Rocket Startup Astra's Rocket 3.2 Reaches Space but not Orbit

We've been trying to keep an eye on startup Astra in the San Francisco Bay area for a while, and note that this week their Rocket 3.2 launched from Kodiak in Alaska and easily made it into space, but its final velocity was just a little short of the velocity required to attain orbit. From the company's blog entry on the mission:

Rocket 3.2 lifted off from the Alaskan coast on December 15th at 12:55 pm PT followed by more than two minutes of a successful first stage flight. A few seconds later, we completed a nominal stage separation and ignition of the upper stage, and blasted past the Kármán line, the border between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space. Almost seven minutes later, traveling over 16,000 miles per hour (Mach 21), Astra’s upper stage engine shut down nominally after depleting all of its fuel. Rocket 3.2 precisely achieved its target altitude of 380 kilometers at 7.2 km/sec… just short of orbital velocity of 7.68 km/sec.

This is the first time Astra has made it into space, even if it couldn't achieve orbit.  Their previous attempt, Rocket 3.1 failed on ascent last September.  In a video of the launch you can see the first stage fail after about 30 seconds, and then the vehicle starts tumbling.  It falls back to the ground and explodes on impact.  In contrast, reviewing this weeks' flight data they say that small tweaks to the fuel/oxidizer ratio are all it will take to achieve orbital velocity. 

Where Astra seems to fit into the launch ecosystem is the very bottom end.  Their booster is less powerful than the Rocket Lab Electron, which currently seems to be among the leaders in the small launch business, if not the actual leader.  The Rocket 3.2 is 11-1/2 meters tall, not even 38'.  The electron is 18 m or 59 feet tall.  A Falcon 9 is a much larger rocket at 229.6 feet tall. 

Liftoff from LP-3B in Alaska, from this video.

Still, we have to tip the hat to Astra.  As Elon Musk said, "orbit is hard."  Many try, nobody seems to make it without some pain.  According to that blog post, linked above, they have as many as 100 satellites contracted to be delivered to orbit and plan to start doing that soon. 

Stepping Backward

I've been trying to troubleshoot why my Webster Internal Combustion Engine won't start since Sunday and still no joy.  You know the old adage about four stroke engines: we need Suck-Squeeze-Bang-Blow, with fuel and spark at the proper times.  "All I gotta do" is verify I get all of those at the proper time and in the proper amounts.  This week hasn't been "one step forward two steps back;" it has just been the steps back.

One of the tests I've done is to see if I get compression at the top of the piston stroke.  The prints say, "Rotating the flywheel counter-clockwise should produce a "snorting" sound through the carburetor as the intake valve lifts."  I can hear something, but I'm not sure it's at the right time.  I took off the intake/exhaust valve stack and if I put my finger over the combustion chamber port, it blows enough air to make snort/squeak around my finger on the compression (squeeze) stroke.  The way fuel and air feed into the engine is that during the suck stroke, the piston pulling back creates a partial vacuum, which opens the intake valve and that air flowing in creates the fuel flow in.  I've never seen the valve move while I'm cycling the engine.  That probably means the valve doesn't need to move to let air in.  It's not sealed and the air just blows in around the valve without it moving. 

Time to take that valve stack apart.  I started experimenting with adding a gasket between that block and the engine and I noticed something funny.  I had disconnected the fuel line from the carburetor and stood the tank up so that the tubes were sticking upward out of the top. I noticed that a metal weight that came on the fuel line was no longer in the fuel line, but just lying on the bottom.  It came out?  That's really in the "that's funny" category.

I didn't round up a glass bottle to pour the Coleman fuel into until about lunchtime today, and when I went to take off the top to pour out the fuel, found the plastics inside the bottle had come apart. Badly.

That black plastic thing, now in two pieces was used to seal the bottle by tightening that Phillips screw in the lid.  That's sure not going to work again.  The light blue fuel line on the brass tube and the much larger diameter light blue tube underneath and behind it were one piece when I got it. That tubing swelled in size until the metal piece fell out. I suppose if I had left it lying on its side much longer, it would have started leaking.

Obviously these plastics aren't compatible with the Coleman fuel!  I boneheaded the task and didn't check to make sure this tank was compatible with it.  The tank is fine, it's the rubber stopper and the fuel line that need to be replaced.  Just as obviously, I'm without a gas tank for now.  I've found some things that are compatible, but with Christmas shipping bottlenecks, I'll be lucky to have them by New Years.  I'll continue to work on the valves, I just have no way to test the engine until I get a gas tank.

---

While I'm here, for fellow watchers of the Starship work over in Texas, the last thing I posted was the next road closures were the Monday after Christmas, 12/28 through 12/30.  Sometime last night they added this coming Monday, 12/21 through 12/23, all are 8AM to 5:30PM.  They don't really say what those closures are for, but we might see Eileen move sooner than the last update. 

A Little More on the BATFE Attack on Polymer80

Hey, at least no kittens were stomped to death.  That's an improvement for the BATFE.

I regularly listen to Michael Bane's weekly podcast (currently Michael Bane TV on the Radio) and this week's final podcast of 2020, episode 50, found Michael going into the topic of the ATF going after gun parts.  He has been on this bandwagon for months and has a few "I told ya so" lines in there but it's worth it.  He also covers it in his blog and uses legal input I was unfamiliar with. 

I’m thinking that the thugs at ATF are going to hang their hats on the concept of “constructive possession.” Read NFA lawyer Joshua Price’s (who I turn to for legal information on NFA issues) piece on the issue here: https://blog.princelaw.com/…/florida-man-arrested-for…/

“As I stated before, one must be very careful when entering into the NFA realm, even where an individual does not assemble the firearm into a NFA configuration because of the legal implications under the doctrine of constructive possession. Constructive Possession exists when a person knowingly has the power and intention at a given time to exercise dominion and control over an object, either directly or through others. US v. Turnbough, 1997 U.S. App. LEXIS 11886, *6. The government may establish constructive possession by demonstrating that the defendant exercised ownership, dominion or control over the premises in which the contraband is concealed.”

This would represent a huge expansion of how constructive possession has been construed. It was, I believe, originally aimed at drugs (natch) and illegal weapons possession in the sense that a forbidden person was in the presence of a firearm. ATF expanded that to include possession of the parts to complete an NFA weapon.

This goes a long way toward explaining the next phase of the war on guns.  Don't get hung up on the reference to the NFA; it's bigger than that.  The reference to the NFA is more applicable to the pistol brace front in the battles that are starting.  The reference is a court case in which ATF argued that if someone had all of the parts to make an NFA item, the only reason they had those parts was to make it.  That view was rejected in a 1992 case against Thompson/Center Arms in which the court ruled that the “rule of lenity” applied (i.e., any ambiguities in criminal statutes should be resolved in favor of the defendant).

