Test flight 5

After telling SpaceX that approval of their next Starship test flight would probably not be granted until late November, the government (FAA) suddenly approved it last Saturday afternoon, three days ago.

SpaceX was ready, and the flight took place just 19 hours later on Sunday morning. To my complete surprise, I saw the tweet on X as we drove home from church (which explains why this post didn't appear yesterday 😐).

As planned, the spectacular accomplishment of the day was the amazing catch of the returning first stage booster in mid-air for the first time ever. In the words of one of the engineer/narrators, history was made. 

Here is the flight video. To see SpaceX's full video at sunrise with more information and more excitement, go here.

Hurricane news 4

(cont'd from last week's posts)

Just days after Hurricane Helene carved a path of wreckage into the eastern U.S. interior, Hurricane Milton swept across central Florida (photo).

The Gulf Coast took much of the property damage, but millions more in the region lost power.

It was expected and prepared for. Over 50,000 linemen from multiple states volunteered to come fix the massive problem of fallen power lines. The Florida governor says they were "pre-staged" so they could get to work as soon as Milton was gone.

Volunteer linemen also came to Georgia to restore power after Helene. Residents of one community gathered to say a grand "thank you" complete with their local high school band. You'll enjoy it, so go here to see them express their appreciation (posted on X last week).

Hurricane news 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

How important is internet access to us all for communication, news, banking, etc.--and it was lost for a while in hard-hit regions. Starlink is internet access operated by SpaceX, a "crucial lifeline in parts of southern Appalachia that were devastated by Hurricane Helene." It was donated and delivered freely to hundreds of survivors as you may have seen in yesterday's videos. 

Satellite-powered, it works even in remote and devastated communities if there's a good view of the sky. Instructions for making it work are pretty basic: "Plug it in and point to sky." 

Another difference maker is Samaritan's Purse, a Christian international relief organization of 1600 employees run by the family of evangelist Billy Graham. "At our sites across North Carolina, we are doing tree work, mudding out homes, removing debris, and tarping roofs. Heavy equipment is being used to clear private driveways and private roads. In some areas, we are also offering water and potable water to the community."

 

Hurricane news 2

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

If you aren't seeing local videos of hurricane relief on your own X account, I'd like to show you some of what I've seen on mine:

* volunteers from New York NYPD and FDNY bring supplies

* working through the night to create bridges from fallen trees and telephone poles

* citizens organizing recovery without FEMA or any government help, helicopter pilots rescuing victims while paying for their own gasoline

* team finds a woman living alone has no food, no water, no power, no transport

* completed 67 helicopter missions (as of Oct 6) bringing fuel, generators, Starlink, more

Ordinary, regular, everyday Americans mobilize their bike clubs, churches, friends, etc., to come to the mountains of western North Carolina and bring help.

 

(cont'd tomorrow, groups making a difference)

Hurricane news

We have relatives in western North Carolina, where it's been twelve days since Hurricane Helene brought destructive flooding. Unable to reach them by phone, we finally got an email reply eight days later. They had no electricity for five days and "internet is sketchy." A friend brought them a camp stove and some water.

My X (Twitter) account is full of residents in the region (who have more internet access) reporting on their roads and bridges destroyed, neighbors' homes damaged, local details. They show supplies that private individuals and churches brought in. They show private helicopter pilots looking for survivors. They often claim that they have not seen help from FEMA, and even that FEMA hindered rescuers and seized supplies.

CBS and other legacy media seem like the voice of the government. Their "fact-checker" reports simply that all those claims are false and FEMA is good: categorically the opposite of reports on the ground, those videos submitted by locals and private rescuers. 

How hard is it to learn what's going on in the US now? People on site report what they see, and media call it "damaging disinformation."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Israel hated

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Yesterday's young, black Gen Z writer says this: "I implore my generation to . .  . [b]e a rebel and start a family. Be a rebel and love America."

More evidence that America is not hated but actually loved by the rest of the world comes from this writer who spent three years walking around the world, meeting ordinary people. 

Here's a man who was taught to hate another country-- but eventually trained himself out of it.

 

from The Free Press

 

US not hated 1

Is America hated in the rest of the world? Maybe you've heard that somewhere. It depends on where you get your information, what news sources you read, whether you still listen to legacy media. But is it true? 

Not according to this main-stream media journalist who's been traveling the U.S. and Europe to promote his new book. He found that people tend to like Western/American values better than those of China, Russia, Iran by a significant margin.

