX is also undergoing an environmental assessment in south Texas for evaluation by the Federal Aviation Administration.

 

                           Elon Musk

As part of a federal review process for its plans in South Texas, details of SpaceX’s

Starship rocket

proposed spaceport have been made public. They were posted late last week in a public notice from the US Army Corps of engineers, which is soliciting public comments on the changes.

Most notably, the new documents include a detailed architectural drawing of the multi-acre site at the southern tip of Texas, along the Gulf of Mexico. The major hardware that exists or will be built includes:
• Two orbital launch pads, one of which is already under constriction
• Two suborbital launch pads, one of which already exists
• Two landing pads, one of which already exists
• Two structural test stands for Starship and the Super Heavy booster
• A large “tank farm” to provide ground support equipment for orbital flights
• A permanent position for the totemic “Starhopper” vehicle at the site’s entrance

What is striking about this architectural drawing is its compact nature, largely because SpaceX has limited land to work with at the facility and must include stormwater ponds to mitigate against flooding. All of these facilities will be concentrated within a couple dozen acres, which is in stark contrast to more expansive launch sites in Florida at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

However, SpaceX appears confident that it can control the launch and landing of its vehicles such that any mishaps will not severely damage nearby equipment. This is a non-traditional and possibly risky bet, but SpaceX has always been willing to take risks during development programs in order to move more quickly.

8:22 minute video on Starship Floating Launch Platform (‘Science of Space’ YouTube)

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Aliens On Earth? Elon Musk Has His Doubts

Article by Christine Andas                                                 February 22, 2021                                          (ph.asiatatler.com)

• As the CEO and founder of SpaceX, the first private company to launch a spacecraft to reach the International Space Station and to send humans to space, Elon Musk (pictured above) would most probably know if aliens do exist. In a recent interview on the Joe Rogan podcast, Rogan asked him whether extraterrestrial beings exist and are visiting the Earth. Shaking his head, Musk responded by saying, “No… To the best of my knowledge… there is no direct evidence [of] alien life [on Earth].”

• Musk then insinuated that if extraterrestrial beings were here on Earth, with so many people possessing iPhones why aren’t there any good photos of them, noting that the pictures and video released by the Pentagon and the CIA of hovering UFOs have been grainy black and white footage. The use this to claim that it is still unclear whether UFOs are indeed of extraterrestrial origin.

• In addition to being the CEO of SpaceX rocket manufacturing and Tesla Motors electric car manufacturing, Musk is the co-founder of Neuralink which develops brain-machine interfaces, and OpenAI which is developing next generation Artificial Intelligence. Musk is also the CEO of The Boring Company, which bores underground transportation tunnels. All of this has made Musk the “Richest Man in the World”.

• One need not go too far to find others who harbor doubts about the existence of extraterrestrial life – visiting the Earth or not. Most mainstream scientists and astronomers would agree. In 1979, American mathematical physicist Frank J. Tipler strongly insisted that aliens do not exist and that humans are the only intelligent species in the galaxy. In 1961, the mathematician Frank Drake developed the ‘Drake Equation’ wherein he estimated that there are likely only ten other planets in the Milky Way galaxy that might harbor extraterrestrial civilizations. Recently, Tom Westby and Christopher J. Conselice used the Drake Equation to arrive at their own estimate that no more than 36 alien civilizations exist in the galaxy. And of course, none of them have reached Earth.

• [Editor’s Note]  Let’s see. A high-profile space transportation company clinging to outdated rocket propulsion technology. An electric car manufacturing company. A company developing Artificial Intelligence and a sister company integrating that technology into the human brain. And a deep underground tunnel boring company. Elon Musk’s vast fortune depends entirely on the Deep State and the cabal’s nefarious plans for the future. So of course Musk is going to go along with the Deep State’s cover-up of the existence of the numerous extraterrestrial races with whom cabal operatives here on Earth continually interact. The Deep State has been keeping the existence of extraterrestrials and their advanced technology from the people of Earth since the inception of the CIA and Majestic 12 in 1947. They simply want this highly advanced alien technology all to themselves, so that they can dominate the Earth and our solar system. Since Musk is so closely tied to this elite cabal of government, bankers and industrialists, he must know the truth about the extraterrestrial presence. This makes Elon Musk a liar and a Deep State stooge, as I have been saying for years.

 

         ‘Space Cowboy’ Elon Musk

“To the best of my knowledge… there is no direct evidence [of] alien life [on earth],” Elon Musk recently said in a new interview

                  ‘Dr Evil’ Elon Musk

with Joe Rogan. Rogan was hoping Musk would know (or at least hint at) the existence of these cosmo beings but Elon only responded by shaking his head, saying “no”.

“Somebody’s gotta at least have an iPhone 1 level camera,” he added. This rings true considering all the UFO footage that the Pentagon released last year and CIA’s UFO files which were released recently. The Pentagon’s grainy black and white footage revealed a hovering figure. Although the unidentified flying object was evident in the footage, it’s still unclear if it was the work of an extraterrestrial being.

As the CEO and founder of SpaceX, the first private company to launch a spacecraft to reach the space station and send humans to space, Musk would most probably know if aliens do exist. He has mastered multiple fields namely rocket science, engineering,

                Musk with Joe Rogan

transportation and aerospace. Apart from SpaceX, Elon is also the CEO of Tesla Motors and The Boring Company. He is also the co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI. Currently, Elon’s prowess and success have earned him the title “Richest Man in the World”.

      Frank J. Tipler

CONTRASTING INTELLIGENT LIFE STUDIES

One would think that the copious amount of alien studies, footage, and documents that we have would finally answer the questions we have been asking for years. But these discoveries are only revealing contrasting finds made by scientists and astronomers alike.

In 1979, American mathematical physicist Frank J. Tipler strongly insists that aliens do not exist and that humans are the only intelligent species to exist in the galaxy.

The Drake Equation which Frank Drake started in 1961 is an argument used to estimate the number of alien civilisations in the milky way galaxy. It helped Drake estimate 10 planets in the milky way. Since then, various scientists have used the Drake Equation in an attempt to make the best guesses. It helped Tom Westby and Christopher J. Conselice in their new study. They claim that alien life is existent but rare—only 36 alien societies reside within the milky way.

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Commercial Space Station Developer ‘Axiom Space’

Article by Dan Primack, Miriam Kramer                                      February 17, 2021                                          (axios.com)

• Houston-based ‘Axiom Space’ aims to be the world’s first commercial space station. Toward that end, it has raised $130 million in capital funding. Axiom represents what many believe is the future of space. Axiom will work with SpaceX, valued at $74 billion, on next January’s planned tourism trip to the International Space Station.

• Axiom’s plan begins with the launch of a commercial module that will be hooked up to the International Space Station in the 2024 time frame. Additional modules will be added to the Axiom module complex in subsequent years to create a commercial wing of the space station. When the ISS is decommissioned in 2028, as planned, Axiom will detach its commercial space base and operate independently as a privately owned space station.

 

Axiom Space, a Houston-based developer of what would be the world’s first commercial space station, raised $130 million in Series B funding led by C5 Capital.
Why it matters: Axiom represents what many believe is the future of space, whereby NASA becomes a customer everywhere in low-Earth orbit so that it can focus on the Moon, Mars and beyond.

• Other investors include Declaration Partners, Moelis Dynasty Investments, The Venture Collective, Hemisphere Ventures and Starbridge VC.

• More space bucks: SpaceX raised $850 million last week at around a $74 billion valuation last week, per CNBC. Axiom and SpaceX are working together on next January’s planned tourism trip to the International Space Station.

The bottom line: “Axiom’s plan for its own space station would begin with the launch of a commercial module that would be hooked up to the International Space Station in the 2024 time frame. Additional modules would be added to Axiom’s complex during the years that follow. If the ISS is decommissioned in 2028, as planned, Axiom would detach its modules and operate them independently as a privately owned space station,” Geekwire’s Alan Boyle reports.

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Success of Private Space Companies Helps US Secure Space Domain

Article by Amanda Mcias and Michael Sheetz                                               February 3, 2021                                              (cnbc.com)

• Despite fears that the Covid-19 pandemic would slow this past decade’s momentum, private investment in space companies set a record in 2002. Space Capital reported that builders of rockets and satellites brought in $8.9 billion last year, and venture capital investors continued to pour funds into space businesses.

• “There is a ton of excitement across America on space in all sectors,” said General John Raymond, the US Space Force’s chief of operations. Raymond confirmed that Wall Street has invested billions in the space industry. This in turn has sparked renewed interest in space commerce and recruitment in Space Force.

• There are “people…wanting to come into the Space Force in numbers greater than what we have slots to fill. [U]niversities are seeing more students apply for space STEM degrees. I think is going to be great for our nation,” Raymond said. “I’m excited about all of it, both what we’re doing here on national security and what’s going on in the commercial industry that we can leverage the advantage.” “[W]e are stronger with a secure and stable space domain and all of those sectors play into that.”

• Space Force has increasingly looked to partner with the private space industry sector. The Pentagon is closely watching the progress of rocket builders like Rocket Lab, Astra and Virgin Orbit in addition to SpaceX.

• SpaceX announced this month that it will fly its first all-civilian crew into orbit later this year, a mission known as Inspiration 4. The landmark flight, led by billionaire Jared Isaacman, is aimed at using high-profile space tourism to raise support for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Three yet-to-be-announced passengers will accompany Isaacman on the multiday journey around the Earth, with two of the seats to be decided in public online competitions this month.