A way of thinking about that NFA reference might be helpful.  Imagine you have no AR platform guns except a single carbine you've bought.  You decide you would really like to build an AR pistol and you buy a nice 8 inch barrel as the first part.  Totally innocent, right?  The BATFE could argue that since you have only one lower receiver, which is a rifle, the only thing you could want to do with that barrel is build the NFA short barreled rifle (SBR).  A better approach would be to get the lower receiver first.  It doesn't have to be a receiver for a pistol, as long as it isn't paired as a rifle.  (There's that odd old rule that if a receiver is considered for a rifle, you can't make it a pistol and vice versa)  Constructive possession says that if you have the 8" barrel in a storage place you rent and the carbine in a safe in your home, they're still yours so your intent is to make the NFA firearm.

Where this gets odious is the anti-gun side absolutely hates the idea of being able to put together a gun from parts.  Being able to build you own gun has been US law (and custom) for as long as the country has existed.  In the early days of gun control, more people thought buying parts to repair, or build their guns was a normal thing, and the ATF took a relatively light touch.  They defined a particular part of the gun to be the gun.  In more restrictive countries, there's no such thing as buying a part from a place like Midway or Brownells to improve your gun.  Every single part is regulated and gets the buyer the equivalent of the rectal exam they'd get for a complete gun.  The anti-gun left wants that for the US.  No 80% receivers and certainly no kits of parts to complete one prepackaged with an 80% receiver. 

John Richardson over at No Lawyers - Only Guns and Money put up a leaked version of the BATFE's "Guidance on Pistol Braces" today.   It's 16 pages of legalese and John includes a summary from the Firearms Policy Coalition.  The key finding I see, because it's the kind of thing that "triggers" me is:

2) The draft document instead purports to be intended to inform the public on how brace-equipped firearms will be examined in the future. Based on the criteria set forth in the draft document, it appears that the ATF would take something of a ‘totality of the circumstances’ approach in determining whether a specific brace-equipped pistol is a ‘short-barreled’ firearm regulated under the NFA. These criteria include: the firearm’s type, caliber, weight, and length, the design of the brace itself, whether the firearm can be properly aimed when using the attachment as a brace, and whether an optic that cannot properly be used one-handed is present (i.e., something that suggests intent). The agency also indicates that it will observe the marketing of firearms and accessories, as well as other more subjective factors.

“Totality of the circumstances” reminds me of the old, “I can’t define pornography but I’ll know it when I see it” definition.  There's nothing specific, so people can never know how they will be viewed.  That allows the agency to make arbitrary rules, and sets up judges to always have the last word.  The rulemakers make it impossible for individuals to decipher what's acceptable and what isn't.  More importantly, there doesn't have to be the slightest bit of consistency in their rulings.  This is why every company that wants to market an 80% receiver has to submit them to the BATFE to get approval to sell them.  There are no objective standards.  Tyrants and other control freaks want it that way.  

The "Totality of Circumstances" approach combined with constructive possession is how they can rule that a Polymer80 plastic “Mock Glock” can’t fire and isn’t a firearm, but their Buy Build Fire kit which puts the parts needed to make it work in the same box with that plastic chunk makes it a firearm. It still can't fire anything because nobody has done the machine work to transform the chunk of plastic into something those parts can be put into.  Someone less determined to stop people from working on guns could look at the same circumstances and reach the opposite conclusion. 

If anything constructive possession means that if you don't buy the kit with the parts to complete it in one purchase, but buy them separately from another seller, they can still argue that there's nothing else you would do with that other than build a gun.  One step closer to getting rid of gun part sales completely.  Which would make working on your own guns a federal crime.

If anything, Michael Bane thinks it's part of a big picture attack by the big names in the anti-gun world.

One of the Left’s key goals has been not just the passage of antigun laws, but the elimination of the Gun Culture. As we have discussed at great length here and on the podcast, the “Bloomberg Model” laws adopted by so many states, including Colorado, were primarily focused on making illegal common practices within the culture, such as loaning a firearm to a friend for a hunting trip or competition, or passing guns down to children and other relatives. The laws themselves were far less consequential than their intent…making minor interactions between firearms owners harder and harder, thus weakening the bonds that weaves together what we call the Gun Culture.

Completed Polymer80 guns; photo from Michael Bane.

What's Up With Eileen?

Eileen, the Starship Prototype formerly known as SN9, went for a short trip yesterday and there were road closures scheduled for tomorrow and Friday as backup.  It made me think that they were planning to bring Eileen down to the launch pad area and work on her there.   As of tonight, the road closures for this week have been canceled and the only mention of a road closure is December 28 and 29. At this point, it looks like Eileen isn't moving until then. 

When we last left Eileen, we gave her that name because the stand she was mounted to in the high bay building collapsed and she fell over into the front corner of the building.  Both of the small control surfaces on that side of the ship (I'd call it the starboard side) were damaged.  The things we couldn't get clarity on were first whether Eileen was deemed repairable at all, and then if the repairs would be done in the high bay or out at the launch pad.  She was lifted straight up and held in place by Bluto the crane (sometimes called Tankzilla - I am not making this up) on Sunday.  The work yesterday was to lift Eileen, bring her outside to remove the damaged support structure she was bolted to, replace the stand in the high bay with an upgraded version, put her back into high bay and bolt her to that new and improved support.

As a side note, I really don't know what to call those aero surfaces.  They're not functionally flaps and they're the wrong size and wrong location for those.  They're too small for wings, or at least too small to provide much lift.  I've seen them called flings - combining flap and wing - but that's just being cute.  Since they do provide steering, something ailerons do, perhaps we should call them that.  I've seen one writer refer to them as Elonerons.  Whatever we call them, the big one on the aft end of the Starship seems to have been replaced already and the small one at the forward end still needs to be replaced. 

Eileen's forward, starboard aileron is still crumpled up,

while her aft aileron on that side looks undamaged.   Both photos by Boca Chica Gal (Mary) for NASA Spaceflight (dot com).  By the way - that's SN5 or SN6 to Eileen's right and considerably closer to the camera.  I never could tell them apart. 

There's still many tons of debris to clear from the pad area and based on the road closures it looks like no more hops or significant tests will occur in 2020. 

