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WASHINGTON, June 1 (Reuters) - SpaceX's Starlink, the satellite communications service started by billionaire Elon Musk, now has a Department of Defense contract to buy those satellite services for Ukraine, the Pentagon said on Thursday. "We continue to work with a range of global partners to ensure Ukraine has the resilient satellite and communication capabilities they need. Satellite communications constitute a vital layer in Ukraine's overall communications network and the department contracts with Starlink for services of this type," the Pentagon said in a statement. The Pentagon contract is a boon for SpaceX after Musk, the company's CEO, said in October it could not afford to indefinitely fund Starlink in Ukraine, an effort he said cost $20 million a month to maintain. Russia has tried to cut off and jam internet services in Ukraine, including attempts to block Starlink in the region, though SpaceX has countered those attacks by hardening the service's software.

Persons: Starlink, Elon Musk, Mike Stone, Joey Roulette, Franklin Paul, Paul Simao Organizations: Department of Defense, Pentagon, SpaceX, Musk, Bloomberg, Thomson Locations: Ukraine, Russia, Washington

WASHINGTON, May 31 (Reuters) - A NASA panel formed last year to study what the government calls "unidentified aerial phenomena," commonly termed UFOs, was due to hold its first public meeting on Wednesday, ahead of a report expected in coming weeks. The focus of Wednesday's four-hour public session "is to hold final deliberations before the agency's independent study team publishes a report this summer," NASA said in announcing the meeting. The panel represents the first such inquiry ever conducted under the auspices of the U.S. space agency for a subject the government once consigned to the exclusive and secretive purview of military and national security officials. The NASA study is separate from a newly formalized Pentagon-based investigation of unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, documented in recent years by military aviators and analyzed by U.S. defense and intelligence officials. "There is no evidence UAPs are extraterrestrial in origin," NASA said in announcing the panel's formation last June.

Persons: Joey Roulette, Steve Gorman, Robert Birsel Organizations: NASA, U.S, Pentagon, UAP, Thomson Locations: U.S, Washington, Los Angeles

☆ Gamblers are paying more money and winning less in Las Vegas casinos – here's why
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-29 | by ( Jordan Hart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Casinos on the Las Vegas Strip are making changes to attract "higher value customers," WSJ reports. Blackjack players on the Strip are paying more to gamble and winning less. In 2022, blackjack players lost $1 billion at the tables on the Strip, according to Nevada state data. Casino execs say it's all a part of a plan to attract "higher value customers." "You're bringing in higher value customers, and we're already full," Tom Reeg, Caesars Entertainment CEO, told Wall Street analysts.

"And the Russians are dying," Graham said, according to a video supplied by the Ukrainian presidential press service. In the next part of the video edit, Graham says with a smile: "It's the best money we've ever spent." The exact chronology of Graham's remarks was unclear from the video supplied by the Ukrainian presidential press service. "The old fool Senator Lindsey Graham said that the United States has never spent money so successfully as on the murder of Russians," said Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev. It has been a good investment by the United States to help liberate Ukraine from Russian war criminals."

☆ Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin wins NASA contract to build astronaut lunar lander
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Joey Roulette | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/3] Founder, Chairman, CEO and President of Amazon Jeff Bezos unveils his space company Blue Origin's space exploration lunar lander rocket called Blue Moon during an unveiling event in Washington,... Read moreWASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) - A team led by Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin won a coveted NASA contract to build a spacecraft to send astronauts to and from the moon's surface, NASA's chief announced on Friday, capping a high-stakes contest. NASA's decision will give the agency a second ride to the moon under its Artemis program, after it awarded Elon Musk's SpaceX $3 billion in 2021 to land astronauts on the moon for the first time since the final Apollo mission in 1972. Those initial missions using SpaceX's Starship system are slated for later this decade. Reporting by Joey Roulette, editing by Ben Klayman and Nick ZieminskiOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Bezos' Blue Origin wins NASA contract to build astronaut lunar lander
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Joey Roulette | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The Blue Origin contract is valued roughly $3.4 billion, NASA's exploration chief Jim Free said, with Blue Origin privately contributing "well north" of that amount, Blue Origin's lunar lander head John Couluris said. Blue Origin plans to build its 52-foot (16-meter) tall Blue Moon lander in a partnership with Lockheed Martin (LMT.N), Boeing(BA.N), spacecraft software firm Draper, and robotics firm Astrobotic. Friday's announcement in Washington was a long-awaited outcome for Blue Origin, which had unsuccessfully had competed for past contracts. After losing in 2021, Blue Origin unsuccessfully fought to overturn NASA's decision to ignore its Blue Moon lander, first with a watchdog agency and then in court. Blue Origin and lawmakers had pressured NASA to award a second lunar lander contract to promote commercial competition and ensure the agency has a backup ride to the moon.

