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Police Chief Suspended For Helping Officers Dodge Vaccine Mandate

A North Carolina police chief has been placed on unpaid leave after he allegedly told officers about a ‘clinic’ where they could obtain Covid-19 vaccine certificates without getting vaccinated.
Oakboro town administrator Doug Burgess placed Police Chief TJ Smith on two weeks unpaid leave and six weeks probation after Smith allegedly recommended the questionable clinic to peers. Burgess also warned Smith that he could face permanent dismissal if further violations take place.
Burgess <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.wbtv.com/2021/12/22/nc-police-chief-put-unpaid-leave-accused-offering-false-vaccination-card-opportunity-officers/" target="_blank">accused</a> Smith of engaging in “detrimental personal conduct” by “notifying law enforcement officers to attend a ‘clinic’ where they would be able to obtain proof of COVID 19 vaccination cards without being vaccinated.” The police chief’s conduct supposedly violated department policies on fraud, endangering the property of others, and serving a conflicting interest.
In his own statement, Smith claimed to have made a “mistake” by passing on “information about what was described as a ‘self-vaccination’ clinic.” Smith said he was told about the clinic by a friend and didn’t give “much thought” to the matter before sharing the information with others.
“Having the benefit of hindsight now, it is obvious the entire process sounds questionable,” he acknowledged, adding however that he “didn’t post it on social media” and was “just one person sharing the word with another.”
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I just try to help people where I can, and I passed on something that, in hindsight, I shouldn’t have
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Smith argued that though he mistakenly “shared misinformation,” he “didn’t do it from a place of malice,” and the police chief expressed hope that he could continue to serve the people of Oakboro.
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<a href="https://freeworldnews.tv/watch?id=61c527e9153b4036f719c5f6" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tyranny Response Team In Australia Stands Up Again Vaccine Mandates</a>
<div class="pcvTui6Y"><a href="https://www.infowarsstore.com/specials-clearance/christmas-super-sale?ims=rhqde&utm_campaign=christmassale&utm_source=infowars+top+banner&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=topbannerchristmas" target="_blank"><img src="https://api.directus.libertycdn.com/uploads/_/originals/ChristmasSuperSale-hero-385.jpg" /></a></div>
 
 
source <a href="https://www.infowars.com/posts/police-chief-suspended-for-helping-officers-dodge-vaccine-mandate">https://www.infowars.com/posts/police-chief-suspended-for-helping-officers-dodge-vaccine-mandate</a>

news Police Chief Suspended For Helping Officers Dodge Vaccine Mandate

A North Carolina police chief has been placed on unpaid leave after he allegedly told officers about a ‘clinic’ where they could obtain Covi...

More Than 800 US Flights Canceled On Christmas Morning Due To Staffing Shortages

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Airlines canceled more than 1,600 flights for one of the busiest travel holiday weekends of the year as the omicron variant resulted in staffing shortages — stranding thousands of passengers at airports, according to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-24/airlines-scrap-1-000-u-s-holiday-weekend-flights-as-covid-bites">Bloomberg</a>. 
Delta Air Lines Inc. canceled 523 flights between Friday and Sunday are the highest among US airlines so far, FlightAware data showed, followed by United Airlines Holdings Inc with 484 through the weekend. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" readability="4.8862745098039">
HUNDREDS OF FLIGHTS CANCELED: Several airlines canceled hundreds of flights, citing rising COVID-19 cases among staff and crew. <a href="https://twitter.com/elwynlopez?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@elwynlopez</a> reports. <a href="https://t.co/7lfxdOFzAd">https://t.co/7lfxdOFzAd</a> <a href="https://t.co/19ysXPaaWQ">pic.twitter.com/19ysXPaaWQ</a>
— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/ABCWorldNews/status/1474570592993136644?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 25, 2021</a></blockquote>
FlightAware shows the brunt of the cancellations will be seen on Christmas day. So far, 871 flights have been canceled “within, into, or out of the US.” That number has been steadily increasing this morning. 
FlightAware said the number of cancellations worldwide totaled more than 5,650 for the holiday weekend. 
Delta and United have both said flight <a href="https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/flight-cancellations-christmas-eve-upend-holiday-travel">cancellations were due to staffing shortages</a> linked to COVID-19 cases.
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“The nationwide spike in Omicron cases this week has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operation,” a United memo said Friday, which CNN obtained. 
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The holidays are among the busiest times for travel. Many travelers who had their flights canceled or delayed vented on social media. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" readability="3.2575757575758">
United always canceling flights. It's time to cancel united tbh. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/UnitedAirlines?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#UnitedAirlines</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/holidayseason?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#holidayseason</a>
— A (@brwnbarbzz) <a href="https://twitter.com/brwnbarbzz/status/1474739812963958790?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 25, 2021</a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/united?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@united</a> one leg of my trip was cancelled this morning. Your website has no other available flights. I don’t want to spend Christmas in chicago. I want to spend it in SLC. HELP!!!
— Katie Kooiman (@KooimanKatie) <a href="https://twitter.com/KooimanKatie/status/1474678736800915462?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 25, 2021</a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/united?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@united</a> cancelling my flight and then telling me that I need to pay them another $130 to move the flight (which could also likely get cancelled) is why they are the undefeated shittiest airline around.
— Duke Jeopardy (@DukeJeopardy) <a href="https://twitter.com/DukeJeopardy/status/1474604246205370370?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 25, 2021</a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/Delta?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Delta</a> Cancelling our connecting flight while we are literally boarding our initial flight was not the Christmas present we were looking for.
— Troy (@rebertruns) <a href="https://twitter.com/rebertruns/status/1474727084631236611?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 25, 2021</a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/Delta?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Delta</a> HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE!! Flight was canceled yesterday and I’ve been trying to get a refund since yesterday! Hours spent being sent from person to person only to be offered an ecredit!! I want my money back and the sky Miles I used to upgrade my flight
— Sonny Wigginton (@SonnyW08) <a href="https://twitter.com/SonnyW08/status/1474638553682526215?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 25, 2021</a></blockquote>
It seems to us that Delta and United might have underestimated their sick/call rate and didn’t staff according for one of the busiest travel weekends of the year. This becomes a reliability issue that will cause mistrust among travelers who will use other airlines. 
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<a href="https://freeworldnews.tv/watch?id=61c3accf5ba039303b9a7a07" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">WHO Head Admits Vaccines Being Used To Kill Children</a>
 
 
source <a href="https://www.infowars.com/posts/more-than-800-us-flights-canceled-on-christmas-morning-due-to-staffing-shortages">https://www.infowars.com/posts/more-than-800-us-flights-canceled-on-christmas-morning-due-to-staffing-shortages</a>

news More Than 800 US Flights Canceled On Christmas Morning Due To Staffing Shortages

Airlines canceled more than 1,600 flights for one of the busiest travel holiday weekends of the year as the omicron variant resulted in sta...