Closer to home, we will watch the last Falcon 9 launch of the year  tomorrow morning, a mission for the secretive National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), dubbed NROL-108.  Liftoff will be No Earlier Than (NET) 9:00 AM EST (14:00 UTC), Thursday, December 17th.  The launch window extends until noon.  As usual, SpaceX will start a live webcast of the launch starting about 15 minutes before liftoff.  For those keeping track, this is booster B1059, last seen on the Argentine SAOCOM-1B satellite mission August 30th.  This will be B1059's fifth flight.  This marks a continuation of a trend with US government agencies, first NASA now NRO, trusting SpaceX's flight-proven boosters.  Sunday's launch of the Sirius-XM satellite marks acceptance by other industry customers as well.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Some of you know one of my favorite gripes about the political class is that none of them ever seem to think one move ahead, and certainly never two.  Nobody ever seems to think, "and then what happens?"  Nobody ever thinks about how the world will respond to their new laws.  

From what I've seen, there's no doubt that the election was rigged.  Bill Barr actually told the truth when he said there was "no widespread voter fraud."  The whole point of what they did was that it didn't need to be widespread.  All they had to do was siphon off some votes from Trump and give them to Biden in a few key states.  This is exactly what was reported a month ago in that video by Dr. Shiva of MIT, and now appears in the Antrim County security report being talked about today.

As I understand it, here's what Dominion did.  In Michigan, for example, they took the results by precinct and skimmed "excess" votes for Trump and gave them to Biden.  Let's say it was a precinct that voted 85% for Trump.  They skimmed a percentage, let's say 30% and gave them to Biden.  The amount of votes they moved to Biden depended on how much he led by; the more votes there were for Trump the more they stole while not changing the precinct's overall decision; Trump still won the precinct, but elections aren't really run by precinct.  The end result was they skimmed so many votes that it swung the state.  In the handful of states in question, it swung the nation.

Obviously, that's no software error, no "glitch:" it's a carefully implemented software algorithm.  When people point out the results are statistically impossible, or that they violate Benford's Law, they're referring to the results of these changes.  As the report from Antrim County by the Allied Security Operations Group, LLC,(ASOG) (the whole pdf) says:

The allowable election error rate established by the Federal Election Commission guidelines is of 1 in 250,000 ballots (.0008%). We observed an error rate of 68.05%. This demonstrated a significant and fatal error in security and election integrity.

Lawyers like to talk about whom the damaged party is, and that's a good question.  The easy answer is Trump was damaged, but in a very real sense, anyone whose vote was moved was also damaged.  I think the argument could be made that damages go beyond the states where the Dominion systems were used.  Like the suit by Texas and 28 other states said, voters in other states were also damaged by votes being negated in the Dominion systems.  As the president has authority over all 50 states, anyone that voted for him and didn't get him in a free and fair election was also a damaged party.  I shouldn't have to say this, but losing like this is different from losing in a fair election. 

Where do we go from here?  Unless the voting system in this country is completely reformed, there will never be another free and fair election.  The vast majority will never trust voting again, unless I misread people.  I am not a lawyer, let alone a constitutional lawyer, but there is no Federal authority to do the first thing about that; it's left to the states, specifically to their legislatures, and you've got to believe the states that cheated not only wanted their systems so they could cheat, they'll fight to keep it that way.  (Arizona might be an exception)  Further, whom do you trust to clean up the elections in all 50 states?  The swamp creatures in DC?  The FBI - the same agency that led a four year long coup against the sitting president?  I've heard several times that the election monitors we send to foreign countries would never accept this one at home; how do we get other countries to clean up?

Part of me is saying that this is only different in degree from previous elections.  Remember how many times people have talked about some phrase like, "the margin of fraud."  Think of Al Franken but there are lots more.   Now that the fraud has been computerized and made adaptive (the reason for the late night delivery of more ballots), I don't see how anyone can ever overcome the margin of fraud.  Does anybody trust these hundred million dollar US Senate runoff elections in a state that already cheated?

If states don't voluntarily clean up their acts, and I don't believe they will, I can envision attacks by "white hat" hackers, or relentless software bots programmed to attack exposed electronic voting systems and destroy them - or enhance their cheating.  That might incentivize the manufacturers to keep their machines off the Internet, which might make it harder to implement their cheating.  I expect that Dominion is monitoring what's being said about their algorithms being detectable by statistical inference and working on ways to make them less detectable.  Think of an electronic arms race as what happens if there are no reforms to the election systems.  Electronic measures, electronic counter measures, counter-counter measures, and so on.

It's tempting to say the Republic is dead.  If nobody trusts going to the polls anymore, how do we continue?  Everything from secession to open warfare is on the table.   Where do we go from here?

From NewsLA

Still Relevant After All These Years - Maybe More Relevant

Here on this day when the Electoral College named Slow Joe and the Ho as the new administration. 

The Gods of the Copy Book Headings - Rudyard Kipling

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return! 

Another Step Forward and Still Not There

This time in reference to getting my Webster running. 

That's right, it's finally time to try to get the little engine I've been working on since May of '19 running.  My last update just showed off the mounting of the replacement points.  This week, I started hooking up my Capacitive Discharge Ignition system (CDI).  

First, a day or so after that last post, I went to adjust timing on the engine with everything I had available to work to and found the points didn't move anymore.  The large diameter of the cam holds the points open and they only close briefly during the flat spot on the cam.  That requires the spring to close the points and it wouldn't.  I removed them and they barely would move in my hand, eliminating something about the way I mounted them.  After about a half hour of pushing on them, examining them, and agonizing over it, I put a drop of light oil around the part of the spring near the cap screw you can see in the picture. They started moving again.  It has been almost 40 years since I last worked on a car with points so my memory might not be the best, but I've never oiled points before.

With the points working, it was time to hook up the CDI. The system is designed to work on a battery pack, and the notes with the set said it ran best closest to 5V, although it would survive to 6.5.  Maybe.  My four alkaline AAs measured too close to 6.5 for comfort, so I took out one out of the string of four, replacing it with a jumper.  It's now 4.75V (or was when I started).  Once I was sure all the connections were good, I looked at the workbench and decided I had a nice way of organizing the setup; a piece of 3" wide aluminum channel that I bought to cut one 1" wide piece off. 

See that green jumper?  That makes a four cell battery pack into a three cell pack.  The on/off switch in the middle seemed like a good thing to add.  At bottom right, you'll see the end of the engine; the white piece is the CM6 spark plug with the spark plug wire (the heavy black wire) running back to the black plastic CDI module marked S/S.  There's a thinner black wire that's the engine ground for the ignition.  Before getting this far along, I removed the spark plug, laid the plug on the metal ground of the engine and cranked the flywheel with my electric drill to see if it sparked.  It sparked just fine. 

Finally, it was time to put some fuel in the tank and try to get it to start. 

It won't start.  If it had started I would have been more surprised than if SpaceX had nailed the landing on the SN8 test flight instead of cratering on the landing pad.  In fact, if it had started, I probably would have fainted and broke my skull on my concrete floor.