• Raymond noted that SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft successfully achieved the first operational launch of NASA’s Crew-1 mission, although SpaceX’s Starship rocket test flight on February 2nd was not so successful.

 

WASHINGTON – The nation’s top general leading the U.S. military mission in space said Wednesday that he is excited about Wall

             Jared Isaacman

Street and billionaire investment in the space industry, which has sparked renewed interest in the field among Americans and strong recruitment at the Pentagon’s youngest branch.

“There is a ton of excitement across America on space in all sectors,” said Gen. John Raymond, the U.S. Space Force’s chief of operations, when asked by CNBC about the strides made by private space companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

“I’ve talked about people knocking on our door wanting to come into the Space Force in numbers greater than what we have slots to fill. I’ve talked in the past about how universities are seeing more students apply for space STEM degrees, which I think is going to be great for our nation,” Raymond added.

“I’m excited about all of it, both what we’re doing here on national security and what’s going on in the commercial industry that we can leverage the advantage,” the four-star general said without specifically naming any companies.

“The U.S. has always, has long understood that we are stronger with a secure and stable space domain and all of those sectors play into that,” Raymond said.

          General John Raymond

The U.S. Space Force, the Pentagon’s youngest branch, has increasingly looked to partner with the private sector as companies and investors pour into the space industry. The Pentagon is closely watching the progress of rocket builders like Rocket Lab, Astra and Virgin Orbit in addition to SpaceX.

Raymond’s comments came on the heels of SpaceX announcing this week that it will fly its first all-civilian crew into orbit later this year, a mission known as Inspiration 4.

The landmark flight, led by billionaire Jared Isaacman, is aimed at using high-profile space tourism to raise support for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Three yet-to-be-announced passengers will accompany Isaacman on the multiday journey around the Earth, with two of the seats to be decided in public online competitions this month.

Raymond also called out NASA’s Crew-1 mission, which was the first operational launch of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft.

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“Earth to Earth” Space Travel With Supersonic Airliners

Article by Thomas Burghardt                                        December 26, 2020                                    (nasaspaceflight.com)

• The future of ‘Earth to Earth’ commercial transportation in the 2020’s appears to lie in two alternatives: ‘suborbital flights’ which fly above the official American boundary of space at 80 kilometers altitude, and ‘supersonic aircraft’ that stay within the Earth’s atmosphere. The suborbital craft will get you there faster (arriving anywhere on Earth in under an hour), while the supersonic aircraft will get you there safer. SpaceX and Virgin Galactic are the only two companies flying humans into space today.

• The CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, developed the suborbital flight concept in 2017 to transport large payloads to Mars for colonization. By attaching additional ‘Raptor engines,’ the ‘Starship’ craft’s launch system is also able to transport cargo – and eventually passengers – suborbitally from one place to another on Earth without the need for the ‘Super Heavy’ booster rocket (which is required to push the Starship craft fully into space). Test flights of the suborbital Starship system could begin in 2022.

• Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic’s ‘SpaceShipTwo’ is another suborbital craft flying in lower Earth orbit. The spacecraft is carried into the upper atmosphere by piggy-backing on a larger airplane and launches from there. Virgin Galactic and its manufacturing partner, Scaled Composites (a wholly owned subsidiary of Northrop Grumman), plan to develop a next generation version of SpaceShipTwo (‘SpaceShipThree’?) to provide suborbital trans-continental spaceflights for passengers once it has proven itself with cargo flights.

• Astra is another spacecraft company that has plans to conduct Earth-to-Earth suborbital cargo transportation using its ‘Rocket 3’ design, possibly beginning in 2022.

• Boom Supersonic rolled out its ‘XB-1’ prototype supersonic aircraft in November 2020. It plans to develop its supersonic passenger airliner, ‘Overture’, in 2021, and plans to be operational – carrying up to 88 passengers at ranges up to almost 5000 miles – by 2029. Both Japan Airlines and the Virgin Group have placed orders for the Overture craft. Notwithstanding, Virgin Galactic recently unveiled a partnership with Rolls-Royce to develop its own supersonic aircraft capable of Mach 3, with a passenger capacity of up to 19 people.

• Aerion Supersonic, with headquarters in Melbourne, Florida (just south of Space Force station Cape Canaveral), is developing its ‘AS2 Supersonic Business Jet’, in partnership with Boeing and General Electric. It is designed to carry up to 10 passengers at speeds up to Mach 1.4.

• Both hypersonic suborbital space travel and supersonic atmospheric flight methods produce sonic booms. Supersonic aircraft produce sonic booms along the entire flight path. (This contributed to the demise of the Aérospatiale and the Concorde supersonic craft.) Rockets, on the other hand, only cause audible sonic booms during landing. The shockwaves created during a rocket launch move upwards and away from any observers to hear them.

• Aside from sonic booms, rockets will produce potentially dangerous noise levels and ‘blast danger areas’ during launch, especially those on the scale of SpaceX’s Starship and Super Heavy booster. Companies such as SpaceX plan to solve this by launching and landing far offshore from population centers, which will require additional transportation between the spaceport and the destination city. Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division is developing the ‘X-59 QueSST’ (Quiet Supersonic Technology) for NASA’s Low-Boom Flight Demonstration Program, to decrease the intensity of the supersonic shockwave so as not to disturb populated areas. Test flights for the X-59 are scheduled to begin in 2023 to inform legislation on approving supersonic air travel over populated areas.

• A safety advantage that winged aircraft have over propulsively landed rockets is the ability to glide in the event of an engine failure. These new supersonic airliners and spaceplane concepts are designed to be able to glide towards a controlled emergency landing. Vehicles which rely on their engines to land safely, such as Starship, do not have this contingency.

• The costs of space launches and the limited capacity on supersonic airliners will mean higher ticket prices. Will the appeal of shorter travel time outweigh the increased price? Some vehicles, such as Blue Origin‘s New Shepard rocket or Virgin Galactic’s own SpaceShipTwo, cater to ‘space tourists’ who will book a flight just to experience high speed air travel or suborbital spaceflight. They may even opt for a ticket on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon or Starship craft to experience low orbit space.

• Companies developing suborbital and supersonic commercial craft are also conscious of their carbon footprint. Their engines are designed to remove as much carbon from the atmosphere as is emitted by the flight system, to achieve ‘carbon neutrality’. SpaceX’s ‘Starship Mars’ is designed to capture methane on Mars in order to refuel the craft for its return trip to Earth.

 

                SpaceX’s ‘Starship’

Commercial spaceflight companies are preparing to enter a new market: suborbital flights from one place to

        Virgin Galactic’s ‘Spaceship Two’

another on Earth. Aiming for fast transportation for passengers and cargo, these systems are being developed by a combination of established companies, such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, and new ones like Astra.

Technical and business challenges lie ahead for this new frontier, and an important piece is the coming wave of supersonic aircraft which could offer safer but slower alternatives to spaceflight. These two different approaches could face off in the 2020s to be the future of transportation on Earth.
(Lead image via Mack Crawford for NSF/L2)

Suborbital space travel

        Astra’s ‘Rocket 3’

The most prevalent concept for suborbital Earth to Earth transportation comes from none other than Elon Musk and

     Boom Supersonic’s ‘XB-1’ prototype

SpaceX. Primarily designed for transporting large payloads to Mars for the purpose of colonization, the next generation Starship launch system offers a bonus capability for transporting large amounts of cargo around Earth.

Musk first presented this idea in 2017, envisioning suborbital spaceflights between spaceports offshore from major cities. These launch and landing facilities would be far enough to reduce the disruption of rocket launch noise levels and sonic booms produced by landing vehicles, connected to land by a high speed form of transportation such as speedboats or a hyperloop.

Originally, these Earth to Earth flights were expected to use both stages of the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) rocket, since evolved and renamed to the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster. In 2019, Musk revealed that these suborbital flights could instead utilize only the Starship vehicle with no booster, achievable for distances of approximately 10,000 kilometers or less. In order to meet thrust requirements, a single stage suborbital Starship would include an additional two to four Raptor engines.

              Boom Supersonic’s ‘Overture’
Aerion Supersonic‘s ‘AS2 Supersonic Business Jet’

Given the inherent danger of rocket powered space travel, the Starship system will complete many, possibly hundreds of flights before flying passengers, with the first Earth to Earth test flights beginning as early as 2022.

Another side effect of the Starship Mars architecture, which requires that methane be captured from Martian resources to refuel spacecraft and return to Earth, is that the same propellant production processes can be used on Earth to make Starship operations carbon neutral.

The idea of carbon neutrality, removing as much carbon from the atmosphere as is emitted by the system, is a crucial part of ensuring that future transportation systems do not contribute to the harmful effects of climate change. Musk has confirmed that carbon neutrality is an important goal of the Starship program.

        Lockheed Martin’s ‘X-59 QueSST’

SpaceX is not the only major commercial spaceflight company with a suborbital transportation concept. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic also has a vision of space travel around Earth. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon flying astronauts to Low Earth Orbit, and Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo flying crew on suborbital trajectories above the official American boundary of space at 80 kilometers altitude, are the only two commercial companies actively flying humans to space today. A successor to SpaceShipTwo is planned that could provide trans-continental spaceflights for passengers.