What do moviegoers want from the movies now?

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<a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/12/16/22837975/spider-man-no-way-home-post-credits-scenes-venom-doctor-strange-spoiler">Spider-Man: No Way Home</a>, the third installment in the Tom Holland Spidey era, made bank on its opening weekend. The movie beat out <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/4/24/17273954/avengers-infinity-war-review">Avengers: Infinity War</a> for the second-best domestic box office opening of all time, raking in a whopping $260 million — and that’s in a pandemic.
There’s a lot to parse in that figure, which indicates a market in which huge-budget franchise films with built-in audiences, produced by giant corporations, are squeezing out space once occupied by mid-budget original fare. But Spidey’s success suggests that the death of movie theaters, writ large, isn’t quite the fait accompli some doomsayers suggest.
Yet there’s no doubt it’s tough times — especially for independent theaters struggling to stay afloat, and even more so for the ones that steer away, by economic necessity or choice, from superhero fare.
Finding a way to hang on means giving customers, who have more options than ever, a compelling reason to go to the movie theater. That’s tricky at the best of times, but much more difficult in the midst of an ongoing pandemic with waxing and waning levels of risk, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/29/how-safe-is-the-cinema-experts-weigh-in-on-risks-as-no-time-to-die-opens">even if the risks are somewhat lower compared to some other activities</a>.
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<div class="caption">Theatrical windows are also shrinking, but they still exist, keeping theaters alive.</div>
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How do you tell what moviegoers love — and hate — about the experience? Ask them. Over the past two years, we’ve had the rare experience of many people leaving theaters for a time en masse, then returning with caution and new awareness. To put it another way, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Now we know, and for many who’ve returned, it has served as a reminder not to take movies for granted.
But going back also reveals some of the rough points and great opportunities in the experience. On Twitter, I asked returning moviegoers around the world to tell me what they’ve experienced as they go back, and their responses revealed some interesting patterns. (Of course, this was far from a scientific method. The respondents were people who were willing and able to take the risk involved, and who were also interested enough in a movie to pay for a ticket.)
What they told me was revealing. While you might expect to hear about loving the huge screens and state-of-the-art sound, most people discussed their love of seeing movies with strangers as well as their gratitude for an experience that forced them to pay attention to the film at hand. As we move into a brave new era of moviegoing, theaters might also want to pay attention.
Via Twitter, Mike Popham noted to me that “there is no substitute for laughter rippling through an audience or a collective gasp happening at a big moment in the story. It’s a social experience, and if anything, I didn’t appreciate it enough pre-pandemic.”
Spencer Turney observed that after many months watching films at home, “it was a weirdly bonding experience sitting in an often less than half-filled room and doing something so ‘normal.’”
Similarly, Lisa Shininger told me she missed the communal aspect of seeing something in a crowd. “It almost always enhances the experience in a way I can’t replicate when it’s just me and maybe a companion.”
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<aside><q>“It’s a social experience, and if anything, I didn’t appreciate it enough pre-pandemic”</q></aside>
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For Emma Bausch, that experience was especially poignant when she saw a movie with a big twist by herself, and it became an opportunity to bond with a woman she didn’t even know. “She came alone and wanted to talk to someone about it,” she wrote. “Even though we were both masked, we were delighted to share the ‘what just happened?!?!’ moment with each other. Sure, I could do it on Twitter. But it’s just not the same as seeing the joy in another person’s face six feet away.”
After long months barely even interacting with strangers, that’s an exhilarating experience. Even for those who are nervous around large crowds — something many respondents cited as part of their decision-making process now — being in the vicinity of others while watching a movie adds to the enjoyment. Experiences vary widely across the world, since different localities have different rules; in New York City, for instance, you can’t even enter a movie theater without showing proof of vaccination, while in other places it’s rare to see someone wearing a mask in a theater. But with the advent of preselected seating, it’s easier to figure out which screenings will be emptier (often matinees or weekday screenings) and plan accordingly.
And, as Shininger noted: “Having the theater to myself has made a handful of movies even better, especially scary ones.”
To borrow badly from Jean-Paul Sartre, sometimes hell is other people — and that’s true in the movie theater, too. It was true pre-pandemic, but it might have gotten worse.
Nguyên Lê, who was happy to be able to return to the theater, noted that “many folks seem to have somehow equated the auditorium to their living room after the pandemic.” At two showings in Texas, he said there were “out-loud arguments and checking-the-gram sessions,” patrons being disruptive in ways you’d never encounter at home. “Matinees used to be a ‘safe time’ for me,” he wrote, “but that seems to be changing.”
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<aside><q>“Many folks seem to have somehow equated the auditorium to their living room”</q></aside>
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Nate Rethorn also noted a similar problem, but thinks his “tolerance for other moviegoers’ misbehavior is even lower” after the time away. “For smaller films that we go to see at our localish indie theater, it’s always been a good experience. But I’m less interested in dealing with people who disrupt the theater and [I] would rather stream a film at home with all of those tradeoffs.”
Disruptive behavior was already something theaters were battling pre-pandemic. Some places, like Alamo Drafthouse, explicitly warn theatergoers to refrain from looking at their phones and talking, and make it possible for other patrons to alert theater staff if people around them aren’t complying. But it’s an ongoing issue, especially for people who regularly see quieter or less spectacle-driven films, and something that theaters need to address. Even those of us who like seeing movies in the company of strangers don’t want to know what’s on their TikTok feed.
When I returned to theaters, I realized that something I did all the time at home wasn’t available to me — and I missed it. If I was watching a screener at home, and I was starting to get bored, I would pause the film briefly and see how much was left, just so I could re-tune my expectations. But in a theater, if I don’t know how long the movie’s runtime is, I find myself reflexively reaching for the nonexistent pause button.
I know this isn’t particularly good — a great deal of the joy of a movie theater is immersing yourself in the experience, giving yourself over to the art, and letting yourself be bored, excited, and surprised. But habits formed over a year die hard.
I’m not the only one. Joe Nooft explained that “at home, I’d gotten used to being able to quickly move on from a movie I was not enjoying. But in the theater I felt more trapped than I remembered feeling in the past.” Similarly, as Chris Chafin noted, after a year of at-home pandemic viewing, “it’s made me a little less patient with films … a feeling of ‘I can’t believe I’m spending my time doing this!’ is a lot easier to access.”