I've been expecting to have to start a lot of troubleshooting here, so here we are.  I know I messed with the carburetor, and have gotten the instructions from the maker to reset it to normal.  The next thing is to go back into the ignition timing. 

Starship Prototype SN9 Set to Roll to Pad Monday

Well, that was the story yesterday on Teslarati.   I'm not sure, but I think it was posted before SN9's support structure in the Hi Bay partially broke and SN9 got a little tipsy into the corner (thanks to regular reader/commenter Malatrope for the info and link).  Like this.

SN9 has earned the name Eileen from now on for forever.

The question is whether Eileen was hurt badly enough that she can't make it to the pad without repairs there in the high bay.  As of minutes ago, Saturday night, the large crane kept around for lifting these 50 meter tall rockets, a crane affectionately named Bluto (the body of the crane is blue) was extended partly into the building and being set to lift Eileen up and out.  A bit farther down the page at NASA Spaceflight, we can see damage to Eileen's lower flap on the side near the front corner of the High Bay.  Whether that's better repaired there in the assembly area (called the shipyard) or if it should be fixed out on the test pad is a question I can't answer. 

All I can say is we shall see over the course of the next couple of days.  If they pull Eileen out of the High Bay and start repairs in the shipyard, that probably means they won't move her to the test area until the repairs are done.   If they pull her out, stand her there and work on the collapsed stand in the High Bay, that probably means she's over there until all repairs are completed. 

No matter where they're done, the repairs probably rule out a flight before January.

Has The Use-By Date Passed Already?

I don't know.  It's close to expired, but I only did it last night. 

As you were.  Today might be a bit disjointed, with lots in the news.  

BATFE Going After 80% Receivers Again - Revised

The BATFE has apparently decided to start going into regulatory expansionism again, with a perceived change in administration coming to someone who's more likely to grow the Bureau's budgets again.  Back in October they started going after pistol braces in an apparent attempt to outlaw AR pistols - or start down that road.  According to TTAG (The Truth About Guns), on Thursday the 10th the BATFE raided Polymer80, one of the largest makers of 80% lowers and pistol frames.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

The raid target, Nevada-based Polymer80, is suspected of illegally manufacturing and distributing firearms, failing to pay taxes, shipping guns across state lines and failing to conduct background investigations, according to an application for a search warrant unsealed Thursday after the raid took place.

The probe focuses on Polymer80’s “Buy Build Shoot Kit,” which includes the parts to build a “ghost” handgun. The kit, which Polymer80 sells online, meets the definition of a firearm, ATF investigators determined according to the warrant application. That means it would have to be stamped with a serial number and couldn’t be sold to consumers who haven’t first passed a background check.

TTAG supplied this product photo of a “Buy Build Shoot Kit.” From what I know there isn't one gun in this photograph.  Nothing that requires a serial number or a background check.  It's no different than if you bought a bar of metal and some hunks of plastic.

Like everyone who sells these so-called 80% receivers (the percentage, though widely used, has no correspondence to reality), Polymer80 submitted their designs and products to the BATFE for a ruling on whether they met the criteria for not being a gun.  The Feds ruled that they're not guns, yet somehow the BATFE is saying when they sell a hunk of plastic that's not a gun with handful of small parts that aren't a gun in a common package, it becomes a gun.  Non-gun + non-gun = gun  

But the Buy Build Shoot Kits, which are advertised as having “all the necessary components to build a complete…pistol” weren’t submitted to the agency for approval, according to the application for the search warrant. These kits can be “assembled into fully functional firearms in a matter of minutes,” the warrant application says.

There was no reason to submit it to the agency for approval.  Nothing was a gun and nothing about what they were selling was new except being in one package.  Convenience makes it a gun?  This reminds me of the BATFE vs. Ares Armor case in 2014 in which the BATFE argued Ares Armor was illegally manufacturing guns.  What they were doing was making a plastic lower with a different color plastic in the fire control pocket, which would be removed when making it into a gun.  BATFE said the second plastic had to be added to a complete receiver which was turning a gun into "not a gun" and during the brief existence of the gun, it needed to be serialized and treated as a gun thereafter.  Ares Armor said their process documents proved that it was made all at once and a finished receiver was never present. 

As an aside, the absolute coolest trick in the world, and I've never heard anyone else ever talk about doing it, would be to mold this out of two grades of plastic. Wouldn't it just be the coolest thing you've ever seen if the body of the lower melted at say, 400 degrees, and the part that needed to be removed melted at 200? So that all you'd have to do to turn this 80% lower into a finished one would be to soak it in boiling water? I wonder if that could be done.

Of course, the BATFE is not a group to be all sophisticated about "dat legal shit."  They're much more interested in the "control" part of gun control.  I'm just surprised that they seem more than happy to open a can of worms that just a year ago they didn't want to get near.  Last October, the BATFE dropped charges of manufacturing guns against a guy who had set up a gun club so that any member could pay their $25 dues to join, put their lower receiver in a fixture he had designed, press "GO" on the CNC controller and let it turn an aluminum lower into a gun for them.  Considering that the BATFE had previously said if someone so much as marked where to drill a hole on an 80% lower that they had manufactured a gun, that seems like a pretty open and shut legal case, so why did they drop the case and let the guy go?

The judge in the case had given an opinion that completing a lower receiver still didn't turn it into a gun!  BATFE's laws don't do what they're intended to do, and if BATFE lost the case firearms law would collapse into a black hole of nothingness.  BATFE is terrified that they created a situation where there is no definition for which part of the AR-15 is the gun.  Their definition of a receiver is spread across both the upper and lower receiver in an AR-15. 

As I like to say, "don't worry; it's not that bad. It's worse." That ruling last October isn't the first. There was another case in 2016 in which BATFE dropped the case because the Judge read the law and said the guy wasn't manufacturing guns because a completed lower isn't a gun. To borrow a quote, BATFE is muy FUBAR.

As I said in my conclusion last October:

What the rulings seem to be saying is that the AR platform with its regulated lower and unregulated upper is inconsistent with Federal law. Since it's impossible to redesign the platform with millions of them already in peoples' hands, the solution is for congress to come up with a definition for the lower receiver that's workable. That's going to be a giant ball of fail; congress never writes laws that require technical details because none of them are qualified. On the other hand, if someone was to do things that the BATFE frowned on with some lower receivers, we have two cases that say they're going to quit before they get ruled against for all the marbles. In the words of Dirty Harry, "do you feel lucky?"

In this case, the polymer pistol isn't an AR, so I wonder if Polymer80 can argue the precedent set in 2016 and 2019, that nothing they're selling meets the federal legal definition of a gun? 

EDITED 12/12 1200 EST to add:

Today's Ammoland Shooting Sports News adds some context to this story.  This is wider than just a raid on Polymer80. 