Unfortunately, it's worse in the U.S. itself: "The loss of confidence among Americans in their own country’s vitality, strength and virtue is profoundly worrying." Yes, that's a bad trend (photo). Why is it happening?

This Gen Z writer says his generation is being taught to hate America at school. Crazy as that is, it's "been cultivated by the Left-wing indoctrination . . at every educational and cultural institution in America. . . groomed to be disgusted by tradition and ashamed of our identity as Americans."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Soul

Materialists deny life after death and the non-physical spirit of a human being, like they deny God's existence. But some may be becoming more open to believing in the human soul.

That's because evidence shows that consciousness may continue even after death.

A study was done on 567 men and women whose heart stopped in hospital and who were resuscitated by CPR.  Some survived.

"Survivors reported having unique lucid experiences, including a perception of separation from the body, observing events without pain or distress, and a meaningful evaluation of life, including of their actions, intentions, and thoughts toward others." They didn't seem to be hallucinating or dreaming.

As an ER doctor says, the conscious mind "continues even when the brain does not seem to be functioning. Which raises the question that consciousness may be a separate entity from the brain. It’s not magical. It’s just not discovered yet. But it doesn’t die."

Your mind is not the same as your physical brain, and medical science is finding evidence for that. As the Bible (image) teaches, your soul or spirit has a supernatural destiny.

 

from Mind Matters

Can ULA compete?

United Launch Alliance, formed by Boeing and Lockheed Martin back in 2006, is America's "most experienced" launch service. But after enjoying their cash-cow of NASA business for many years, they now struggle to keep up.

Their one reusable rocket, Vulcan, finally flew for the first time this year. For comparison, SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets have safely landed back on Earth since 2015. If you don't have to build a brand new rocket for every launch, it saves a lot of money.

ULA can't compete with young private space companies in cost. A vice president of engineering said that in a lecture and soon resigned--or was fired by his boss. Tory Bruno, the CEO, says they can so compete and will prove it. Some doubt it. A sale of the company is being negotiated.

Too risky

ULA launched two astronauts to the International Space Station on Boeing's low-earth-orbit Starliner spacecraft in June, but problems popped up on the way. After analyzing everything, NASA decided that the craft no longer met their standards for human safety. There was "some tension in the room" when that decision was made.

So Starliner came back to Earth empty, leaving Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams there. Instead of a short stay of nine days, they will remain in place until February of 2025.  

SpaceX already had a mission scheduled to carry four additional astronauts to the ISS on its Dragon spacecraft in September. It launched last Saturday, but with a reduced crew of only two. The empty seats will be taken by the stranded astronauts when this mission (Crew-9) comes home in February.

Looks like everybody at the ISS was glad to see the crew that arrived via Dragon on Sunday.

WFH research

At yesterday's cafe business, it's not possible to do the job unless you come to the site. But a few work-from-home (WFH) days is possible for a lot of people with 2-3 days at the office. That's how it seems to have settled out now, post-COVID (chart).

 Management usually prefers on-site presence, workers like to be home or remote (chart).

Fruited Plain

 Follow up to this post and post 

Laremy is a Christian. He still runs his cafe in Iowa and still turns out a good product. He still derives satisfaction from it because he sees how it fits into God's good creation.

Fruited Plain Cafe demonstrates the value and mission of work from God's point of view in Genesis, when He tells humanity to "have dominion". The point is not selfish or careless domineering of nature, but rather a sort of co-creation in cooperation with The Creator. 

"I can add my own knowledge, care, and love to coffee beans and milk, using tools that I understand intimately (café owners must also be espresso machine repairmen after all) to create a final product that honors God and blesses my patrons."

This is second level creating along with God--taking what He's provided both in the material world and within the human person (within Laremy and within you and me) to make something "useful and beautiful!"

Pink XX bands

Some parents of girls playing high school soccer in New Hampshire don't want them playing against male-bodied athletes. Well, who would? Answer: the school wants it.

Objections from the parents went nowhere. But they did not disrupt the games in any way. All they did was to wear pink wristbands with XX on them.

 

The school went ballistic. "They stopped the game, demanded the pink armbands be removed, and issued police-enforced “No Trespassing” orders against at least two parents."

"My daughter’s playing in the homecoming game this weekend, and I’m banned until the 23rd,” said Anthony Foote of Bow, N.H. “I can’t watch her play in homecoming — which is ridiculous.”

