I’D MISSED THIS STORY LAST WEEK AMIDST ALL THE OTHER EXCITEMENT: Enhanced Dragon spacecraft to deorbit the ISS at the end of its life.

NASA and SpaceX officials provided new details about the United States Deorbit Vehicle (USDV) spacecraft NASA selected SpaceX to build June 26 under a contract worth up to $843 million. At the time of the announcement, neither the agency nor the company described the design of the spacecraft or its specific capabilities.

The USDV will be based on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft but with a redesigned, larger trunk section with more Draco thrusters. The spacecraft will have 46 Draco thrusters, 16 for attitude control and 30 to perform the maneuvers needed to lower the station’s orbit at the end of its life, said Sarah Walker, director of Dragon mission management at SpaceX.

The “enhanced” trunk section, she said, is twice as long as the regular one and will include engines, propellant tanks, power generation and other systems. It will store six times the propellant as the current Dragon spacecraft, while generating and storing three to four times the power. “It’s almost a spacecraft in and of itself,” she said.

NASA, which will own and operate the USDV after SpaceX builds it, will launch the vehicle to the ISS shortly after the arrival of the station’s final crew. Once the USDV arrives and is checked out, ISS controllers will allow the station’s orbit to naturally decay, with the final crew leaving once the station’s altitude, currently about 400 kilometers, reaches 330 kilometers.

The station’s orbit will decay further for about six months before NASA used the USDV for a final controlled deorbit of the station, targeting an open area of ocean in a narrow corridor about 2,000 kilometers long.

I just hope SpaceX loads it up with cameras like they do for Falcon and Starship launches.

INDEED: The Worldwide IT Outage Isn’t Funny, but the Memes Sure Are.

WOEING: More bad news for Boeing defense on the horizon.

Boeing’s defense business will take a fresh charge on the Air Force One program this quarter as the company works through major challenges while building the presidential jets, the division’s head said on Sunday.

Expect continued bleeding when Boeing reports its financial standing in its second-quarter earnings call next week as it goes “through some more challenges on the fixed-price development programs,” Ted Colbert, CEO of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, told reporters during a briefing in London ahead of the Farnborough Air Show.

Colbert said the second-quarter results will resemble those of last year’s third quarter—when the defense division took nearly $1 billion in losses. The second-quarter charges will be from a mix of Boeing’s big fixed-price development programs and “continued operational challenges,” he said.

Those third-quarter losses included $482 million from the much-delayed effort to produce two VC-25B presidential jets, which so far has cost the company more than $2 billion. Their delivery date has slipped from this year to at least 2027 and 2028.

Also: Boeing and NASA engineers have wrapped up ground tests on the Starliner thruster. “Engineers from Boeing and NASA have spent much of the last month running ground tests on a Starliner Reaction Control System (RCS) thruster to get a better idea of what went wrong during the active Starliner’s flight in early June, and they finally wrapped up this past week. In its latest update, Boeing said the teams were able to replicate the thrust degradation Starliner experienced and are now reviewing all the data. But the date of astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams’ return is still uncertain — NASA and Boeing said only that they’ll be making the trip ‘in the coming weeks.'”

Wilmore and Williams are on Day 46 of their planned weeklong stay on the ISS.

IT’S OFFICIAL: Nobody Wants to Run Against Trump. “Privately, Hochul, Newsom, et al., must be fuming. If Biden had dropped out last summer, as the semi-invalid should have, there could have been a real primary. Instead, the Cabal rigged the game for Biden, and now they’re stuck with Harris.”

MIKE LEE:

That’s a funny way to protect democracy.

SO MANY QUESTIONS, SO FEW ANSWERS: Where’s Joe? What’s Going On? Is Any of This Really Happening?

THE TRUTH HURTS:

Donald Trump was:

-Impeached
-Banned from all social media
-Threatened with ballot removal
-Indicted
-Arrested
-Convicted
-Shot

And Joe Biden is the one who dropped out.

— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) July 22, 2024

Related:

The Most Powerful Man in the World™ got ousted by an 84-year-old member of Congress because democracy.

— Stephen Green (@VodkaPundit) July 22, 2024

I’m so old, I remember when Joe Biden was going to restore our precious norms. Instead, he helped usher in a world where “Black Swan event” has lost all meaning.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Introducing President Whatevs. “It’s President Kamala Harris or bust for Democrats so let’s take a look at the Woman Who Would Be POTUS… if only she could be bothered.”

CHANGE: Tech broligarchs are lining up to court Trump. And Vance is one more link in the chain.

It’s some lesser-known figures in Silicon Valley who last week boarded the Trump bandwagon who are perhaps even more telling. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who own one of the most storied and influential venture capital (VC) firms in Silicon Valley, have declared they’re all in for Trump alongside a host of lesser-known but important names who have either followed suit or who beat them to the punch, including the Winklevoss twins and investors and podcast hosts Chamath Palihapitiya and David Sacks.

Back in 2016, Peter Thiel was the voice in the wilderness. And in that meeting in Trump Tower, it was Thiel’s hand that Trump picked up and stroked. (And whose data mining firm, Palantir, picked up billions of dollars in contracts from Trump’s Department of Defense, and, most controversially, Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, where it profiled and surveilled migrants.)