This week ATF has shown up at multiple shooting-sports-related companies and retailer's door to demanded customer information about those American citizens who legally purchased 80% pistol frames.

They make the point that BATFE has demanded that Polymer80 turn over lists of buyers of the BATFE's targeted Buy Build Shoot kits, to do background checks on buyers to find prohibited persons.  Again, the problem with the kits appears to be convenience, and BATFE is essentially saying that anything a company sells that is based on the incomplete receiver concept needs to be submitted for their review.  Just as anything using the pistol brace concept needs to be submitted for their review. 

Rob Pincus of the Personal Defense Network has a worthwhile video here - there are two, the top one is nearly six minutes long, but worth the time.

Ammoland also points out that the BATE also "paid a visit" to Brownells to ensure they were not selling the convenient Buy Build Shoot kits, and found they were not (which they could have determined by visiting their online store and searching for them). 

“The ATF did visit our facility on Thursday, December 10, 2020,” said Ryan Repp, Brownells VP of Marketing. “It’s my understanding they inquired about our sales of the Polymer 80 ‘Buy, Build, Shoot’ kit. Brownells has not and does not sell that kit. Polymer 80 continues to be a great partner for Brownells. We proudly sell their 80% products and other parts.”

The ATF did raid or show up at other companies that sell other kits that include 80% part kits, barrels, and slides that are not Polymer80. AmmoLand News sources inside the ATF say that the agency is now considering 80% kits with all the parts needed to finish a pistol as a firearm. None of the companies had any warning on the change to ATF’s regulations before actual agents showed up making attempts to retrieve customer information.

The ATF is interested in the customer records, and this seems to be a nationwide crackdown. The agency’s intent on acquiring customer's personal records and run criminal background against the list to see if any felons have purchased the 80% frame. The ATF is making a de facto 80% gun registration. [I would add bold for emphasis, but it would take up the entire second two paragraphs: SiG]

This is a fast-developing situation.  I'll try to keep updates coming as I read about them.

The SN8 Test Flight Was Worth Waiting For

The long awaited and frequently talked about test flight of Starship Prototype Serial Number 8 took place at 4:45 PM CST, after a countdown that went into a long hold at T-2:06 earlier in the day.  They analyzed their data and decided to launch anyway.  

With no feedback from SpaceX, the flight had a lot of events that seemed like problems but could have been planned.  Elon Musk's tweets in the aftermath of the flight make them appear to be planned.  One Raptor engine shut down at 1 minute 45 into flight & the second at 3:15 into flight. One talking head/commenter speculated that this was done deliberately to lower the thrust to weight ratio and keep the vehicle from accelerating too quickly.  It could also be used to judge how well the control systems adapted to loss of two engines. Yes, the vehicle slammed down during the attempt to flip upright and land on its legs.  Elon always said the chance of getting everything right was about 1 in 3.

That's the wreckage of SN8 after its RUD (Rapid Unplanned Disassembly).  In the hour or so after the test, Elon tweeted (oldest to most recent from top to bottom):

Successful ascent, switchover to header tanks & precise flap control to landing point!

Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD, but we got all the data we needed! Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah!!

SN8 did great! Even reaching apogee would’ve been great, so controlling all way to putting the crater in the right spot was epic!!

From Elon Musk's Twitter account.

On the left edge of that screen capture image, you can see some dark smoke wafting away from the wreckage.  It was still burning an hour and a half later at 7:15 PM EST when I sat down to compose this, but has seemingly burned out now, another half hour later. 

Meanwhile I'll leave you with this: the entire test flight.  Don't rewind this to the beginning. It starts at T-1:00 minute or 1:47:11 into the entire video. 

I bet that SN9 will go to the test pad No Later Than Friday, and will progress through its tests faster than SN8. 

A Hectic Day Leads to a Mixed Up Post

Hectic?  In what way?  You ask.  Some of it was sitting and watching activities on the attempt to launch Starship SN8 that was aborted automatically as the engines were coming up to thrust.  Some of it was centered on one of those phrases I'm sure all of us have heard but not all have had problems with:  Medicare Open Enrollment.  It's that time of year when you can change other plans you have, dropping or adding as you wish.  Some of it was Christmas decorating and keeping on top of things in the house.. 

There has been no official description of what the problem at engine startup was, but since it was 4:35 PM with the window officially closing at 5:00, they stood down for the day quickly.  There's a repeat of the TFR and road closure tomorrow as well, so depending on what they find was the problem, this could launch tomorrow.  Or not.  These engines have been static fired, so we know they started at least once! 

A surprise today was that NASA flew one of their WB-57 aircraft down to around the launch site, a reconnaissance jet often used to capture aerial photos and videos of spacecraft tests.  No one had mentioned that possibility in any of my reading leading up to today.  Chances are this is a part of the $135 million Starship Moon lander contract awarded by NASA in April.  NASA has positioned itself to benefit from SpaceX’s success and leverage the company’s extensive internal investments.  A few hours of flight like this is probably not a big expense.

A WB-57 - NASA Photo.  In some views, it's reminiscent of a U-2; in others, not so much.

The Medicare Open Enrollment story is more annoying than anything.  The company I retired from, doesn't exist anymore.  Two or three years ago, they were bought by a bigger fish in the sea, and last year merged with another to create an even bigger fish.  Rather than going to the HR department, I have to go to a company they contract with to manage the relationships between retirees and the various insurance companies.  Something I did in early November triggered them to assign someone to call me this evening at 7:15 local.  Meanwhile something else triggered them to cancel the call - without letting me know.   No phone call as I sat here waiting.  I suppose there's a chance they'll call me at 7:15 in someone else's time zone.  Bangalore? 

I haven't posted this picture or done much to follow up to it, but that's part of the general busy-ness of the season, too. 

Those are the right points (reference), and have been on the engine eight days.  "All I gotta do" is get the details of assembly right to time the ignition, valves and such, wire up my electronic ignition, put some fuel in the tank and try to start it.   Yeah.  All I gotta do.

For Those Attempting to Watch The Starship Test Flight Tuesday 12/8

While we don't have a released time for the launch, the road closure and Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) run from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM CST and SpaceX has announced they'll be starting a webcast or stream video "a few minutes before the test."  You can watch on YouTube or on the SpaceX Starship site and get more details about the mission and their coverage.  If they don't make it tomorrow, there are backup opportunities the next two days.

Earlier today, they ran a wet dress rehearsal, similar to what they do on a Falcon 9 a day or two before lift off. Tanks are filled with liquid methane and oxygen, pumps turned on, engines pre-chilled, pre-burners tested; in other words, everything short of firing the engines.  Then the vehicle was de-tanked and made safe.  Ready for the big step. 