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<aside><q>“Watching at home definitely destroyed my ability to focus for two hours”</q></aside>
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Harley Gillis agreed. “Before I could sit through a bad movie, or one outside my tastes,” she wrote. “Now I really struggle to stay if I’m not sold in the first 45 minutes. Plus, I’m now super restless. I have to sit at the back so I can stand for a few seconds every half hour or so.” Her conclusion sounded familiar: “Watching at home definitely destroyed my ability to focus for two hours.”
A lot of people also became accustomed to using captions for movies with hard-to-hear dialogue, something that can still be difficult to come by in movie theaters. It’s an accessibility issue that long predates the pandemic, but may not have occurred to people without hearing issues before. As Bailey Seitter put it, “I didn’t realize how much I grew to rely on closed captioning when watching at home. If anything, it’s made me even more excited to catch foreign language movies in theaters, because I know they’ll have subtitles.”
The subtitle question is an important one for theaters to consider. That’s especially true since <a href="https://www.slashfilm.com/673162/heres-why-movie-dialogue-has-gotten-more-difficult-to-understand-and-three-ways-to-fix-it/">dialogue is getting more difficult to understand</a>, and because those who regularly use the closed captioning display devices available at many theaters can find them unwieldy to obtain and use.
With so many people opting to use captions and discovering they like them, theaters may be wise to consider how to lower that barrier to entry. That should go along with a raft of improvements to accommodate would-be theatergoers with other disabilities — something the movie industry has been woefully behind on for decades.
Perhaps the most surprising and counterintuitive finding is just what people want to see when they go to a theater. Conventional wisdom is that moviegoers mainly want to go through the hassle of leaving the house, buying a ticket, and sitting (perhaps masked) in a theater when they’re seeing “big” movies; spectacles and blockbusters like Dune or Spider-Man: No Way Home. The big screen and surround-sound experience, not to mention excited audience members, drive people to the theater when they might otherwise just choose to stay home.
And certainly, that’s one big draw for moviegoers. Yet watching a movie at home, on a big screen, can be strikingly close to the theatrical experience, and without any of the headache of being around other people. So theaters face a hurdle: Making the theatrical experience fun enough that people are coaxed to engage in it when the movie comes out, rather than simply delaying till it’s cheaper and can be watched at home.
But quite a few people noticed upon returning to the theater that they’d be more likely to see movies at the opposite end of the spectrum — films that are smaller, quieter, and more suited to “art house” audiences. That “trapped” feeling that several people mentioned, the inability to turn off a film when you start to get bored, can translate to sticking around and being surprised. And the way you pay attention in a theater (provided you’re a good neighbor and not on your phone) can translate to delight.
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<aside><q>“When there’s a smaller, more intimate movie I really want to see, I make sure to see it in a theater”</q></aside>
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Chafin said, “I would have fallen asleep watching <a href="https://www.vox.com/22791220/power-of-dog-review-cumberbatch-dunst-campion">The Power of the Dog</a> at home, and maybe would never have finished it? But in the theater, I loved it.” Jonathan Diaz concurred, noting that “I can actually disconnect and focus on what I’m watching at the movies, which is so much harder at home with a million distractions and a nearby smartphone or laptop … When there’s a smaller, more intimate movie I really want to see, I make sure to see it in a theater so I can give it my full attention.”
Others said that no matter how good your home setup is, the compression that goes into delivering films digitally often messes with the image or the sound in ways that make it inherently subpar to what you might see in a theater. (Provided your theater properly projects films and tunes its systems, which is not always a given.) Josh Calvetti said, “I recognize the value in home premieres, but as long as companies insist on compressing the picture to death, I’ll continue to go to the theater.” Andrew Shine realized “how distracting city noises and household noises are; they can easily take you out of the movie-watching experience.”
I found myself thinking about this when some dust was briefly kicked up around the release of Memoria, an incredibly slow, quiet, and pretty inscrutable film directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. It’s also one of the best movies I saw this year, and I saw it in a theater. Weerasethakul’s films never make much money or play on many screens; they’re best suited to patient audiences who value the kind of “leaning in” that such a movie requires.
Neon, the company distributing Memoria, announced that in lieu of what now constitutes the traditional release plan — a few weeks in limited theaters, mostly in major cities, followed by a digital platform release a few weeks after that — they’d take the film on the road. Starting December 26, when the film opens at New York City’s IFC Center, Memoria will play on only one screen at a time, for a week, in cities around the country, with no plan for a digital release at all. Catch it while it’s in your local theater, or miss it forever. (It seems impossible, of course, that the film won’t eventually get at least a Blu-ray release some day, but Neon hasn’t announced any plans for that.)
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<aside><q>“Now that I’m back, I have a greater appreciation for the ways theatrical moviegoing forces you to focus and be present in the moment”</q></aside>
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People were, perhaps understandably, a little mad about this. But having seen Memoria, I knew how smart it was, at least from Weerasethakul’s perspective. Besides generating interest around the film, the release strategy guarantees people will actually watch it, something that, in truth, I can barely imagine doing at home. I struggled to stay awake watching it in a theater — I can’t even imagine how I’d have felt on my couch.
So I fully agree with Shine when he wrote, “Now that I’m back, I have a greater appreciation for the ways theatrical moviegoing forces you to focus and be present in the moment.” And it seems others do, too.
These responses underline the reality of moviegoing today. We’re there for the movie itself, but given the competing ways you can watch a film, it’s not just the movie that draws a crowd in. To think it is risks thinking of movies as just “content,” easily chopped up and sent down tubes to willing customers.
Instead, if we really think of movies as an art form — from the biggest blockbusters to the quietest, most intimate films — then we need to pay as much attention to the experience of watching as the thing itself. Art is not just about the “what.” It’s about the “how,” and the “where,” and the “who.” And the whole reason to go to theaters — dedicated spaces for experiencing an art form — help us remember that in a content-mad world.
A space that can hold quiet contemplation as well as raucous enjoyment with strangers is rare. The survival of the movie business depends on understanding what it is that people in the seats really want. And the people in the seats are figuring that out, too.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22841390/movie-theaters-cinema-pandemic">https://www.vox.com/22841390/movie-theaters-cinema-pandemic</a>

vox What do moviegoers want from the movies now?

Spider-Man: No Way Home , the third installment in the Tom Holland Spidey era, made bank on its opening weekend. The movie beat out Avenger...

