First US spacecraft to land on moon since Apollo due to lift off on Monday

Published

4 months ago

January 7, 2024

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A new era of commercial missions to the moon is due to lift off on Monday as NASA gambles on a ride on an untested private lunar lander – alongside human remains and a marketing stunt by a sports drink manufacturer.

Peregrine Mission-1 will be the first US spacecraft with the aim of landing on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.

But the robotic lander, which is the size of a garden shed, will be under the control of the American company Astrobotic.

NASA has paid the start-up just $108m (£85m) for five scientific instruments to be carried to the moon, a fraction of the cost of launching its own mission.

Chris Culbert, who heads NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme, said the first flight will kickstart more frequent and cost-effective private trips to the moon’s surface.

“Landing on the moon is extremely difficult and success cannot be assured,” he said. “But these companies are technically rigorous and very business savvy. They are resourceful and driven.”

John Thornton, the head of Astrobotic, thanked NASA for “rolling the dice for commercial”.

The mission is on a tight budget.

To cut costs Peregrine will blast off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on the first test flight of the Vulcan Centaur rocket, built by United Launch Alliance.

Instrument designed in UK will study moon’s atmosphere

The launch window opens at 7.18am on Monday morning, UK time, with a good weather forecast. A landing is scheduled for 23 February.

One of the NASA science instruments on board has been designed at the UK’s Open University. It will be used to study the moon’s incredibly thin atmosphere and the movement of water molecules.

Dr Simeon Barber, who led the design team, said it was very different working on a private mission, compared to previous endeavours with space agencies in charge.

“We have had to develop an instrument in a little over a year during a pandemic,” he told Sky News. “That would not have happened under the old way of doing space instrument development.

“But that does allow you to take a bit more risk and make bigger steps forward.”

Controversy over human remains

The Peregrine mission has attracted controversy because of some of its commercial payloads.

The Navajo Nation of Native Americans has written to NASA demanding the launch should be delayed because there will be capsules on board containing human remains.

The nation’s president, Buu Nygren, said sending cremated remains to the moon “is tantamount to the desecration of this sacred space”.

Joel Kearns, who heads NASA’s exploration science strategy, said the space agency had no control over commercial payloads on board.

But he added: “We take the concerns of the Navajo Nation very seriously and we will be continuing this conversation.”

Mr Thornton, the head of Astrobotic, said he was disappointed the objection had only been made recently, despite the intention of carrying human remains being announced in 2015.

“We have tried to do the right thing at every turn,” he said. “I would have liked to have had this conversation a long time ago. We hope we can find a good way forward.”

Mission will take mementoes to the moon

Eyebrows have also been raised over other commercial payloads.

The delivery company DHL is launching its MoonBox programme, taking mementoes such as photos, novels and even a sample of Mount Everest to the lunar surface.

A can of the energy drink Pocari Sweat will also be on board, containing messages from 80,000 children and a powdered formulation of the product that future astronauts will be able to mix with lunar water.

Astrobotic has shrugged off criticism of the mission’s commercial cargo.

“To be leading America back to the surface of the moon is a momentous honour,” said Mr Thornton. “We have been dreaming of this for 16 years.”

US

Adam Boulton: ‘Like those old guys on The Muppets’ – bad sign for democracy as Trump and Biden call shots on how they will debate

Published

35 mins ago

May 19, 2024

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Adam Boulton: 'Like those old guys on The Muppets' - bad sign for democracy as Trump and Biden call shots on how they will debate

That was easy. Donald Trump and Joe Biden duelled briefly over the airwaves about debating.

“Any time, any place, anywhere,” the Republican candidate had challenged. “Make my day, pal” the president retorted movie-style.

In just a matter of hours the two men agreed to Joe Biden‘s proposal for two televised presidential debates before the election on 5 November – at CNN HQ in Atlanta on 27 June and on ABC forum on 10 September.

There will be more role-playing between now and the agreed showdowns. Biden has already rejected Trump’s counter-offer of two further debates including one on Fox News.

But once again the US does seem on course to hold debates between the frontrunners for the White House, as it has in most of the presidential cycles since JFK took on Richard Nixon in 1960. The UK has only managed to hold proper equivalent prime ministerial leaders debates in 2010.

The two candidates will confront each other in different circumstances than previously. They will meet earlier in the cycle of the election year and without the usual rules.