Screen capture while replaying the test; the time along the bottom is the recorded time at this point in the test, when the vehicle is venting gases from multiple places.

This is a test of a complex piece of hardware. They've built up to this point slowly and methodically, failing and improving all along the way.  Last Friday (as best I recall) SN8 was fitted with explosive charges to destroy the vehicle in flight should it get too far off course.  SpaceX has a pretty good few paragraphs on the webpage with their video link.

As early as Tuesday, December 8, the SpaceX team will make the first attempt of a high-altitude suborbital flight test of Starship serial number 8 (SN8) from our site in Cameron County, Texas. The schedule is dynamic and likely to change, as is the case with all development testing.

This suborbital flight is designed to test a number of objectives, from how the vehicle’s three Raptor engines perform to the overall aerodynamic entry capabilities of the vehicle (including its body flaps) to how the vehicle manages propellant transition. SN8 will also attempt to perform a landing flip maneuver, which would be a first for a vehicle of this size.

With a test such as this, success is not measured by completion of specific objectives but rather how much we can learn, which will inform and improve the probability of success in the future as SpaceX rapidly advances development of Starship.

They go on to say that between serial numbers SN5 and SN6, their hops and other tests, they've accumulated over 16,000 seconds - almost 4-1/2 hours - of run time during 330 ground engine starts, including multiple Starship static fires and four flight tests of the reusable methalox full-flow staged combustion Raptor engine. Additionally, with production accelerating and fidelity increasing, SpaceX has built 10 Starship prototypes.  Numbers 9 through 16 are in various stages of assembly there at Boca Chica.  The first Superheavy booster is being built up there as well.

Elon Musk flew into Brownsville yesterday, and tweeted he was out on the pad this afternoon.  That automatically makes the big test look closer.  As a comment by reader Homesteader said on Friday, this feels like being on the dunes at Kitty Hawk when the Wright Brothers came. 

100th Falcon 9 Launch Sends NextGen Dragon Cargo Capsule to ISS

Today's CRS-21 mission marked a historic day for SpaceX, with the launch of the next generation Cargo Dragon 2 capsule to the International Space Station.  The launch was the 100th launch of a Falcon 9, and the fourth flight of booster B1058.  The successful landing of that booster on the drone ship was the 68th successful recovery of a booster and the 35th successful recovery on drone ship Of Course I Still Love You.  It was the 24th launch for SpaceX this year, with three more for December on the manifest at Spaceflight Now.

In a slew of firsts for NASA and SpaceX, CRS-21 marked the first time in history a new spacecraft has debuted on a flight-proven rocket, the first time SpaceX has flown an orbital mission for NASA on a twice or thrice-flown Falcon 9 booster, and the first time SpaceX has flown an orbital mission for NASA on a booster with non-NASA flights in its history.

Even further, still, SpaceX managed to turn Falcon 9 booster B1058 around for CRS-21 – satisfying NASA’s strict standards – in just 61 days, making it the third fastest Falcon booster turnaround ever. In other words, SpaceX’s successful CRS-21 launch has simultaneously demonstrated that a booster good enough for Starlink is good enough for NASA and that even rapid Falcon refurbishment is up to NASA’s standards. With an average turnaround of ~60 days, a single Falcon 9 booster could feasibly support five annual Dragon launches.

The Cargo Dragon 2 craft is a big improvement over the first version that was the first mission SpaceX undertook for NASA.  Ars Technica reports:

Compared to the first SpaceX cargo vehicle, Cargo Dragon 2 features a dozen powered lockers for science experiments, twice as many as previously flown. It is also designed to be recovered and readied for repeat flights more quickly than its predecessor, and the vehicle has the capability to autonomously dock with the station, rather than needing to be grabbed by a robotic arm and attached to a port.

Cargo Dragon 2 is a modified version of the Crew Dragon used for manned launches; the cargo version lacks every system dedicated to human flight.  There are no seats, no cockpit controls, and no life support system.  The vehicle doesn't have the abort system that's required as an emergency escape system if a problem occurs during launch. 

SpaceX points out that when the Cargo Dragon autonomously docks with the ISS, currently set for tomorrow at 1:30 PM EST, there will be two Dragon spacecraft docked at the ISS (the Crew Dragon capsule named Resilience by the crew of four is currently docked there) and that there will very likely be at least one Dragon docked at the ISS from now on.  This calls for a larger number of launches than they have been doing for NASA this year.

Following on the heels of Crew Dragon’s second astronaut flight and operational launch debut, Crew-1 and Cargo Dragon’s CRS-21 resupply run also represent the quickest back-to-back Dragon launches in SpaceX’s history by several months. According to SpaceX comments and NASA schedules, the company’s 2021 manifest will be at least as packed with Dragon launches as 2020, packing another five (and maybe even six) orbital missions into a single year.

To achieve that ambitious manifest (potentially as many Dragon missions as ULA launches in all of 2020, for example), SpaceX and NASA will have to rely more heavily than ever on reusability. Thankfully, CRS-21 has already expanded the envelope of NASA-approved Falcon 9 booster reuse.

The CRS-21 mission lifts off Sunday Morning - SpaceX Photo

Student Debt Cancellation - Is This The Worst Policy Idea in History?

Since the first rumblings of the potential Biden administration, the idea of "forgiving" student loans has gotten talked about a lot; whether from Elizabeth Warren or AOC, we keep hearing "progressives" clamoring for the handout.  Clearly the loans can't be forgiven; money is owed to some bank, (which is to say some one) and the Feds can't wave their hands and make the banks take that loss, so that will mean taking money from some taxpayers to pay other taxpayers.  It takes a study from someone relatively neutral to show just how fair that is. 

The top 20% of income earners will get $192 billion in tax money; the bottom 20% will get $29 billion.  The richest income earners will get over 6-1/2 times the money as the bottom 20%.  Since the lowest quintile of income earners pays almost no tax and gets more in benefits than they pay, they are essentially getting a bigger tax break.  The middle class and higher will pay for this program.  Our tax system is highly progressive, meaning the more one earns the more tax they pay.  The last numbers I can find having blogged about (using 2016 data) is that:

• The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (39.5 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (29.1 percent).
• The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a 27.1 percent individual income tax rate, which is more than seven times higher than taxpayers in the bottom 50 percent (3.5 percent).

This idea is a highly regressive tax policy in that the richer they are, the more tax payout they get.  The reason for the massive "payout to the rich" is pretty simple.  The concept of student debt is deceptive; it implies that the amount of debt is somehow evenly distributed.  That's beyond wrong, it's insanely simple-minded.  The average student debt for an associates degree holder from a state community college is tiny, the average debt for a state college bachelor's degree is a fraction of that from a private college, while the biggest piles of debt of all are held by graduate and professional degree holders.  While some graduate degrees don't gather enormous paychecks, Medical Doctors, Osteopaths, Lawyers and plenty of others gather pretty good pay.  If they didn't get that advanced degree, it's likely they wouldn't be in the top quintile.  Dollar wise, cancelling student debt is primarily going toward cancelling the debt in highest income quintile.

