Month: August 2024

Image: NASA

SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission will launch to the International Space Station with only NASA’s Nick Hague and Roscosmos’ Aleksandr Gorbunov on board, according to an update on Friday. Crew-9 will launch “no earlier” than September 24th, with plans to bring delayed Starliner astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams back to Earth next February.
Wilmore and Williams arrived at the ISS in June and were only supposed to stay for about a week while conducting tests. However, helium leaks and valve issues on Boeing’s Starliner delayed their return, and NASA gave up on sending them back on the spacecraft altogether. The agency decided to bring Wilmore and Williams home on SpaceX’s Dragon capsule with the Crew-9 mission instead.
NASA says the other two US astronauts initially chosen for the mission, Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson, will be eligible for reassignment. The agency doesn’t specify why it split the crew up. Despite serving as a ride for Starliner’s astronauts, the two Crew-9 members will carry out their original goal of performing research at the ISS during their stay.

Image: NASA
Now only Nick Hague (middle right) and Aleksandr Gorbunov (middle left) will be on Crew 9.

“While we’ve changed crew before for a variety of reasons, downsizing crew for this flight was another tough decision to adjust to given that the crew has trained as a crew of four,” NASA chief astronaut Joe Acaba said in a statement. “I have the utmost confidence in all our crew, who have been excellent throughout training for the mission.”
Meanwhile, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft will autonomously undock from the ISS on September 6th at 6:04PM. It won’t have anyone onboard, but teams on the ground will be ready to “remotely command the spacecraft” if needed. The spacecraft is set to land in New Mexico’s White Sands Space Harbor around six hours later.

Image: NASA

SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission will launch to the International Space Station with only NASA’s Nick Hague and Roscosmos’ Aleksandr Gorbunov on board, according to an update on Friday. Crew-9 will launch “no earlier” than September 24th, with plans to bring delayed Starliner astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams back to Earth next February.

Wilmore and Williams arrived at the ISS in June and were only supposed to stay for about a week while conducting tests. However, helium leaks and valve issues on Boeing’s Starliner delayed their return, and NASA gave up on sending them back on the spacecraft altogether. The agency decided to bring Wilmore and Williams home on SpaceX’s Dragon capsule with the Crew-9 mission instead.

NASA says the other two US astronauts initially chosen for the mission, Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson, will be eligible for reassignment. The agency doesn’t specify why it split the crew up. Despite serving as a ride for Starliner’s astronauts, the two Crew-9 members will carry out their original goal of performing research at the ISS during their stay.

Image: NASA
Now only Nick Hague (middle right) and Aleksandr Gorbunov (middle left) will be on Crew 9.

“While we’ve changed crew before for a variety of reasons, downsizing crew for this flight was another tough decision to adjust to given that the crew has trained as a crew of four,” NASA chief astronaut Joe Acaba said in a statement. “I have the utmost confidence in all our crew, who have been excellent throughout training for the mission.”

Meanwhile, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft will autonomously undock from the ISS on September 6th at 6:04PM. It won’t have anyone onboard, but teams on the ground will be ready to “remotely command the spacecraft” if needed. The spacecraft is set to land in New Mexico’s White Sands Space Harbor around six hours later.

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Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Grzegorz Wajda, Getty Images