While no technical details of a “SpaceShipThree” have been announced by Virgin Galactic, it is fairly likely that the vehicle would be air launched, similar to the SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplanes. SpaceShipThree was originally intended to be a orbital vehicle, developed jointly by Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites.

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How Elon Musk and the US Could Establish a Martian Government

Article by Adam Smith                                    December 24, 2020                                      (independent.co.uk)

• NASA has announced plans for the Artemis Moon mission to establish a lunar base in 2024, followed shortly thereafter by actual inhabitants. And NASA anticipates a manned mission to Mars by 2033. On the other hand, Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, plans to send the first SpaceX craft to Mars by 2022, with humans following within the next four to six years. Musk envisions people living in glass domes as they terraform Mars to support life.

• Musk and SpaceX are already laying the groundwork for a Mars colony. A section of the company’s ‘Starlink’ satellite internet service user agreement states: “For services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other colonization spacecraft, the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities. …Accordingly, disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.”

• Is this a joke, or is it the beginning of a Mars constitution based on existing legislation? Current law resides in the 2020 Artemis Accords and the 1957 Outer Space Treaty. A section that reads: “Outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means,” is meant to prevent outright “land grabs” by Earth nations. Lawyer Randy Segal points out that, “The whole of space law contemplates that those of us on this planet share the rights and responsibility to make space something we can all share together.” Segal suggests that Musk could be trying to lay some groundwork for offering up an independent constitution, just like he did for electric cars and reusable launch vehicles. Does it have any legal precedent or enforceability? No. But it could start a conversation about how legislators should go about planning for a Mars constitution.

• In 2016, Musk said his intentions for a Martian government would be a direct democracy, where people vote on the issues themselves rather than through politicians. “[I]t would be people voting directly on issues,” said Musk. “[T]he potential for corruption is substantially diminished in a direct versus a representative democracy.”

• Noting that SpaceX’s goal is to send hundreds of thousands of people to Mars until they have established a truly sustainable colony, SpaceX General Council, David Anderman, expects to “impose our own legal regime” on Mars within our lifetime and “faster than you think.” But it will be “interesting to see how it plays out with terrestrial governments exerting control,” says Anderman.

• Legally, Musk has more of a chance of creating a community rather than an independent colony. A ‘community’ would operate under the governance of the United States. It could be that, in the future, legislators will see the need for a constitution that governs the entirety of Mars, rather than having laws split into geographical jurisdictions. Experts suggest that that the most beneficial Martian government will be one that is eventually decided on Mars itself.

• Professor Von der Dunk, a space law expert at Nebraska College of Law, thinks that it is prudent to determine how legal conflicts should be addressed in space. But companies such as Space X and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin can only go so far. While companies may set the agenda, it will ultimately be up to governments to decide whether to adopt it.

• Bezos envisions millions of people in living in bucolic Martian cities with farms and rivers and universities. But Bezos is taking an intentionally slower approach to space than Musk, and has no opinions on Martian constitutions or legislation.

• An example of how to fashion Martian laws could come from Earth’s mining communities, where Congress was happy to sanction local mining laws as long as they did not conflict with those of the United States, says space lawyer Scot Anderson. There is a human impulse to create stability through the law. An early legal framework could be applied to the entirety of Mars in a way that could not be done on Earth. Legal experts say it is likely that once the first community is established on Mars, it would seek to self-regulate fairly quickly due to the difficulties of interplanetary communication.

 

The moment when the first human sets foot on Mars is becoming ever-closer. The 140 million mile

                            Elon Musk

distance between Earth and the Red Planet is set to be breached within the next two decades, Nasa predicts.

Just recently, the space agency announced its plans for its Artemis moon missions – aiming to take place in 2024 – which could establish a lunar base on the Moon as a stepping-stone before the first planetary spacewalk.

For some, however, simply taking the first step on an alien planet is not looking far enough into the future. Once a community is set up on Mars, discussions will need to be had about exactly how it is governed and functions. Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, is one of those people planning for such a future, and seems to already be setting the groundwork in the terms of service of the company’s current products.

                        Randy Segal

In the user agreement for the company’s satellite internet service Starlink, one particular paragraph stands out: “For services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other colonisation spacecraft, the parties recognise Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities,” the governing law section states.”

                       Scot Anderson

“Accordingly, disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.”

SpaceX did not respond to multiple attempts for more information from The Independent, but experts suggest that the addition of this segment could actually have two purposes: the first is that it is a joke; the second is that it is laying groundwork for a Mars constitution – based on how permissive the existing legislation for space exploration actually is.

The section Musk has added is “a bit of tongue in cheek with his contracts… referring to this Martian constitution he’s going to be drafting,” according to Randy Segal, of the law firm Hogan Lovells. “He’s trying to include in his commercial terms… how you’re going to comply with applicable law.”

        David Anderman

The applicable law here are the 2020 Artemis accords and the 1957 Outer Space Treaty (by which signatories of the Artemis Accords say they will abide). Amongst that legislation includes the line: “Outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.” As a result, these treaties stop space exploration becoming a “land grab”, as Segal describes it.

              Frans von der Dunk

However, the regulations are, in general, “motherhood and apple pie” Segal says – an American phrase to mean something that no reasonable person could disagree with, such as the provisions of transparency, interoperability, and emergency assistance with regards to space exploration.

“The whole of space law contemplates that those of us on this planet share the rights and responsibility to make space something we can all share together,” Segal says.

“Generally, if a clause is unlawful you would read the rest of the contract to be enforceable and standing alone. He has added a section relating to Mars services (which is not being provided today, so has no effect),” but in five or 10 years “he can revise his contract.

                             Jeff Bezos

“I don’t know that a provision like this other than being humorous and anecdotally noteworthy is something that does anything to the rest of the contract at all. He could be trying to lay some groundwork for offering up an independent constitution… just like he did for electric cars and reusable launch vehicles. Does it have any precedent or enforceability? The answer I’d say is clearly no; but if you say something enough, people might come around.”

While Musk’s contracts might not be legally potent (or“gibberish”, as one professor deemed them), they are likely to start a conversation about how legislators should go about planning for a Mars constitution. This is something that SpaceX’s General council, David Anderman, is seemingly already looking into.
“Our goal is to be able to send 1,000 starships with 100 people in them every two years,” Anderman said, according to Business Insider.

“We’ll start with 100, then a couple hundred, then 100,000, then a million until we have a truly sustainable colony. It will happen in my lifetime. Faster than you think.”

He also said he expected SpaceX to “impose our own legal regime,” but that it would be “interesting to see how it plays out with terrestrial governments exerting control.” Anderman did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Independent before publication.

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US General Describes ‘China Threat’ in Space, Heating Up Rivalry

Article by Kristin Huang                                      November 26, 2020                                    (scmp.com)

• With the launch of China’s Chang’e-5 lunar spacecraft and Beijing’s first lunar mission to bring Moon rock samples back to Earth, US Space Force General John Raymond remarked that China was a threat that could block American access to space, and that the US had to strengthen ties with its allies to handle the “threat” from China and Russia over space.

• Meanwhile, a successful mission would make China just the third country to have retrieved lunar samples, after the US and the former Soviet Union. Xu Hongliang, secretary general of China’s National Space Administration, told a space aviation forum on Wednesday that there were more Chang’e missions to come and China was planning to build an international research station on the Moon. Xu also said China would explore small celestial bodies, retrieve samples from Mars and pass by Jupiter and back again. Said Xu, “[W]e welcome international space agencies to participate in China’s future lunar and deep-space exploration cooperation.”

• The space rivalry between the world’s largest two economies is heating up. Beijing has been planning to build its own space station for decades as an alternative to the International Space Station, from which China has been excluded by the US because of security concerns.

• US officials say that China and Russia show threatening behavior regarding space. Raymond referred to an incident in 2007 when China hit and destroyed a disused Chinese weather satellite, testing its own missile capabilities. Until then, space had been considered a “benign domain,” but it was now it is contested. “China and Russia caused this shift in the strategic environment,” said Raymond. China and Russia’s capabilities include jamming of GPS and communication satellites, and directed energy and kinetic destruction of US assets via missiles on the ground.

• Raymond noted that “space really underpins … all of our instruments of national power. [I]t provides huge economic opportunity, scientific opportunity and military opportunity”, and that the US is eager to enhance ties with its allies… in space.” “We have to have different space architectures and we have to have partnerships,” Raymond said. “We’ve got to make sure that we stay ahead of this growing threat.”

• In the first nine months of 2020, China has sent 29 satellites into space – two more than the US. But observers say that China is still lagging behind the US, as private companies such as SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have taken the industry lead.

• China has grappled with launch failures. An optical remote-sensing satellite failed to enter its preset orbit in September, following another failed launch two months earlier, the Kuaizhou-11 commercial solid rocket, with two satellites on board. China also had satellite launch failures in March and April.

 

Rivalry between China and the United States in space exploration has reached new heights, with a US general saying China was a threat that could

      Space Force General John Raymond

block American access to space.

Just days after the launch of Beijing’s first lunar mission to bring samples back to Earth, US Space Force General John Raymond said the United States had to strengthen ties with its allies to handle the “threat” from China and Russia over space.

      China’s Chang’e-5 lunar spacecraft

Raymond’s comments came as the head of the Chinese space administration said the nation would launch more lunar probes and invite other countries to join China on its missions.

