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On May 2, 1918, General Motors acquired the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware.  This synergy helped propel GMC to be a serious rival to Ford. — May 2nd, 1803: The United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France at a cost of four cents per acre for 828,000 square miles (2,144,520 square km), which soon proved to be a tremendous bargain. — Today’s feature article is a repost from the 2018 archives of SurvivalBlog. — We need more entries for Round 124 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. More than $984,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started …

The post Preparedness Notes for Saturday — May 2, 2026 appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

Editor’s Introductory Note: The recent spike in fuel prices prompted me to re-post this very practical 2018 article from the SurvivalBlog archives. – JWR It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention. Needing fuel for their war machine lead Germany to invent and perfect the diesel engine. It was designed to run efficiently on vegetable oil, and they do to this day. Circumstances forced me to make a move from my East Texas home to the deep Southwest. It was a slow, long process of gradually moving my stuff and my wife to a new homestead. I …

The post Living With WVO, by P.G. appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make both long-term and short-term plans. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities and planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, ranch improvements, bug-out bag fine-tuning, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year.  We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in your e-mailed letters. We post many of those — or excerpts thereof — in the Odds …

The post Editors’ Prepping Progress << Sat. May 2 >> appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

“Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly. The vile person shall be no more called liberal, …

The post The Editors’ Quote Of The Day: appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

[T]he last thing we want, the last thing we in the Second Amendment community want, as I see it, is for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, or for any circuit for that matter, to come out right now, now at least, and say that machine guns are protected under the … Continue reading "A Dose of Reality"

The post A Dose of Reality first appeared on The War on Guns.

 This is why I married a Med/Surg nurse.

Go watch

At any given time, piddling around in the shop, I might realize, or someone will point out, that I am bleeding.  A paper towel and a piece of painter's tape and I have a handy-dandy band aid.

My gal doesn't fait at the sight of blood. For her, it is rather humdrum because she's seen it millions of times.  It's her life calling to stop the bleeding, clear the airway and check pulse.

Y'all have a great weekend.

Saw one of these signs today on the way to market, a house with foot-tall dandelions inserting itself between neatly manicured lawns and making the neighbors’ jobs of keeping them that way all the more tedious and expensive. They don’t care if they’re forcing themselves on everybody else– as with everything else they either impose … Continue reading "Pardon Our Imposition, We’re Feeding Our Egos"

The post Pardon Our Imposition, We’re Feeding Our Egos first appeared on The War on Guns.

A Dominican illegal alien who is also a murderer in his home country, with both a deportation order and an Interpol Red Notice arrest warrant, was ordered released by a Biden judge after he was arrested by ICE. [More] They do it with impunity — for now. Let violent leftists prod the country into tit-for-tat … Continue reading "Lest Ye Be Judged"

The post Lest Ye Be Judged first appeared on The War on Guns.

Associated Press caught producing anti-gun advocacy [More] Oh, go on… You don’t hate the DSM enough.

The post According to Their Nature first appeared on The War on Guns.

Where Are Silencers Illegal? State Suppressor Laws in 2026 [More] Watch the whole map turn red if you add the word “uninfringed” before “silencers.”

The post Silent Running first appeared on The War on Guns.

 No, not a sequel to The Walking Dead. 4/29/26 Fox News:

The North Carolina State Board of Elections identified approximately 34,000 dead people on the state's voter rolls following a comprehensive data comparison with a federal database.

Earlier this month, the NCSBE submitted over 7.3 million voter records to the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database as part of an initiative to strengthen the accuracy and integrity of the state's voter registration list. The NCSBE clarified that the identification of deceased individuals on the state's voter rolls does not necessarily indicate illegal votes were cast.

"While we expected to find some cases, this is higher than we anticipated," Sam Hayes, the executive director of the State Board of Elections, said in a press release. 

Temple Terrace police officer arrested in crash that killed 6-year-old girl: City officials – Authorities said dash camera footage from Temple Terrace police revealed Officer Krug was traveling at a speed of 104 MPH in a 50 MPH zone, just seconds before the fatal traffic crash. [More] Hey, he didn’t want to be late. Besides, … Continue reading "We’re the Only Ones Hurried Enough"

The post We’re the Only Ones Hurried Enough first appeared on The War on Guns.

