Saturday, June 8, 2024

Free Republic: "Ridiculous Jobs Report"





12:06 PM

Largest ever gap between Establishment and Payroll numbers ( 9 million ). The Household number's trend has gone flat. Even Bloomberg is saying the numbers are overstated by 100k each month.

Birth/Death adjustments are the culprit. These are statistical phantom jobs. The model has added 1.9 million jobs since last April. Haven't been adding full time jobs, a long running issue.











6:00 PM

They're lying to us again.









IFT-4 is now completed

6/8/24:

This looks authentic. ( YES!) Everything's fake these days. The last part was tacked on and is available everywhere by now. The first part of the video shows the booster landing near a buoy. Not to be confused with goyle.





end update of 9:02 AM, 6/6/24 post:

6/6/24, 9:02 AM Central



After a successful launch, SpaceX's Starship went to orbit and appears to have had a mostly soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean as planned. There were no holds in the launch, and it took off right on schedule.

The launch itself was fairly smooth, however one engine went out shortly into the flight. The booster performed well in all of its planned aspects, and may also have had a soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico as planned.

First indications are that it was a very good test, but not everything was perfect. There was heat damage to the Starship before splashdown in the Indian Ocean. After losing the video for over 20 minutes, reacquired video showed a good performance most of the way. However, damage became noticeable and continued at an accelerated pace till shortly before splashdown. There were additional intermittent loses in video on the way down, but the video was reacquired until the end of the flight---drawing cheers from onlookers. It was not clear from the video if the engines fired as expected, but there were other indications that it did fire off as expected.

All in all, a very good show. Congrats, SpaceX.







2:57 PM

Nice job on the highlights from Scott Manley.

I started to do something along these lines, but it isn't as good as this, so forget it.











Heh





Today's priorities for the ruling class.









ZeroHedge: "Mistrial?"







The so-called "Hush money" trial may have gotten a self-inflicted fatal wound.

For the record, it wasn't "hush money" because there was no secret. The story wasn't being suppressed, because it was published several years earlier.

Stormy Daniels may have been trying to get it re-published because it came shortly after the Access Hollywood tapes.

So why isn't this an extortion case instead?

If this is a self-inflicted wound to the case, it may be getting done for strategic reasons. In other words, the politics of it are bad, and getting worse. The left may want an off-ramp.











Friday, June 7, 2024

Same old same old





Brandon does it again. He had to drop out of the race in 1988 because of this. Of course, things were different then.









check this out, the two videos are oddly familiar:
















No One Wants a New Car Now. Here’s Why.

Free Republic link to Wall Street Journal. (short excerpt not behind a subscription wall)

Comment:

Seems like I had one of these posts fairly recently, but where is it? Right here.





We all knew this at the time







Now it is official. Trouble is, they're off doing something else. Need to get on top of these things at the time that it matters the most. Trump was indicted and convicted over "hush money". The "hush money" was supposed to have "interfered" with the 2016 election. Did this not interfere with the 2020 election? Who gets indicted and convicted over THIS?













Something familiar about this...









That one was said to have drawn a lot of laughs.











Reading between the lines







You cannot put lipstick on a pig and still not get the pig.











The Morning Briefing: Rocket Week in America Was Pretty Cool







Indeed it was.











Wednesday, June 5, 2024

Sweet Dreams --- The Departed Soundtrack



Kickass













Saw a bumper sticker that looked like this, this afternoon







 






What do you make of it? Anti-woke? Pro-woke?

If you don't stay "woke", Freddy will get you. So who's the nightmare? What's the nightmare?

Oh yeah, stay "woke". But Freddy will always get ya. Bwah, hah, hah!





American flag is now a target of the political left







Old Glory is now a "symbol of hate and extremism".

It should be recalled that the 9-11 terrorists attacked SYMBOLS of America: 1) The World Trade Center's Twin Towers, 2) The Pentagon, and 3) an unknown target, presumably either the White House or the Capitol Building. So now the left wants to attack the symbols of our country? Whose side are they on?

This isn't really new for the left. In the late eighties, George HW Bush accepted the nomination by noting that Michael Dukakis, his opponent, did not honor the flag.

