Thursday, August 11, 2022

A RE-POST: Profile in Courage

A friendly reminder

https://mesazona.blogspot.com/2017/07/profile-in-courage-barbara-lee-americas.html

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=15YgdrhrCM8

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2yfXgu37iyI

GOLDEN AGE FOR SPACE EXPLORATION & DISCOVERY ...and DARPA too of course!

Returning readers of this blog may appreciate that there are extensive earlier posts that feature the subject DARPA...You are invited to use the Search Box in the right-hand margin to access information retrievable from The Archives.

Here first is some related content: from Gizmodo on 03 August + three videos

...every few decades or so, a truly groundbreaking technology oozes its way out of the DARPA caves and transforms into something deeply emblematic of the time its was created. Whether or not those creations were net positive or negatives for the world depends who you asked.

While sorting through its most societally significant breakthroughs, Gizmodo spoke to multiple DARPA officials, including its current director, reviewed dozens of DARPA documents and scoured through recent books documenting the nutty agency’s history. Here’s what we found.

Everything DARPA's Been Doing for the Last 20 Years

Digging into DARPA's history to suss out the agency's most significant, sometimes scary research from the last two decades.

ByMack DeGeurin

8/03/22 12:10PM

Comments (10)

Videos

11:39

🌐youtube.com

DARPA: A Culture of Innovation - YouTube

September 24, 2018

04:31

🌐youtube.com

DARPA 2021 Year In Review - YouTube

December 27, 2021

03:40

🌐youtube.com

Demonstrations of DARPA's Ground X-Vehicle Technologies - YouTube

June 22, 2018

IT Pro

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12 hours ago

DARPA recruits SpaceX, Intel and Amazon for major satellite network project

DARPA selects companies for inter-satellite laser communications project

by Sandra Erwin — August 10, 2022

Under a program called Space-Based Adaptive Communications Node (Space-BACN), DARPA seeks a low-cost, reconfigurable optical communications terminal. Credit: DARPA

DARPA is pursuing a new laser terminal design that would be compatible with any constellation

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Five commercial satellite operators — SpaceX, Telesat, SpaceLink, Viasat and Amazon’s Kuiper — are among 11 organizations selected by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to help develop laser terminals and technical standards to connect satellites in space.

Under a project called space-based adaptive communications node, or Space-BACN, DARPA is pursuing a new laser terminal design that would be compatible with any constellation and make it easier for government and commercial satellites to talk to each other.

DARPA announced Aug. 10 it selected 11 teams for phase 1 of Space-BACN. The goal is to create an internet of low Earth orbit satellites, “enabling seamless communication between military, government and commercial and civil satellite constellations that currently are unable to talk with each other,” Greg Kuperman, program manager at DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office, said in a statement.

CACI, MBryonics and Mynaric were selected to develop a small optical terminal. II-VI Aerospace and Defense, Arizona State University and Intel Federal will work on a reconfigurable optical modem and will help define the interface between system components.

The five satellite operators will help define command-and-control requirements to support optical intersatellite link communications across constellations.

Phase 1 of Space- BACN will last about 14 months and will conclude with a preliminary design review and a connectivity demonstration in a simulated environment.

DARPA said at the completion of phase 1, some of the providers will be selected to participate in an 18-month phase 2 to develop engineering design units of the optical terminal components. The satellite operators during phase 2 will continue to evolve concepts for cross-constellation communications.

COMMERCIAL MILITARY DARPA OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS

Saving Federal Money Using Re-Usable Booster Rockets

Wins in new contracts

SpaceX's reusable Falcon Heavy rocket can now carry US spy satellites into orbit

The Space Force has approved the heavy-duty vehicle for top secret missions.

Jon Fingas

J. Fingas|08.11.22

@jonfingas

SpaceX Falcon Heavy demo mission launch

SpaceX, Flickr

SpaceX may soon handle some of the US government's highest-priority satellite missions. Bloomberg reports the Space Force has certified SpaceX to launch top secret spy satellites using Falcon Heavy rockets equipped with reusable boosters. The move gives SpaceX more high-profile government missions, of course, but also promises to save federal money by reducing the costs of ferrying these satellites to orbit. The Space Force has already saved over $64 million for GPS missions by using reusable Falcon 9 rockets, Space Systems Command's Falcon chief Walter Lauderdale said.

The Space Force issued the certification in June, but didn't disclose the approval until now. SpaceX can carry spy satellites aboard Falcon 9 rockets, but they don't always have the power needed for heavier payloads. The first Falcon Heavy-based launch is expected sometime between October and December, when SpaceX will deliver a National Reconnaissance Office satellite.

