Update no.1201

Update from the Sunland

No.1201

13.1.24 – 19.1.25

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

 

To all,

 

Thursday, 16.January.2025, was a big day for the commercial space biz. After several postponements for weather and mechanical problems, we had two significant launches on the same day.

 

Blue Origins New Glenn (NG-1) inaugural launch finally took flight on 16.January.2025, at 02:03 [R] EST (07:03 [Z] UTC) from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. All seven New Glenn booster BE-4 engines ignited and performed nominally during ascent. The second stage separated, and both BE-3 vacuum engines lit off and propelled the second stage with its small payload into its planned elliptical orbit. The test payload was not planned to deploy, rather it had a number of communications tasks to enable future payload support operations. To my knowledge, after performing all its on-orbit tasks, the second stage was commanded to reenter the atmosphere, where it broke up and disintegrated rather than become more space junk. Blue Origins accomplished their primary mission. The booster performed its primary task and was planned to reenter the atmosphere and land on a barge ship in the Atlantic Ocean. The separation and initial reentry appeared nominal. However, at roughly 84,226 feet altitude and 4,285 mph, the telemetry data froze, which suggests communications were lost with the booster and in turn is a big clue that the vehicle may have experienced an inflight breakup in the final stages of its planned controlled landing on a recovery ship. What happened to the stage 1 booster reentry? We do not yet know other than the vehicle did not reach the landing ship platform and presumably impacted the Atlantic Ocean. There are numerous potential causes for the mishap. I expect the Blue Origins engineering team will determine the cause(s) and make appropriate design improvements.

 

SpaceX launched its Integrated Flight Test number 7 (IFT-7) [FYI: IFT should not be confused with Flight Termination System (FTS), an explosive charge to destroy the vehicle if it goes awry.] After several postponements, the IFT-7 stack (Booster 14 + Starship 33) ignited all 33 Raptor engines on the first stage booster at 16:37 [S] CST {22:37 [Z] UTC; 15:37 [T] MST}, on 16.January.2025. The weather at Boca Chica, Texas, was near perfect. The booster operated nominally to the hot separation of the Starship, and then it executed its reentry burn into the atmosphere. We watched the massive booster decelerate and maneuver to be captured by the chopsticks on the launch tower at Boca Chica. The booster flight and capture at the launch site was yet another magnificent demonstration of superb engineering, physics, and ingenuity. Unfortunately, the Starship did not fare so well. All six engines (three sea level and three vacuum engines) lit off properly at hot staging. The data downlink was lost during ascent at roughly T+8:30, 21,317 km/h and 146 kilometers altitude.

Indications reported by technical observers suggest that the vehicle experienced a liquid methane leak near the bottom of the craft that was ignited by the operating engines, causing a fire and eventually an explosion and disintegration of the spacecraft. Flickers of the flame were seen at the aft hinge or the right flap. The methane tank quantity began decreasing faster than normal consumption. The engines shutdown in sequence before the telemetry link failed. It is notable that Starship 33 was the first Block 2 version that incorporated numerous changes, presumably “improvements for production”—the bane of many a test program. The vehicle experienced a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD) with debris observed falling into the ocean near the Turks & Caicos Islands. Commercial flights in the area were affected for a short time. Unverified reports of some debris landing on the islands with some damage and no injuries on the ground have not been validated yet.

As an interesting footnote: one second ring engine on the booster failed to light off during the retrograde burn after staging, but that particular engine did relight during the deceleration burn prior to landing.

 

On Friday, 17.January.2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a Per Curiam decision in the case of Tiktok Inc. v. Garland [604 U. S. ____ (2025)], affirming the government’s authority to block U.S. access to the TikTok if the application owner (ByteDance Ltd.) did not divest its U.S. application by 00:01 [R] EST, Sunday, 19.Jaunary.2025. The law in question was the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act [Division H (138 Stat. 955) of PL 118-050; H.R.815; 138 Stat. 895]. TikTok challenged the law on First Amendment constitutional grounds. The Court rejected that challenge and rightly so.

TikTok is simply the soapbox at Debater’s Corner upon which the speaker stands to be heard. The speech on TikTok’s website is not TikTok’s speech. They enable the speech of their users, and those users have other similar platforms for their speech. The Court stated, “[W]e conclude that the challenged provisions [of the law] do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights.”

I am not and never have been a subscriber to TikTok. However, I have certainly watched countless videos uploaded to TikTok. I will miss those vidclips, but that is a small sacrifice to protect the United States from another conduit of PRC spying.

 

The Gaza Ceasefire was scheduled to begin at 08:30 [B] EEST, on Sunday, 19.January.2025. After some last-minute glitches, the ceasefire actually began at 11:15 [B] EEST. There are numerous obstacles still ahead, e.g., Gaza governances, emergency aid distribution, and of course the hostage releases. The first stage of hostage-prisoner exchanges as part of the new ceasefire began at 17:00 [B] EEST {10:00 [R] EST}. The plan calls for 33 Hamss hostages to be exchanged for 1,904 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. We now can only hope the ceasefire holds and peace will prevail. Somehow, the Israeli citizens must find a way to reign in the ultra-right conservative factions that wield such dominating influence in their nation. The Israelis are not alone in the need to for that task to be fulfilled.

 

Comments and contributions from Update no.1200:

“Good day Cap. My word you have been busier than ever-good work too. Can anything else be done to punish this man who’s name I cannot mention, not that I want to particularly? Surely he will face the law one day or is he now free to run the USA in his despicable carefree manner?”