Both sides have agreed to cold shoulder the widely respected Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), which had proposed three debates before mass audiences closer to polling day.

The Republicans and the Democrats have decided that the CPD model is outdated because of the changing nature of campaigning and voting, the evolving demands of the media and above all because of the unique nature of this campaign in which the two main candidates have become clear so early in the year and in which they are the oldest in America’s political history.

“It’ll be entertaining, informative. Like those two old guys on The Muppets,” former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney quipped to Huffpost.

The traditional CPD debates are one of the many norms of US politics which have been subverted by Donald Trump.

According to opinion polls held afterwards as to “who won the debate?”, he is a poor debater.

He “lost” all three of his encounters with Hillary Clinton in 2016 and both of his debates against Biden in 2020.

Biden also “won” both his vice presidential debates against Sarah Palin in 2008 and Paul Ryan in 2012.

Yet what is remembered is Trump’s behaviour. He roamed about the stage and loomed threatening behind Hillary Clinton.

He invited her husband’s alleged ex-girlfriends to sit in the front row of the audience.

He called Biden “demented” before their first debate and abused him to his face, saying: “There’s nothing smart about you Joe.”

Trump refused to abide by the rules and talked over the moderator and Biden.

A senior White House correspondent summed up their first presidential debate as “a hot mess, inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck”.

Trump refused to take the required COVID test to take part and then developed it, resulting in the cancellation of their next scheduled debate.

At their final debate, a technician was employed to switch off the participants’ microphones except during their allotted speaking time.

It is usually the underdog who issues the challenge to debate. Biden has been trailing narrowly in key opinion polls and needs the debates to demonstrate that he is still up to the job at the age of 81.

Many observers think that the president is actually showing fewer signs of cognitive impairment than Trump, who is only four years younger and whose rally speeches are becoming increasingly incoherent rants.

When the two men debate this summer, Biden may well “beat” Trump again. But Trump’s antics could well dominate – and they certainly impress some voters.

The problems with the debates four years ago explain why neither side wants to put the commission in charge this time.

The Republicans have accused the CPD of bias and the Democrats blame it for not keeping order.

Significantly the first debate this year, on CNN, will be in a studio without a live audience for the first time in the US presidential history.

Both sides also wanted to have their encounters earlier in the summer because there is an increasing trend to vote earlier, with some states opening their polls as early as September.

The agreed debates will be head-to-heads between Biden and Trump, which suits them both because Robert F Kennedy Jnr is working flat out to get on enough state ballots to qualify for a CPD debate.

Polling suggests he would take votes from each of them and could have a decisive impact on who wins.

President Biden gift wrapped his debate invitation with the cheeky tag “I hear you are free on Wednesdays” because the criminal court where Trump is currently on trial does not sit on Wednesdays.

The dates they’ve agreed are actually a Tuesday and a Thursday but the dig still stands.

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The first Biden-Trump debate in 2020 drew 71 million viewers in the US making it the third most-watched presidential debate behind only Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Ronald Reagan versus Jimmy Carter in 1980.

But average audiences for the debates are diminishing.

Nate Silver, a leading political statistician, points out they are one of the few fixed points in a campaign which can have some direct impact today when “almost nothing moves the polls these days because the candidates are so well known and everybody is so partisan”.

America’s news networks have found out that Trump drives up ratings, even when the station’s editorial policy opposes him.

CNN gave his rallies saturation coverage in 2016 and apologised more recently when Trump was allowed to monopolise a “town hall” on the channel.

Now the networks and their guest debaters have parted company with the protections provided by the CPD and its heavily regulated debates before live audiences on university campuses.

They will be under pressure to show they can provide fair and informative programmes for their viewers and not just entertainment.

The precedents for success are not good from the UK, where broadcasters abandoned working together following a rigid formula after 2010.

By competing against each other they effectively gave the whip hand to the politicians, who were free to withdraw or bestow their favours.

Since then the subsequent debate-style election programmes have not made a significant informative or influential impact on the campaigns. The viewers, a.k.a the electorate, have lost out.

This year the two people vying to be the leader of the free world are calling the shots on how they will debate.

It is hardly encouraging for democracy that a senior senator like Mitt Romney’s first comparison is with The Muppet Show.