The China-US space rivalry intensified after a Long March-5 rocket carrying the Chang’e-5 lunar spacecraft blasted off from Wenchang, Hainan province, on Tuesday morning.

In the first mission of its kind by any country in more than 40 years, the 8-tonne spacecraft comprises four components designed to bring samples back to Earth.

If the mission is successful, it would make China just the third country to have retrieved lunar samples, after the US and the former Soviet Union. But China’s space ambitions do not stop there.

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Will Traditional Launch Services Suit the Needs of Space Force?

Article by Sandra Erwin                                    November 24, 2020                                   (spacenews.com)

• The Space and Missile Systems Center Launch Enterprise (under the auspices of the US Space Force) issued a request for information on November 10th asking companies to submit details on planned investments that would support space mobility and logistics by January 15th. The director of Space Force’s launch enterprise, Col. Robert Bongiovi, said his office is trying to gain better insight into the next wave of space innovation and how the military could acquire those capabilities.

• How the Pentagon buys launch services in the future could change as the military considers emerging technologies and services. A future space ecosystem would include satellite refueling and servicing, space vehicles, space manufacturing, and space tugs that relocate satellites. This is part of a crucial space infrastructure that the military terms “space mobility and logistics”.

• One example of the future use of sub-orbital space vehicles to transport cargo and personnel to distant locations on Earth. Senior officials in acquisitions for the Department of the Air Force have shown interest in such point-to-point delivery. But Space Force and launch enterprises currently have no plans to change the structure of its national security launch program, which relies on SpaceX and United Launch Alliance to fly military and intelligence community satellites to multiple orbits, said Col. Bongiovi.

• So the Space Command will wait and see how new technologies and new uses for commercial launch systems will play out in the private sector before the Pentagon makes any financial commitments.. “I think we will watch it closely to see how effective it becomes on the commercial side,” said Lt. Gen. John Shaw.

• In the meantime, Space Force is studying the market to establish the requirements of launch providers in the next national security space launch competition in 2024. “We have to have honest conversations with industry on where they’re going and why,” said Col. Bongiovi. “We also have to talk to our satellite providers and understand the demand.”

 

WASHINGTON — SpaceX and United Launch Alliance were selected as U.S. national security launch providers

    Col. Robert Bongiovi

based on their ability to deliver spacecraft to specific Earth orbits. How the Pentagon buys launch services in the future could change, however, as the military considers using emerging technologies and services known as “space mobility and logistics.”

Col. Robert Bongiovi, the director of the Space Force’s launch enterprise, said his office is trying to gain better insight into the next wave of space innovation and figure out how the military could acquire those capabilities.

The Space and Missile Systems Center Launch Enterprise issued a request for information Nov. 10 asking companies to submit by Jan. 15 details on planned investments that would support space mobility and logistics.

Space tugs that move satellites to different orbits or within orbits, satellite refueling and servicing vehicles, and in-space manufacturing are some of the capabilities mentioned in the request for information as examples of the future space ecosystem.

           Lt. Gen. John Shaw

These are all new space missions and capabilities that the military doesn’t currently do. Bongiovi said last week at a Mitchell Institute event that the information submitted by the industry will help the Space Force decide on future investments in space access, mobility and logistics.

The Space Force in its vision document mentions space mobility and logistics as “core competencies” of the service.

Bongiovi said there are currently no plans to change the structure of the national security launch program, which relies on two launch providers to fly military and intelligence community satellites to multiple orbits. But he said the Space Force is doing market research that could inform the requirements for launch providers for the next national security space launch competition in 2024. “Industry has a view of the future that is very expansive,” he said.

 

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What a Joe Biden Presidency May Mean in Orbit and Beyond

Article by Ian Whittaker and Gareth Dorrian                                 November 11, 2020                                       (theconversation.com)

• Donald Trump set bold goals for space exploration during his time in office – from crewed missions to the Moon and Mars to a Space Force. Joe Biden has pledged to sign Executive Orders that will undo most of the Trump administration’s work – in the same way that Trump undid most of Obama’s work. But Biden has been relatively quiet on space policy. So how is space exploration likely to change going forward?

• During the Trump administration, NASA committed to the return of astronauts to the Moon in 2024 under the Artemis program. This builds on the Constellation program which was implemented by Republican president George W Bush in 2005 but was subsequently cancelled by Democratic president Barack Obama due to its high cost and difficulty.

• In a document released by the Democratic Party entitled “Building a Stronger, Fairer Economy”, the Democrats “support NASA’s work to return Americans to the Moon and go beyond to Mars, taking the next step in exploring our solar system.” Canada, the European Space Agency and Japan are all formal partners in the construction of the Lunar Gateway – a lunar orbiting outpost designed to support multiple expeditions to the Moon’s surface. It would be difficult for a Biden administration to unilaterally withdraw from the project.

• The Trump administration also pushed for a first crewed mission to Mars in the 2030s. An independent report by the Science and Technology Policy Institute in 2019 stated that a crewed Mars mission in the 2030s is currently unfeasible. It is unlikely Biden will try to resurrect this any time soon, especially since confronting the COVID-19 pandemic will likely drain discretionary funding.

• Viewing space as a potential war zone, the Trump administration formed Space Force. With a public approval rating of only 31%, Americans aren’t too impressed with the Space Force. But there are doubtlessly many difficulties of reintegrating Space Force back into the US Air Force. It is therefore likely that Space Force will remain in a Biden administration, possibly with reduced focus.

• US human spaceflight policy rarely survives a change in a Presidential administration. NASA’s chief, Jim Bridenstine, appointed by Trump, has already announced he is stepping down, saying that he wanted to let somebody with a “close relationship with the president” take over. Still, the success of the crewed SpaceX launch to the International Space Station means the commercial crew program is likely to keep running – taking the burden off NASA.

• Biden has made it clear that tackling climate emergency is a priority. While this is likely to be focused on industrial pollution limits and renewable energy sources, it does suggest that space policy could be more focused on Earth environmental observation satellite missions such as oil spills, deforestation and carbon emissions.

• Changes notwithstanding, many scientists will breath a sigh of relief at the prospect of not having to fight the kind of anti-science position that we have seen from Trump during his time in office.

 

Donald Trump set bold goals for space exploration during his time in office – from crewed missions to the Moon and Mars to a Space Force. By contrast, his successor Joe Biden has been relatively quiet on space policy. So how is space exploration likely to change going forward?

It is clear is that there will be change. NASA’s current chief, Jim Bridenstine, has already announced he is stepping down. And we know that US human spaceflight policy rarely survives a change in presidency.

That said, the amazing success of the crewed SpaceX launch to the International Space Station (ISS), however, means the commercial crew programme is likely to keep running – taking the burden off NASA. Indeed, the first operational flight of the Crew Dragon by commercial company SpaceX is due for launch on November 15, with four astronauts bound for the ISS.

During the Trump administration, NASA also committed to the return of astronauts to the Moon in 2024 under the Artemis program. This is due for its first test launch (uncrewed) next year with Artemis-1. This builds on the Constellation program which was implemented by Republican president George W Bush in 2005 but was subsequently cancelled by Democratic president Barack Obama due to its high cost and difficulty.

The only substantial clue as to the direction of a Biden presidency with regard to astronaut flights to the Moon can be found in a document by the Democratic Party entitled “Building a Stronger, Fairer Economy”. In one paragraph, the Democrats state that they “support NASA’s work to return Americans to the Moon and go beyond to Mars, taking the next step in exploring our solar system.”

No detail is offered on possible timelines. But, with international cooperation now a major feature of the Artemis program, it would be difficult for a fledgling Biden administration to unilaterally withdraw from the project. For example, Canada, the European Space Agency and Japan are all formal partners in the construction of the Lunar Gateway – a lunar orbiting outpost designed to support multiple expeditions to the surface.

The programme is also rapidly advancing research, particularly in terms of building materials, power supplies and food production. Just this week, the European Space Agency awarded a contract to the British company Metalysis to develop techniques to simultaneously extract oxygen and metals from lunar soil.

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The US Coast Guard’s Future is in Outer Space

Article by Michael Sinclair                                    October 15, 2020                                    (brookings.edu)

• The Coast Guard serves as the United States’ Arctic governance presence. This requires of the Coast Guard the ability to communicate ‘over-the-horizon’. In December 2018, teamed up with the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Division and SpaceX to launch two small cube satellites (“cubesats”) — Yukon and Kodiak — over the Arctic as part of the ‘Polar Scout program’. While the Coast Guard lost its communications link to the satellites shortly after their launch, the fact that the service looked to space to meet its mission objective is a forerunner of things to come.

• These two cubesats were intended to serve as the vanguard of enhanced telecommunications coverage in the Arctic. As the warming climate melts the ice at the north pole, this increases the international shipping access by the US, Russia and China. This increases the strategic significance of the Arctic, and the need for increased governance.

• The second great Space Age will be turbo-charged by computer processing and commercial space markets. The Coast Guard should take advantage of the increasingly affordable access to space that commercial space opportunities provide. Space-based surveillance can assist with many Coast Guard missions including maritime law/drug enforcement, intelligence, buoy tending, vessel traffic management, and icebreaking. Coast Guard icebreaker vessels should serve as ocean station sentinels. And the Coast Guard should add additional satellite link stations such as the one in New London, Connecticut.