This could represent a significant if temporary blow to rival rocket producers. The Boeing and Lockheed-Martin joint venture United Launch Alliance still hasn't received similar approval for a version of its Vulcan rocket using Blue Origin motors. Air Force officials are still reviewing the approach to 39 national security launches slated for fiscal 2025 through 2027. SpaceX isn't guaranteed to win business that would otherwise go to ULA, but its earlier certification could influence any decisions.

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

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SCARCE SUBSIDIES FOR STARLINK TERRESTIAL INTERNET RURAL BROADBAND

Here are reports from two different sources:

SPACE NEWS yesterday

SpaceX loses $900 million in rural broadband subsidies

by Jason Rainbow — August 10, 2022

The FCC said Starlink and LTD Broadband failed to show they "could deliver the promised service” required for rural subsidies. Credit: FCC via Flickr

LOGAN, Utah — SpaceX has lost its bid for nearly $900 million in rural broadband subsidies for its Starlink broadband service.

The Federal Communications Commission said Aug. 10 that SpaceX had failed to show it could meet requirements for unlocking the funds, which aim to incentivize expanding broadband services to unserved areas across the United States.

“We must put scarce universal service dollars to their best possible use as we move into a digital future that demands ever more powerful and faster networks,” FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement.

“We cannot afford to subsidize ventures that are not delivering the promised speeds or are not likely to meet program requirements.”

SpaceX was provisionally awarded the subsidies in December 2020 after competing in an auction under phase one of the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF).

SpaceX’s winning share was one of the largest among the auction’s 180 successful bidders, and covered nearly 643,000 homes and businesses in 35 states.

Auction winners were required to submit paperwork to the FCC to show how they planned to deploy services that meet RDOF conditions to receive the funds over 10 years.

For Starlink, this included providing 100 megabits per second (Mbps) download speeds and 20 Mbps upload speeds.

Terrestrial telco LTD Broadband, which was provisionally awarded $1.3 billion in subsidies under the program, also failed to demonstrate it could “deliver the promised service,” Rosenworcel said.

“Starlink’s technology has real promise,” Rosenworcel added.

“But the question before us was whether to publicly subsidize its still developing technology for consumer broadband—which requires that users purchase a $600 dish—with nearly $900 million in universal service funds until 2032.”

Ookla speed tests showed median download speeds for SpaceX’s Starlink satellite broadband network improved 38% to 90.55 Mbps in the first quarter of 2022, compared with the corresponding quarter last year.

However, Ookla said upload speeds fell from 16.29 Mbps to 9.33 Mbps.

SpaceX has launched more than 2,700 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO) to improve its service and coverage.

According to satellite broadband competitor Viasat, limitations in Starlink’s network architecture prevent it from meeting RDOF obligations even with more satellites.

“As the number of Starlink subscribers increases, the system will become even more capacity-constrained, which is likely to impair network performance and constrain speeds for end users,” Viasat told the FCC in a July 13 letter.

In a July 29 letter to the FCC, SpaceX said Viasat “is transparently attempting to have the Commission impede competition at all costs to protect its legacy technology.”

SpaceX and Viasat have a long history of battling it out over regulatory matters through FCC filings.

Viasat, which operates broadband satellites in geostationary orbit, was denied an attempt to bid for subsidies in the RDOF auction with a proposed LEO constellation.

Rosenworcel’s decision comes after she said last year that the FCC was taking steps to “clean up issues with the program’s design originating from its adoption in 2020,” following complaints about how some of the subsidies would fund broadband in parking lots and well-served urban areas.

These steps included letters to SpaceX and other winning RDOF bidders to withdraw funding requests for areas that already have service, or where “significant questions of waste have been raised.”

SpaceX has been raising billions of dollars to support plans to expand Starlink and its next-generation rocket Starship. The company raised $250 million in an equity round from undisclosed investors in July, bringing total funding raised so far this year to a reported $2 billion.

This article was edited Aug. 10 to correct a typo in Ookla’s upload speed figures for Starlink.

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COMMERCIAL SMALL SATELLITE CONFERENCE SPACEXVIASAT

A RE-POST (Asking Again): Why Won’t Tech Giants Stop the Spread of Online Conspiracies? | Amanpour...