Democrats’ unfinished to-do list

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In 2021, Democrats had big legislative plans after winning the White House and both chambers of Congress for the first time in over a decade.
Many of their goals, however, remain unrealized.
<a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/12/19/22844969/manchin-build-back-better-setback-biden-social-spending-bill">The current version of the Build Back Better Act</a>, a major climate and spending bill that contains several of President Joe Biden’s legislative priorities, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/12/19/22844969/manchin-build-back-better-setback-biden-social-spending-bill">was killed by moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) in December</a>. <a href="https://www.vox.com/22736509/freedom-to-vote-act">Voting rights legislation is stalled</a> because lawmakers don’t have the 60 votes in the Senate to pass it and have also resisted a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/12/14/22834318/debt-ceiling-vote-filibuster">filibuster carveout</a> that would enable them to approve it with a simple majority. <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-reform-dead-george-floyd-justice-policing-act/">Police reform has floundered</a> because Democrats and Republicans have repeatedly failed to agree on a compromise, and lawmakers have resisted doing away with the filibuster on that issue as well.
Efforts to lower prescription drug prices, establish a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, and raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour as part of larger bills are among those that ended in disappointment.
The main reasons for the failures thus far: Democrats have very thin majorities, and some want to keep the Senate’s current supermajority rules intact. Since the Senate is split 50-50, Democrats need at least 10 Republicans to join them to overcome the filibuster on any bill. And Democrats need all 50 members to stay united to pass a bill using budget reconciliation, which allows policies related to taxing and spending to circumvent the filibuster.
The party has been trying to pass the Build Back Better Act using reconciliation but has been unable to do so because Manchin has concerns about the size of social spending programs. They’ve faced a similar issue with establishing a filibuster carveout: Democrats also need all 50 members on board for that, and that’s something Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) have opposed as well.
Despite their struggles, Democrats have had success this year, too. In March, lawmakers passed a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill called the <a href="https://www.vox.com/22310269/third-stimulus-update-2021-package">American Rescue Plan</a>, which included another round of stimulus checks, an enhanced child tax credit that expires at the end of this year, and dedicated relief for states and local governments.
They were also able to push through a <a href="https://www.vox.com/22770447/infrastructure-bill-democrats-biden-water-broadband-roads-buses">$550 billion infrastructure bill</a>, which provided historic funding for roads, bridges, and clean drinking water. Additionally, they approved more than 40 district court and circuit court judges, the most that any president has seen confirmed in their first year <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/18/us/politics/biden-judges-reagan-record.html">since President Ronald Reagan’s administration</a>.
“We are proud of what we have gotten done in 2021: the American Rescue Plan, the fastest decrease in unemployment in U.S. history, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, over 200 million Americans vaccinated, schools reopened, the fastest rollout of vaccines to children anywhere in the world, and historic appointments to the Federal judiciary,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement in mid-December.
Still, there are major bills lawmakers left unfinished in 2021, and they have limited time to pass them before the 2022 midterm elections. There is concern among some Democrats that failing to pass bills on issues like police reform, voting rights, and immigration will come back to haunt them in the next election cycle. They believe some voters, particularly the voters of color on whom the party depends, will think that Democrats deprioritized policies that would benefit them, affecting enthusiasm and turnout.
“It’s a terrible message,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, in a December press call. “I see the pain and the devastation that [people] feel when they consistently see that they are left behind, that they’re told that... we’re not going to get the changes that are going to keep Black people alive when they’re facing law enforcement, or immigrants to be able to not be deported or separated from their families.”
The Build Back Better Act, which Democrats have been negotiating since this summer, is among the major priorities that the party failed to advance this year.
<a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/12/13/22799436/build-back-better-senate-manchin-parliamentarian">The roughly $1.75 trillion bill</a> — which included $550 billion for clean energy provisions, funding for child care subsidies, support for universal pre-K, and money for a four-week paid family leave program — weathered months of drawn-out negotiations before Manchin announced that he wouldn’t be able to back the current version in mid-December.
Democrats are hoping to return to the drawing board with a version of the bill that Manchin can accept. But the setbacks the bill has faced mean that some policies, like the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/12/14/22826684/build-back-better-child-tax-credit-expires-poverty">expanded child tax credit</a> that has sent monthly payments of as much as $300 per child to most families, are likely to expire before an extension can be passed.
While Democrats could still push to include an expanded child tax credit in the next version of the bill, they will likely need to remove their immigration proposals. <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/12/16/22822205/senate-parliamentarian-macdonough-immigration-reform-build-back-better">As Vox’s Nicole Narea explained</a>, their latest immigration provision would have protected many undocumented immigrants from deportation and enabled immigrants who had come to the US by a certain time to pursue five-year renewable work authorizations. But because Build Back Better is being advanced via budget reconciliation, all of its provisions must relate to the budget in some way. The Senate parliamentarian has said that Democrats’ immigration plan didn’t just affect the budget, so it can’t be included in the reconciliation measure. It’s a decision that makes the future of immigration reform uncertain.
As Build Back Better stalled, Democrats made a last-minute push to approve voting rights legislation. This fall, Senate Democrats were able to reach a compromise on the issue that had the support of <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-democrats-unveil-compromise-bill-voting-rights-n1279116">all 50 members of their caucus</a>. That was a breakthrough, as previous voting rights bills like the For the People Act, did not have Manchin’s backing.
The compromise bill makes voter registration more accessible for federal elections and establishes 15 days of early voting. Though the bill has Manchin’s support, it has yet to pass because it still needs 60 votes to clear a potential filibuster, and Democrats have yet to get 10 Republicans on board or change the rules.
When it was put to a Senate vote in October, Republicans blocked the legislation from advancing, as they have with other voting rights bills. Democrats still don’t have the 50 votes they need to change the Senate rules, so the legislation is currently in a holding pattern. But because of the narrow window the party has to pass it before the midterms — and renewed interest many lawmakers have expressed in doing so — Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said recently that he’ll bring the bill for a vote in early 2022.
Efforts to address police reform also collapsed in September. Federal police reform became a Democratic priority in the wake of the civil rights protests sparked by the police killings of Americans like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Democrats and Republicans had been in talks for months in an effort to craft legislation that could get at least 10 GOP votes. But the parties couldn’t get past disagreements about issues like how to address qualified immunity, a shield that protects police officers from some legal liability. Democrats haven’t opted to approve a filibuster rules change for this policy, either.
Democrats’ failure to address voting rights, immigration reform, and police reform — all of which have major impacts on voters of color — has prompted concerns that enthusiasm among these key groups could be affected in midterm elections that are expected, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/21/politics/senate-races-2022-republicans-favored/index.html">based on historical trends</a>, to favor Republicans. “The question is: Will they be able to motivate in a midterm year when they haven’t delivered?” asks Aimee Allison, the president of She the People, a group dedicated to electing women of color to political office.
“It’s not that nothing has happened,” she adds. “It’s that it’s not enough.”
Although there is a lot that Democrats failed to accomplish, they also passed several notable pieces of legislation this year, while advancing a diverse pool of judicial nominees.
<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/3/6/22315536/stimulus-package-passes-checks-unemployment">The American Rescue Plan</a>, a $1.9 trillion relief package that Congress passed in March, was substantial. It contained enhanced weekly unemployment payments of $300, more stimulus checks, an expanded child tax credit, funding for school re-openings, funding for vaccine distribution, and federal aid for states and local governments.
Many provisions in the ARP have had a sizable impact. Changes to the expanded child tax credit, which made the credit more accessible to low-income families and increased the amount families could receive per child from $2,000 to as much as $3,600, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/25/child-tax-credit-lifted-3-million-kids-from-poverty-in-july.html">slashed child poverty by 25 percent</a> after the first monthly payment went out. That reduction nets out to about three million children being lifted out of poverty.
The $1,400 stimulus checks in the ARP, which went out to more than 127 million people, helped reduce food insecurity and housing instability in the weeks after the bill was passed, <a href="https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/Staff%20Memo%20-%20The%20American%20Rescue%20Plan%27s%20Impact%20on%20Alleviating%20Hardship%20and%20Supporting%20Economic%20Recovery.pdf">according to a House analysis</a>.
Another major piece of legislation that Congress approved was the <a href="https://www.vox.com/22770447/infrastructure-bill-democrats-biden-water-broadband-roads-buses">$550 billion bipartisan infrastructure bill</a>, which passed in November. Although experts noted that it would likely take much more money to fully fix national infrastructure problems like lead pipes, the bill still contains a landmark amount of funding for many items, from clean drinking water to Amtrak.
“I think we have shown a lot of what is possible when we control the House, the Senate, and the White House,” Jayapal said.
In response to a surge of anti-Asian hate incidents during the pandemic, Democrats also passed the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/4/22/22385461/senate-anti-asian-hate-crimes-bill">Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act</a>, which aims to improve law enforcement’s tracking of hate crimes and establish better channels for reporting them. Some activists have argued that the legislation will do little to prevent hate crimes, however.
Democrats’ confirmations to the federal judiciary are significant as well, though the Supreme Court remains tilted to the right. This year, Democrats confirmed 40 judges, more than double what former Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama saw confirmed in their first years in office.
These appointments are poised to affect policy decisions for decades: In recent years alone, the judiciary has played a major role on issues including abortion rights, the Affordable Care Act, and protections for undocumented immigrants. The pool of judges that were confirmed brings more demographic diversity and a wider range of professional backgrounds to these roles, with more women and people of color, and more people who were public defenders.
“I’m proud I appointed ... more Black women to the federal bench and the circuit courts and more former public defenders to the bench than any administration in American history,” Biden said during a December commencement address he gave at South Carolina State University.
Many of the barriers that stymied Democratic priorities in 2021 will be the same in 2022.
Because of the party’s narrow 50-person majority in the Senate, every member needs to be on board in order to pass any measures on a partisan basis with budget reconciliation. Until the party wins a larger majority, lawmakers will be stuck trying to find common ground with more conservative senators like Manchin and Sinema, who’ve respectively been more opposed to social spending and corporate tax increases.
It’s possible Democrats could find a narrower version of Build Back Better that they could pass with all 50 senators, but it’s not yet clear what that bill would look like. Before announcing he was a “no” on Build Back Better, Manchin had proposed a pared-back iteration of the bill that did not include an expanded child tax credit, but kept funding for universal pre-K, an Affordable Care Act expansion, and climate proposals, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/12/20/manchin-biden-child-tax-credit/">according to the Washington Post</a>.
If Democrats are going to try another version of the bill, they’ll need to do so quickly: Reconciliation is a lengthier approach, with rules requiring review of legislation by the Senate parliamentarian as well as a potentially time-consuming amendment process. Many members will need to take time to campaign as the midterm elections approach in the fall. Depending on how the midterms go, Republicans could pick up seats in both the House and Senate in 2022, undoing Democrats’ fragile majorities and ending their ability to approve any more ambitious proposals.
Because of Manchin and Sinema’s opposition to a filibuster carveout, voting rights legislation will likely continue to be stalled. Manchin, <a href="https://www.axios.com/manchin-filibuster-voting-rights-senate-democrats-f1aa87eb-a013-445d-b428-9698af8f6f18.html">in a December Fox News interview</a>, indicated that he did not back altering the filibuster rules so that a voting rights bill could pass with a simple majority vote. <a href="https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2021/12/20/arizona-sen-sinema-opposes-filibuster-carveout-to-advance-voting-rights-legislation/">Sinema, too</a>, reiterated her opposition to a filibuster carveout for this measure.
In a December letter to colleagues, Schumer said that the Senate would take a floor vote on the Build Back Better Act, as well as on Democrats’ compromise voting rights bill in the new year. Unless things change, both votes will fail, leaving Democrats — and their voters — exactly where they are now.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22846344/democrats-build-back-better-voting-rights-immigration-manchin">https://www.vox.com/22846344/democrats-build-back-better-voting-rights-immigration-manchin</a>