• Next, the Coast Guard should develop a ‘Space Operations Strategic Outlook’ to establish space competencies across the entire Coast Guard. The 2019 Coast Guard Authorization Act includes statutory language that would extend Coast Guard ‘Captain of the Port Authority’ beyond its twelve nautical-mile limit to facilitate safe and secure space operation support at sea. The Coast Guard should partner with Space Force to provide space ‘search and rescue’.

• Government, military and commercial space entities fully intend a rapid increase in human space flight. Space Force should have the capability to render assistance to distressed space farers. This is consistent with the Outer Space Treaty and the Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, both to which the United States is party. Currently, there is no specific statute authorizing a US agency to conduct such rescue operations in space. The Coast Guard’s broad search and rescue would provide excellent models for developing a foundation for the Coast Guard assist with Space Force/Space Command in space-based search and rescue operations.

• On their face, “outer space” and the “Coast Guard” are two terms that do not seem to have much in common. But with the ready access to space in the 21st century, now is the time for the Coast Guard to consider how to alter its planning to capitalize on the opportunities and to meet future challenges in space.

 

In December 2018, the U.S. Coast Guard joined the space faring community. It teamed up with the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Division and SpaceX to execute the launch of two small cube satellites (“cubesats”) — Yukon and Kodiak — as part of the Polar Scout program.

These two cubesats were intended to serve as the vanguard of enhanced telecommunications coverage in the Arctic, a domain that has always been important but is of increasing strategic significance today because it is at the intersection of great power competition and global climate change. In short, a warmer climate results in greater access; greater access results in greater maritime traffic, including by Russia and China. The Chinese, in particular, are constantly pressing to exploit resources the world over, be it living marine or hydrocarbon-based. Likewise, greater traffic means more need for increased governance presence to ensure safe, rules-based operations within the Arctic.

The Coast Guard is statutorily charged with serving as the United States’ Arctic governance presence. This means the Coast Guard increasingly requires the ability to communicate over-the-horizon — thus, Polar Scout. And while the Coast Guard lost linkage to Yukon and Kodiak shortly after launch, the mere fact that the service had the vision to go boldly to the heavens to meet that need should be a forerunner of things to come.

THE KEY QUESTIONS

Space issues are a hot topic in 2020. Indeed, we are at the start of a second great space age, one that is shaping up to be turbo-charged by the commercial market and the seemingly never-ending, exponentially increasing power of computer processing. The United States is pursuing the Artemis Accords, the Space Force is getting off the ground, NASA is looking towards Mars (but first to the moon! To stay!), and commercial space pursuits are booming. The Coast Guard has already gotten in the game, but it must continue to seriously consider space as it develops budgets and strategies for the future.

To succeed as an information-age military service and total-domain governance agency in the 21st century, the Coast Guard should view space through three lenses. First, how can the service best capitalize on cheap, ready access to space to facilitate its missions, as it had already started to do so with the Polar Scout launches? Second, how do commercial space efforts interact with the maritime industry and maritime domain; and to what extent, if any, does the Coast Guard need to adjust or modify its extensive suite of operating authorities and regulations to ensure that any risk to the safety and security of the maritime is adequately addressed? And third, how can the Coast Guard, as part of the joint force, assist the Space Force in executing the latter’s own responsibilities?

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Elon Musk Breaks Silence on UFOs and Alien Tech – ‘I Have Seen No Evidence’

Article by Sebastian Kettley                                       October 13, 2020                                       (express.co.uk)

• Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo recently asked President Trump if there are UFOs, seeing that the Pentagon has set up a UFO/UAP Task Force. Trump said: “Well I’m gonna have to check on that, I mean I’ve heard that, I heard that two days ago, so I’ll check on that. I’ll take a good, strong look at that.”

• Bartiromo then tweeted a thanks to the President, and tagged Elon Musk (pictured above) and Jeff Bezos in the tweet: “Thx @POTUS @realDonaldTrump will f/u on this. Humans want to know. Has earth been visited. @elonmusk & @JeffBezos as earth great space explorers, what do U think? Have we been visited. We will discuss tomorrow @MorningsMaria @FoxBusiness 8a.” “Earth great explorers” refers to Musk’s ownership of SpaceX and Bezos’ ownership of Blue Origin, two leading spacecraft manufacturers and operators.

• “I have seen no evidence of an advanced civilization visiting Earth,” Elon Musk replied in a tweet. “Fuzzy pics that are worse than a 7/11 security cam frame grab don’t count!” “[T]here are literally >1000 percent more cameras than 10 years ago, but still zero clear photos.”

• Musk, 49, is no stranger to controversy. In July this year, he warned that artificial intelligence threatens to overtake humanity “in less than five years”. He was also among 28 people who in 2015 signed a statement warning against “intentionally signaling other civilizations in the Milky Way”. The document, published by the Berkeley SETI Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, was in response to SETI’s sister program, METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) actively calling out to beings in space, not just listening and observing.

• The SETI statement reads in part: “We know nothing of ETI’s (extraterrestrial Intelligence) intentions and capabilities, and it is impossible to predict whether ETI will be benign or hostile. …[I]t is likely that other communicative civilizations we encounter will be millions of years more advanced than us. …As a newly emerging technological species, it is prudent to listen before we shout. …Intentionally signaling other civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy raises concerns from all the people of Earth, about both the message and the consequences of contact.”

• [Editor’s Note]   What is more plausible? That Elon Musk travels among the world’s super-elite but has never heard about the multitude of intelligent extraterrestrial beings that have been working with the military industrial complex since the 1950s; or that Musk is a puppet of the deep state and is doing what he is told? Let’s take a closer look. Musk didn’t really say there are ‘no ETs’, just that he’s seen “no evidence” of them. This is the standard lie that the deep state has been propagating since the inception of the CIA right after the Roswell UFO crash and cover-up in 1947. This also gives Musk some wiggle room if he’s ever cornered about lying. He’s covering his bases.
Then Musk arrogantly repeats another standard deep state lie – that there are no good images or video of UFOs. Actually, there is a TON of good images and video of UFOs. (see recent ExoArticle about the 1990 Calvine UFO incident in the Scottish highlands where the photos were so good that the British government has refused to released them until 2070.) But the deep state wants people to think there are no compelling photos.

Another deep state tactic is to keep people afraid of unknown hostile extraterrestrials. The Berkeley SETI Research Center and the University of California, Berkeley are well-known deep state institutions. The deep state created METI, just as they did SETI, and used it to instill fear in the minds of the public. Elon Musk was right in line to sign this SETI statement of hostile aliens, even though he claims not to believe in aliens.

Finally, Musk is at the forefront of alerting/alarming the public about artificial intelligence taking over the planet. These are all fear tactics that the deep state employs to convert the benign extraterrestrial presence into an extraterrestrial enemy, and that the people of Earth can only turn to the deep state to save them from this existential threat. This is simply a new manufactured threat to humanity, replacing the old “Cold War” threat which the deep state concocted in the 1940’s when they labeled the Soviet Union/Russia as the bogeyman.

 

               Jeff Bezos

SPACEX boss Elon Musk has shot down conspiracy theorists and UFO truthers, saying there is no convincing evidence alien extraterrestrials have ever visited our planet.

       Maria Bartiromo

Elon Musk, 49, is no stranger to controversy and he has been responsible for some bizarre statements over the years. In July this year, he warned artificial intelligence threatens to overtake humanity “in less than five years”. He has also co-signed a document warning of the consequences of recklessly attempting to contact alien civilisations beyond our solar system.

And yet, it appears as though the South African tech mogul behind SpaceX and Tesla draws the line at one thing: reports of UFOs visiting our planet.

In a series of revealing tweets, Mr Musk shared exactly what he thinks about unverified sightings and “fuzzy pics” of supposed alien spacecraft.

His comments were prompted by Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo asking the US President Donald Trump about reports the US Department of Defense has set up a UFO task force.

When asked outright if there are UFOs, President Trump said: “Well I’m gonna have to check on that, I mean I’ve heard that, I heard that two days ago, so I’ll check on that.

“I’ll take a good, strong look at that, but I will tell you this, we now have created a military the likes of which we have never had before.”
Ms Bartiromo then tweeted the President’s response to Mr Musk and Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and Blue Origin.

She tweeted: “Thx @POTUS @realDonaldTrump will f/u on this. Humans want to know. Has earth been visited. @elonmusk & @JeffBezos as earth great space explorers, what do U think?

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Virginia Rocket Launch Site is About to Grow With the Most Successful Startup Since SpaceX

Article by Christian Davenport                                   October 2, 2020                                (washingtonpost.com)

• Over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, down past Chincoteague toward the southern tip of the Eastern Shore, sits an isolated spit of shoreline near a wildlife refuge. Wallops Island, Virginia is home to one of the most unusual and little known rocket launch sites in the country.

• Wallops Island contained a naval air station during World War II. In the late 1950s, with the dawn of the Space Age, the air station morphed into the Wallops Flight Facility, serving as a test site for the Mercury space program. The facility has now reinvented itself yet again as a modern commercial space industry rocket hub launching national security missions for Rocket Lab, and is soon to launch missions to the International Space Station for Northrop Grumman. The Wallops facility is poised to become the second busiest launch site in the country, behind Cape Canaveral, which itself is on track to launch 39 rockets into orbit this year.

