Standardized testing is a pillar of systemic racism.

— Jamaal Bowman (@JamaalBowmanNY) March 2, 2021

Mr. Bowman here is the representative for New York’s 16th Congressional District. Clearly the way to help schools full of Oppressed Kids is to make sure that the schools never have to prove that they’ve actually educated the kids. That’ll work out *great.*

Bonus round: from his Wiki page…

Bowman is the founder and former principal of the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action, a public middle school in Eastchester, Bronx. He is a member of the Lower Hudson Valley chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

He’s an educator. A Socialist educator.

Bowman was inspired to run by the insurgent 2018 campaign of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and described his platform as “anti-poverty and anti-racist” with support for housing, criminal justice reform, education, Medicare for All, and a Green New Deal.

Yup. Math checks out.

A hit piece on Elon Musk and his plans for Mars:

Mars Is a Hellhole

The money quote:

Sagan did believe in sending humans to Mars to first explore and eventually live there, to ensure humanity’s very long-term survival, but he also said this: “What shall we do with Mars? There are so many examples of human misuse of the Earth that even phrasing the question chills me. If there is life on Mars, I believe we should do nothing with Mars. Mars then belongs to the Martians, even if [they] are only microbes.”

Musk, by contrast, is encouraging a feeling of entitlement to the cosmos—that we can and must colonize space, regardless of who or what might be there, all for a long-shot chance at security.

Huh. There’s a fair amount to disagree with here.

Firstly, Sagan, much as I like a lot of what he did, was wrong about the microbes. If there are Martian microbes… great, wonderful, huzzah. If they do not pose a threat to terrestrial life – and they probably wouldn’t – then the proper place for them in the future is in the Marsopolis Public Zoo And Museum. Life on Mars had its shot. The planet is dying, if not already dead; if Mars is to become a living world, it will be because humans do it. Microbes do not have rights; they certainly do not have the right to Mars that even *rabbits* do.

Now, if the author wants to get into a debate about what right to life alien microbes have, I can put her in touch with some folks who have some things to say about the right to life of human embryos.That, I suspect, would make for some entertaining debating.

Secondly, her dismissal of Musks notions about colonizing Mars: the man is right. We, especially the Western World, more especially America, *should* feel entitled to the cosmos. Whenever I hear some woke MFer tell me to “stay in my lane,” my immediate response is “Lady, I’m an American: the entire accessible universe is my lane. See you on Titan, chump!”

Everywhere we look in the heavens we see resources free for the taking. And everywhere we look – at least so far – we see no sign of those resources being owned. It’s a universe of riches and possibilities, and it is, so far as we can tell, friggen’ empty. It’s not just our right to colonize, commercialize, industrialize and exploit, it’s our responsibility. Everywhere we go for the most mundane or venal reasons, we will take along the ecosystem of Earth, or at least some fraction thereof. We will spread life throughout the cosmos.

Woke nags like this sure as hell won’t, though.

Legitimate reasons exist to feel concerned for long-term human survival, and, yes, having the ability to travel more efficiently throughout the solar system would be good. But I question anyone among the richest people in the world who sells a story of caring so much for human survival that he must send rockets into space. Someone in his position could do so many things on our little blue dot itself to help those in need.

To laugh at Sagan’s words is to miss the point entirely: There really is only one true home for us—and we’re already here.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhgh. Do I have to trot out Tsiolkovsky?

There was only one true home for us… the Olduvai Gorge. Until it wasn’t.

And note how she seems to think that *she* should be able to tell Musk how to spend his money. How many billionaires are there on Earth who *aren’t* spending their funds on building rockets? How many middle east oil billionaires are blowing far more than Musk is on SpaceX on truly useless self-aggrandizing crap? Why isn’t the author over yonder protesting the building – often with virtual slave labor – of vast and rather silly skyscrapers in the desert, or giant artificial island complexes? Why aren’t these billionaires instead following Israeli leads and making their deserts bloom?

Nah. Easier to whine about rockets because reasons.

I truly hope that Martian colonial craft will have names like “the Cecil Rhodes” and “the Rudyard Kipling.”