600 groups with $2B in revenue mobilize 3,000 May Day protests… [More] Find the commies near you. I see the overprivileged “Hudson Antifa” apparatchiks plan to air their grievances against being white: Brought to you by… billionaires… Are you sleeping, bourgeoisie? UPDATE Around five die-hards showed up in the cold and rain holding large, therefore … Continue reading "Shirkers of the World Unite!"

The post Shirkers of the World Unite! first appeared on The War on Guns.

Easy gun access blamed after 15-year-old shoots, kills west-side woman [More] Shows you how out of step I am that my first thought would not have gone there… Funny thing about easy access…

The post The Easy Way Out first appeared on The War on Guns.

The post ZB-26 vs Bren LMGs (w/ John Keene) first appeared on Forgotten Weapons.

I said so why are you taking my firearms and they said because we understand you’ve been attacked… [Watch] Oh, look, a subject of the King… That’ll teach him to be “law-abiding.” He should have asked the confiscators if they had a 27-B-stroke-6. What do Fudd Tories here think the plan is for them when … Continue reading "Meanwhile, Across the Pond…"

The post Meanwhile, Across the Pond… first appeared on The War on Guns.

ATF’s New Era of Reform… Repealing the Pistol Brace Rule and Why It Means Nothing – Keep the cork in the bottle as it’s not time to celebrate. [More] Mr. Wolf advises caution (NSFW), whereas the “wise” monkeys will decry that as “blackpilling.”

The post Jumping the Gun first appeared on The War on Guns.

President Trump with Pen, Public Domain   

Some Second Amendment supporters claim President Trump has not done anything in support of Second Amendment rights. They say: The ATF still exists! The National Firearms Act of 1934 has not been repealed! The Gun Control Act of 1968 has not been repealed! 

Those actions are not withing the ability of the President of the United States to accomplish by executive action. A very slim majority of Republicans exists in the House. Less than the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster exists in the Senate. This means statutory change is very difficult to accomplish. A few members of the Republican party in the House and in the Senate are not reliable supporters of the Second Amendment. Such numbers are all it takes to make passage of legislation extremely difficult. 

In the face of such difficulties, President Trump has accomplished significant positive change in his second term, in just the first 16 months. President Trump has become the President most supportive of the Second Amendment since the founding fathers. 

It is not surprising the Republic did not see any significant challenge to rights protected by the Second Amendment until a generation after the ratification of the Bill of Rights.  A couple of laws restricting concealed carry were passed in 1813. The Kentucky law was struck down as unconstitutional by the state supreme court, leaving the Louisiana law as an outlier for another decade. After the Founding generation had passed away, the infringements on the Second Amendment started being passed.

Here are some of the actions the Trump Administration has taken to restore Second Amendment rights in the United States. Two are statutory. The rest have been done with administrative authority. 

January 20, 2025 - President Trump administration shuts down White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.  This office was a hotbed of anti-Second Amendment activism. 

February 7, 2025 - President Trump issues executive order to protect Second Amendment rights.    White House link. 

April 7, 2025 - Trump DOJ repeals Zero Tolerance policy by the ATF.  The ATF announces plans to revise the policy on stabilizing braces and the definition of "engaged in the business by ATF. 

July 4, 2025 - (Statutory) Trump administration passes Big Beautiful Bill ending taxes for silencers, short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns and any other weapons.  This was the first time any of the NFA taxes were eliminated. The item should have been removed from the NFA, as the Trump administration proposed. The Senate Parliamentarian prevented their complete removal. 

July 21, 2025 -  President Trump administration plans to create process for people to regain Second Amendment rights.  

August 7, 2025 - President Trump bans banks from discriminating against gun companies.  

August 15, 2025 - President Trump administration streamlines carry permit process for D.C. 

October 10, 2025 - President Trump administration files lawsuit against Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for denial of Second Amendment rights.  

October 10, 2025 - President Trump has Jennifer Mascott confirmed to Third circuit Court of appeals.  Judge Mascott is likely to be a critical voice in a Second Amendment case. 

September 30, 2025 - President Trump administration recinds Biden administration  export restrictions on  Firearms.  

November 6, 2025 -President Trump cuts off federal funding to gun control groups. 

November 8, 2025 - Trump's U.S. Attorney for D.C. will refuse to seek felony charges for unregistered rifles or shotguns in D.C.

November 17, 2025 - (Statutory) President Trump gets law passed Protecting Second Amendment  rights of  veterans from the Veterans Administration.  