☆ Debt ceiling threat: Time to take this political football off the field
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Christine Romans | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

In theory, the debt ceiling should act as a fiscal restraint during the budgeting process. Deciding later not to pay the bills by not raising the debt ceiling is not sound fiscal policy. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, a Republican, has said the debt ceiling is counterproductive. And the CEO of the nation’s biggest bank, JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon turns visibly frustrated at the subject of the debt ceiling. KPMG Chief Economist Diane Swonk says the politicization of the debt ceiling has weakened America.

☆ SpaceX hires former NASA human spaceflight chief for Starship role
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Joey Roulette | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - Elon Musk's SpaceX has tapped NASA's former human spaceflight boss Kathy Lueders to help oversee development of the company's moon and Mars rocket called Starship, a person familiar with the hire said on Monday. Lueders, the second former NASA human spaceflight chief to retire and move to SpaceX in recent years, represents another key hire for the company as it races to develop and use Starship for landing NASA astronauts on the moon within the next decade. As the head of NASA's human spaceflight wing, Lueders oversaw development of SpaceX's Crew Dragon, the company's flagship cargo and astronaut taxi that has become the agency's primary ride to and from the International Space Station. A major agency reorganization later in 2021 moved Lueders away from overseeing the moon program and placed her as NASA's space operations chief, a post with oversight on ISS activities. At SpaceX, Lueders will join her former NASA boss Bill Gerstenmaier, who in 2020 retired from the agency as its human spaceflight chief to join SpaceX for a similar Starship role.

☆ ‘A Daily Game of Russian Roulette’: Homeless in San Diego
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-13 | by ( Eli Saslow | Erin Schaff | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Laine Goettsch packed her emergency medical bag and drove into downtown San Diego to look for her favorite patient, afraid of what she might find. Sometimes, she saw Abdul Curry cleaning the sidewalks near his tent and dancing to a playlist of Ed Sheeran songs. Now she drove into a homeless encampment and saw three people huddled near a camping stove and sharing a bottle of vodka. The toll in San Diego County had increased by nearly 10 times in the last decade, from 64 homeless deaths in 2014 to nearly 600 investigated by the medical examiner’s office in the last year. She drove across a bridge and spotted Abdul slumped over at the entrance of a parking garage.

☆ Trump plays down consequences of a US default: 'Could be maybe nothing'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Tim Reid | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

May 10 (Reuters) - Republican former President Donald Trump on Wednesday played down the severity of a potential U.S. government default, saying the consequences of a failure by Congress to raise the nation's debt limit "could be maybe nothing." In a televised CNN town hall appearance, Trump said Congress should claw back money allocated in Biden's domestic spending legislation. "If they don't ... you'll have to default," Trump said. He added consequences of a default could merely lead to "a bad week or a bad day." Republicans are insisting on massive spending cuts before they agree to pass a debt ceiling increase.

☆ US debt limit default could hit in early June to early August -think tank
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( David Lawder | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

WASHINGTON, May 9 (Reuters) - The U.S. government will begin defaulting on its payment obligations between early June and early August without an increase in the federal debt limit, the Bipartisan Policy Center said on Tuesday, flagging pressure from a drop in tax revenue. The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), which closely monitors debt limit disputes in Congress, had estimated in February the X-date could come between summer and early fall, but now sees a default hitting much earlier if Congress fails to raise the $31.4 trillion U.S. borrowing cap. "The coming weeks are critical for assessing the strength of government cash flows," Shai Akabas, BPC director of economic policy. The think tank's latest estimate roughly agrees with the Congressional Budget Office's revised assessment that there is now a "significantly greater risk" of an early June default. Later on Tuesday, President Joe Biden is scheduled to meet with U.S. House of Representatives speaker Kevin McCarthy and other congressional leaders to discuss options to resolve the debt limit standoff between Democrats and Republicans.

☆ Debt Ceiling Solution: McCarthy Vows to Reject a Short-Term Agreement
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Kevin McCarthy is meeting with Biden on Tuesday to discuss a debt ceiling solution. Ahead of the meeting, McCarthy told NBC he will not accept a short-term debt ceiling increase. The US could default on its debt as early as June 1, and Congress has yet to agree on a solution. Biden vowed to veto that legislation and has remained adamant that raising the debt ceiling should be a bipartisan and clean increase, without any spending cuts attached, and he has left the door open for budget negotiations — separate from a debt ceiling deal. But McCarthy told NBC News on Tuesday that he is unwilling to accept even a short-term debt ceiling increase ahead of budget negotiations.