Wednesday, August 10, 2022

UTAH: The Strangest Senate Race in America (Battle of The Brethren)...Don't expect Mitt Romney

No doubt that Arizona is catching attention for its own battle of the brethren for the State Senate, but that,,,'s small stakes in the eyes of Politico deserving a latter analysis ...and scroll down farther for a report from Deseret in Salt Lake City

Elections

Welcome to the strangest Senate race in America

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is facing his first real reelection challenge from an ex-Republican endorsed by Democrats who, if elected, would caucus with neither party.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) addresses attendees during the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit, July 22, 2022, in Tampa, Fla. | Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP Photo

By Burgess Everett

08/08/2022 05:17 PM EDT

Utah is home to the Great Salt Lake, the NBA’s Jazz and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Oh, and the strangest Senate race in America.

There’s Evan McMullin, a former presidential candidate who’s convinced Utah Democrats to not run a candidate while saying he’d buck both Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell to become a one-man caucus if he’s elected. Then there’s incumbent Sen. Mike Lee, a pugnacious two-term conservative who once detested Donald Trump so much that his 2016 presidential pick was ... McMullin.

Awkwardly stuck in the middle: Sen. Mitt Romney, whose neutrality in the race McMullin “greatly appreciates.”

McMullin is running as an independent in the mold of Romney or Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a novel strategy that requires support from Democrats, independents and anti-Trump Republicans in a deep-red state. He says the race is “close,” citing public polls showing him within 5 points; during an interview, Lee handed over an internal poll showing him up by 14.

Even as a clear underdog, McMullin is making it the most competitive Utah Senate race in perhaps 30 years. It’s a remarkable test of McMullin’s unproven theory that he can topple a conservative by running a one-on-one race with no Democratic spoiler. The matchup is as much about the last six years of the Republican Party — and Lee’s place in it — as it is about McMullin’s half-court heave of a political strategy.

“I’m taking it very seriously,” Lee said in an interview. “It’s still closer than I’d like it to be.”

During a 35-minute interview, McMullin says his state deserves two Romneys and vowed that “I will be in a coalition in the Senate as I am in Utah, with other pro-democracy senators.” Yet how he’d make that work without joining either the GOP or Democratic side of the aisle is a nagging question.

“When you advise spurious legal challenges to a free and fair election that were designed to convince tens of millions of Americans that the election was stolen … that is not what a constitutional conservative does,” McMullin said.

Lee counters that he was merely exploring the validity of the Trump team’s “unusual and surprising” legal arguments about widespread fraud: “So I made phone calls. The rumors were not true. And I voted to certify the election.”

Though he came to enjoy a close relationship with Trump, Lee is not a down-the-line Trump Republican. The Utahn recalled telling Trump at the start of his presidency that if you “fight to protect and restore federalism and separation of powers, you have no greater ally. And so far as you undermine those things, I will be a thorn in your side.”

The well-funded GOP super PAC Senate Leadership Fund “will be there if [Lee] needs us,” said a spokesperson. But in a sign of how awkward the race is for Utah Republicans, who are split between the politics of Romney and Trump, a spokesperson for Gov. Spencer Cox (R-Utah) said he was “unavailable” for an interview.

“There’s never been a race like this,” said Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah), who supports Lee.

Update Today: Google Fiber in Mesa (and five other cities)

Relax. Take it easy. All good things in time...Please make sure to read the 50+ comments included with this report by

Google Fiber was stalled for years but now says it’ll expand to 5 new states

ISP's history suggests you can expect only limited availability in each area.

Jon Brodkin - 8/10/2022, 10:51 AM

Google Fiber says it plans to expand its fiber-to-the-home Internet service to several new states for the first time since it announced a pause in construction in October 2016. The plans are pending local approvals. The Alphabet division said in a press release today that it is "talking to city leaders" in five states "with the objective of bringing Google Fiber's fiber-to-the-home service to their communities."

The new states are Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, and Idaho. Three of those were just announced, while projects in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Mesa, Arizona, were announced in recent months.

"These states will be the main focus for our growth for the next several years, along with continued expansion in our current metro areas," Google Fiber CEO Dinni Jain wrote. "In addition, we'd also love to talk to communities that want to build their own fiber networks. We've seen this model work effectively in Huntsville and in West Des Moines, and we'll continue to look for ways to support similar efforts."

Jain urged people to "stay tuned in the coming months as we fill in this picture with more details about our new cities, even faster speeds and redefined customer service." Other than his quote about "the next several years," Jain didn't offer a specific timeline for when residents can expect homes to be wired up. However, he wrote that Google Fiber has been busy in other cities lately.