January 8, 2026  - President Trump DOJ submits brief against California background check for ammunition.   

Jan 13, 2026 - President Trump pulls U.S. out of UN Register of Conventional Arms. 

January 28, 2025.   President Trump  DOJ files Brief in Massachusetts handgun roster case, taking the side of the Second Amendment. 

April 3, 2026 - Secretary of War Pete Hegseth's order to allow military members to carry off duty on post. 

President Trump and his administration has done more for Second Amendment supporters than any administration since the founding fathers. At the same time, President Trump is doing more for the USA than any other President, probably at least since World War II. The above is not a complete list. There have been several amicus briefs filed in Second Amendment cases, by the administration, to restore Second Amendment rights. Feel free to add any you know of in the comments.  

When a fundamental constitutional right has been trampled in the dirt for over a hundred years, it is understandable for supporters to be anxious to see the right completely restored, immediately. Unfortunately, such is impossible without destroying the structure of the Republic inherent in the ordered liberty of the Constitution. If the Constitution is destroyed, the Second Amendment is not guaranteed. 

 ©2026 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch 

According to investigators, residents inside the home reported several armed suspects entered the home and the homeowners shot at the intruders, hitting one of the suspects several times. 

The suspect was taken to Harborview Medical Center in critical condition. Kent police have not released the identity of the suspect who was shot. 

More Here

Hooray, hooray! The first of May!

Outdoor fucking starts today!

(But as usual it do rain
So we fucks off indoors again.)

On May 1, 1840 the “Penny Black” — the world’s first adhesive postage stamp was issued by the United Kingdom. It featured an image of Queen Victoria. — May 1, 1857: William Walker, conqueror of Nicaragua, surrendered to the U.S. Navy, in Rivas. — And on May 1, 1898 US Admiral George Dewey commanded: “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley” as the US routed the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay. — An encouraging news flash: House Appropriations 2027 Funding Bill Ends Suppressor, Short Barrel Rifle Registration. JWR’s Comment:  Be sure to contact both your U.S. congressman and your …

The post Preparedness Notes for Friday — May 1, 2026 appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

“There’s a storm coming…” I’m the founder and Senior Editor of SurvivalBlog. Unlike the editors of many other preparedness blogs and vlogs, I try not be an alarmist. However, some recent revelations about generative and agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications autonomously breaking through firewalls, showing signs of self-awareness and self-preservation “instinct”, scheming blackmail, and surreptitiously mining cryptocurrencies now have me feeling quite alarmed. I fear that perhaps within months an AI will go fully rogue, to wit: It will escape its development lab and then proliferate itself in a virus-like fashion across servers all around the world. Once it starts …

The post A Brief But Very Serious Word of Warning on AI appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

In Economics & Investing Media of the Week we feature photos, charts, graphs, maps, video links, and news items of interest to preppers. Economics & Investing Links of Interest Price hikes, outlook cuts – What airlines are doing as fuel costs surge. Wall Street Journal: U.S. Debt Tops 100% of GDP. Oil briefly touches $126, its highest price in four years. In 8 weeks, the Iran war has dented the U.S. economy. The damage could linger, economists say. $65B lithium mother lode hidden beneath Appalachian Mountains could supply US with power for centuries. Economics & Investing Media Tips: Please send …

The post Economics & Investing Media of the Week appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

“Liberals measure compassion by how many people are given welfare. Conservatives measure compassion by how many people no longer need it.” – The Late Rush Limbaugh

The post The Editors’ Quote Of The Day: appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

Boy, talk about timing– this was submitted before the Cekada confirmation. Still, the same people praising him praised this guy. [More]

The post ATF Acting Head Driscoll Literally Sleeping with the Enemy first appeared on The War on Guns.

Disarming anyone disfavored by the state is one of the oldest power guarantors devised by governments, and this happening in Germany recalls another set of laws imposed within the lifetimes of people still living. [More] It’s déjà vu all over again.

The post Denial of Gun Licenses to Political Opposition in Germany Has Chilling Historic Precedent first appeared on The War on Guns.

In these troubling and challenging times, there is not much that people agree on. But three far-left, Second Amendment-hating, big-government-loving, cartel media outlets have agreed on one thing. Christine Drazan should be the Republican nominee in the race to replace Tina Kotek. [More] If you can’t trust your “friends across the aisle,” who can you … Continue reading "In the Spirit of Bipartisanshp"

The post In the Spirit of Bipartisanshp first appeared on The War on Guns.

