Ice on the Moon

Listening to On Point and an interview with co-authors on a book about democracy. One of them talked about Trump as “the great persuader” and it was very enlightening. He ended by saying that this sub-literate whose only guide is Hitler’s speeches could be the greatest persuader in history is too bitter to contemplate.

Americans believe in exceptionalism, that nothing like what happened to other nations can happen to us. Yet it is happening right now. Right before my eyes. And it is bitter.

“The internet allows the angriest among us to interact, and actually reinforce each other.”

The Paradox of Democracy: Free Speech, Open Media, and Perilous Persuasion by Zac Gershberg  (Author), Sean Illing (Author)

“Democracy as an act of persuasion.”

https://www.wbur.org/radio/programs/onpoint

And in another article citing another book:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/opinions-tracing-the-republican-party-s-devolution-to-one-man-newt-gingrich/ar-AA10kZ0l?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=e7671e3ac0c54bcbbc2a78e105a32577

“As an exercise, try thinking “Party of Lincoln” (or Reagan) as you recite aloud this partial list of post-1994 GOP leaders, grandees, enablers and influencers: Gingrich, Kenneth Starr, Roger Ailes, Rush Limbaugh, Ralph Reed, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Lee Atwater, Andrew Breitbart, Ann Coulter, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Karl Rove, Tucker Carlson, Rupert Murdoch, Jack Abramoff, Michael Flynn, Jim Jordan, Steve Bannon, Kevin McCarthy, Ted Cruz, Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, Rudy Giuliani, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Madison Cawthorn, Josh Hawley, Lindsey Graham, Mo Brooks, Ron Johnson, Lauren Boebert, Elise Stefanik and the 147 members of Congress who on Jan. 6, 2021, voted not to certify Biden’s election, hours after the Capitol was attacked by an insurrectionary mob. Got an ashy taste in your mouth?

The baton that Reagan passed to a new generation became a truncheon in Gingrich’s hands. For those scratching their heads and moaning, “How did this happen?” Milbank has the answer. It all began with the honorable gentleman from Georgia.”

The Musk fanboys never, NEVER, acknowledge anything except the myth of Musk. So of course they are “satisfied” with their wonderful Ayn-Rand-in-space fantasy.

The truth is this; backroom deals and political influence are the reason spacex exists. Spacex employees generally despise Musk for the nutcase he is. An expendable rocket would do the same thing for about the same price.

That is not to say reusability is not the future, but F9 is likely not breaking even.

Comparing the Falcon and the Shuttle is a sad exercise in that the Shuttle was a Saturn V class launch vehicle based on the concept of reusing everything except a single expendable tank. Unfortunately, it was actually a cheap and nasty design in many ways, and this ruined it. Wasting most of its payload on a 737-size glider, the SRB’s, and other features were failed logic, and instead of making it economical, well…. everybody knows.

The most efficient progression would have been to make the Saturn V reusable one part at a time over a couple decades. The Shuttle was meant to leap ahead and failed. The SLS could reuse liquid side boosters and perhaps crossfeed propellants, reuse the RS-25s with a module, reuse the escape tower and capsule, and this would have been a more conservative configuration for the original Shuttle.

“Its not completely clear to me why SpaceX have not pushed for faster turnarounds; it might be that the Falcon 9 system has reached a technical limit and in most cases its not possible, or at least not cost effective, to do it so quickly.”

Pretty clear to me. Too many engines. Too many technicians required, which is the biggest expense and also what spacex fanboys have always screamed bloody murder at; the thrice-damned “standing army.”

LOL!
We both know who does all the “blowing up on the pad.” (Regarding a comment including the SLS blowing up)
The DOD blows hundreds of billions on worthless projects to enrich defense shareholders….and you cry about NASA. It is so obvious what this NASA-bashing is all about is a cult of personality that wants it all handed over to Musk. Their Howard Roark/John Galt/Tony Stark hero is in reality a freak and his rocket company is the poster child for government subsidy.

“The contractor would be responsible for producing hardware and services for up to 10 Artemis launches beginning with the Artemis V mission, and up to 10 launches for other NASA missions. NASA expects to procure at least one flight per year to the Moon or other deep-space destinations.”

NASA will likely shut down the ISS and “at least” double the launch cadence to the Moon and the other ten missions to FOUR launches a year…which will, as every spacex fan knows, bring the costs down. Considering the years, if ever, it will take to rate the shiny to actually carry a human being (not going to happen without an escape system), it is not going anywhere for a long time.

SLS is here to stay.

And….Debunking Musk – TED talk 2022 Finale debuted on YouTube.