He mentions this in this part of his acceptance speech for the nomination for President in 1988:











Later in the speech, he leads in the recitation of the pledge of allegiance:









These days, the left does no honor to the flag. But it is no longer hidden behind the niceities of "freedom of speech". You can burn the flag, but don't you dare disfigure the Rainbow Flag. The left now protects the Rainbow Flag and terrorists and their sympathizers. Such is now the condition of our country.

Grin of Evil







Rhymes with Skin of Evil. The evil hides behind the crazy grin.



The Grin of Evil and the Posts of Cowards by Julie Kelly

Successful tyrants also prevail because their opposition is craven, impotent, and feckless. On that score, Joe Biden again drew the luck of the Irish.

Read on Substack








A space station manufacturer's dream

6/5/24:

One way to deal with the challenges of long term spaceflight is to hibernate ( if that's possible).

The idea is to reduce the amount of resources, but it could also be useful for psychological purposes. "Cabin fever" can result from being cooped up inside of a rocket ship for several months or even years. Going into hibernation could not only reduce consumption of resources, but it could also deal with a lot of time.

I was also thinking that a person could enter a highly protected area that would necessitate not moving around much. It would be like a lead "coffin". A highly dense material could be used to block gamma rays, and help prevent radiation exposure. The key would be to not move around. The most efficient use of highly dense materials would involve keeping a person immobile, as mobility would require much more material for protection.

As can be seen in some of the updates, I continue to research this space station concept. The current iteration involves a 68 meter in diameter torus along the lines of the VERA stations that I began with. At this size, the amount of artificial gravity is minimized to the least amount that would be needed for adjustment.

As for making it a "coffin", one might use different materials. One cannot consume lead. However lead is very effective at stopping gamma rays. You'd need a lot more of everything else.

Perhaps you can make the station out of gingerbread, but I am kidding around. The tweet below discusses human hibernation for space travel.







end update of 6/2/24 post

6/2/24:

It's all rather boring, but better than reading this gawdawful news. Something to divert my time for a moment so I can forget stuff that I'd rather not think about right now. Anyway, a Delta-V map that shows how little delta v is needed for Mars transfer and Mars capture orbit once you get far enough away from Earth ( but not quite far enough away to escape). Delta-V in kilometers per sec (kms).

If you were to park some stations there, and fly back and forth between Earth without committing to Mars, you can stage your trip out there. Perhaps at EML-4 or EML-5 would be more handy. Get far enough out there, and it doesn't take much to send you onward to Mars. However, once you're committed, it's going to be a long trip.

A fully re-fueled Statship may be capable of a delta-v of 7.75 kms. That's with a full load. Tugging a big space station may slow that down a bit.

Delta-V map: Earth capture orbit to Mars capture orbit


Artificial gravity calculations




In your space station, you'd need to rotate it a certain speed in order to obtain some artificial gravity. Above are some possible sizes by radius, and how many rpm needed for the approximation to one Earth gravity. Rounded to two decimal points. Sizes in meters.

You may want to guestimate about which size and speed you'd figure is best. Speeds above 2 RPM are probably not desirable. Indeed, the slower the better, but that means a much bigger station. The bigger it is, the less feasible it would be to build it out. Note: chart show half rpm, it should be two.  6/3/24:   Note:  Now corrected.  6/4/24:  A few more adjustments.

end update of 5/29/24 post



5/29/24:

Ooops! Looks like somebody "busted" the idea that began this little brainstorm of mine. This idea of mine began with this space station as the center of a Mars colonization effort and other such things. No effort was made on this blog to critically analyze it or anything like that. I was somewhat skeptical, but eventually I accepted it ( as a manner of argument ) all as legit. Maybe it isn't.

Seems like many years ago, I came across something similar. I merely assumed that it was a legit thing then too. The tech needed to make it a reality didn't exist.

SpaceX may be changing all that. With Starship's ability to lift large amounts of cargo per launch, and do it at reasonable prices, it would seem to open up the possibiity of something like a space manufacturer to build out such space stations. If it turns out that this guy is not such a person, but an imposter, then it is an embarrassing error. But it doesn't negate the possibility of such stations being possible to be made. Perhaps not by this guy, but somebody could.



end update of 5/28/24 post:

5/28/24:

An idea came to me recently, so I guess I'll write it up. Why not?