This study was from the University of Chicago (pdf) so not a conservative bastion, and studies from other dedicated liberal groups, like the Urban Institute, reach the same conclusion.

Lots of things about this idea have bothered me from the start.  The first problem I have is how unfair it is to so many people.  Think of the people who paid off their loans.  They took out a loan to pay for their college, paid it back, and now they're going to pay off the loans of people who didn't pay theirs off.  Or parents who paid for the kids' college with bank loans and will pay off other people's loans.  What about the people who thought the return on investment for a four year degree wasn't worth the expense and then went to a trade school.  Let's say they're welders making close to six figures.  Now they'll have the privilege of paying for someone else's Master's degree in "Feminist Poetry, 1912 to 1918" who's working as a barista at Starbuck's. 

Without exception, if you played by the rules, played it smart, managed your finances, and lived prudently, you're a sucker.  A chump.  You avoided student loans, or went through school with minimal loans?  Congratulations - you get to pay for those who didn't.  This is guaranteed to create enormous amounts of resentment. 

The second thing is that the root cause for the problem is federal government itself.  There are only so many seats for so many butts in all the colleges in America.  Demand for the seats exceeds supply, leading to the prices wanting to go up, but with student loans the price increases don't reduce demand.  The colleges raise fees to whatever they want knowing that the free market is prohibited there.  No matter how much it costs, the feds will back the loans so that they can fill all those seats.  It has been said before that if you really want to solve these problems, stop giving unlimited student loans. 

This is quite possibly the worst idea for public policy in history, although the competition for that award is pretty intense.  It's so close to the Free College idea it's hard to tell them apart, but it's retroactive free college.  It's completely opposite the real way to reduce student debt, if indeed that's the purpose. 

I Can't Keep Up With These Guys (SpaceX)

Monday's probable test hop of Starship Prototype Serial Number 8 has been moved up to tomorrow (Sunday, Dec. 6) between 12 and 6 PM CST.  There is a "reported but unconfirmed" report that the flight will not be to 15km, but 12.5km, or 8.1 to 6.7 nautical miles.  To me that's a subtle difference that I don't think I'd notice without instruments to tell me.

This morning's Cargo Dragon flight to the ISS has been bumped to tomorrow at 11:17 AM EST.  While not rainy, we're under just about 100% cloud cover, so the delay is fine by me. 

If you go to YouTube to watch, it's easier to come back later than to go backwards in time and come back earlier.  Easiest of all is to watch YouTube for word of the flight having happened and then watch the replay.  Launch watchers always assume that launch can be delayed, like this morning's, but I never expect them to move forward in time. 

White House Again Asks Congress to Allow Europa Mission to Not Fly on SLS

SpaceNews.com reports that once again, as they did last year, the White House has asked congress to remove a Europa Clipper mission requirement that it must fly on the Space Launch System heavy lift booster.  

In a Nov. 30 letter to Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), discussed issues his office had with a series of fiscal year 2021 spending bills Shelby’s committee released Nov. 10. Those bills were intended to serve as the starting point in negotiations with the House, which passed its version of those bills in the summer.

Those Senate bills included a commerce, justice and science spending bill that provides NASA with $23.5 billion in 2021. The bill included language found in previous years’ bills, but not the House version for 2021, that NASA “shall use the Space Launch System as the launch vehicle for the Jupiter Europa Clipper mission.”

The White House points out that a private sector rocket, such as the Falcon Heavy, could get the Europa mission to the Jovian moon it's targeting although the mission would take longer.  The trade off is that the Falcon Heavy would save NASA $700 Million, which could be used on other priorities, and moving the mission off the SLS would save one of those rockets for the Artemis moon missions.  When you combine the savings of launch cost for the Europa probe with having an "extra" SLS booster available, the savings climb to $1.5 Billion.  

The extra lift capacity of the SLS would allow a direct flight to Jupiter, taking around three years.  The Falcon Heavy would add a requirement for one or more gravitational slingshot maneuvers, and add years in deep space before the probe gets there.  This has been rather normal for launches to outer and inner planets in the past. 

However, agency officials said in August they were studying “potential hardware compatibility issues” between the Europa Clipper spacecraft and the SLS. NASA did not elaborate on those problems, but said that “special hardware adjustments” may be needed to address them.

Senator Shelby has been the strongest advocate of the SLS in the Senate because his state is the largest beneficiary of the SLS development funds.  He's from Alabama, home to Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, the center managing SLS development.  In any program as big as SLS, there are jobs distributed around the country, allowing lots of senators and representatives to bring home the bacon to their voters if they get funding.  Typical space program as income redistribution mindset. 

There's also that not-so-small matter of the control of the senate not being resolved, yet, nor the presidency.  If Biden becomes president over a divided government, none of this may be resolved and none of it might matter.  While the Biden campaign has not talked about space policy, campaign statements such as the Democratic Party platform released this summer suggest it may at least slow the pace of returning humans to the moon, eliminating the 2024 goal established by the Trump administration. That could free up an SLS vehicle for a Europa Clipper launch in 2024, the mission’s currently targeted launch date.  A real wild card is that by 2024, Starship may have achieved lunar missions and be a more viable platform to carry Europa Clipper.  SpaceX may have even launched unmanned missions to Mars.  At this point in Starship development, it seems unrealistic to think the program could count on the system being ready. 

JPL rendering of the Europa Clipper with the moon below it and Jupiter behind, upper right. 

You probably know that we're getting close to another of those "government shutdown" kabuki theater episodes.  The government is running under a Continuing Resolution that expires on December 11th.  Whatever this year's spending bills say, the Clipper program office wants to get the choice of booster finalized by the Critical Design Review.  CDR is set for this month as well.  Postponing that decision would increase the mission’s costs as they continue to support analyses for both SLS and the commercial alternative.

Starship Watchers - Looks Like Monday Is Hop Day

Probably.  

I've been watching the Lad Padre feed on and off all week. The first Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) allowing the flight of anything from SpaceX in Boca Chica to 15 km has been approved by the FAA for as early as Monday, and word is they intend to try Monday.  Given the timing of the road closure, if I had to speculate, I'd expect them to try for the early afternoon.  I'll start watching in the morning, prepared to watch until they either announce a scrub or just don't get to it.