US

Dabney Coleman, actor who starred in Boardwalk Empire and 9 to 5, dies

Published

35 mins ago

May 19, 2024

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Dabney Coleman, actor who starred in Boardwalk Empire and 9 to 5, dies

Lily Tomlin, Morgan Fairchild and Ben Stiller have led tributes to “one-of-a-kind” actor Dabney Coleman following his death aged 92.

Coleman made his career playing comedic villains, mean-spirited bosses and villains in films including 9 to 5 and Tootsie, as well as playing Commodore Louis Kaestner in Boardwalk Empire.

Lily Tomlin, who starred alongside him in 9 To 5 with Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton, said: “We just loved him.”

In her post to X, the actress shared a photo of her character Violet Newstead dressed in a Snow White costume beside a tense-looking Coleman as her egotistical boss Franklin Hart Jr.

Morgan Fairchild, who starred in Falcon Crest and Friends, described Coleman as a “great one”.

“So very sorry to hear of the death of the wonderful #DabneyColeman”, she wrote on X alongside a black and white photo of them together.

“We went out for a bit in the ’80s and I adored him. This town has lost one of a kind!”

Coleman “took his last earthly breath peacefully and exquisitely” in his Santa Monica home on Thursday, his daughter said in a statement on Friday on behalf of the family.

“My father crafted his time here on Earth with a curious mind, a generous heart and a soul on fire with passion, desire and humour that tickled the funny bone of humanity”, she said.

“As he lived, he moved through this final act of his life with elegance, excellence and mastery.”

Ben Stiller, Zoolander and Meet The Parents actor, praised Coleman for paving the way for character actors.

“The great Dabney Coleman literally created, or defined, really – in a uniquely singular way – an archetype as a character actor.

“He was so good at what he did it’s hard to imagine movies and television of the last 40 years without him.”

Coleman starred in a number of films and TV series in the 1960s, then made his breakthrough as a corrupt mayor in the satirical soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, in 1976.

His film credits include a computer scientist in WarGames, Tom Hanks’ father in You’ve Got Mail and a chief firefighter in The Towering Inferno.

He won a best actor Golden Globe for The Slap Maxwell Story and an Emmy for best supporting actor in Peter Levin’s 1987 legal drama Sworn To Silence.

Coleman also won two Screen Actors Guild Awards as part of the cast of crime drama Boardwalk Empire and received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for his starring role in the NBC sitcom Buffalo Bill.

US

P Diddy: ‘Gut-wrenching’ video appears to show Sean Combs assaulting singer Cassie in 2016

Published

1 day ago

May 18, 2024

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P Diddy: 'Gut-wrenching' video appears to show Sean Combs assaulting singer Cassie in 2016

“Gut-wrenching” CCTV footage which appears to show Sean Combs attacking singer Cassie in a Los Angeles hotel “has only further confirmed the disturbing and predatory behaviour” of the rapper, her lawyer has said.

The 54-year-old, whose homes in Los Angeles and Miami were raided by Homeland Security Investigations agents in March, has faced a series of public allegations of physical and sexual violence.

Footage obtained by CNN appears to show Combs – also known as P Diddy and Puff Daddy – wearing only a white towel as he punches and kicks Cassie in a Los Angeles hotel hallway on 5 March 2016.

The R&B singer, whose legal name is Cassandra Ventura, was his protege and girlfriend at the time.

The footage also shows Combs shoving and dragging her across the floor, as well as throwing a vase in her direction.

It closely resembles the description of an incident at the now-closed InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles described in a lawsuit filed by Cassie in November that alleged years of sexual abuse and other violence from Combs.

The case was settled the day after it was filed.

Several more lawsuits were filed in the following months, along with a federal criminal sex-trafficking investigation that led authorities to raid Combs’ mansions in Los Angeles and Miami.

Representatives for Combs did not immediately comment on the video. He has previously denied the allegations in the lawsuits and his lawyers have said he denies any wrongdoing.

Cassie’s lawyer said: “The gut-wrenching video has only further confirmed the disturbing and predatory behaviour of Mr Combs.

“Words cannot express the courage and fortitude that Ms Ventura has shown in coming forward to bring this to light.”

According to NBC News, Sky News’ US partner, if Cassie were to make a complaint the LAPD could investigate, but charges would likely be declined by the district attorney because California law has a one-year statute of limitations for assault and the alleged incident happened nearly eight years ago.

CNN did not say how it obtained the video, but noted it verified the location it was shot by comparing the footage to publicly available images of the InterContinental Hotel.