The site experienced another 429 “Too Many Requests” error. The whole thing stems from my plan being on a shared server, which I could mitigate by paying for a private one that can handle the traffic. Also, I’m no website administrator– I’m here to post stuff, and all the behind the scenes tech stuff is … Continue reading "Technical Difficulties"

The post Technical Difficulties first appeared on The War on Guns.

Nebraska Bill Banning Guns in State Capitol Upsetting a Surprising Group of People [More] It’s the controlled access that upsets them. It doesn’t sound like too many are outraged at being put at even more of a physical disadvantage. [Via bondmen]

The post Unintended Consequences first appeared on The War on Guns.

Will the Left Make The WHCA Dinner Shooter A Hero? [More] They’ve already done it with Luigi. Get 10 more and we could market a “beefcake” calendar for all those stupid “liberal” white women (and those who identify as same): [Via bondmen]

The post A Valid Question first appeared on The War on Guns.

Karma: SPLC Tried To Cut Off “Hate List” Groups From Fidelity Charitable, Now It’s Cut Off [More] With all the hoopla over indictments and the demand to punsih being foremost on a lot of or minds, let’s not overlook someth9ing I consider to be of even greater importance that I’m not seeing anyone else waving … Continue reading "What Goes Around…"

The post What Goes Around… first appeared on The War on Guns.

Stabbing of Two Jewish Men in London Declared a ‘Terrorist Incident’ [More] Won’t that be considered hateful? [Via Michael G]

The post Meanwhile, Across the Pond… first appeared on The War on Guns.

Dad Saves Choking Teenage Son With Heimlich Maneuver [Watch] It’s one of the basic survival skills, and it’s been needed over the years for a brother and brother-in-law. I ended up buying one of these and keep it in a dining room cabinet. [Via Edmund M]

The post Guns Only Work If You Can Breathe first appeared on The War on Guns.

danielbarger left a comment to yesterday's post about Starship:

As long as we are limited to chemical rockets where 90% of the weight is fuel and rocket with only 10% payload we will never be able to make use of the solar systems resources efficiently. The problem is there is no viable alternative...not even a theoretical one. It's an enormous hurdle to becoming a space faring species.

1.  Efficiency factors into the price.  Starship may get the cost of payload to orbit down to $50/pound.  That's what King Crab costs.  It's hard to call this "inefficient" when it is reducing cost by three orders of magnitude.
2. Agreed with danielbarger and others that this does not get us to Interstellar travel.   The DC-3 didn't get us to the moon, either, but it was a damn fine start.  

Casey Handmer covers this well in the post I linked to:

Consider the two critical metrics: Dollars per tonne ($/T) and tonnes per year (T/year). Any effective space transport cargo logistics system must aggressively optimize both these metrics simultaneously. Starship is intended to reach numbers as low as $1m/T and 1000 T/year for cargo soft landed on the Moon. Apollo achieved about $2b/T and 2 T/year for cargo soft landed on the Moon. Constellation 2.0 as described above [NASA's SLS-to-the-moon program - Borepatch] would be more like $4b/T and 2 T/year.

Not only is this architecture obviously worse than Starship, it’s also significantly worse than Apollo or any existing lunar delivery system. For example, the Blue Moon lander could be flown on Falcon Heavy, delivering perhaps 10 T to the surface for <$200m. Indeed, the Constellation architecture is worse than the current state-of-the-art by roughly the same factor that Starship promises to be better. That is, it takes the key metrics of $/T and T/year and runs as far as possible in the wrong direction. It is also a programmatic dead end, since none of the individual components can be upgraded in a meaningful way without restarting development of the entire system from scratch. It’s an expensive, interlocking failure.

I'd say that Starship is an enormous efficiency improvement. 

You think Democrats are violent NOW… [Via Jess]

The post Hope for the Future? first appeared on The War on Guns.

Book titles in footnotes and bibliography have asterisks around them, not italicized.

Sources do not exist by that title at that location: 

U.S. Census Bureau, “Historical Statistics on Slavery in the United States, 1790.”

Sources cited to wrong location that sound as those they should be there: 

National Archives and Records Administration. “Cotton Gin and the Expansion of Slavery.”

 is actually at Digital Public Library of America. It references "National Archives and Records Administration so it may have confused AI.