vox Democrats’ unfinished to-do list

In 2021, Democrats had big legislative plans after winning the White House and both chambers of Congress for the first time in over a decad...

Why the new space telescope looks so strange

<div><img class="ff-og-image-inserted" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/l63xylk6QGPiBSE0NZoJVLeNbvc=/0x38:1920x1043/fit-in/1200x630/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23123534/thumbclean.jpg" /></div>
After 25 years and nearly $10 billion, the James Webb Space Telescope has finally left planet Earth. Billed as a successor to the beloved Hubble Space Telescope, the Webb’s mirror is six times larger and its instruments are tuned to observe longer wavelengths, in order to detect the stretched-out light from primitive galaxies 13.5 billion light years away.
That primary mission — to see the first stars and galaxies that formed after the Big Bang — determined the unusual and challenging design of the telescope. Instead of a shiny tube, the Webb Telescope looks like a giant honeycomb riding on a silver surfboard. The short answer to why it looks like that is: It needs to be very big and very cold.
In the video above, NASA astrophysicist Amber Straughn and I build a small model of the telescope to explore its extraordinary design.
You can find this video and all of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLXo7UDZvByw2ixzpQCufnA">Vox’s videos on YouTube</a>.
Further reading:
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/videos/22851946/james-webb-space-telescope-design">https://www.vox.com/videos/22851946/james-webb-space-telescope-design</a>

vox Why the new space telescope looks so strange

After 25 years and nearly $10 billion, the James Webb Space Telescope has finally left planet Earth. Billed as a successor to the beloved H...