If one were to park a space station in high Earth orbit, it wouldn't take much delta-v to get into a Hohlman transfer to Mars. And not much more delta-v from there gets you into high Mars orbit. So here's the idea: Make a couple hundred of these Vera stations that can hold a thousand passengers apiece, and park them into high Earth orbit. Another hundred could get placed into high Mars orbit. Every time a launch window opens, a hundred stations are sent back to high Earth orbit, and a hundred stations are sent to high Mars orbit.

A few starships could go out to the high orbital locations and bring the passengers enroute to Mars, or back from Mars. The new nuclear pulse type rocket engine could provide the transport of the Vera stations. The Starships could be positioned near each planet in order to serve the stations. In other words, you don't need the extra mass, so why bring it along? Plus the Starships need a lot of fuel. The 5000 ISP nuclear rockets won't need much fuel at all.

If you want to, you could attach the 100 Vera stations into one mega station with 100k passengers. Their mass could protect against cosmic radiation. Spin them up for artificial gravity. The passengers should be fairly safe in such an arrangement.

I worked out the mass requirements for the delta-v, assuming 1000 tons of mass for the station, including supplies. A modest delta-v didn't require all that much fuel---25 tons. This gave a mass fraction of 97.5%. It's usually 97.5% for the fuel alone if the nuclear option is not used. So that should show the advantage of such an approach.

What used to seem pretty fanciful, now seems to be within the realm of possibilities. Not that it would happen anyway, but it is fun to think about it.

end update of 5/19/24 post

5/19/24:

It may well be wise to be modest in one's own speculations. There could be many, many complications in the way of such a project.

But speculation doesn't hurt anything. On the other hand, a little knowledge could be a dangerous thing. So, do you like danger?

I've been checking into something here with regard to calculating delta-v for trips to asteroids. There are a few things to think about. A delta-v may not be a show stopper. Another show stopper could be with the launch windows. Or it could be that and some other thing. After all, it is rocket science.

At the moment, a trip to a near-Earth type asteroid may involve no more difficulty than landing on the moon. Maybe it could be less. However, setting up a station on any asteroid may involve some complications. It is, after all, rocket science.

If the complication is launch window availability, then it may pay to have a lot of asteroids on a visit list. Then you can fly off to the one that is closest at hand. Sounds simple, but there could be more complications. There always seems to be. That is all.

end update of 5/17/24 post:

5/17/24:

Instead of making an O'Neill cylinder out of 433 Eros, make hundreds, or thousands of space stations out of it.

It can take the materials in situ: mine them, fabricate them, and assemble them in place. Then launch them to other asteroids, to do the same.

Each potentially hazardous asteroid can become a resource. It can also pay for itself if it finds enough gold, silver, and platinum while mining for base metals.

Each new station can be tasked with finding new opportunities. Multiple objectives could be attained with minimal effort. It could be done with robots, like these.

Somebody could become quite rich.



end update of 4/17/24 post:

4/17/24:

Perhaps this could be built as a cycler. Launch once and it will stay there forever. Instead of flying to a planet, you'd fly to and from this cycler.

These could be Jeff Greason's "islands" for the island hopping strategy for Mars colonization. You'd be making your own islands.



end update of the 6/22/23 post

Update of post made on -- 6-22-23



There are several ideas for a new space station. Of all of the ones that have been seen here, the Space Gateway is the one in which holds the most capability. It is also the biggest. There would be enormous amount of space that could house a lot of people. It would also take the most money, because of the extraordinary amount of material that would have to be launched up to orbit.

But the same could be said for Elon Musk's plans. A smaller number of Starships, plus a new spaceship could be better than the current plan. It wouldn't take much to make the Gateway station into a space ship. The only things needed would be some engines. If the Starship provided the engines, then it could be towed to its destinations.

One of the Gateway stations mentioned appears to able to house 1000 people. Ten of these, towed by Starships, could transport 10,000 people per flight window to Mars. A hundred trips could transport a million. A million is what Musk plans to send to Mars. But each window is two years, so that would take over two centuries. Therefore, more stations would be needed. Ten times as many should get the job done.

