Nasa to ignite engines of $18bn Space Launch System in effort to return to Moon

Gustaf Kilander

Thu, March 18, 2021, 9:06 AM

The core stage for the first flight of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket is tested on 16 January, 2021. (Getty Images)

NASA is closing in on the final test of its massive rocket that it is hoped will put the first woman and next man on the Moon.

The agency will ignite the engines of its $18.6bn Space Launch System later today for an eight-minute burn to see if it is ready for use this autumn. This will be the second test of the engines and the final run-through before NASA moves to the second stage on the launchpad.

The mission planned for November will be unmanned, but the hope is that this launch system will be used for a future manned mission to the Moon. However, budget constraints have blurred the timeline for such a trip.

According to NASA, the Space Launch System is a "super-heavy-lift launch vehicle" that it says "is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and cargo to the Moon on a single mission".

Orion is a kind of partially reusable space capsule that is intended to "take humans farther than they’ve ever gone before".

The burn of the rocket’s core stage using four RS-25 engines for eight minutes will generate 1.6 million lbs of thrust and take place at the Stennis Space Center in southern Mississippi, close to the Gulf of Mexico.

Over 700,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen will fill up the tanks of the 212-foot core so that it can fire up its engines without actually shooting off into space.

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The goal is to test the procedure for its launch ahead of its mission to send a capsule without a crew around the Moon and back to planet earth.

NASA's acting administrator Steve Jurczyk said the Space Launch System "is going to be the most powerful rocket ever developed," NPR reported.

The test is to begin sometime after 3pm Eastern Time on Thursday. Earlier this year, a test had to be ended after 67 seconds because of an engine failure.

 

‘Autocratic. Anti-Democratic. Anti-American’: Schumer launches blistering attack on GOP bills targeting voting rights

Alex Woodward

Wed, March 17, 2021, 9:13 AM

(REUTERS)

Senate Democrats will introduce their version of the For The People Act, a sweeping voting rights proposal and single-largest election legislation since the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said lawmakers will revive the bill from Mitch McConnell’s “legislative graveyard” after the Republican Senator sidelined the bill along with other Democratic-backed measures.

The bill is an antidote to “despicable” acts of voter suppression across the US, Mr Schumer said, pointing to the more than 250 GOP-sponsored bills aimed at restricting ballot access in at least 43 state legislatures in the wake of the 2020 election, compelled by Donald Trump’s persistent lie that the election was tainted by “irregularities” and “stolen” from his supporters.

“When you lose an election, what you do in a democracy is try to win over the people who didn’t vote for you, not prevent them from voting,” Mr Schumer said. “That is autocratic. That is anti-Democratic. That is anti-American.”

Voting restrictions will disproportionately target Democratic-leaning voters of colour, according to civil rights groups and voting rights advocates.

“It’s Jim Crow, a century after we thought Jim Crow was dying, and it’s been resurrected in the most horrible way,” said Mr Schumer.

The legislation, along with other White House-backed measures in Congress, is likely to face steep Republican opposition in the Senate to fall short of a 60-vote threshold to pass. Senate Democrats are facing mounting pressure to reform the filibuster to pass critical items on their agenda and bypass GOP roadblocks.

Mr Schumer suggested lawmakers have not ruled that out.

“Failure is not an option” he said. “Our caucus will decide the appropriate action to take. Everything is on the table.”

A version of the bill passed in the House of Representatives would mandate automatic voter registration, at least 15 consecutive days of early voting for federal elections, and mail-in voting and drop boxes for absentee ballots, among a host of other proposals wrapped into the bill. It would also make it more difficult to purge voters from voter rolls and would restore voting rights to formerly incarcerated people.

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