It's ridiculous, it's unfair, and it has to stop. How any otherwise rational human being can force girls to compete against male-bodied opponents is really beyond me. Read the account.

from New Hampshire Journal

A test coming 2

Re-post from 2021, "Robbie" George's choice for integrity

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

So Princeton Professor of Law Robert P. George has made up his mind in advance of the testing he thinks will come. When/if powers in our culture demand that he affirm what he does not believe, he will not do it. Not in public, not in private, not to save career or friendship.

"There is only one thing about my life that is completely in my control, namely, my integrity. No one can take it from me. If I lose it, it can only be by way of my own freely chosen decision to yield it up. This I will not do.

"How about you? The only thing in your life that no one can take from you--even if they take from you everything else, everything you love, treasure, or cherish--is your integrity. Will you sacrifice it for other things? Or will you refuse to yield it up, no matter the cost?

"You will face the test. Pray for me, as I will pray for you, dear friends, that all of us, with God's help, will pass the test--that "like a tree planted by the water, we shall not be moved."

A test coming 1

 A re-post from 2021, well worth seeing again

Corruption in our national life is distressing. People of integrity will have to decide whether to  cave under pressure, or take a stand against the corruption.

Robert P. George posted the following on Facebook.

"A time of testing is coming--indeed, for some it has already come. We are each going to have to decide. As for myself:

"I will not pretend to believe what I do not believe, or pretend not to believe what I do believe.

"I will not speak as if I believe to be true something I in fact believe to be false.

"Not in public. Not in private. Not for the sake of career or friendships. Not to fit in or avoid being thrown out (or "canceled").

(cont'd tomorrow)

Megachurches 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Calvary Temple also produces 650 television programs per month in seventeen languages, and plans to launch another 40 megachurches like this one in the next ten years. They provide meals for 200k people per month: "service to mankind is service to God."  Their reach is staggering.

"In a society where many people can only dream of having a birthday cake, the church’s volunteers hand deliver a cake to the doorstep of every member on their birthday — almost 4,000 cakes a day." Five 2-hour services take place every Sunday. Despite the cultural caste stratification, all worshipers are seated equally in the sanctuary. 

Mass conversions started happening about 20-30 years ago, according to one observer, and other big churches are growing. Thousands convert from Hindu, Sikh, and other religions weekly. The wave arouses persecution, accusations, anti-conversion laws (photo).

 

Most of the growth is Protestant in nature, since the Catholic Church decided to focus on "making better Hindus" rather than conversions back in the 1960's.

from Stream

Megachurches 1

Picture the nation of India as you imagine it to be with its Hindu temples and masses of people. Now add to that picture some Christian megachurches.

Satish Kumar grew up as a "rowdy lad" in a poor Hindu family. When he heard from a street evangelist that Jesus Christ could change his life, he embraced the message. Beginning as a manual laborer for conferences, he started a youth fellowship group. That was followed by a new church of 25 members in 2005.

In ten years that church had grown to 130,000 members. Today Pastor Kumar's congregation numbers over 300,000, a church size unknown in the U.S. and hard to imagine.

Hillbillies

Dominican friars aren't known for their musical performances. Or, at the least, you might expect medieval chants over American bluegrass. But they're performing bluegrass all right . . at the Grand Ol' Opry in Nashville TN.

Their name, "Hillbilly Thomists," is a reference to Thomas Aquinas who lived around 1200 AD in Britain, an influential monk.

In the words of one fan, "Their folksy music is at once complex and lovely with lyrics rich in poetry and Scripture."

Cat reporting

At the presidential debate last week, one of the candidates said of migrants in Ohio: "They're eating cats/dogs." Yikes. It stirred up controversy.

Media fact-checkers denied it, some calling the claim a "racist smear." How are they sure about that? CBS was sure because the mayor of Springfield OH said there's no police report about it. But of course that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

What should CBS have done to find out the truth, given its massive resources? They should have done the work of journalism: sent a reporter to the area to interview the eyewitness and the neighbors, find the visual evidence, conduct background research.

That's what investigative journalist Christopher Rufo did. His team found the party who posted the relevant video and went to the site, found a grill matching that in the video, confirmed the location by knot patterns in the fence, matched voice patterns, and much more.

Conclusion: "Our interview with the eyewitness matched the details of the original video and was unambiguous in its conclusion: “This African dude next door had the damn cat on the grill. They was barbecuing the damn cat!”

Get the rest of the story, the video, and detail corrections from "Fact Checking the Fact Checkers"

Waiting for #5

Follow up to this post 

"Starships need to fly.  The more we [SpaceX] fly safely, the faster we learn; the faster we learn, the sooner we realize full and rapid rocket reuse."  