 Gerrymandering has been in the news lately, with good reason.  I happen to live in a Gerrymandered district where my congress-critter lives across the state from me and does not reflect my political persuasion.

It appears that the Supremes did something recently.  Honestly, I'm not sure what they decided, but it evidently affects my district.  Pair that decision against the very soon upcoming primary election, the first party primary to he held in this state in decades, and we have an opportunity for absolute chaos.  We start early voting on Saturday, and governor Landry is considering postponing the election to redraw the congressional map.

Linky Here.

From what I understand, Governor Landry is proposing that we suspend the congressional primary to give the state legislature a chance to redraw the map.  The huge irony in this fever-dream is that the legislature could have redrawn themap at any time.  Our past governor, John Bel (hack, spit) Edwads redrew the map during his term, specifically to give his long-time crony, Cleoo Fields, a safe congressional district. Cleo is the virtual poster-child for affirmative action, DEI, NAACP, and SPLC.

The one saving grace is that the US Senate primary will go forward.  This is the first closed primary in the state in decades and it is our opportunity to send RINO Bill Cassidy into retirement.  I look forward to doing that.  Louisiana's early voting begins on Saturday.

More Here

On April 30, 711, the Islamic conquest of Iberia began. Moorish troops led by Tariq ibn Ziyad (pictured) landed at Gibraltar to begin their invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. The Al-Andalus Umayyad Caliphate eventually supplanted the Visigothic Kingdom. — April 30, 1864: New York became the first state to charge a hunting license fee. — Today is the birthday of sci-fi novelist Larry Niven (born April 30, 1938). Along with Jerry Pournelle, he co-authored the survivalist classic Lucifer’s Hammer. — Today’s feature is a reader-written piece that was to short to qualify as an entry for Round 124 of the …

The post Preparedness Notes for Thursday — April 30, 2026 appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

Several months ago, I drove out to a place to hike and bike here in New Mexico. The last four miles of the trip were on a dirt road. Some parts of the road were in such bad shape that it seemed like I was driving over an old-time washboard. I slowed down for those portions of the road, but evidently I didn’t slow down enough, for my car started leaking oil and transmission fluid shortly afterwards. I didn’t hit anything in the dirt road; it was the vibrations from driving over those portions that caused the leaks. These definitely …

The post My Car Repair Adventures, by M.J. appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods. This column is a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from JWR. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats, and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. In today’s column, more about mass media bias and censorship. Study Finds Big Tech News Feeds Tilt Heavily Left Over at The European Conservative: Study Finds Big Tech News Feeds Tilt Heavily …

The post The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

“Many of the benefits from keeping terrorism fear levels high are obvious. Private corporations suck up massive amounts of Homeland Security cash as long as that fear persists, while government officials in the National Security and Surveillance State can claim unlimited powers and operate with unlimited secrecy and no accountability.” – Glenn Greenwald

The post The Editors’ Quote Of The Day: appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

Last weekend I placed an order with the Ballistol online store for a couple bottles of their oil, along with some of their cleaning wipes. In my experience, Ballistol is a pretty good CLP, and when made into a water/Ballistol emulsion, is good for cleaning black powder or corrosive primer fouling. I've been using it more lately because it's non-toxic.

My order arrived today and I used one of the wipes for cleaning my S&W Model 64-3 and my EDC, Model 432UC.

The wipe is made from is some kind of synthetic cloth. It reminds me of the Hoppe's No.9 synthetic cleaning patches. It was large enough that I cut two rectangular patches from it and used one each to clean the bores of my guns, after first running a brush wet with Ballistol through them. The remaining wipe was large enough for me to do a quick external wipe down of both guns. I.e., cleaning fouling off the outside of each cylinder and getting rid of most of the fouling inside the cylinder window on each gun's frame.

Ballistol is often criticized for its smell, which reminds many people of dirty gym socks. I noticed that the smell of the wipes wasn't nearly as pungent as when you use a spray bottle, whether aerosol or pump. I don't like Ballistol's odor so this was welcome.

I'm planning to add a couple wipes to each field cleaning kit I have for my guns. They'll be good for external wipe downs and if necessary, oiling the bore.