☆ ‘There Are No Good Options’: The U.S. Is Running Out of Money
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Alan Rappeport | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“The coming weeks are critical for assessing the strength of government cash flows,” said Shai Akabas, the director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. The sluggish pace is due in part to a decision by the Internal Revenue Service to give taxpayers in states that were affected by severe weather more time to file their 2022 taxes. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said on Monday that if the debt limit was not raised, then Mr. Biden would have to decide how to proceed. “I would say that if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling, the president will have to make some decisions about what to do with the resources that we do have,” Ms. Yellen said on CNBC. “And there are a variety of different options, but there are no good options.”

☆ Opinion | Why I Changed My Mind on the Debt Limit
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-07 | by ( Laurence H. Tribe | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Over the years, Congress has raised the debt ceiling scores of times, most recently two years ago, when it set the cap at $31.4 trillion. If the president caves to their demands, they will agree to raise the cap — until this crisis occurs again. Then, they will surely pursue the same game of chicken or, maybe more accurately, Russian roulette. Section 4 of the 14th Amendment says the “validity” of the public debt “shall not be questioned” — ever. Proponents of the unconstitutionality argument say that when Congress enacted the debt limit, effectively forcing the United States to stop borrowing to honor its debts when that limit was reached, it built a violation of that constitutional command into our fiscal structure, and that as a result, that limit and all that followed are invalid.

Starship is SpaceX's next-generation rocket crucial for the company's commercial launch business and Musk's aim to start human colonies on Mars. The U.S. offers few such options and export controls would make building a foreign launch site difficult. SpaceX has eyed another Kennedy Space Center launch site for future Starship launches, LC-49, a few miles from LC-39A. But that location is in the midst of a lengthy environmental review that could take years. Plans for that orbital launch site, Spaceport Camden, were nixed by a local referendum after a lawsuit raised concerns about its environmental impact.

Fish and Wildlife Service. Damage to the launch pad, the floor of which was largely demolished during liftoff, was visible in photos of the aftermath. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Fish and Wildlife Service findings. The April 20 launch was days after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted SpaceX a license to launch the Starship via its Super Heavy rocket booster. REUTERS/Joe Skipper 1 2 3The report by the Fish and Wildlife Service, part of the U.S.

☆ SpaceX wins approval to add fifth U.S. rocket launch site
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Joey Roulette | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON, April 24 (Reuters) - The U.S. Space Force said on Monday that Elon Musk's SpaceX was granted approval to lease a second rocket launch complex at a military base in California, setting the space company up for its fifth launch site in the United States. Under the lease, SpaceX will launch its workhorse Falcon rockets from Space Launch Complex-6 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, a military launch site north of Los Angeles where the space company operates another launchpad. A Monday night Space Force statement said a letter of support for the decision was signed on Friday by Space Launch Delta 30 commander Col. The new launch site, vacated last year by the Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance, gives SpaceX more room to handle an increasingly busy launch schedule for commercial, government and internal satellite launches. SpaceX's grant of Space Launch Complex-6 comes as rocket companies prepare to compete for the Pentagon's Phase 3 National Security Space Launch program, a watershed military launch procurement effort expected to begin in the next year or so.

[1/6] Takeshi Hakamada, "ispace" 's founder and chief executive, is pictured at a venue to watch landing of the lander in HAKUTO-R lunar exploration program on the Moon, in Tokyo, Japan, April 26, 2023. But a lunar landing would be an ambitious feat for a private firm. The Japanese firm "determined that there is a high probability that the lander eventually made a hard landing." In disclosure to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, ispace said it did not expect an immediate impact on its earnings forecast. The lander completed eight out of 10 mission objectives in space that will provide valuable data for the next landing attempt in 2024, Hakamada said.

[1/6] Takeshi Hakamada, "ispace" 's founder and chief executive, is pictured at a venue to watch landing of the lander in HAKUTO-R lunar exploration program on the Moon, in Tokyo, Japan, April 26, 2023. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-HoonTOKYO, April 25 (Reuters) - Japanese startup ispace (9348.T) said its attempt to make the first private moon landing had failed on Tuesday after losing contact with its Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) lander, concluding it had most likely crashed on the lunar surface. The M1 lander appeared set to autonomously touch down about 12:40 p.m. Eastern time (1640 GMT Tuesday) after coming as close as 295 feet (90 meters) from the lunar surface, a live animation of the lander's telemetry showed. The company said in a statement Wednesday in Japan that it believes the spacecraft may have made a "hard landing" on the lunar surface. The M1 also carried an experimental solid-state battery made by NGK Spark Plug Co (5334.T), among other objects to gauge how they perform on the moon.