If Space Solar became the solution to climate change then an international effort pouring TRILLIONS of dollars into space might be an economic reason. Setting up an industrial infrastructure beneath the surface of the Moon would require thousands, and more likely tens of thousands, of technicians.

You see Robert, that single sentence that idiot uttered, “-the stupidest thing ever”, may lead to the needless deaths of billions. His BA (not a BS) in physics informed that very influential statement concerning Space Solar Power. Truth. And all these right-wing Ayn-Rand-in-space whackjobs will share the responsibility for promoting him.

The reason these billionaires don’t want anything to do with Space Solar is they cannot own it. It is such a tremendous undertaking only governments can finance it. Much like the Koch’s spending millions (pennies to them) to create climate change denial, Musk and Bezos both could choose NOT to be greedy sociopaths and support Space Solar….but they won’t.

I would say they will try and screw up some people for life. And then stop trying.

The only way it will work IMO is to use semi-expendable robot landers that make their own propellants with ISRU and ferry those hundreds of tons of water shielding into space from the lunar poles to the station.

In my view, just as the rocket equation dictates much about launch vehicles, the “Parker Minimum” is the main limiting factor concerning Human Space Flight Beyond Earth Orbit (HSF-BEO). And the minimum cosmic ray shielding equates to: “If the material is water, it has to be five meters deep. So a spherical water tank encasing a small capsule would have a mass of about 500 tons.” (from Shielding Space Travelers, by Eugene Parker)
Using Polyethylene drops that figure to 400 tons. Taking a wild guess that the FH could transport perhaps 20 tons at a time to the gateway that would be 20 FH missions carrying nothing but a slab of plastic. But water is a far better choice for many reasons. That much water would first of all provide a medium for a closed loop life support system that could provide air and drinking water for years.

For any practical living space at least double the shielding mass. At least. And then there is the problem of zero G debilitation ….

This is why bringing water up from the lunar poles is so important.

Exactly…it is a rock. (Regarding Mars) Too much gravity, not enough solar energy, no ocean.
The Moon is the gateway, the prize we never should have taken our eyes off of. It is the place to lift cosmic ray water shielding into space using 20 times less energy than from Earth. It is the place to assemble, test, and launch nuclear missions.

The first human missions Beyond Earth and Lunar Orbit will be to Ceres, then Callisto, and then even farther out using more and more advanced nuclear propulsion systems. Carrying submarines to the places that have subsurface oceans. Mars is a dead end that will be bypassed.
The spacex plan is a farce.

“-An all-white planet achieved through profound violence and assymetric warfare.”

She nailed that one…crystal clear. They all fantasize about “the day of the rope.”

“I think that it is difficult to be too worried about this at present. In my view there are two major dangers posed to everyone in the United States right now from this movement. One of them is that groups like the Oathkeepers and the Proud Boys become a sort of paramilitary shock force of the most extreme parts of the GOP and lead us toward a sort of authoritarian politics that is enforced by violent action, intimidation, and all of the things we would expect from reading the history of those movements. The other is that there will be a contingent of people in those groups like the Oathkeepers and the Proud Boys that are not at all interested in the United States or gaining power as part of the GOP but who are actually interested in overthrowing the United States and creating their own ethno-state, which is not at all interested in democracy, or freedom, or voting, or any of the things I think of as patriotic. Both of these are dangerous to our society, and I think that one thing the committee is showing us is that the time to respond is growing short.”

“This is our opportunity to see behind the curtain, and so far, what we are seeing is very alarming and should escalate everybody’s sense of urgency about this problem.”

“We’re talking about huge sorts of “contortions” to make that OK with everybody (Christians and skinheads together) The thing that motivates that ability to be flexible and bring everyone together is an intense sense of emergency that the white race is under attack and will be eradicated without swift action.”

“That sense of emergency is able to pull in all kinds of different social issues into one sort of conspiratorial apocalyptic belief system.”

We cannot say we have not been warned. The storm is coming.

Quoted excerpt by David Klepper AP

“Daniel Charles Wilson believes the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were an inside job. The war in Ukraine is “totally scripted” and COVID-19 is “completely fake.” The Boston Marathon bombing? Mass shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas? “Crisis actors,” he says.

Wilson, a 41-year-old from London, Ontario, has doubts about free elections, vaccines and the Jan. 6 insurrection, too. He accepts little of what has happened in the past 20 years and cheerfully predicts that someday, the internet will make everyone as distrustful as he is.

“It’s the age of information, and the hidden government, the people who control everything, they know they can’t win,” Wilson told The Associated Press. “They’re all lying to us. But we’re going to break through this. It will be a good change for everyone.”