SpaceX’s first high-altitude Starship TFR revealed that the crucial flight test is now scheduled sometime between 8 am and 5 pm CST (14:00-23:00 UTC) on Friday, December 4th Monday December 7th, with identical backup windows available (and cleared with the FAA) on Saturday and Sunday [Edit: Unknown]. Originally scheduled as early as November 30th, the delays are less than surprising given the complexity and unprecedented nature of the flight test facing SpaceX.

Starship serial/ship number 8 (SN8) – the first functional full-height prototype – is tasked with launching from Boca Chica, Texas to an apogee of 15 kilometers (~9.5 miles) and dropping back to Earth to test an unproven approach to rocket recovery.
...
Based on several unofficial estimates, Starship SN8 is also likely to break the sound barrier on ascent, potentially putting the prototype through conditions similar to what an actual orbital launch might see at Max Q (the point of maximum aerodynamic pressure). Further adding to the daunting list of ‘firsts’, SN8’s 15 km debut will be the first Starship hop or flight with a nosecone, making it the first full-scale structural test of a nose section and the methods used to attach it to Starship’s tank section. It’s hard to exaggerate the number of things that could go wrong and the number of ways Starship SN8 could fail during its first flight.  [Edits:  see page edit below - SiG]

The Starship is powered by three Raptor engines, capable of 1.3 million pounds of thrust, and SN8 will be very lightly loaded for this mission.  That could produce an exuberant thrust to weight ratio, much more than needed.  The engines can be throttled back and I assume they wouldn't go full thrust for the entire flight.  That doesn't mean they won't go supersonic, as that last quoted paragraph says. 

Remember: Musk pegged the odds of success at about 1 in 3.  That means 2 out of 3 chance that parts will be spread somewhere. 

In the earliest days of the Space Shuttle program, the very first shuttle mission carried only two men: Pilot Bob Crippen and Commander John Young.  I think I recall Bob Crippen saying something like, "when they lit those solid rockets, you knew you're going somewhere."  As in you might be going on your planned flight or your last flight.  No manned flight had relied on solid rocket motors before that moment. 

When they light those Raptors, number eight is going somewhere. 

Screen capture from the C-bass Productions computer animated video, after the transition from belly flop to landing vertically.    

EDIT 2100 EST 3 December 2020:  This post was radically changed moments after posting.  I returned to Lab Padre and the date of the test had changed from Friday, 12/4 to Monday 12/7. 

Walter E. Williams RIP

Like many, I find myself saddened to hear of the untimely passing of economist and conservative giant Walter E. Williams today.  Dr. Williams was 84.  I haven't checked the blog with the search engine, but I'm sure Dr. Williams is among the most quoted people here.  Townhall carries a great tribute column:

Walter Williams, the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University and longtime columnist, has died at the age of 84.

Williams began writing a weekly column, "A Minority View," in 1981, the penultimate one was titled "Black Education Tragedy Is New," and published Wednesday. According to Creators, his final column will publish next week, which will be available at Townhall, where his columns have appeared for more than 25 years. He is also the author of 10 books, including the most recent, "Race and Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination?" and "Up from the Projects: An Autobiography," and published more than 150 scholarly articles, according to Economic Policy Journal.

Walter Williams worked unto the last.  Thomas Sowell, another great economist I've quoted here, and a long time friend to Walter Williams wrote a touching tribute to his friend, which Townhall has also published today.  Dr. Sowell relays that Walter once told him he hoped that, on the day he died, he would have taught a class that day. And that is just the way it was, when he died today.

RIP Dr. Williams.

Four Weeks After Election Day

We're now four weeks out from election day.  It's early in the evening but within a few hours after I post this, people four weeks ago would have concluded Trump had won, and gone to bed.  That's when the industrial scale cheating started.  I won't go into all the reported incidents of fraud, and so many aspects that are statistically, and even physically impossible, because they've been covered in so many places.  There is so much evidence of fraud here that only those deliberately not looking at it could dismiss it.  I've heard several people say that we send observers to monitor the elections in other countries and they wouldn't approve this one. 

It looks to me like the first big problem is there are tens of thousands of pages of evidence, hundreds of lawyers to deliver them, dozens of expert witnesses, a case that would take a month to do justice in court and a deadline that has to be proven in a week.  The second big problem we have is that the government officials that would be the defendants in those cases have proven that they won't listen to a judge's orders and I'd be less than surprised if people told to preserve evidence were actively destroying it as I type.  A large number of judges and elected officials are perfectly happy with the fraud.  They don't want those pesky American citizens interfering with the election. 

Let's start with one thing that got me thinking this way.  Has everyone heard the report from General McInerney, a former very high ranking officer in the pentagon, saying that the stories about Dominion servers being captured in Germany are true?  That was an operation by US Army special forces against a data center run by the CIA.  Gen. McInerney says he hasn't gotten confirmation but has heard that some of the Army operators were killed.  Start out at the 40 minute mark in the video at NC Renegade.  This is the US Government fighting the US Government – on foreign soil, no less.  Where are those Dominion servers now?  Army intelligence?  When does that information get added to the court cases?

The question I keep coming back to is where do we go from here?  What now?  If it's really the will of the people, and I can see Biden was fairly elected, I can accept that.  It looks to me like the chances of that being the case are about like picking a specific grain of sand out of the Sahara.  Zip.  Zero.  You’re not going to convince me (without lots of numbers checked in dozens of ways) that a clearly scatter-brained geezer who hardly came out of his basement, and got tiny numbers of people at rallies (14?) got more votes than Obama did in '08.

If cheating this obvious (and sloppy) doesn't get fixed this time, the cheating will be worse next time.  There are no more fair and free elections, unless the whole system, nationwide, coast to coast, gets torn down and reasonable voter ID laws are put in place.  The first problem is that these are up to the states to regulate and not the fed.gov.  The second problem is half the country wants it this way, as long as they get their preferred rulers. Add in that the professional apparatchiks in various government agencies (aka "the Deep State") desperately don’t anyone who might reduce the size of the Fed.gov, and we’re saying the Republic is dead. It was a nice experiment while it lasted but it didn’t work, so back to tyranny?

In Pennsylvania, they had a state judge tell the election supervisors to allow free access by Republican observers.  The election supervisors told the court to shove it. Then we had a Supreme Court justice tell them to clean up their act and they told him to shove it. We’ve constructed a society where lawyers decide everything, and if nobody obeys the judges, then what happens? I can see some state police trying to enforce what the judge and justice said, fighting other police who are trying to prevent the enforcement.  Just like the Army vs. the CIA.

David DeGerolamo at NC Renegade puts it like this:

There are many questions that are currently unanswered but there is one fact: if military personnel were killed by the CIA, the civil war between the people and the Deep State has started.

Wanna get your stat geek on?  This image show that Biden won by four of the most extreme vote ratios in the entire country. From this page (H/T to Mark Steyn)