The space station race

The International Space Station brings together astronauts from around the world to collaborate on cutting-edge research, and some have called it <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/why-the-international-space-station-is-the-single-best-thing-we-did/">humanity’s greatest achievement</a>. But after two decades in orbit, the ISS will shut down, and a crop of several new space stations will take its place. While these new stations will make it easier for more humans to visit space, they’re also bound to create new political and economic tensions.
NASA is scaling back its presence <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/OrbitsCatalog">in low-Earth orbit</a> as the government focuses on sending humans back to the moon and, eventually, to Mars. As part of that transition, the space agency wants to rent out facilities for its astronauts on new space stations run by private companies. When these stations are ready, NASA will guide the ISS into the atmosphere, where it will burn up and disintegrate. At that point, anyone hoping to work in space will have to choose among several different outposts. That means countries won’t just be using these new stations to strengthen their own national space programs, but as lucrative business ventures, too.
“Commercial companies have the capability now to do this, and so we don’t want to compete with that,” Robyn Gatens, the director of the ISS, told Recode. “We want to transition lower-Earth orbit over to commercial companies so that the government and NASA can go use resources to do harder things in deep space.”
Private companies currently backed by NASA, including Lockheed Martin and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, could launch as many as four space stations into Earth’s orbit over the next decade. NASA is also building a space station called Gateway near the moon; a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying the living quarters for the station is scheduled to launch <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-northrop-grumman-finalize-moon-outpost-living-quarters-contract/">in 2024</a>. Russia and India are planning to launch their own space stations to low-Earth orbit, too, and China’s Tiangong station, which is currently under construction, already has astronauts living aboard.
It’s not clear when the ISS will go offline, but it will happen. NASA has only technically certified the station’s hardware until 2028 and has awarded more than $400 million to fund private replacements. Other longtime <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/benefits/partner_participants">ISS partners</a> are already planning their next steps. Russia may <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/07/russia-threatens-to-leave-international-space-station-program.html">leave</a> the ISS as soon as <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a1518565-e643-42ae-a650-02e9c3bdd657">2025</a>, the same year its space agency, Roscosmos, plans to launch its <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56812294">new $5 billion space station</a>. The European Space Agency, which represents 22 different European countries, is now training its astronauts for eventual <a href="https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Astronauts/ESA_and_Chinese_astronauts_train_together">missions to Tiangong</a>.
These new stations are building on technology first seen in the ISS, but they stand to make low-Earth orbit a more politically fraught place. After all, researchers looking to conduct research in space will potentially have to reckon with the political consequences of choosing one nation’s station over that of another. There will also be a new dynamic of several space stations competing for customers in the private sector.
The nascent space station race isn’t quite a return to the Cold War, but it’s not the pinnacle of internationalism, either. In the best of scenarios, these new stations will learn from each other and massively expand scientific knowledge. But they will also make global politics a much bigger part of space, which could impact what happens here on Earth and how humanity explores the moon and Mars.
The ISS is a big operation. It took <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/facts-and-figures">42 assembly</a> flights and <a href="https://www.space.com/9435-international-space-station-worth-100-billion.html">an estimated $100 billion</a> to build this habitable satellite made of 16 interconnected modules, where astronauts live and work, as well as <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/solar_arrays-about.html">eight solar arrays</a> that power the station. The ISS serves as a shared laboratory in space, which NASA uses to <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/how-the-international-space-station-is-helping-us-get-to-the-moon/">study technologies</a> that could be deployed on future missions to other planets, including oxygen- and water-recycling systems. Astronauts aboard the space station also research how to mitigate the health risks that come with living in space, like radiation exposure, muscle loss, and bone loss.
“Up in space, we can measure things that we can’t measure and we can’t observe down here,” explained <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/coleman.pdf">Cady Coleman</a>, a former astronaut and chemist who spent several months on the ISS.
The space station is fully functional right now. Eleven astronauts from four different countries are currently aboard the ISS, where they’ve recently added a <a href="https://spacenews.com/russian-node-module-docks-with-iss/">new module</a>, organized a spacewalk, and fixed <a href="https://twitter.com/Space_Station/status/1466399546435592199">faulty components</a>. Much of the work on the ISS happens with the help of private companies, including major aerospace and defense firms like Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. SpaceX, meanwhile, has been carrying supplies to the ISS since 2012 and <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/26/21267533/elon-musk-spacex-demo-2-falcon-9-iss-manned-launch">started transporting astronauts</a> to it last year.
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<figcaption>An astronaut works outside the International Space Station.</figcaption>
<cite>NASA via Getty Images</cite></figure>
But eventually, NASA wants to get out of the expensive business of running the ’90s-era space station. The ISS is the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/facts-and-figures">size of a football field</a> and costs as much as <a href="https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-18-021.pdf">$4 billion</a> annually to operate, and NASA estimates that relocating its astronauts to commercial alternatives could save <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/10/27/22747509/blue-origin-orbital-reef-office-park-bezos">about $1 billion</a> every year. Newer space stations will be smaller than the ISS and include newer tech, and NASA would only need to pay for the portion that it uses. And once these replacements are launched into orbit, the space agency can finally dispose of the ISS.
“We’re looking at ISS technology that was designed beginning in the ’80s, built in the ’90s, and launched in the ’90s and 2000s,” Wendy Whitman Cobb, a professor at the US Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, told Recode. “This is definitely aging.”
The plan is to deorbit the ISS right over an area called Point Nemo in the South Pacific Ocean, which is <a href="https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-22-005.pdf">the world’s farthest point from land</a>. This will be a delicate process, and could take up to three years. After letting gravity pull the ISS downward to a critical height of 155 miles above Earth, NASA will organize one final flight to remove any remaining research (or astronauts). Soon afterward, ISS operators will use a cargo spacecraft to push the ISS into the atmosphere. While most of the space station should burn off, “a number of high-density payload and structural components” are likely to break through intact, according to NASA spokesperson Stephanie Schierholz.
While letting the ISS fall to Earth might sound extreme, it’s the same approach the space agency took when it retired <a href="https://www.history.com/news/the-day-skylab-crashed-to-earth-facts-about-the-first-u-s-space-stations-re-entry">Skylab</a>, the first US space station, in 1979. Engineers have been studying this plan <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/578543main_asap_eol_plan_2010_101020.pdf">for</a> <a href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20140004798">years</a>, and they plan to fine-tune the workflow until the ISS is close to its final descent.