Wilson, who is now working on a book about his views, is not an isolated case of perpetual disbelief. He speaks for a growing number of people in Western nations who have lost faith in democratic governance and a free press, and who have turned to conspiracy theories to fill the void.

Rejecting what they hear from scientists, journalists or public officials, these people instead embrace tales of dark plots and secret explanations. And their beliefs, say experts who study misinformation and extremism, reflect a widespread loss of faith in institutions like government and media.

A poll conducted last year by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that just 16% of Americans say democracy is working well or extremely well. Another 38% said it’s working only somewhat well.

Other surveys reveal how many people in the United States now doubt the media, politicians, science and even each other.

The distrust has gone so deep that even groups that seem ideologically aligned are questioning each others’ motives and intentions.

On the day before Independence Day in Boston this year, a group of about 100 masked men carrying fascist flags marched through the city. Members proudly uploaded videos and photos of the march to online forums popular with supporters of former President Donald Trump and QAnon adherents, who believe a group of satanic, cannibalistic child molesters secretly runs the globe.

Instead of praise, the white supremacists were met with incredulity. Some posters said the marchers were clearly FBI agents or members of antifa — shorthand for anti-fascists — looking to defame Trump supporters. It didn’t matter that the men boasted of their involvement and pleaded to be believed. “Another false flag,” wrote one self-described conservative on Telegram.

Similarly, when an extremist website that sells unregulated ghost guns — firearms without serial numbers — asked its followers about their July 4th plans, several people responded by accusing the group of working for the FBI. When someone claiming to be Q, the figure behind QAnon, reappeared online recently, many conservatives who support the movement speculated that the new Q was actually a government plant.

This past week, when a Georgia monument that some conservative Christians criticized as satanic was bombed, many posters on far-right message boards cheered. But many others said they didn’t believe the news.

“I don’t trust it. I’m still thinking ff,” wrote one woman on Twitter, referencing “false flag,” a term commonly used by conspiracy theorists to describe an event they think was staged.

The global public relations firm Edelman, based in New York City, has conducted surveys about public trust for more than two decades, beginning after the 1999 World Trade Organization’s meeting in Seattle was marred by anti-globalization riots. Tonia Reis, director of Edelman’s Trust Barometer surveys, said trust is a precious commodity that’s vital for the economy and government to function.

“Trust is absolutely essential to everything in society working well,” Reis said. “It’s one of those things that, like air, people don’t think about it until they realize they don’t have it, or they’ve lost it or damaged it. And then it can be too late.

For experts who study misinformation and human cognition, the fraying of trust is tied to the rise of the internet and the way it can be exploited on contentious issues of social and economic change.

Distrust and suspicion offered obvious advantages to small bands of early humans trying to survive in a dangerous world, and those emotions continue to help people gauge personal risk today. But distrust is not always well suited to the modern world, which requires people to trust the strangers who inspect their food, police their streets and write their news. Democratic institutions, with their regulations and checks and balances, are one way of adding accountability to that trust.

When that trust breaks down, polarization and anxiety increases, creating opportunities for people pushing their own “ alternative facts.”

“People can’t fact check the world,” said Dr. Richard Friedman, a New York City psychiatrist and professor at Weill Cornell Medical College who has written about the psychology of trust and belief. “They’re awash in competing streams of information, both good and bad. They’re anxious about the future, and there are a lot of bad actors with the ability to weaponize that fear and anxiety.”

Those bad actors include grifters selling bad investments or sham remedies for COVID-19, Russian disinformation operatives trying to undermine Western democracies, or even homegrown politicians like Trump, whose lies about the 2020 election spurred the Jan. 6 attack.

Like Wilson, people who believe in one conspiracy theory are likely to believe in others too, even if they are mutually contradictory. A 2012 paper, for instance, looked at beliefs surrounding the death of Princess Diana of Wales in a 1997 car crash. Researchers found that subjects who believed strongly that Diana was murdered said they also felt strongly that she could have faked her own death.

Wilson said his belief in conspiracies began on Sept. 11, 2001, when he couldn’t accept that the towers could be knocked down by airliners. He said he found information on the internet that confirmed his beliefs, and then began to suspect there were conspiracies behind other world events.

“You have to put it all together yourself,” Wilson said. “The hidden reality, what’s really going on, they don’t want you to know.”

Everything, EVERYTHING, can be traced back to a single thing and that singular truth is…avoiding taxes.

Simple. Except the small number of ultra-rich like the Kochs and others who have invested fortunes (well, fortunes to us but pennies to them) over the decades in think-tank-disinformation and sowing chaos as a distraction, may have done themselves in.