The principle that underpins Silicon Valley investing is to bet early and bet big. It worked for Thiel with Facebook. It worked for Thiel with Trump. And last week another of his bets paid off, though few could ever have predicted how spectacularly.

This is a scare-piece from The Guardian so it isn’t of much value aside from this excerpt. But the story is worth noting because as things are shaping up, the GOP might reach tech parity with the Democrats in a presidential race for the first time since 2004.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Once Again, Joe Biden Makes Everything Weird. “I am beyond trying to figure out how any of this will play out. I’ve seen everyone but the ghost of Teddy Kennedy on the list of her potential running mates. There is really no one on the Dem bench who feels like a game-changer.”

REMINDER: THIS IS THE MOMENT HARRIS’S 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN DIED.

I feel compelled to share this once again …

There’s a reason Obama hasn’t endorsed her. pic.twitter.com/oAyazcbzHt

— The🐰FOO (@PolitiBunny) July 21, 2024

SHE HAS THE ENDORSEMENT OF A WEAK AND UNLOVED PRESIDENT AND THAT’S ABOUT IT FOR THE MOMENT: What Now for Kamala Harris?

GOOD. SHE SHOULD HAVE RESIGNED A WEEK AGO: First congressional Democrat calls for Secret Service director to resign. “Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) called on Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle to ‘resign immediately’ Saturday, citing ‘unacceptable operational failures’ in the wake of the assassination attempt on former President Trump.”

ONE THE MSN-DNC COMPLEX DID THEIR BEST TO HIDE FOR YEARS: We Are Now in the Middle of a Constitutional Crisis.

WITH A NAME LIKE DIAMOND SHRUUMZ? Recalled Diamond Shruumz gummies contained illegal controlled substance, testing finds.

CHANGE? ‘Very aggressive’ homeless camp crackdown coming in August, mayor says.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled that enforcing rules against homeless people for sleeping outside doesn’t violate the Eighth Amendment’s “cruel and unusual punishment” clause.

On Thursday, Breed celebrated the ruling and said the city plans to change its protocols and may begin issuing criminal penalties against homeless people.

“Thank goodness for the change in the Supreme Court decision,” Breed said at an election debate hosted by a local firefighter’s union. “Effective August, we are going to be very aggressive and assertive in moving encampments, which may even include criminal penalties.”

Breed said last year that “compassion is killing people” so with the Supreme Court on her side, maybe something will finally change. But I’ll believe it when I see it.

QUICKLY, ONE HOPES: Boeing’s missteps have cost it billions. Here’s how it plans to get back to glory.

LINCOLN BROWN: The Hand of God and Trump Fate in November.

TANSTAAFL: Cost of Colorado’s free school meals program is ‘out of control.’

When Colorado voters approved “Healthy School Meals for All” two years ago, organizers behind the ballot initiative estimated the program would cost $115 million in its first year.

The actual costs significantly exceeded that — $166 million — leaving state lawmakers scrambling with the financial fallout.

“I don’t know why the costs have gotten so out of control,” said state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, R-Brighton, who serves on both the legislature’s appropriations and Joint Budget Committee.

It’s a government program. How is this so difficult for a Republican to understand?

VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH RAYMOND IBRAHIM: The Demographic Jihad in Vienna.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China’s military forces are rapidly building up space warfare capabilities.

IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I USED A WINDOWS MACHINE SO I DON’T KNOW IF HE’S OVERSELLING THE LOGISTICAL HURDLES, BUT THIS CERTAINLY DOESN’T LOOK GOOD:

I don't think you guys fully grasp how big this is.

Around a billion computers are bricked worldwide, mostly corporate ones.

This isn't just an online service going down for a few hours. Every affected computer needs to be rebooted in fail mode and have a driver manually… pic.twitter.com/khHe4edchB

— Ray (@raymo_g) July 19, 2024

More:

Every affected computer needs to be rebooted in fail mode and have a driver manually removed.

Most corporate computers given to employees don’t let users do this themselves. Even if they could, imagine every single double-digit IQ wagie trying to handle a moderately complex task when many don’t even know what a file is anymore.

I can’t stress enough the scale of this happening.

This should give you some indication of the scale:

12-hour timelapse of American Airlines, Delta, and United plane traffic after what was likely the biggest IT outage in history forced a nationwide ground stop of the three airlines. pic.twitter.com/wwcQeiEtVe

— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) July 19, 2024

Mac and Linux are fine alternatives and often have a lower TCO.

THE EV BUBBLE CONTINUES TO DEFLATE: Ford’s Latest Pivot Shows That the EV Craze Has Fizzled Out.

FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH…: I couldn’t help but notice that between the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, there’s only one story on the Democrat effort to oust Biden from the ticket. That one story is in WaPo and it’s below the virtual fold.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: RNC 2024 Wrap — Donald Trump the Elder Statesman Has Entered the Chat. “Trump’s sotto voce, conversational tone was perfect, and a counter to the angry maniac that the commies in the mainstream media like to portray him as. He was the adult in the room at a time when the Republic desperately needs that. His recounting of the assassination attempt provided yet another deeply emotional moment at this convention.”