"We've been steadily building out our network in all of our cities and surrounding regions, from North Carolina to Utah," Jain wrote in today's announcement. "We're connecting customers in West Des Moines—making Iowa our first new state in five years—and will soon start construction in neighboring Des Moines."

5+ years after the “pause”

Google Fiber launched with big plans to change the US consumer broadband industry in 2012. It faced problems getting timely access to utility poles, and cities that gave quicker pole access to Google Fiber were sued by AT&T, Charter, and Comcast. AT&T and Comcast won one of those lawsuits against Nashville.

Google Fiber also had problems of its own making. Buildouts were limited, and many residents complained the network never reached their homes. In Kansas City, the site of the first Google Fiber buildout, some residents got cancellation emails several years after ordering service.

Google Fiber had some positive effects on competition as incumbent ISPs matched the upstart's gigabit speeds and prices, but the effect was limited by Google Fiber's actual network size. For example, in 2015, AT&T matched the $70 gigabit price in Google Fiber cities but charged $40 more per month in places where it faced no meaningful competition. Even that $70 price required opting into a controversial AT&T system that analyzed users' Internet habits to deliver personalized ads.

Jain, who was COO of Time Warner Cable before that company was bought by Charter in 2016, told Reuters that Google Fiber's impact on broadband competition made executives at Time Warner Cable "so paranoid."

But the momentum reversed, and in October 2016, Google Fiber cut its staff by 9 percent and announced it would "pause" or end fiber operations in 10 cities where it hadn't yet fully committed to building. In Louisville, Kentucky, Google Fiber shut off its service in 2019 and agreed to pay the local government $3.84 million to remove exposed fiber cables left behind by the ISP's failed nano-trenching experiment.

Google Fiber bought the wireless ISP Webpass in 2016 to provide broadband in some areas where it didn't install fiber. As of now, its website lists fiber service in 12 metro areas and wireless home Internet in seven. As previously noted in this story, Google Fiber's announcement said the plan for the five new metro areas is to use fiber-to-the-home, not wireless.

No plan to “build the entire country”

According to Reuters, Jain said "that his team was finally prepared to 'add a little bit more build velocity' after over four years of sharpening operations." The choices of five new metro areas "were based on the company's findings of where speeds lag," the article said.

Google Fiber's previous results suggest the buildouts are likely to cover only portions of the new metro areas, and Jain stressed that he isn't looking to rival the biggest ISPs in nationwide presence. "There was an impression 10 years ago that Google Fiber was trying to build the entire country," Jain told Reuters. "What we are gesturing here is, 'No, we are not trying to build the entire country.'"

Alphabet is slowing its hiring pace, so Google Fiber will have to be judicious in how it spends money. In addition to fiber-to-the-home buildouts, it "will continue to pursue wireless service, through its Webpass brand, for multi-unit buildings" and "lease local fiber networks from other providers" in some cases, Reuters wrote.

"The intent is to build businesses that will be successful in and of their own right, and that is what we are trying to do at Google Fiber for sure," Jain said, adding that the Alphabet subsidiary can't simply rely on "a rich parent's wallet."

MesaZona > Table of Contents : Here's The Menu. Enjoy

Thursday, August 11, 2022

A RE-POST: Profile in Courage

GOLDEN AGE FOR SPACE EXPLORATION & DISCOVERY ...and DARPA too of course!

DARPA selects companies for inter-satellite laser communications project

Saving Federal Money Using Re-Usable Booster Rockets

SCARCE SUBSIDIES FOR STARLINK TERRESTIAL INTERNET RURAL BROADBAND

A RE-POST (Asking Again): Why Won’t Tech Giants Stop the Spread of Online Conspiracies? | Amanpour...

Wednesday, August 10, 2022

UTAH: The Strangest Senate Race in America (Battle of The Brethren)...Don't expect Mitt Romney

Welcome to the strangest Senate race in America

Update Today: Google Fiber in Mesa (and five other cities)

Google Fiber was stalled for years but now says it’ll expand to 5 new states

ISP's history suggests you can expect only limited availability in each area.

5+ years after the “pause”

No plan to “build the entire country”

Brilliant Maps · Only 3 Countries Have Economies Bigger Than California’s In 2024

Thursday, August 11, 2022

DARPA selects companies for inter-satellite laser communications project

Wednesday, August 10, 2022

Welcome to the strangest Senate race in America

5+ years after the “pause”

No plan to “build the entire country”

reader comments