Another case where the video evidence *completely* demolishes the narrative that the SJW “activists” attempt to promote. Compare the events shown clearly on video with the nonsensical tirade shown here.

Short form: woman with two little kids is completely off her nut (mental issues? Drugs? Dunno), starts raving incoherently when some cops *politely* try to talk to her in the street. She starts shrieking paranoid delusional stuff, then takes off after a cop with a knife. Said cop tries to taser her and fails; another cop plugs her about four times. Getting stabby with a cop *does* make you a legally valid bullet sponge.

Getting stabby while yelling “Allahu ackbar” and telling your kids not to fear death… yeah, ya ain’t right in the head, lady.

The “activist” Leia Schenk here should, IMO, be held liable for causing emotional distress to the family, and perhaps also legally liable for slander. At the very least, her willingness – nay, eagerness – to launch head first into rage-filled protests over a situation which she clearly knows little about should be forever kept in mind when considering all the other protests that she and those like her launch into. All of 2020 would have been a more peaceful, less arsony, less deadly and all around less crazy year if people like Schenk had actually waited to see the evidence before they decided to take to the streets to burn down bookstores and loot coffee shops.

It launched, flew up, hovered, came down and landed. Woo! But then it bounced slightly when it landed, but still stayed upright. But then, some five or so minutes later, the damn thing popped up in the air and exploded; the lower propellant tank seemed to have cut open.

Eaglemoss creates little figurines of pop culture characters as well as starships. One of their current product lines is a chess set featuring Marvel comic book characters. You know, rooks, Queens, knights, pawns, that sort of thing. The characters are apparently sold individually rather than as one set.

One of the characters… I don’t know. Something about this sets my SJW-Outrage Senses a-buzzin’.

Luke Cage (White Pawn)

Ummmmmmm……………

SpaceX’s Starship SN10 is slated to fly this week (tomorrow, last I heard). These demonstrator craft have three rocket engines and require two of them for a safe landing. But on the last flight, when the landing engines were started, one failed and the ship tried – and failed – to land on a single functional engine. This time, the plan is to ignite all three engines and promptly shut one down if all three work… or shut down the one that’s not running correctly.

With luck, this flight will look something like this:

Soon to compete with SpaceX, the Rocket Lab “Neutron.” Building on their relatively dinky Electron, the Neutron will be able to orbit 8 metric tons (including manned payloads) and will feature a reusable first stage much akin to the Falcon 9 first stage.

It looks to be substantially stubbier than Falcon 9 which should make it much more stable on the landing pad which will likely be a ship or platform out at sea.

Rocket Lab is technically an American company, but the founder is a New Zealander and many launches occur from there as well. Much of the Electron manufacturing occurs in New Zealand; the 3D-printed rocket engines are made in California.

Rocket Lab, like SpaceX before it, should cause many, MANY heads to hang in shame. Who? Well, let’s start with the likes of Boeing and Lockheed. Those titans of the aerospace world should have had this sort of capability *decades* ago. But they chose not to. And the best they’ve come up with is the as-yet unflown “Vulcan,” which is *lame* comparatively. Who else? Oh… how about the United Kingdom? They used to have a planet-spanning empire. They used to have a pretty snazzy launch vehicle of their own, the Black Arrow… which they abandoned fifty years ago. And now New Zealand has not only surpassed *all* of the British Empire with their Electron (dinky as it it, its payload still exceeds that of the Black Arrow), if the Neutron comes along – which there’s no reason to suppose it won’t, though the initial launch date of 2024 might prove optimistic – then the UK will look *even* *worse.*

If Neutron works, then there’ll be no excuses whatsoever. Every nation on the planet *should* have their own launch capability… and in a number of cases, such as the US, their should be *dozens* of new launch vehicles competing to prove who can launch the most for the least.

The Babylon Bee has a useful graphic:

APR Patrons and Subscribers today helped crowdfund the purchase of a Boeing blueprint, an inboard profile diagram of the 2707-300 SST. An overly expensive item became reasonably affordable, and will be provided to each of the funders as high resolution scans in full color (and cleaned-up grayscale).

If you’d like to be involved in helping to preserve this sort of aerospace rarity, consider singing up for the Aerospace Projects Review Patreon or the Monthly Historical Documents Program.