• Over the last 25 years, the state of Virginia has pumped $250M into the ‘Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport’. In addition, NASA has made $15.7M in upgrades to the site, including a mission operations control center, which opened in 2018. The state also contributed $15M to repair a launch pad after an Antares rocket exploded in 2014.

• Perhaps the most successful space upstart since Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Rocket Lab first considered Cape Canaveral. But Wallops was the winner because it had a facility nearby where the company could process its payloads, get the satellites ready for launch and then mate them to a rocket quickly. “The whole facility is designed for rapid launch,” said Rocket Lab CEO, Peter Beck. “And that’s a real requirement out there right now from our national security and national defense forces, to have an ability to respond to threats quickly.”

• At 60 feet tall, Rocket Lab’s ‘Electron’ rocket may be about a quarter of the size of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. But the company hopes it will be a workhorse, launching once a month from Wallops, in flights that should be visible up and down the Mid-Atlantic. The Electron rocket has already had 14 successful launches to orbit from its launch site in New Zealand, earning a reputation for quick turnaround in an industry where getting rockets ready to fly was once a months-long endeavor. The Pentagon and NASA have taken notice.

• NASA has hired Rocket Lab to launch a small satellite to the Moon in 2021 to gather data about the thin lunar atmosphere, as a precursor for human missions. Instead of launching large, expensive satellites that stay in orbit for years and are targets for potential adversaries, the Pentagon is interested in putting up swarms of smaller, inexpensive satellites that could be easily replaced. Both NASA and DARPA are looking at Rocket Lab’s Wallops facility as a launch base having the desired short turnaround time between launches.

• While the number of launches at Wallops now is relatively low, the cadence could grow dramatically, especially as Rocket Lab gets going. And Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, chief of space operations for the US Space Force, has made it clear the department wants to rely heavily on the private sector. “We have developed a significant amount of partnerships in the national security space business,” said General Raymond during a recent event. “We share some of those partners. We share an industrial base.”

• Wallops wants to capitalize on the growth says Dale Nash, CEO and executive director of Virginia Space. “[W]e can get a few more launchpads close together in here.” “We’re urbanizing.” “One launch a month will not be a big deal.” “Once a week, once we get going, won’t be a big deal either. … We have the capability to grow to 50 or 60 launches a year.”

• Richard Branson has also gotten into the small rocket business with ‘Virgin Orbit’ that would launch a small rocket by dropping it from the wing of a 747 airplane. But while the space industry has made strides, there are still more failures than successes, especially in the early attempts to build small rockets. Rocket Lab has been the unlikely success story. Founded by Peter Beck in 2006, it today has a significant backlog of launches.

• Initially, Beck said, the company planned to ditch its rockets in the ocean, as had been the practice for decades. But like SpaceX, Rocket Lab intends to recover its first stages so they can be reused for future flights for greater efficiency. But instead of flying the boosters back to land and then firing the engines to slow it down, as SpaceX does, Rocket Lab is going to have its booster deploy a parachute to slow it down as it falls back through the atmosphere. Then it would have a helicopter retrieve it with a grappling hook.

• In addition to the NASA moon mission, Beck has long been intrigued with Venus, and planned to send a probe there to look for signs of life. The Venus mission, tentatively scheduled for 2023, would be largely self-funded and launch most likely from New Zealand. “If you can prove that there is life on Venus, then it’s fair to assume that life is not unique but likely prolific throughout the universe,” tweeted Beck.

 

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. — Over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, down past Chincoteague toward the southern

                           Peter Beck

tip of the Eastern Shore, sits an isolated spit of shoreline, near a wildlife refuge, that is home to one of the most unusual, and little known, rocket launch sites in the country.

Born as a Navy air station during World War II, it has launched more than 16,000 rockets, most of them small sounding vehicles used for scientific research. But the Wallops Flight Facility, which at the dawn of the Space Age played a role as a test site for the Mercury program, is about to reinvent itself at a time when the commercial space industry is booming and spreading beyond the confines of Florida’s Cape Canaveral.

After the Federal Aviation Administration last month granted Rocket Lab, a commercial launch company, a license to fly its small Electron rocket from the facility, Wallops could soon see a significant increase in launches as the company joins Northrop Grumman in launching from this remote site. While Rocket Lab is largely focused on national security missions, Northrop Grumman launches its Antares rocket to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station on cargo resupply missions at a rate of about two a year, including a picture-perfect launch from the Virginia coast Friday at 9:16 p.m. Northrop also launches its Minotaur rocket from Wallops.

            Dale Nash

Rocket Lab wants to launch to orbit as frequently as once a month from Wallops, which would make the facility the

                Wallops Island, Virginia

second busiest launch site in the country, behind Cape Canaveral, which is on track to fly 39 rockets to orbit this year.

Hoping to give birth to another rocket hub on the Eastern Seaboard, the state of Virginia has over the last 25 years pumped some $250 million into what it calls the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, most of that coming in the last decade, said Dale Nash, the agency’s CEO and executive director of Virginia Space. NASA has also made some significant upgrades to the site, including a $15.7 million mission operations control center, which opened in 2018.

The state also contributed to the $15 million it took to repair a launchpad after an Antares rocket exploded in 2014.

The efforts paid off when Rocket Lab, perhaps the most successful space upstart since Elon Musk’s SpaceX, announced last year it would launch its Electron rocket from here. Once NASA signs off on the company’s autonomous flight abort system, it should be cleared to launch, with a mission coming potentially before the end of the year.

Initially, Rocket Lab looked at Cape Canaveral, of course. But there are already a lot of big companies stationed there — Boeing, the United Launch Alliance and SpaceX. Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin is renovating a pad there while building a massive manufacturing facility nearby. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

“We ran a competitive process,” Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s chief executive, said in an interview. In the end, Wallops was the winner because it had a facility nearby where the company could process its payloads, get the satellites ready for launch and then mate them to a rocket quickly.

“The whole facility is designed for rapid launch,” Beck said. “And that’s a real requirement out there right now from our national security and national defense forces, to have an ability to respond to threats quickly.”

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Virgin Galactic to Help Train Astronauts for NASA

Article by Paul R. La Monica                          June 22, 2020                              (weny.com)

• On June 22nd, Virgin Galactic announced that it has signed a deal with NASA to train private astronauts and coordinate trips to the orbiting International Space Station. Virgin Galactic will develop a new private orbital astronaut readiness program to identify candidates who will pay for a trip to space, arrange for their transportation and provide ground and orbital resources.

• Virgin Galactic will probably use the services of SpaceX or Boeing to actually get astronauts to the space station. Boeing has invested $20 million in Virgin Galactic. The company’s own SpaceShipTwo is a suborbital spaceplane that is incapable of making it to the cislunar ISS. Virgin Galactic says it has already received about 600 reservations for suborbital flights at the approximate price of $250,000 per seat.

• Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic will continue to use SpaceShipTwo for suborbital training flights, ranging from private citizens to government-backed scientific and technological research missions, to allow passengers to become familiar with the environment in space, such as G-forces and zero-G.

• Enthusiasm for space commerce is apparent in the stock market. Virgin Galactic stock shares have soared, even though the company continues to lose money. There is even a publicly traded investment fund with a ‘UFO’ brand that invests in companies catering to the business of space travel and exploration, having Virgin Galactic at the top of the list. Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s ‘SpaceX’ and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ ‘Blue Origin’ also have space travel companies.

 

      Virgin Galactic’s ‘SpaceShip Two’

SpaceX won’t be the only private company bringing people to the International Space Station. Virgin Galactic announced Monday that it has signed a deal with NASA to train private astronauts and coordinate potential trips to the ISS.

Shares of Virgin Galactic soared more than 10% on the news. The stock has surged nearly 45% so far in 2020, largely due to optimism about demand for private space travel, even though it continues to lose money.

As part of Virgin Galactic’s deal with NASA, the company will “develop a new private orbital astronaut readiness program,” it said in a statement.

                   Sir Richard Branson

“This program will include identifying candidates interested in purchasing private astronaut missions to the ISS, the procurement of transportation to the ISS, on-orbit resources, and ground resources,” the company added.

Virgin Galactic will likely need the services of SpaceX or aerospace giant Boeing, which is developing the Starliner space capsule and has invested $20

million in Virgin Galactic, to actually get astronauts to the space station.

Virgin Galactic’s own SpaceShipTwo is a suborbital spaceplane that is incapable of making it to the ISS, and the company has only sent five people to space on two suborbital test flights. The company says it has already received about 600 reservations for suborbital flights at the approximate price of $250,000 per seat.

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Space Law and the Galactic Economy

Article by Abdulla Abu Wasel                               June 8, 2020                            (entrepreneur.com)

• Fifty years ago, outer space was reserved for the most powerful of nations and the most dominant of governments. Today, it is private commercial industry that is inching us closer to the cosmos. There is a growing interdependence between what is happening in space and what is happening down below on Earth. The commercial space industry, with its multi-million-dollar rockets and satellites, is now worth about $400 billion. Space commerce is increasingly playing a part in our everyday lives.

• The International Civil Aviation Organization governs ‘air’ altitudes. So where does ‘space’ begin? The international community has not been able to agree on a common definition. Australia is the only country in the world that defines space as anything beyond 100 kilometers above the ground. While nations may own the ‘air’ over them, ‘space’ is for everybody. No nation can own property in space, and no nation can make any territorial claim in space. You need consent to fly over another country’s airspace. But if you are in ‘outer space’, you can fly over any country without consent, and even legally engage in espionage.

