THE NEW SPACE RACE: Sierra’s Dream Chaser is starting to resemble a nightmare.

Although the NASA news release does not detail the space agency’s concerns about allowing Dream Chaser to approach the station, sources have told Ars the space agency has yet to certify the spacecraft’s propulsion system. The spacecraft is powered by more than two dozen small rocket engines, each capable of operating at three discrete levels of thrust for fine control or more significant orbit adjustments. Certification is a necessary precursor for allowing a vehicle to approach the orbiting laboratory.

Sierra said it is now targeting a “late 2026” debut for Dream Chaser, but that date is far enough in the future that it is likely subject to Berger’s Law, and probably means no earlier than 2027. This all but precludes a cargo mission to the International Space Station, which is scheduled to be deorbited in 2030, and presently has two more-than-capable supply vehicles with SpaceX’s Dragon and Northrop’s new, larger Cygnus.

It is possible that Dream Chaser could serve a future market of commercial space stations in low-Earth orbit, but to do so, Sierra will have to get the vehicle flying reliably, frequently, and at a relatively low cost to compete with Dragon and Cygnus.

What a shame.

SCOOP: Georgia Deserves Better: Ossoff’s Shutdown Games and Veteran Exploitation.

PLANETARY DEFENSE: Scientists eye nuclear options as asteroid barrels toward moon.

Asteroid 2024 YR4 has a 4% chance of hitting the moon in December of 2032, according to The European Space Agency.

Such a collision could have devastating consequences for satellites and astronauts in space, prompting a group of scientists to develop plans to prevent it from happening.

The asteroid made global headlines last year when it was reported to have a 3% probability of hitting Earth, but further observations led NASA to conclude that the building-sized asteroid “poses no significant impact risk to Earth in 2032 and beyond.”

A new, yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper proposes options to prevent asteroid 2024 YR4 from colliding with the moon.

One option presented in the paper is a “kinetic disruption mission” to blow up the asteroid using “nuclear explosive devices.”

We could certainly use the data.

TO ASK THE QUESTION IS TO ANSWER IT: Why Is Austin Trying To Sneak Purchase AI Cameras Without Giving Citizens A Say? “Turns out you have to sign up to speak 21 days before the meeting. The meeting they didn’t announce in advance for the item that’s not listed.”

DAVID MANNEY: From the Gates of Auschwitz: Where Was God When the Smoke Rose?

ARE THEY TRYING TO HIDE SOMETHING? Justice Department sues 6 states for failing to turn over voter registration rolls.

The suits were filed against the top election officials in California, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania and allege the moves not to provide the voter registration rolls violate federal law.

“Clean voter rolls are the foundation of free and fair elections,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “Every state has a responsibility to ensure that voter registration records are accurate, accessible and secure — states that don’t fulfill that obligation will see this Department of Justice in court.”

The suits, filed in federal courts in each state, seek to force the elections officials to provide all voter information contained in their registration rolls, including names, birth dates, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers. The Justice Department claimed that failing to turn over the rolls prevents the attorney general from determining whether the states are following list maintenance requirements in a federal law known as the Help America Vote Act.

The “Are they trying to hide something?” was rhetorical.

THERE’S A FIX FOR THIS: Portland Dems Attempt to Sabotage ICE Deportations with ‘Land Use’ Agreements.

The office of Portland Democratic Mayor Keith Wilson said on Wednesday that he would be “launching a process to determine whether the site’s detention practices comply with the conditions of the site’s land use approval.”

Wilson’s office claimed there were “more than two dozen detention policy violations of the [South Waterfront] facility’s land use conditions of approval” over the course of 10 months.

Those purported violations involve not allowing detainees to be “kept overnight or held for more than 12 hours.”

The city’s permitting bureau investigated the facility and concluded that detainees were held past the limits at least 25 times between Oct. 1, 2024, and July 27, 2025.

“U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement made clear detention limitation commitments to our community, and we believe they broke those policies more than two dozen times,” Wilson said.

“I am proud of our team for conducting a thorough, thoughtful investigation and referring the matter to the next steps in the land use violation process.”

The Feds own about 53% of Oregon land. Maybe they can find room to build a “Black Bear Hotel” along the lines of Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz.

HEH:

Netanyahu: "We paged Hezbollah, and believe me, they got the message." pic.twitter.com/dvv9RiemV6

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) September 26, 2025

KEVIN DOWNEY JR: Jihad in Texas? Bullets Rain Down on Kids’ Baseball Tournament.

WELL, GOOD:

Following a meeting today between the Baltic States, Poland, and several other countries in Eastern Europe alongside the European Commissioner for Defence and Space, Andrius Kubilius, and Ukrainian advisors, it was decided that a project would be developed for the aerial defense… pic.twitter.com/9IK35ncFg2

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) September 26, 2025

Former beneficiaries of Moscow’s occupation tend to take things more seriously.

FEELIN’ GOOD: U.S. Economy Smashed Q2 Forecasts As Shoppers Went On A Spending Spree. “The second quarter (April, May, and June) saw a 3.8% increase in gross domestic product, according to the latest revision. Previously released estimates for growth initially came in at 3% and then at 3.3%.”