They have destroyed the concept of truth to such an extent that civilization as we know it may soon be burned to the ground.

Once the bloodletting starts, there is no stopping it.

Opinion by Chauncey DeVega writing for Salon (Abridged):

As documented by historian Nancy MacLean in her book “Democracy in Chains,” the leaders of today’s “conservative” movement have utter disdain for democracy, the Constitution, human rights, human freedom, the common good and the rule of law. This anti-democracy movement also wants to impose a type of Christian fascist regime on the American people.

In a recent essay for ScheerPost and Salon, Chris Hedges argues that the “Christian fascists are clear about the society they intend to create”:

“In their ideal America, our “secular humanist” society based on science and reason will be destroyed. The Ten Commandments will form the basis of the legal system. Creationism or “Intelligent Design” will be taught in public schools, many of which will be overtly “Christian.” Those branded as social deviants, including the LGBTQ community, immigrants, secular humanists, feminists, Jews, Muslims, criminals and those dismissed as “nominal Christians” — meaning Christians who do not embrace this peculiar interpretation of the Bible — will be silenced, imprisoned or killed. The role of the federal government will be reduced to protecting property rights, “homeland” security and waging war. Most government assistance programs and federal departments, including education, will be terminated. Church organizations will be funded and empowered to run social welfare agencies and schools. The poor, condemned for sloth, indolence and sinfulness, will be denied help. The death penalty will be expanded to include “moral crimes,” including apostasy, blasphemy, sodomy and witchcraft, as well as abortion, which will be treated as murder. Women, denied contraception, access to abortion and equality under the law, will be subordinate to men. Those who practice other faiths will become, at best, second-class citizens. The wars waged by the American empire will be defined as religious crusades. Victims of police violence and those in prison will have no redress. There will be no separation of church and state. The only legitimate voices in public discourse and the media will be “Christian.” America will be sacralized as an agent of God. Those who defy the “Christian” authorities, at home and abroad, will be condemned as agents of Satan.”

The world imagined by today’s Republican Party and the larger neofascist movement is a world of rules and hierarchies. White people rule over Black and brown people. Right-wing Christians will rule over other religious groups and non-believers. Men will rule over women. The rich and moneyed classes will have total power over the poor, the working class and the middle class, most likely all of those outside the top 5 percent.

 The “rights” of property, corporations and guns will fully supersede those of human beings, the natural world and the commons. “Democracy” will exist in name only, and in practice will be what political scientists call “competitive authoritarianism” or perhaps even an outright authoritarian state adapted to fit the mold of American exceptionalism.

Too many Americans — especially leading Democrats and mainstream liberals, along with the guardians of approved public discourse in the national media — have continued to tell themselves comforting lies. Republicans are “exaggerating” or being “hyperbolic” because “we are all Americans” who have “the same fundamental values”. Those comforting lies were always cowardly, now they are just contemptible. In fact, the Republican-fascists and their allies told us clearly who and what they were from the beginning. The question now becomes whether it is too late for the majority of Americans to take them at their word, and use the precious time remaining to defend, preserve and rebuild our democracy.

So much in the news today, so much culture war craziness; Jordan Petersen and Elon, talk about the shooting being about women not dating him…. etc. etc.

Elon did pull the curtain aside a little when he tweeted about taxes. THAT is what almost everything is about, but nobody seems to see it. Ending taxes and regulation on the rich.

Mammon will murder us all in the end.

 

Back in 2013 Chomsky talked about jobs being the critical issue to the population yet ignored by powers that be. Plenty of work to be done but not enough profit to make it worth the while of the ultra-rich. We are kept “atomized” to keep us from interfering.

99 out of 100 have never heard of the Knights of Labor. Security forces destroyed them in the 1890’s. And Jews were among the most prominent leaders. There were German immigrant and Italian immigrant anarchist movements, but they had been mostly crushed by the late 1920’s. Europeans were appalled at the way America treated labor activists. The civil war never really ended as race and immigrant antagonisms were used to keep labor from organizing.

“People may accept obedience and deference and following orders but not very far below the surface; they don’t like it. And when people can express themselves, you see it.”

“So, (they) have to block democracy, that’s a real threat.”

“In the United States, for example, we are a very free country by comparative standards, roughly seventy percent of the population has no influence on policy at all.”

“You take a look at popular opinion; the public thinks the deficit is not a major problem. The major problem is jobs.”

“But that’s not what the financial institutions want, that’s not what the wealthy want, so therefore it doesn’t enter into political discussion.”

“It’s a business-run flawed democracy.”

“Functioning democracy, would mean, for example, that stakeholders, workforce, and community, take over enterprises and run them themselves. They say it is impossible.”