• With the establishment of the United States’ Space Force, we will likely see the rules of war extended into outer space. The language in the Outer Space Treaty about the use of outer space for exclusively peaceful purposes needs interpretation. ‘Peaceful purposes’ only prohibits the aggressive use of military force. So non-aggressive military force is okay? Has the establishment of the U.S. Space Force made the militarization of space perfectly legal?

• At the end of the day, the Space Force is about building political constituency for orbit, while investing in spacecraft that can defend and attack, if necessary. This represents a great deal of money for private companies, with almost half-a-dozen government defense agencies already pumping millions of dollars into space startups to build everything from radar networks to high-tech materials.

• The majority of the money to be made in space lies in satellite-provided services, and these services are likely to surge the space economy. The significant increase in satellites, far beyond the 2,300 operational satellites in space now, will bring a multitude of costs and benefits. We have seen venture capitalists directing millions of dollars towards small satellite companies with big aspirations, such as Spire, Capella Space, Hawkeye360, and Swarm.

• These space economy companies vary in their business models, from communicating with internet devices to tracking radio signals in order to gather radar data, and imaging every angle of the Earth. This all depends on the cost of building and operating the spacecraft needed to accomplish the work that they desire. SpaceX and Boeing are in the final phase of their private space transportation service in cooperation with NASA. Soon, both companies will have permission to start flying wealthy space tourists and corporate point men into space.

• On June 3rd, NASA launched astronauts into space from U.S. soil for the first time since 2011, and took them to the International Space Station via Falcon 9, a vehicle that was purchased from SpaceX. For $250,000, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic will take tourists to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere in space. But NASA’s aim is the Moon. Since ice water was discovered on the Moon, starry-eyed space seekers would like to see NASA establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon rather than hiring private companies to build rovers, landers, and spacecraft to carry scientific instruments to the Moon.

• But, as we have seen, the commercial economy benefits greatly from scientific advancements gleaned from space exploration, such as transistors, solar panels, and batteries. It has brought forth the smartphone revolution, the evolution of broadcast media, telecommunications, commerce, and the internet as a whole. The new era of space exploration may be one small step for man, but it is one giant leap for the private sector economy.

 

The commercial space industry is heating up– 50 years ago, outer space was reserved for the most powerful of nations and the most dominant governments, but today, there is a democratization of space. Commercial industry is inching us closer to the cosmos, and in the process, there is a growing interdependence between what is happening hundreds of miles up into space and down below on Earth. Currently, the space market is worth approximately US$400 billion, and the commercial space industry, using multi-million-dollar rockets and satellites, is increasingly playing a part in our everyday lives. Although you may have been hearing about this phenomenon in recent years, this launch into the new world has been ongoing for decades.

This brings about the question of property rights. Where does space begin, and if there is a dispute in space, who decides it? Australia is the only country in the world that defines where space begins; defining it as 100 kilometers up. However, where the air ends (and the air law regime, which is governed by the International Civil Aviation Organization), and where space begins is a matter that the international community have not been able to agree on. People either want to set limits- set a height based on kilometers like Australia has done, or they take the approach of the United States who look at it as a use, i.e. what did you use, are you launching a rocket that is intended to go into orbit, or are you just launching a plane that is going to go high into the air. This is important, because nations own the air over them. Right now, space is for everybody. No nation can own property in space, and no nation can make any territorial claim in space.

You need consent to fly over another country if you are in the airspace, but on the flip side of that, if you believe that you are in outer space, you can fly over any country without consent, and even engage in espionage legally. Espionage is one part of the political military contest, but how else is space dealt with from a military perspective? With the recent establishment of the United State’s Space Force, we will likely see the same rules of war extended into outer space. The language in the Outer Space Treaty about the use of outer space for exclusively peaceful purposes is beautifully aspirational language, but the devil is in the interpretation: what does it mean to use space for peaceful purposes? The way that this has been virtually explained is that peaceful purposes only prohibit the aggressive use of military force, and as long as you are not engaged in naked aggression, then you are peaceful in your use of outer space.

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Space Force Considering NASA-Style Partnerships With Private Companies

Article by Sandra Erwin                           June 4, 2020                          (spacenews.com)

• The launch of a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on May 30th that took NASA astronauts to the International Space Station was the “culmination of perhaps the most successful private-public partnership of all times,” said Colonel Eric Felt, head of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Space Vehicles Directorate. In a SpaceNews online event June 4th, Felt noted that Space Force will be far smaller than the other U.S. military services, so it plans to follow the NASA playbook and team up with the private sector. “The Space Force is going to be the most high tech of all of the services,” said Felt.

• Public-private partnerships, like deals with SpaceX and Boeing, have saved NASA billions of dollars. There are many commercial capabilities that can be used to meet military needs, with “hybrid architecture”. For example, commercial companies already have powerful sensors and data analytics systems to track and investigate space objects. The Space Force’s AFRL is looking into public-private deals to use these commercial satellites to enhance its “space domain awareness”, allowing Space Force to monitor every object in outer space. (see video below)

• Another application using private satellites in low Earth orbit is for the deployment of sensors for the Air Force’s ‘Advanced Battle Management System’, allowing the military to integrate and analyze data from space rather than from the more vulnerable command-and-control airplanes flying over enemy territory.

• Next year, AFRL plans to launch an experimental ‘cubesat’ satellite equipped with a ‘Link 16’ encrypted radio frequency data link, widely used on U.S. military and NATO aircraft and ground vehicles to share information, as a communications network relay in space. With “one of these Link 16 transponders (attached to) each of these low Earth orbit satellites, you would basically have Link 16 capability everywhere all the time,” said Felt.

• Private companies deploying broadband satellite constellations in low Earth orbit would be candidates for partnerships where these commercial satellites would also host government communications. The Defense Innovation Unit of the AFRL and the Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center have been talking about setting up a ‘space commodities exchange’ where space services could be traded like commodities. “The space domain awareness data might be a great example of the kinds of things that the Space Force could purchase through a space commodities exchange,” said Felt.

 

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force will be far smaller than the other military services but way more dependent on technology to do its job. While the Space Force will develop satellites and other technologies in-house, it also plans to follow the NASA playbook and team up with the private sector, said Col. Eric Felt, head of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate.

       Colonel Eric Felt

Speaking at a SpaceNews online event June 4, Felt said NASA’s commercial crew program is “super exciting” and one that the Space Force can learn from.

The launch of a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on May 30 that took NASA astronauts to the International Space Station was the “culmination of perhaps the most successful private-public partnership of all times,” said Felt.

The Space Vehicles Directorate, located at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, is one of the organizations that Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett agreed to transfer to the Space Force. Felt said his office will remain at its current location but approximately 700 people will be reassigned to the Space Force.

“The Space Force is going to be the most high tech of all of the services,” said Felt.

Public-private partnerships like NASA’s commercial crew deals with SpaceX and Boeing have saved NASA billions of dollars and serve as a “powerful model” that the Defense Department could adopt, said Felt.

1:02:30 video on military/corporate partnerships for Space Force (‘SpaceNewsInc’ YouTube)

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NASA Sets Out Its Red Lines for 2024 Moon Landing

Article by John Varge                                May 16, 2020                             (express.co.uk)

• The ‘Artemis Program’ is NASA’s project – supported by other international space programs and private companies – to establish a permanent human settlement on the Moon by 2028, beginning by landing two astronauts near the lunar south pole in 2024. On May 15th, NASA officials revealed the core values underpinning its mission in a document called the Artemis Accords (see here). NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted: “Today I’m honored to announce the #Artemis Accords agreements — establishing a shared vision and set of principles for all international partners that join in humanity’s return to the Moon. We go, together.”

• NASA said its over-riding vision was to “create a safe and transparent environment which facilitates exploration, science and commercial activities for all of humanity to enjoy.” This vision is in accordance with the “peaceful purposes only” principles enshrined in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, the founding document of international space law, which has been ratified by more than 100 countries, including the US.

• The Accords seek to ensure no “harmful interference” by one nation in the off-Earth affairs of another, and to publicly disclose their exploration plans and policies as well as sharing their scientific data. Artemis partners pledge to protect historic sites and artefacts on the Moon and other cosmic locales, as well as to help minimize space-junk.

• Private Moon landers will begin to ferry NASA science and technology experiments to the lunar surface next year. The Accords also cover the space mining of resources on the Moon, Mars and asteroids conducted under the auspices of the Outer Space Treaty. Moon landers will be built by commercial companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX. SpaceX is currently developing its huge ‘Starship’ vehicle to help colonize Mars. Starship will launch atop a huge rocket called ‘Super Heavy’, but will land on, and launch off of, the Moon and Mars on its own. Other companies awarded contracts, worth a total of $967 million for 10 months of work, are Blue Origin and Dynetics.

• NASA’s Jim Bridenstine said, “This is the first time since the Apollo era that NASA has direct funding for a human landing system, and now we have companies on contract to do the work for the Artemis program.” “America is moving forward with the final step needed to land astronauts on the Moon by 2024,” including the first woman set foot on the lunar surface.