In the meantime, the goal is to keep the ISS functioning as long as possible, which will give NASA more time to prepare. To ensure that happens, a bipartisan set of lawmakers want to extend the space station’s operations until 2030, a proposal that’s currently <a href="https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/senate-passes-nasa-authorization-ssa-legislation-as-part-of-sweeping-china-competition-bill/">packaged</a> within the United States Innovation and Competition Act. NASA and Congress are now waiting on a final decision from the Biden administration.
By creating an economy in low-Earth orbit, NASA thinks it can split the cost of operating a space station with the private sector. The agency is hoping that future commercial space stations will operate like coworking spaces. This would allow NASA astronauts to use facilities in low-Earth orbit alongside astronauts from other national space agencies as well as those from the private industry. There could even be <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22610315/netflix-spacex-streaming-space-tourism">media production companies</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22589197/space-travel-tourism-bezos-branson-rockets-blue-origin-virgin-galactic-spacex">space hotel guests</a> on board. NASA is also betting that some companies will want to use these stations to manufacture specialty products in microgravity.
To accelerate these plans, NASA has granted seed funding to four different space station concepts. Perhaps the most high-profile grant is the $130 million going to Orbital Reef, a space station project designed by Blue Origin. The company wants this station to function as a “mixed use business park” that includes labs, 3D printers, and a garden. Blue Origin says Orbital Reef will be only slightly smaller than the ISS but would cost an “<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/blue-origin-sierra-space-orbital-reef-space-station-plans/">order of magnitude”</a> less to build. Orbital Reef will also look more modern, with one large, tubular main corridor that’s lined with windows and just a single layer of solar arrays extending from one side of the spacecraft, according to renderings released by the company.
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<figcaption>The Orbital Reef space station will include solar arrays that stretch from one side of the spacecraft.</figcaption>
<cite>Orbital Reef</cite></figure>
In addition to the Blue Origin project, NASA has backed <a href="https://nanoracks.com/starlab/">StarLab</a> — not to be confused with Skylab — a new space station being developed by commercial space company Nanoracks in partnership with Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin. There’s also a <a href="https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/releases/northrop-grumman-signs-agreement-with-nasa-to-design-space-station-for-low-earth-orbit">proposal</a> from Northrop Grumman. Both StarLab and the unnamed Northrop Grumman space station plan to house up to four astronauts at a time and include lab space.
Separately, NASA has awarded <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-first-commercial-destination-module-for-international-space-station/#:~:text=28%2C%202020%2C%20NASA%20awarded%20Axiom,and%20a%20two-year%20option.">over $140 million to Axiom Space</a>, a company that’s building a module for space tourism that will attach directly to the ISS. Axiom Space hired the French industrial architect and designer Philippe Starck to design the module, which will include a two-meter-high window deck and an aesthetic meant to remind people of “<a href="https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/news-trends/article/3074926/inside-nasas-new-space-home-why-philippe-starck">a nest.</a>” When the ISS <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/10/27/22747509/blue-origin-orbital-reef-office-park-bezos">is decommissioned</a>, the original Axiom module will be attached to other Axiom modules to form an entirely new station.
“Because this has never been a commercial endeavor, the idea of what the market is is all fluid,” Tejpaul Bhatia, the chief revenue officer of Axiom, told Recode. “We have ideas from the research that’s been done on ISS of what kind of advantages pharma, biotech, material science, and industrial manufacturing can get in microgravity.”
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The space appears to be lined with a quilted pattern resembling pillows." data-upload-width="1480" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/NO8INLo-95ImdNXJZatU3MjNDcY=/0x0:1480x925/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:1480x925):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23110310/ae0785_9207d4ca7f534247b4a542f2031a8d00_mv2.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gKytEHZUGgaFI3SVIxxPZ9FlI94=/0x0:1480x925/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1480x925):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23110310/ae0785_9207d4ca7f534247b4a542f2031a8d00_mv2.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-AlfNmvK_UCNZ9KA8bDU4hLmPhM=/0x0:1480x925/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1480x925):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23110310/ae0785_9207d4ca7f534247b4a542f2031a8d00_mv2.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Wyi4dbZBazx1iRvZxMYO_IIV2pM=/0x0:1480x925/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1480x925):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23110310/ae0785_9207d4ca7f534247b4a542f2031a8d00_mv2.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/deuauBK6wjwQ-pFuHrTSRjN1soE=/0x0:1480x925/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1480x925):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23110310/ae0785_9207d4ca7f534247b4a542f2031a8d00_mv2.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/uTWlqXEN3EIg5LZTrL4EU2QFjW4=/0x0:1480x925/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:1480x925):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23110310/ae0785_9207d4ca7f534247b4a542f2031a8d00_mv2.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/kI1W14sso8qyfgQzU2aas2oBo4M=/0x0:1480x925/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1480x925):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23110310/ae0785_9207d4ca7f534247b4a542f2031a8d00_mv2.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YV4iFbnVr9YDWDbtVE_T1sL_N0Q=/0x0:1480x925/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1480x925):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23110310/ae0785_9207d4ca7f534247b4a542f2031a8d00_mv2.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/QuiQeaqQzZqUU0dvyBwYb5eDMmg=/0x0:1480x925/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1480x925):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23110310/ae0785_9207d4ca7f534247b4a542f2031a8d00_mv2.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/pvBY_sB8El-UdUz98ymYy64vJQQ=/0x0:1480x925/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1480x925):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23110310/ae0785_9207d4ca7f534247b4a542f2031a8d00_mv2.jpg 1920w" /></picture>
<figcaption>The interior of the Axiom commercial space station module was designed by a French industrial architect.</figcaption>
<cite>Axiom Space</cite></figure>
This plan has its risks. NASA is betting there will be a lot of demand for commercial space stations, which are all supposed to launch around 2027. But only a fifth of ISS crew resources that NASA has set aside for <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-opens-international-space-station-to-new-commercial-opportunities-private">private companies to develop their businesses in space</a> have been used thus far, according to Gatens, the ISS director. And competition for customers could get even more intense as space stations launched by China, Russia, and India open for business.
These companies have committed, however, to finding enough business to support their operations. Millions of dollars of their seed funding from NASA is devoted to developing marketing plans, according to <a href="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23123174/Northrop_Grumman_Space_Station_Agreement_NASA.pdf">contracts</a> with the agency that Recode accessed through a public records request. While <a href="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23123160/Orbital_Reef_Space_Station_NASA_agreement.pdf">Blue Origin</a> has said NASA and its partners will serve as its primary customer for research, the <a href="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23123169/Starlab_Space_Station_Agreement_NASA.pdf">StarLab</a> station will only depend on NASA for 30 percent of its revenue during its first decade.