My reply:

From my perspective, the opportunities to hold [the person who shall no longer be named] accountable for his crimes before, during and after his first tenure as POTUS are dwindling. Whether the classified documents and election interference (insurrection) cases might be resurrected when his second term as POTUS concludes will depend upon who is president and attorney general at the time. The MAGAts have already and repeatedly demonstrated their ambivalence and willingness to ignore his crimes in furtherance of their power ambitions. To be determined! Our history as a nation of laws and equal justice for all hangs in the balance, because what has happened to date is a few powerful people have been placed above the law, which is unstable and unsustainable. I do know that he will not be prosecuted for the next four years. Even if the Georgia election interference case is re-stimulated, the USG will likely argue the Supremacy Clause to delay any state prosecution until after his tenure as POTUS. That is perhaps a too-long response, but that is how I see things. His age hints that he might not survive the next four years, and his incapacity to stand trial for any reason would render any prosecution moot.

Given what I see so far, I suspect this version of [no name]’s unique chaos and disorder will be far worse than the first version. I truly hope not, but that is my prophecy.

 

Comment to the Blog:

“I’ll call that clown the Felon. Judge Merchan’s irrelevant mention of the misguided immunity doctrine doesn’t set aside the convictions even though it comes too close.

“Judge Cannon’s work is far more harmful (thus, immoral/unethical) than that of any sex worker who ever lived who wasn’t a spy. (Think Ghislaine Maxwell.) I’m interested in outside income or other such issues in Cannon’s case.

“I’ll call attention to the wildfires and other recent weather-related disasters. Failure to act strongly on climate change contributes to those. In the USA’s case, little will change until we address our government’s corruption.”

My response to the Blog:

Indeed, he is officially and in perpetuity a convicted felon. Yes, Judge Merchan’s inclusion of presidential limited immunity in his thinking on the business fraud case is absolutely wrong. He should have rejected the defense argument at the outset. He did not. Now, we have what we have. I suspect [no name] will appeal in his lame attempt to vacate the jury verdict. What that appeal might do is open the door for the appeals process to void Merchan’s sentence and impose a proper punishment. We shall see.

I am with you on the Cannon assessment. It is hard to ignore the blatant political bias in her rulings up to and including her blocking of the Smith report's public release. She might yet feel the heat from her paucity of judicial neutrality.

I shall not offer a rebuttal. I will only add that connecting the California wildfires with climate change is somewhat tenuous in my mind. Wildfires in California have been a potential since I was born and quite likely long before that moment. This latest conflagration was a conjunction of multiple factors. Regardless, I am all in favor of aggressive effort to stop, reverse, or lessen the effects of climate change.

 . . . Round two:

“There’s an argument that the Felon only ran again to escape legal consequences. That could throw a monkey wrench into predictions for the future. Also, he could plead age and infirmity to escape future sentencing. I have no sense that a given person or small group is guiding the new Presidency.

“The frequency and severity of wildfires in North America have increased greatly in the past decade. That’s a clue. Another is the more severe Santa Ana wind this year. If we seek final mathematical proof of anything, we do nothing about it.”

 . . . my response to round two:

I am a proponent of that precise hypothesis. My personal opinion . . . he never wanted to be president. He was never interested in being president. He only wanted the trappings of power, e.g., the world’s largest, most advanced, biz jet. That man is far, far, more interested in staying out of jail than he is with being president. He wants his ego stroked and fed, and after that, he wants to extend and expand his grift of We, the People. Frankly, I think he has been un-guide-able since he was a rebellious teenager. He has not changed since.

I appreciate your argument, and I certainly agree in part. The weather cycles. It always has . . . across millennia and across epochs. I have a long history of advocating for the weening of humanity off of fossil fuels. I remember the smog in LA decades ago; we cleaned that up (mostly). We largely removed ozone-destructive halocarbon compounds. I suppose I am just a little more cautious about radical change than others. Climate change is undeniable; we see the evidence as you pointed out. I am just apprehensive about cutting our nose off to spite our face. Lastly, we must vote; it is our duty; we must refuse to vote for climate change deniers.

 . . . Round three:

“This Felon resembles many others except in always having had large amounts of money.

“The climate does indeed cycle. The difference this time is a tenfold or more increase in speed. I’m not sure what you mean about ‘cutting our nose off to spite our face’. Our only planet is rapidly becoming unlivable for our species. As that continues, nothing else matters. President Carter had that insight long ago; the rest of us need to catch up.”

 . . . my response to round three:

Money has enabled an American form of royalty. The wealthy live under a different standard. Regardless of his money (or professed money), [no name] is a common felon. Unfortunately, 77M American citizens do not care; they want what they want.

What I mean is an allegorical version of “the power to tax is the power to destroy.” The issue is always balance, i.e., how do we avoid doing more damage than we help solve the problem? The “unlivable” threshold is farther away than your words suggest, and from my perspective, is more alarmist than helpful. Climate change is happening. The physical evidence is clear and unequivocal. What is more tenuous is the human inducement hypothesis. Regardless, as I repeatedly stated, we must ween ourselves off fossil fuels. The question is how fast?

 . . . Round four:

“The tipping point for the planet that scientists generally agreed on was 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial temperature. Last year was 1.6 degrees above that. The ‘unlivable’ threshold has already been crossed in other parts of the world. Many of the more prosperous people in the temperate zones of the world haven't felt the full impact yet, unless they've had natural disasters locally. Nevertheless, climate change is current, not in the future. The wealth of shareholders won't save the rest of us.”

. . . my response to round four:

Good points . . . all. No argument. I am not to the doom & gloom stage just yet. There are myriad socio-political aspects and ramifications to the climate change issue. I only urge thoughtful caution.

 

My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                  :-)