 

The US Space Agency has always recognised that international cooperation will be vital if its Artemis programme is to succeed. Artemis is the ambitious project to land two astronauts near the lunar south pole in 2024, as a precursor to establishing a permanent human lunar settlement by 2028. On Friday, NASA officials revealed the core values underpinning its mission in a document called the Artemis Accords, which stress the peaceful nature of its exploration.

In a tweet, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote: “It’s a new dawn for space exploration!

NASA’s Jim Bridenstine and SpaceX’s Elon Musk, doing his famous ‘Zoolander’ impression

“Today I’m honored to announce the #Artemis Accords agreements — establishing a shared vision and set of principles for all international partners that join in humanity’s return to the Moon.

“We go, together.”

In accordance with principles enshrined in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, NASA said its over-riding vision was to “create a safe and transparent environment which facilitates exploration, science and commercial activities for all of humanity to enjoy.”

The outer Space Treaty (OST) is the founding document of international space law.

It has been ratified by more than 100 countries, including the United States and other leading space powers.

The OTS stipulates that space exploration should be carried out for peaceful purposes only.

Artemis partners will also be required to be completely transparent about their activities, which means publicly disclosing their exploration plans and policies as well as sharing their scientific data.

The Accords also cover space mining, which NASA sees as key to humanity’s exploration efforts over the long haul.

NASA officials said the ability to extract and use resources on the moon, Mars and even asteroids would be critical “to support safe and sustainable space exploration and development”.

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Forget Coronavirus, Alien Virus From Mars Could Create Chaos on Earth

Article by Nirmal Narayanan                            May 9, 2020                          (ibtimes.sg)

• NASA and private space companies like SpaceX are gearing up for human Mars colonization missions in the near future. NASA and top space scientists are concerned about viruses from other planets, and that strict protocols should be followed as astronauts return back to Earth.

• Stanford professor of aeronautics and astronautics Scott Hubbard thinks that astronauts returning from the space should live on quarantine for a specific period of time. “In my opinion, and that of the science community, the chance that rocks from Mars that are millions of years old will contain an active life form that could infect Earth is extremely low,” said Hubbard. “But, the Mars samples returned by NASA will be quarantined and treated as though they are the Ebola virus until proven safe.”

• Detailing the standard protocol that should be followed while quarantining astronauts coming back from Mars, Hubbard offered, “As for humans, the Apollo astronauts from the first few Moon missions were quarantined to ensure they showed no signs of illness. Once it was found that the Moon did not pose a risk, the quarantine was eliminated. Such a procedure will undoubtedly be followed for humans returning from Mars.”

 

As the coronavirus continues its killing spree on earth, a section of space experts believe that humans have to think seriously about alien viruses that could reach the earth during space missions.

Even though this concept may seem like a plot directly coming out from a Hollywood sci-fi film, space agencies like NASA and top space scientists are really bothered about viruses from other planets contaminating the earth.

The Mars mission dilemma

It should be noted that NASA and private space companies like SpaceX are gearing up for human Mars missions in the near future. As the Mars colonization mission progresses in full swing, experts warn that strict protocols should be followed to extraterrestrial pollutants attacking earth, as astronauts return back to the ground.

Scott Hubbard, a Stanford professor of aeronautics and astronautics revealed that astronauts returning from the space should live on quarantine for a specific period of time to prevent a possible virus attack from space.

“In my opinion, and that of the science community, the chance that rocks from Mars that are millions of years old will contain an active life form that could infect Earth is extremely low. But, the Mars samples returned by NASA will be quarantined and treated as though they are the Ebola virus until proven safe,” Hubbard told Stanford News.

Hubbard also detailed about the standard protocol that should be followed while quarantining astronauts coming back from Mars. “As for humans, the Apollo astronauts from the first few moon missions were quarantined to ensure they showed no signs of illness. Once it was found that the moon did not pose a risk, the quarantine was eliminated. Such a procedure will undoubtedly be followed for humans returning from Mars,” added Hubbard.

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Tom Cruise Plans to Shoot the First Movie in Space

Article by Philip Ellis                            May 5, 2020                            (yahoo.com)

• Mike Fleming Jr. at Deadline reports that the actor, Tom Cruise, will partner with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to be the first to shoot an action movie in outer space. Cruise is reportedly in talks with NASA, although at present no studio is involved. While the film project is described as being in “the early stages of liftoff”, and there are no details available surrounding the plot of the film or its budget.

• Tom Cruise is known for going all-out and taking risks while filming, insisting on performing all of his own ‘high-octane’ stunts in his movies, even when it leads to serious injury, like the time he broke his ankle during an action sequence in Mission: Impossible – Fallout.

• SpaceX was founded by billionaire Elon Musk in 2002, with the mission of reducing the costs of transporting humanity to Mars. The organization’s Crew Dragon spacecraft is due to launch on May 27, marking SpaceX’s first ever flight with humans aboard.

 

Tom Cruise is known for going all-out and taking risks while filming, insisting on performing all of his own stunts in his movies, even when it leads to serious injury, like the time he broke his ankle during an action sequence in Mission: Impossible – Fallout. And it looks like he’ll soon be taking his daredevil approach to acting further than ever — where no movie star has gone before.

According to Mike Fleming Jr. at Deadline, Cruise is rumored to have partnered with Elon Musk’s SpaceX on his most ambitious project to date; an action movie that would be actually be shot in outer space. Fleming writes that Cruise is already in talks with NASA, although no studio is involved at present.

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Elon Musk Calls on Space Force to Embrace Fully Reusable Rockets: ‘Make Starfleet Happen’

 

Article by Sandra Erwin                           February 28, 2020                              (spacenews.com)

• On February 28th at the Air Force Association’s annual winter symposium in Orlando, Florida, SpaceX founder Elon Musk joined the commander of the Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, Lt. Gen. John Thompson (both pictured above), for a “fireside chat”. “How do we make Starfleet real?” Musk asked the audience of US Air Force airmen who are now transitioning to the Space Force.

• Musk said that the future of air warfare is in autonomous drone warfare. “The fighter jet era has passed.” The ‘ticket to the future’, says Musk, is to make extensive use of reusable launch vehicles rather than expendable boosters. “I think we can go a long way to make Starfleet real and these utopian futures real.” Of course, Musk is referring to the type of rockets that his SpaceX company builds such as the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets which are ‘partially reusable’, and the new Starship vehicle currently in development which is ‘fully reusable’.

• The military will test Musk’s reusable rockets for the first time with the upcoming Falcon 9 launch of a GPS satellite on April 29th. The Space and Missile Systems Center will allow SpaceX to attempt to land the booster on a droneship at sea.

• In 2018, SpaceX was turned down on a bid for a Launch Service Agreement contract that would help to fund the Starship’s development. The Air Force awarded LSA contracts to three other companies, prompting SpaceX to file a legal challenge that is still pending.

• Musk cast Starship as an example of “radical innovation” that will keep the United States in the lead as other nations like China advance their space capabilities. “I have zero doubt that if the United States does not create innovations in space, it will be second in space.” Musk says that Starship will enable access to deep space and the eventual colonization of Mars. He encouraged rival companies to start building fully reusable vehicles like Starship and create a more competitive industry. Musk suggested there should be more ‘disruptive competition’ in the defense industry.

• [Editor’s Note]  Musk strongly advocates “radical innovations” in space and “more disruptive competition in the defense industry” that will keep the United States in the lead as other nations like China advance their space capabilities. But what are these radical innovations? Eighty-year-old rocket technology. Apparently, the deep state military industrial complex wants to continue to hide its advanced exotic technologies, such as anti-gravity that the US Air Force uses in their advanced TR3B black triangle craft, and portable nuclear fusion reactor propulsion which the US Navy has publicly revealed in recent patent filings. (see ExoArticles here and here)

The deep state also wants to continue hiding the fact that the US military has deployed these technologically advanced spacecraft since the US Navy’s Solar Warden fleet in the 1980’s. Since then, these types of spacecraft have traversed not only the solar system, but the galaxy. Space travel within the solar system using these advanced propulsion technologies – not rockets- has become routine.

Who better to do the deep state’s bidding than the thoroughly compromised Elon Musk, who denies the existence of such advanced spacecraft and the presence of extraterrestrials? Musk isn’t interested in revealing the truth. Musk is only interested in the US government buying his revamped rocket technology to make himself a fortune.

 

ORLANDO, Fla. — In his first appearance at a military conference since the establishment of the U.S. Space Force, SpaceX founder Elon Musk gave his usual pitch on the virtues of reusable rockets. But he tailored the message to an audience of airmen who started their careers in the U.S. Air Force but are now transitioning to a new service and pondering the possibilities.

 Elon Musk: keeping the Deep State’s secrets

“How do we make Starfleet real?” Musk asked to roaring applause during a one-hour fireside chat with the commander of the Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center Lt. Gen. John Thompson Feb. 28 at the Air Force Association’s annual winter symposium.

Musk then answered his own question, insisting that reusable launch vehicles are “absolutely fundamental” to achieving whatever space ambitions the military might have, including staying ahead of China.

Many of Musk’s comments on reusable rockets were repeats of what he said at a previous appearance at an Air Force conference Nov. 5 in San Francisco, where he also sat down with Thompson.

On Friday, Musk made multiple references to the fictional Star Trek “Starfleet” to hammer the message that reusable rockets are the ticket to the future. “I think we can go a long way to make Starfleet real and these utopian futures real.”

But none of this can happen as long as the military continues to rely on expendable boosters, said Musk.

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