By Dave Workman By a vote of 59-39, the U.S. Senate has confirmed Robert Cekada as the new director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. His first order of business was to sign notices of a new rulemaking package aimed at fixing what the National Shooting Sports Foundation called “punitive regulations […]

The post Senate Confirms Cekada as ATF Director; 34 Notices of Rule Changes Signed appeared first on Liberty Park Press.

 Engage Armament LLC v. Montgomery County, Maryland (Md. 2025):

Under Criminal Law § 4-209(b), charter counties may regulate the purchase, sale, transfer, 
ownership, possession, and transportation of firearms in areas that are expressly 
enumerated in § 4-209(b)(1)(iii), are direct analogues to those, or otherwise constitute 
places of public assembly. Accordingly, Montgomery County did not exceed its authority 
under § 4-209(b)(1)(iii) in regulating firearms in or within 100 yards of parks, places of
worship, schools, libraries, courthouses, legislative assemblies, recreational facilities,
multipurpose exhibition facilities, and polling places. However, Montgomery County
exceeded its authority under § 4-209(b)(1)(iii) in regulating firearms in or within 100 yards
of hospitals, community health centers, long-term facilities, childcare facilities,
government buildings (as defined), and gatherings of individuals without regard to the place in which they are gathering.

Yes, the sensitive places are wider than they should be (when the last time you heard of a murder at "parks, places of worship, schools, [or] libraries"? But this was a decision of the Maryland Supreme Court. I do not know Engage they raised the Second Amendment in the initial suit. If they did, an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is in order.

 Taking a break between chores, I flipped over to the YouTube and found this heartwarming nugget.

Linky Here.

It seems that if you conspire with your boss to hide criminal activity and your boss gets a preemptive pardon from the president, you can still be charged with a crime.  There is the cautionary tale: if the boss asks you to commit a crime, you are under no obligation to do so.  Quite the contrary, it is your obligation to report it.  It may set back your career, but you won't have to spend time in Club Fed.

The Silicon Graybeard (among others) links to a really interesting video from SpaceX about Starship:

Something that needs to be shared is a video from SpaceX, called Starship - Test Like You Fly and while it's nearly a half hour long, it's absolutely worth watching. 

That's near-term Starship past and (implied) future.  But watching it made me think about a 2021 post from Casey Handmer - Starship Is Still Not Understood.  In it, he remarks on just how far Starship had come in the previous couple of years:

While I am 100% certain that the Starship design will continue to evolve in noticeable ways, the progress in two years cannot be understated. Two years ago Starship was a design concept and a mock up. Today it’s a 95% complete prototype that will soon fly to space and may even make it back in one piece.

The odds of Starship actually working in the near future are much higher today than they were two years ago. Across the industry, decisions are being made on a time horizon in which Starship operation is relevant, and yet it is not being correctly accounted for.

He then goes on to lay it all out: 

Starship matters. It’s not just a really big rocket, like any other rocket on steroids. It’s a continuing and dedicated attempt to achieve the “Holy Grail” of rocketry, a fully and rapidly reusable orbital class rocket that can be mass manufactured. It is intended to enable a conveyor belt logistical capacity to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) comparable to the Berlin Airlift. That is, Starship is a powerful logistical system that puts launch below the API.

Starship is designed to be able to launch bulk cargo into LEO in >100 T chunks for <$10m per launch, and up to thousands of launches per year. By refilling in LEO, a fully loaded deep space Starship can transport >100 T of bulk cargo anywhere in the solar system, including the surface of the Moon or Mars, for <$100m per Starship. Starship is intended to be able to transport a million tonnes of cargo to the surface of Mars in just ten launch windows, in addition to serving other incidental destinations, such as maintaining the Starlink constellation or building a big base at the Lunar south pole.

The fact that Starship flown expendably would be perhaps 10 times cheaper, in terms of dollars per tonne, than even Falcon is not relevant.

Jerry Pournelle used to say that the only space metric that counted was cost per ton delivered to orbit.  I don't see this as a Berlin Airlift; it's a Liberty Ship.  Mass Produced in huge numbers and able to shuttle large amounts of generic cargo to and from space.  Handmer emphasizes this point:

Historically, mission/system design has been grievously afflicted by absurdly harsh mass constraints, since launch costs to LEO are as high as $10,000/kg and single launches cost hundreds of millions. This in turn affects schedule, cost structure, volume, material choices, labor, power, thermal, guidance/navigation/control, and every other aspect of the mission. Entire design languages and heuristics are reinforced, at the generational level, in service of avoiding negative consequences of excess mass. As a result, spacecraft built before Starship are a bit like steel weapons made before the industrial revolution. Enormously expensive as a result of embodying a lot of meticulous labor, but ultimately severely limited compared to post-industrial possibilities.