Just remember that when a Democrat is president, the revisions go downward, and they go upward when the White House is held by the GOP.

HEIGHTEN THE CONTRADICTIONS: Cracks form among Senate Democrats as Trump threatens big shutdown layoffs.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Trump 47 Is Firing on All Cylinders and the Dems Have No Answers. “Amid all the threats and chaos, Trump and his administration keep multi-tasking and doing the work. It helps that, unlike during his first term, he is surrounded by people in his administration who have all bought in to his vision. The first go-round was filled with a bunch of yahoos who had eyes on tell-all book deals.”

THAT’S BECAUSE HE COMMITTED PERJURY:

If you listen closely, you’ll notice no one is even attempting to argue James Comey didn’t commit perjury. https://t.co/olthDgKc6X

— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) September 26, 2025

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD: Sanders demands Nexstar return Jimmy Kimmel to its ABC affiliates.

Just so we’re clear here, now it’s OK for government officials to bully media companies about what they’re allowed to air?

ICYMI, IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: You Say You Want a Counterrevolution?

WHERE HAVE ALL THE CHILDREN GONE? Where are they now? Urban public schools see steep fall in enrollment.

One third of students in mostly black districts are not in traditional public schools, Barshay notes. Students in high-poverty districts also are more likely to “lost” to their neighborhood schools.

Some of the missing students enrolled in charter schools, which saw their share of enrollment rise from 5 percent to 6 percent. “Virtual” schools’ share rose form 0.7 percent to 1.2 percent. As vouchers expand, private schools may begin growing too, but there’s not much evidence of that yet.

“Roughly 6 percent of students in the United States, or somewhere between 3 and 4 million, choose homeschooling — and that number seems to be growing,” write homeschooling advocates Angela R. Watson and Matthew H. Lee in Education Next.

I suspect many homeschoolers and microschoolers are flying under the radar, and don’t show up in official statistics.

Let’s hope they stay under the radar, where “helpful” busybodies won’t notice them.

LOOKS PRETTY ORGANIZED TO ME: Antifa Issued Anti-ICE Threats Pre-Shooting.

HEH: Look What the Clever Bastards at Franklin Armory Did to the ATF.

Under US law, a short-barreled rifle is “a rifle having one or more barrels less than sixteen inches in length and any weapon made from a rifle (whether by alteration, modification, or otherwise) if such weapon, as modified, has an overall length of less than twenty-six inches”.

Ok, and what is a rifle? It is (emphasis added) “a weapon designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder and designed or redesigned and made or remade to use the energy of an explosive to fire only a single projectile through a rifled bore for each single pull of the trigger”.

Last Thursday, the mad scientists at Franklin Armory launched the Antithesis. It is, as far as we can tell, a bog-standard AR-15 that comes in 7.5-12.5” barrel configurations.

One day later, Franklin Armory pulled the Antithesis off their site under threat from the ATF. Here’s what happened.

Franklin Armory noticed the bold section in the definition of “rifle” above. They built an Antithesis that, like well-known combination guns such as the Taurus Judge, fires both .45 Long Colt ammo and .410 shot shells. They argued that because the shot shells contain multiple projectiles, the Antithesis is not a rifle. Therefore it can’t be a short-barreled rifle and isn’t subject to NFA regulation. After lengthy litigation, the ATF issued a letter this August agreeing with Franklin Armory’s contention that the Antithesis isn’t an SBR.

Two weeks and change after that letter, Franklin Armory announced the Antithesis in 5.56mm, for sale immediately.

Full story at the link.

CHANGE:

Historic. The New York Times finally challenges the “believe all women” mantra. A carefully reported story suggests that socialite Amy Griffin, an alleged sexual assault victim, is either a fabulist or a lunatic —or both. Wild story. Free link below.

— Christina Hoff Sommers (@CHSommers) September 25, 2025

And here’s that link.

JUST IN TIME FOR THE FALL FASCISM SEASON:

Ammo Company Unveils New Giant Shell Casing With More Room For Left-Wing Terrorists To Write Out All Their Motives In Detail https://t.co/UODVtUKKac pic.twitter.com/JglLygtDOj

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) September 25, 2025

THE ENEMY WITHIN: Dearborn mayor refuses to apologize for telling Christian minister he was ‘not welcome here.’ “We have a mayor in the United States who is sharing a platform with somebody, with [a] terrorist!?” Rife asked. “Where is your allegiance? Is your allegiance to the United States or is your allegiance to Hezbollah?”

UM…:

The Washington Post writes that the head of the Pentagon urgently convened hundreds of generals and admirals without naming the reason, which greatly alarmed the U.S. military leadership.

It is known that absolutely every general and flag officer is being withdrawn from the… pic.twitter.com/IFgje14jKu

— WarTranslated (@wartranslated) September 25, 2025

IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: You Say You Want a Counterrevolution? “We are the revolutionaries.”

THAT’S A MAN, BABY:

Read this. This is what Arlington Public Schools policy allows, and when parents object, the school board thinks they are the problem. https://t.co/5A7NwBQwq6

— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) September 25, 2025

Weaponizing predatory autogynephilia as a human right is maybe the most Democrat thing the Democrats have ever done.