“Impossible is their term, reality is what we want to construct.”

Projected Increase in Space Travel May Damage Ozone Layer

The propellant mix that produces water; hydrogen and oxygen, is most hated by NewSpace. The automatic demonization of hydrogen whenever mentioned goes back to the hobby rocket fanatics of a decade ago who insisted the falcon 9 could do everything and anything else was from satan.

The only likely path to expanding humankind off-world, Space Solar Power by way of lunar resources as envisioned by Gerard K. O’Neill, is most hated by NewSpace. That rocket jesus declared Space Solar Power “a stupid idea” is absolutely about his inability to completely own such a massive undertaking- only the resources of the state, and international pooling of resources, can enable powering civilization from space.

The ideology most likely to result in a fascist takeover of America, Neoliberalism, is most loved by NewSpace. Consider hydrogen hatred and Space Solar Power as stupid and it is clear Neoliberalism is the common factor.

While it was stupidity that made the dinosaurs extinct, it is simple greed that may end our species.

MagellanTV Original Documentary “Killer Asteroid: Defending Earth” to Make Impact Thursday, June 30 on the Global Streaming Service

The only comment so far on the killer asteroid article is a spacex fanboy promoting the idea of asteroid mining with several idiotic upvotes. An affirmation, an “Amen!”, to the ideology that holds Mammon as the lord of their world. Even possible extinction takes second place to profit. Unbelievable.

While it can be argued this blog is in itself an opinion column, I have been contacting some websites soliciting an opinion column about Human Space Flight. Considering the intense harassment and criticism I get when simply trying to comment on forums it might just catch on.

Anthea Butler: “They cannot come to grips with the fact that the Christianity of America is just like any other fundamentalist religion that gets weaponized in order to hold on to power. Therefore, they have to continue to tell themselves that everything that happened on Jan. 6 was an aberration and not something religious in nature. Those people are not “Christians” like us.

As a matter of public policy, Christian nationalists, dominionists and other Christian fascists are trying to impose their End Times eschatological fantasies onto secular America in opposition to the Constitution and the separation of church and state. These are fantasies of death and destruction. These white right-wing Christians literally seem to be seeking out death.

They do in fact appear to be seeking out death. They have this huge desire to live the way they want to live without restraint. At some point it is death for you, but it is not death for them.

What is the role of white privilege in explaining why so many white Americans are able to deny the serious dangers embodied by white Christian fascist violence?

White privilege convinces many white people that they will not personally have to deal with the violence. They believe that, unlike other people, they will just be able to melt away into the background when the violence happens and nobody is going to shoot people who look like them.

White privilege has convinced them that nobody’s going to take their home away from them. Nobody’s going to kill their kids. Nobody’s going to march them out as an example and shoot them. White privilege has convinced them that they can take some type of loyalty oath or pledge and they will be safe.”

It has become clear to any of us with any critical thinking ability that the elections are going to be a nightmare. The Christians who have not been corrupted better be ready to fight for survival. Nobody will admit that what is almost certain to happen is mass violence.

Rocket jesus is firing people and whining about the economy.

Could be a sign his house of cards is collapsing, and the Enron of space is about to crash and burn.

Real space enthusiasts can only hope and pray the ten-year NewSpace nightmare is about to end.

We also have “Klan gone Hiel HItler” commenting and resident sociopath se jones and full-tilt psychopath TomDPerkins down the page. Along with a long list of second-string trolls.

This is the story of NewSpace: a bunch of fascist freaks that have harassed those really interested in space and chased them away from these forums for over a decade.

Maybe John Oliver will do an expose about how all these forums have been hijacked.

And that obviously hit a nerve.

I was going to post a reply to my cyberstalker, se jones, who had trolled me with “I’ve known Musk for many years, ever since he joined The Mars Society. We disagree about a lot of things, including SPSP. I keep an open mind about it, and follow the tech advancements. But for f-sake, it’s not fing RELIGION, and Elon isn’t some kind of sacred profit or something.”

Oh…but it is a religion. And se jones does not want anyone to know that.

I usually feel bad about being banned, but not this time. I am just so sick of them all…the Musk worshipers, the Trumpists, the Ayn-Rand-in-Space libertarian whackjobs and their endless harassment. Good riddance. I did my duty to expose them for ten years. The SpaceX Review, The SpaceX News, and all the other infomercials completely hijacked by Muskrats, will not be forgotten. Like Fox News and other assorted trash, they will be thrown into that larger trash bin of history, along with the rest of the NewSpace garbage.

But we have other things to worry about as Americans. As Adam Kinzinger said,  “There is violence in the future.”