☆ Opinion | Guns, Not Race, Are at the Root of the Wave of ‘Trespass’ Shootings
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( John Mcwhorter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On April 13, Ralph Yarl, 16 years old and Black, rang Andrew Lester’s doorbell in Kansas City, Mo., by mistake, Yarl’s family said. According to prosecutors, Lester, 84 and white, shot Yarl at the door twice. Enlightened American wisdom suggests that race must have had something to do with this. In Hebron, N.Y., a group of young adults driving three vehicles late at night were seeking a friend’s house. But when they mistakenly drove into Kevin Monahan’s driveway, he fired shots into one car, killing a passenger, Kaylin Gillis.

☆ I left a high-rise apartment to live in a van. It's not that much cheaper, but I've saved $70,000 over 3 years and won't ever go back to a traditional home.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( Alcynna Lloyd | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

She described the joys of living in a van — and its less romantic sides, like showering at the gym. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with a 38-year-old personal assistant about going from a traditional apartment to living in a van. For the first couple of weeks of living in my van, I would park in front of the high-rise apartment complex that I used to live in. I also learned that van life is very popular in the West. I'm never going back to traditional housingWhen I first got into van life, I didn't research how to make it work.

REUTERS/Joe SkipperLOS ANGELES, April 20 (Reuters) - The spectacular explosion of SpaceX's new Starship rocket minutes after it soared off its launch pad on a first flight test is the latest vivid illustration of a "successful failure" business formula that serves Elon Musk's company well, experts said on Thursday. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECTAt least two experts in aerospace engineering and planetary science who spoke with Reuters agreed that the test flight delivered benefits. "This is a classical SpaceX successful failure," said Garrett Reisman, an astronautical engineering professor at the University of Southern California who is a former NASA astronaut and is also a senior adviser to SpaceX. Reisman called the Starship test flight a hallmark of a SpaceX strategy that sets Musk's company apart from traditional aerospace companies and even NASA by "this embracing of failure when the consequences of failure are low." She said the risks of a single flight test were small in comparison to the ambitious gains at stake.

☆ Analysis: Rocket startups face adapt-or-die moment amid investment drought
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( Joey Roulette | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Venture investment in space startups has dropped 50% year-over-year in 2022 to $21.9 billion, according to VC firm Space Capital. Astra Space (ASTR.O), which ditched its small Rocket 3.3 for a planned, larger Rocket 4 in the next few years, has struggled to bring its stock price above $1, facing delisting threats from Nasdaq. Despite the startups' struggles, launch demand has soared after sanctions following Russia's invasion of Ukraine cut off access to Russian rockets. Recent failures with Europe's Arianespace's Vega-C rocket have added to demand in the U.S., outstripping the number of available rockets. Private plans to deploy mega-constellations, vast swarms of satellites in low-Earth orbit, have also given launch startups hope for future demand.

BOCA CHICA, Texas, April 17 (Reuters) - Elon Musk's SpaceX called off the highly anticipated debut launch of its newly-combined Starship cruise vessel and Super Heavy rocket in the final minutes of countdown due to a frozen valve, delaying the uncrewed test flight for at least two days. But the California-based space company announced in a live webcast that it was scrubbing the planned 90-minute flight into space for a minimum of 48 hours, citing a frozen pressurization valve in the lower-stage rocket booster. A successful debut flight would also instantly rank the Starship system as the most powerful launch vehicle on Earth. But neither stage would be recovered for the expendable first test flight to space. After separating from the Starship, the Super Heavy booster is expected to execute the beginnings of a controlled return flight before plunging into the Gulf of Mexico.

REUTERS/Gene BlevinsBOCA CHICA, Texas, April 17 (Reuters) - Elon Musk's SpaceX made final preparations early on Monday to launch its powerful new Starship rocket system to space for the first time, on a brief but highly anticipated uncrewed test flight from the Gulf Coast of Texas. But neither stage will be recovered for the expendable first test flight to space, expected to last no more than 90 minutes. The Federal Aviation Administration just last Friday granted a license for what would be the first test flight of the fully stacked rocket system, clearing a final regulatory hurdle for the long-awaited launch. As designed, the Starship rocket is nearly two times more powerful than NASA's own Space Launch System (SLS), which made its debut uncrewed flight to orbit in November, sending a NASA cruise vessel called Orion on a 10-day voyage around the moon and back. Reporting by Joe Skipper in Boca Chica, Texas, and Joey Roulette in Denver; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Clarence FernandezOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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