Like some of you, I'm anxious for test flight #5 of Starship. What's holding it up? 

Well, it's not SpaceX. "The Starship and Super Heavy vehicles for Flight 5 have been ready to launch since the first week of August."

"Unfortunately, we continue to be stuck in a reality where it takes longer to do the government paperwork (photo) to license a rocket launch than it does to design and build the actual hardware. This should never happen and directly threatens America’s position as the leader in space."

The FAA estimated a late September launch, but now has delayed it to late November. "[T]he licensing process has been repeatedly derailed by issues ranging from the frivolous to the patently absurd." 

Does the government have other issues going on here? A future post topic.

 from SpaceX

Polaris 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Go here for SpaceX's video of the spacewalk along with their real time comments.

"A lot of us work here because we want to do this," says a narrator of the video. Gillis and Menon were the ones who really did get to do this, the first time in space for any SpaceX employee. 

Civilian and commander of the mission, Jared Isaacman, paid for it out of his personal wealth. It could be called "space tourism," but it's not like going on a cruise. It's brutal out there.

Temperature can go from 250 degrees above zero (in the sun) down to 250 degrees below (in  Earth's shadow). There's radiation, and zero breathable air. Their spacesuits have to protect from all of that, while keeping the astronauts comfortable enough to function.

"It's kind of like a suit of armor made of fabric," said SpaceX's principal spacesuit engineer. He explains its design in a video posted on X.

Polaris 1

At the age of 41, he has his own Wikipedia page. He's rich, so he has the money to do what he's always wanted to do: be an astronaut. Jared Isaacson started his own successful companies, and funded and organized the mission called Polaris Dawn.

Four civilians (photo) launched last Tuesday, but not for NASA or any other national space program. SpaceX took them 870 miles into space where Jared and SpaceX engineer Sara Gillis did an EVA (extravehicular activity), the first ever for civilians.

Their "spacewalk" didn't involve a tether, but rather they kept in contact with their vehicle, Crew Dragon Resilience, the whole time. Just for this mission, a new hatch called "Skywalker" replaced the capsule's normal ISS docking port to enable the EVA. 

They tested their spacesuits and Starlink laser-based communications, conducted over 30 science experiments, and returned to Earth safely yesterday. Two more Polaris Project missions will follow.

from Space

(cont'd tomorrow, the EVA and the spacesuits)

On Monday . .

 Private individuals go into space with SpaceX . . details coming on Monday.

Resisting 6

Follow up to this post

In spite of Maduro's threats, X (Twitter) would not comply with his demand that they censor his political opponents. So a much higher penalty was set.

X is banned in Brazil. Some citizens might want to switch to a VPN (virtual private network) to get around the ban and continue reading X, but that strategy is squelched as well. A justice speaking for their Supreme Court announced that anyone doing that will be fined US$8900/day--more than the average yearly salary.

The CEO of X says, “This is a sad day for X users around the world, especially those in Brazil, who are being denied access to our platform. I wish it did not have to come to this – it breaks my heart.”  She added that Brazil's constitution forbids censorship.

X's legal representative in country was threatened with imprisonment so she resigned, and even then all her bank accounts were frozen. 

Both in America and in other countries, we take the freedom to speak for granted. But it's gotten to the point where we'll have to fight for that freedom because: "Just about every tinpot dictator on the planet wants to stamp out our right to hear alternative voices . ."

from Mind Matters

Try socialism 4

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

 If socialism is called by another name, like "democratic socialism," is it better? 

Will the outcomes be good if people actually vote for it in an election? No, the outcomes still won't be good.

Try socialism 3

When Cambodia shifted to economic freedom, things got a lot better for the people. No, we don't want socialism. Freedom is best for Americans.

(cont'd from yesterday's post).

Freer market reforms during the 1990's opened the door to optimism. Mr. Lim's parents had no hope for a better future, but his own generation saw that grinding poverty as rice farmers was no longer the only option: they saw freedom to improve their lives.

From 1995 to 2017 Cambodia's economy grew at an average rate of 7.7% per year. (To compare, good growth in the U.S. used to be about 3% per year.) In 2007 the poverty rate was still about 47%, but by 2014 it was at 14%.

photo

What does Cambodia look like now? This author recently visited Mr. Lim and reports:

"Mr. Lim works in tourism. He drives a Lexus SUV on paved roads. He buys groceries from a thriving local market, and his daughters go to school. His brother owns a pharmacy in Phnom Penh. Another brother is a nurse at a major hospital . . There are entrepreneurs everywhere . . I witnessed family-owned coffee shops, restaurants, general stores, and roadside markets."