NASA can’t afford for them to fail. The agency has no plans to build an ISS replacement on its own, but NASA’s inspector general <a href="https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-22-005.pdf">concluded in November</a> that the agency’s critical research in microgravity — which NASA needs for missions to the moon and Mars — won’t be completed by 2030. The space agency’s worst nightmare is not having its own space station to complete that work, several space policy experts told Recode.
It’s time for humankind to go back to the moon, and this time we’ll stay, according to NASA’s plans. As part of the space agency’s <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis/">Artemis missions,</a> NASA will establish a long-term human presence on the lunar surface, including <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/a_sustained_lunar_presence_nspc_report4220final.pdf">a permanent habitat</a>, a rocket launcher, and even <a href="https://www.space.com/nasa-moon-nuclear-fission-reactor">a nuclear power plant</a>. To make that all happen, the space agency is constructing the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/gateway/overview">Gateway</a>, a new space station that will orbit the moon.
Like the ISS, the Gateway is a collaboration between several countries and companies. The European, <a href="https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/default.asp">Canadian</a>, and <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-government-of-japan-formalize-gateway-partnership-for-artemis-program">Japanese</a> space programs are joining NASA in the effort, and several private aerospace space firms, including <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_NNH15CN70C_8000_-NONE-_-NONE-">Lockheed Martin</a>, Northrop Grumman, and <a href="https://www.boeing.com/thefuture/space/index.html">Boeing</a>, are also involved. SpaceX has already agreed to transport <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/09/nasa-picks-spacex-falcon-heavy-for-332m-mission-to-launch-lunar-gateway-components-in-2024/">the first components</a> for the Gateway, a habitation module and a propulsion system, on its Falcon Heavy launch system sometime in 2024.
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<figcaption>The Gateway is currently under construction but will eventually be launched into the moon’s orbit.</figcaption>
<cite>Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images</cite></figure>
It’s best to think of the Gateway as a transit stop or a scaled-down version of the <a href="https://2001.fandom.com/wiki/Space_Station_V">Space Station V</a> from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Astronauts will use the Gateway as a place to dock before landing on the moon or before traveling back to Earth. The station will be big enough to fit <a href="https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/releases/northrop-grumman-completes-preliminary-design-review-for-nasas-gateway-crew-module">four astronauts</a> for up to three months, and will also double as lab space and a “mission control” center for lunar operations. When complete, the outpost will only be <a href="https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astronomy/moon-exploration/lunar-gateway.asp">a sixth of the ISS’s size</a>. The tiny station could also play a pivotal role in plans to send humans to Mars, which NASA is hoping to do sometime in the 2030s.
“This Gateway is directly derived from all the hardware and experiences learned on the International Space Station development,” Richard Mastracchio, a former ISS astronaut and current business development director at Northrop Grumman, which is building the Gateway’s habitation module, told Recode. “There’s no reason we can’t develop and utilize the same lessons learned and a lot of the same hardware to have a space station orbiting Mars.”
On the Gateway, astronauts could <a href="https://www.space.com/nasa-plans-artemis-moon-base-beyond-2024.html">simulate practice missions to Mars</a>. Astronauts could also use the Gateway to test how well experimental technologies do in space, and the station could even be used to assemble and park vehicles headed deeper into the solar system, according to Mastracchio.
But even as NASA seeks more countries to assist with the Gateway, the space station already has some competition. China and Russia agreed in March to collaborate on moon research efforts, including the construction of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56342311">an International Scientific Lunar Station</a>. While we don’t know much about these plans yet, countries and companies looking to join an international collaboration to do research on the moon can now choose between two different space stations.
Space has never been <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/5/13/5714650/russia-just-evicted-nasa-from-the-international-space-station">completed isolated</a> from the geopolitical conflict on Earth. The first decades of the Cold War launched the initial space race between the Soviet Union and the US. But even in recent years, politics has influenced what happens in space.
Back in 2011, Congress passed legislation severely restricting NASA from collaborating with the Chinese government, which <a href="https://time.com/3901419/space-station-no-chinese/">effectively barred China National Space Administration astronauts</a> from the ISS. Roscosmos has repeatedly <a href="https://www.space.com/russia-threatens-leave-international-space-station-program">threatened</a> to leave the space station in response to US sanctions on its domestic space industry. Space debris created by anti-satellite tests launched by the US, China, Russia, and India continues to <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/11/16/22785425/international-space-station-russia-missle-test-debris">fuel geopolitical tensions in space</a>.
But those tensions could become even more complicated as the next generation of stations launch, which will allow the countries operating in space to form international collaborations beyond the ISS.
China’s Tiangong space station plans to host experiments from several other countries and is open to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02018-3">working with the US</a>. New space stations planned by Russia and India are also likely to recruit partner countries and companies. And while the four commercial space stations with NASA funding present themselves as global platforms, they will legally function as American companies and will be subject to US rules limiting what countries they can work with, explains Namrata Goswami, an independent scholar of space policy.
“Anything involving space is not just about space prestige and power, but it’s also a lot about economic benefits and economic development,” Goswami told Recode. “The space industry today is about $400 billion. The space station plays a role in developing these technologies.”
These developments will create new opportunities for countries without space stations — countries like the <a href="https://www.space.com/uae-recruiting-astronaut-class.html">United Arab Emirates</a>, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/06/africa/nigeria-nasrda-space-astronaut/index.html">Nigeria</a>, and <a href="https://spacenews.com/saber-astronautics-to-work-with-axiom-to-bring-australian-astronauts-to-space-station/">Australia</a>, which have wanted to send their own astronauts into space but don’t have anywhere to stay in low-Earth orbit. Which space station they choose to partner with won’t just depend on cost, but on political calculations too.
So the ISS’s eventual deorbit won’t be the end of international collaboration in space. On the contrary, it ushers in a new era of space stations, one that will make cooperation a lot more politically and economically complicated. This generation will surely remind us that humanity’s current conflicts are by no means limited to planet Earth.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22839485/space-station-iss-orbit-satellites">https://www.vox.com/recode/22839485/space-station-iss-orbit-satellites</a>

vox The space station race

The International Space Station brings together astronauts from around the world to collaborate on cutting-edge research, and some have call...