In situ resourcing could cut the launch costs for each station. It would be better to launch from the Moon or Mars than from the Earth. Consequently, the ability to make the materials necessary in order to construct such stations, needs to go off-world. But the Gateway presentation said as much already.

The stations could be like Islands in the sky. Each Island could be a waystation, or hub, for transporting people and materials back and forth to destinations.

There are many possible destinations between Earth and Mars. The LaGrange points come to mind.

Who and how it would be funded is the key. Space mining, manufacturing, and tourism are possibilities. Whole new industries could be born.



here's the original post...



Not to be too negative, but this guy is getting way, way out front of the game. Big thinking means big bucks. Where's the money going to come from in order to get these space stations off the ground? True, I didn't watch the whole thing (not as of this writing), but gee whiz. This guy thinks BIG.

On the positive side, I think this is the right way to think about going to far away places, like Mars. Put an engine cluster on the space stations he's talking about, and bingo... You could transport many people this way to an off world location like Mars.







An alternative? (video taken down)




Tuesday, June 4, 2024

St. Fauci has a critic?







Whoda thunk? Keep an eye on the guy in the back.













Behind the Black Blog: FAA issues launch license for the fourth test orbital launch of Starship/Superheavy





I sure would like to go down there and watch this thing launch. What a sight that would be. But I can't.



Let's light this candle...





3D Printing on the Moon ( and Mars )





On 60 Minutes, of all places. Maybe they're not as dumb as they look.











Monday, June 3, 2024

This tweet is a mistake







In a moment of anger, the feeling expressed below could be understandable. But it should be kept in mind that the left is fanning the flames of hatred and fear. Telling people that you are going after them in retribution only reinforces the kind of rhetoric that the left is advancing.

Consequently, the tweet below is unmeasured, and a mistake. We need to get the left to question what they've just done. Reactions like this may only unite them. This kind of tweet only plays into the left's hands.













Once again, there will be no civil war



7:20 PM

Violence is the last resort. If they use it, which they might have to, since their efforts may come up short, it will have to look like they're not doing it on their own initiative, but in response to something else. Therefore, there will be provocations.

The problem with the people at J6th was that they got violent in response to violence. If they had used non-violent responses, then it would have been very difficult for them to protray it as a "violent insurrection". It would probably have been completely censored out, as they would have likely have gotten brutal.

That's what's coming. People are going to have to be prepared for the worst, and its aftermath.

First things first. That stupid conviction and the rest of the Lawfare has to be shitcanned. If that doesn't happen, it' going to be hard to stop them.

end update of 10:18 AM post:

There has been talk of civil war for a long time now. I've disagreed that anything like that is going to happen. Why? There is no organized polity that could run a war.

The only "war" will be a lot of civil disobedience that the left will call a war. But it won't actually be a war.

If you want a real war, then you need an organized polity to run it. Otherwise, it just a mob.

Considering all the mass surveillance that is going on, how can there be anything like a war being organized anyway? They can see everything. Everything means E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G...

If you want to resist, then do it down the still currently legal routes. Even these are closing down fast. That's what the Trump conviction was about. That is what the anti-Trump Lawfare is about. You don't change things with violence because they are almost certainly ready for anything like that. What you do is to follow the law and encourage people to stop sitting on their asses and just letting everything go to hell.

J6th was just a lot of foolish people who let themselves be tricked into compromising positions. The left took advantage. Of course they did. That's what they do. People have to be smarter than that. Nobody should've gotten themselves into those positions. They went with trackable phones. Paid for the trip with trackable credit cards. They went into a city that is highly surveilled. DC votes 90% Democrat. It was a hostile venue. Every step could be monitored and WAS. There was no surprises on January 6th. That's one reason you KNOW it wasn't an insurrection. It was innocent sheep being led to a slaughter. A real insurrection would have been much better prepared and organized. January 6th was a set up. Don't fall for any more of these, please.



The new normal



Nearly 3/4ths of voters say that country is out of control. It's not really news. Problem is, what to do about it?











Sunday, June 2, 2024

The trial was rigged

No one is going to tell me what I can say, do, or think. Especially this rotten fu**.