In one generation the grim poverty was turned around. Mr. Lim says it came because of: "Peace, education, technology, and the entrepreneurial spirit of Cambodian people.”

from "Entrepreneurship Lifts Cambodia from the Clutches of Extreme Poverty in a Single Generation"

Try socialism 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

 

Pol Pot's hideous regime (Khmer Rouge) was ended by Vietnam, which captured and plundered the capital (Phnom Penh) in January of 1979. The ruined nation of Cambodia became the "People's Republic of Kampuchea" (the PRK) and remained a communist state.

"Under Vietnamese control, the PRK was established in the wake of the total destruction of the country's institutions, infrastructure and intelligentsia wreaked by Khmer Rouge rule."

Lim Pengkhun was born to rice farmers in 1980. "For the first 15 years of [his] life, Cambodia was a command economy controlled by communist and socialist policies and remained one of the most impoverished nations in the world."

Things started to change in 1989 when the last Vietnamese occupiers left Cambodia, and reforms started transitioning their economy from "command" to free market. New private property rights turned state-owned enterprises into person-owned enterprises. The U.N. invested in education, infrastructure, and health.

photo

(cont'd tomorrow)

Try socialism 1

One of our political parties wants us to try Socialism policies in America, a theme that comes up every four years in our national election. It's not a new idea. Other countries have tried socialism, and we don't want their results. The story of what happened in Cambodia is the theme of this week's posts, re-posts from five years ago on this blog.

A boy who had been educated in Cambodia's elite schools went to Paris, France, and became a follower of Marxist-Leninist communism there. Returning in 1953, he joined communist forces fighting the Cambodian government. The boy was Pol Pot.

Eventually he led his armies to defeat the government, and took control of Cambodia's politics and economy in 1975. His goal was to create an "agrarian socialist society," so he forced people out of cities and onto collective farms. His vision demanded social uniformity. His solution to dissent was to kill dissenters.

photo of mass grave

"Following the examples of Stalin and Mao, Pol Pot brutally murdered more than one million Cambodians in the infamous Killing Fields of 1975-1979 as he implemented his vision of communist utopia. He abolished private property, money, prices, commerce, and even cities—a full descent into barbarism.

"Death sentences were levied against any number of “class enemies.” Simply being a former civil servant, student, artist, or capitalist of any variety—including a “street noodle vendor or a motorcycle taxi driver”—was enough to earn a spot in one of Pol Pot’s mass graves."

from FEE
(cont'd tomorrow)

U of Austin 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

UATX was founded to be the right kind of university, where truth is pursued with respect for each other, with humility, with honesty. As one of the founders, Bari Weiss, put it, "grievance and resentment define the current cultural moment. It’s a dead end. We must get back to gratitude." 

In his convocation address, President Kanelos didn't just complain about the degraded state of our existing universities. He tried to clearly express what this new one was created to do.

"We are returning to the very roots of the Western . . civilization that brought forward these extraordinary institutions called universities.

"This university is dedicated to the fearless pursuit of truth."

"Human beings have freedom and agency, and . .  we will learn how to use our freedom well. [Our] purpose is not simply knowledge, but wisdom."

Hopefully this new attempt at higher education will help to create a new generation of Americans dedicated not to grievance and resentment (photo), but to goodness and truth and beauty.

U of Austin 2

 Follow up to this post

As Konstantin said, "there are people whose brains have been broken by an excess of education who believe that our history is evil, that we do not deserve to be great . . that we must be punished for the sins of our ancestors. To them our past is abominable, our present must be spent apologizing, and our future is managed decline." 

It's a disaster to this country and to the West that our colleges and universities, yes, are "breaking brains." Peter Boghossian (yesterday's post) said that they're beyond recovery, that the system should be burned to the ground.

But a few people decided to try to return sanity to our higher education system, and Boghossian joined them in the effort. They created the University of Austin to be different, not woke, and they just opened their doors to the Class of 2028 last week.

New president Pano Kanelos explained three years ago why they want to do this: our universities today tend to pursue emotional comfort rather than pursue knowing truth, the essential goal for a university.

"We can't wait for universities to fix themselves. So we're starting a new one."

from Free Press

(cont'd tomorrow)