Starship obliterates the mass constraint and every last vestige of cultural baggage that constraint has gouged into the minds of spacecraft designers. There are still constraints, as always, but their design consequences are, at present, completely unexplored. We need a team of economists to rederive the relative elasticities of various design choices and boil them down to a new set of design heuristics for space system production oriented towards maximizing volume of production. Or, more generally, maximizing some robust utility function assuming saturation of Starship launch capacity. A dollar spent on mass optimization no longer buys a dollar saved on launch cost. It buys nothing.

The implications are huge, and probably require a change in the institutions themselves (e.g. JPL and NASA):

NASA centers and their contractors build exquisitely complex and expensive robots to launch on conventional rockets and explore the universe. To take JPL as an example, divide the total budget by the mass of spacecraft shipped to the cape and it works out to about $1,000,000/kg. I’m not certain how much mass NASA launches to space per year but, even including ISS, it cannot be much more than about 50 T. This works out to between $100,000/kg for LEO bulk cargo and >$1,000,000/kg for deep space exploration.

Enter Starship. Annual capacity to LEO climbs from its current average of 500 T for the whole of our civilization to perhaps 500 T per week. Eventually, it could exceed 1,000,000 T/year. At the same time, launch costs drop as low as $50/kg, roughly 100x lower than the present. For the same budget in launch, supply will have increased by roughly 100x. How can the space industry saturate this increased launch supply?

...

This is where the risk to the space industry originates. Prior to Starship, heavy machinery for building a Moon base could only come from NASA, because only NASA has the expertise to build a rocket propelled titanium Moon tractor for a billion dollars per unit. After Starship, Caterpillar or Deere or Kamaz can space qualify their existing commodity products with very minimal changes and operate them in space. In all seriousness, some huge Caterpillar mining truck is already extremely rugged and mechanically reliable. McMaster-Carr already stocks thousands of parts that will work in mines, on oil rigs, and any number of other horrendously corrosive, warranty voiding environments compared to which the vacuum of space is delightfully benign. A space-adapted tractor needs better paint, a vacuum compatible hydraulic power source, vacuum-rated bearings, lubricants, wire insulation, and a redundant remote control sensor kit.

I suspect that Jared Isaacson understands this.  The Space industry five years from now will be very, very different that any projections we can make today.  Starship's future - while brightly described in SpaceX's outstanding video - is much more interesting than almost anyone suspects.

 Is it Tuesday?  I swear, I've lost track. The calendar tells me it is Tuesday, so it must be.

Today started off weird enough that it threw my schedule behind.  I started off wanting to do one task and had to do something else first.  Little piddling tasks that threw me minutes behind.  A five-minute task wound up taking 30 minutes.

Over the weekend, President Trump survived the latest assassination attempt.  Some say that this is the 3rd attempt, others say that it is the 7th.  It depends on what we call an actual attempt.  Either way, political violence is not the answer.  Yet the Democrats double-down, claiming that their thinly veiled references are not an actual call to arms.

This last guy seems to have been motivated by a total immersion in a lefty echo chamber. 

Yesterday, the meeting with King George III seems to have gone well. Somehow, the lefties refrained from holding a No Kings rally when confronted by actual royalty.  Odd, isn't it?   It seems that they tolerate an actual generational monarch better than they tolerate a duly elected President.

I have other chores, so if you will excuse me.

The post Hungarian 48M Sniper Mosin (aka M52) first appeared on Forgotten Weapons.

Authorities said the trooper, a female member of Troop NYC, was refueling her vehicle when the teen approached her, took out a knife, and got into the driver’s seat of her car. 

The trooper then fired a single shot from her off-duty firearm, striking the suspect in the left arm. The bullet continued into his chest, police said. 

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Officers located a man who was pronounced dead at the scene.

No other injuries were reported.

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A fight Sunday afternoon at the downtown Greyhound Intermodal Facility ended with a security guard fatally shooting a man, Birmingham police said.

The Jefferson County Coroner’s Office identified the victim as Angelo Herbert Hill Jr. He was 46 and lived in Valdosta.

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