A lawsuit aimed at punishing critics of Elon Musk’s X will go forward, thanks to a ruling from a judge with a financial interest in Musk’s success.
On Thursday, Judge Reed O’Connor denied a motion to dismiss X’s lawsuit against Media Matters For America. The suit was filed in Texas last year and alleges that MMFA should be held legally liable for negative reporting that caused companies to pull ads from X. O’Connor dismissed objections that it was filed in a state where neither X nor MMFA is headquartered, saying the fact that MMFA “targeted” two X Texas-based advertisers — Oracle and AT&T — by mentioning them in articles and interviews is sufficient. (X is based in California, though its current San Francisco office will soon close and Musk has discussed moving to Texas.)
O’Connor also determined that X’s claims had enough merit to proceed in court. Which is, to put it gently, concerning.
X wants to make being too negative about a company illegal, and a judge apparently sees nothing wrong with that
Unlike your standard libel lawsuit, X doesn’t say MMFA made a factually incorrect claim; it outright admits that X served ads against racist or otherwise offensive content. Instead, it argues that this situation is rare and the authors “deliberately misused the X platform to induce the algorithm to pair racist content with popular advertisers’ brands.” What constitutes misuse of a platform? Using accounts that had been active for more than a month, following the accounts of racists and major brands, and “endlessly scrolling and refreshing” to get new ads. In other words, X isn’t suing MMFA for lying — it’s suing them for seeking out bad things about a business and not reporting those things in a sufficiently positive light.
This is a painfully tortured argument aimed at establishing that private citizens pushing private businesses to avoid buying ads on a website is illegal censorship. Contra numerous promises that Musk is a “free speech absolutist,” it’s leaning on the legal system to shut down criticism instead of simply answering it with more facts. The ruling doesn’t technically agree with X’s claims; it says MMFA presents a “compelling alternative version” of events by pointing out it’s not lying. But O’Connor says it’s not his job to “choose among competing inferences,” so both versions can get argued at a later stage. MMFA declined to comment on the ruling.
Drawing a weak case out is an unmitigated win for X and Musk, who have effectively infinite legal resources. It’s a win for the Musk-favored strategy of forum shopping. It’s a loss for MMFA, which laid off staffers in the wake of this suit and two equally specious investigations by Republican state attorneys general sympathetic to Musk, both of which have been blocked by other judges.
It’s also coming a few weeks after NPR reported that O’Connor holds between $15,001 and $50,000 worth of stock in Tesla, one of Musk’s other companies. The judge recused himself from a lawsuit Musk filed against advertisers who stopped placing ads on X, but apparently because he owned stock in one of those advertisers. O’Connor (who benefits when Musk’s famously intertwined network of companies prospers) flatly dismissed the argument that Musk (who owns X) or Tesla (which according to a separate lawsuit sent “volunteers” to moonlight at X) has any meaningful legal connection to X.
It’s a striking contrast with the outcome of yet another lawsuit that X filed against its critics. In California, Judge Charles Breyer dismissed a complaint against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, where X used different but equally tortured legal reasoning to attack claims that it wasn’t addressing hateful conduct. “Although X Corp accuses CCDH of trying ‘to censor viewpoints’ … it is X Corp that demands ‘at least tens of millions of dollars’ in damages — presumably enough to torpedo the operations of a small nonprofit — because of the views expressed in the nonprofit’s publications,” it reads, in an observation that could apply equally to MMFA. Elsewhere, the judge is even blunter: “this case is about punishing the defendants for their speech.”

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Grzegorz Wajda, Getty Images

A lawsuit aimed at punishing critics of Elon Musk’s X will go forward, thanks to a ruling from a judge with a financial interest in Musk’s success.

On Thursday, Judge Reed O’Connor denied a motion to dismiss X’s lawsuit against Media Matters For America. The suit was filed in Texas last year and alleges that MMFA should be held legally liable for negative reporting that caused companies to pull ads from X. O’Connor dismissed objections that it was filed in a state where neither X nor MMFA is headquartered, saying the fact that MMFA “targeted” two X Texas-based advertisers — Oracle and AT&T — by mentioning them in articles and interviews is sufficient. (X is based in California, though its current San Francisco office will soon close and Musk has discussed moving to Texas.)

O’Connor also determined that X’s claims had enough merit to proceed in court. Which is, to put it gently, concerning.

Unlike your standard libel lawsuit, X doesn’t say MMFA made a factually incorrect claim; it outright admits that X served ads against racist or otherwise offensive content. Instead, it argues that this situation is rare and the authors “deliberately misused the X platform to induce the algorithm to pair racist content with popular advertisers’ brands.” What constitutes misuse of a platform? Using accounts that had been active for more than a month, following the accounts of racists and major brands, and “endlessly scrolling and refreshing” to get new ads. In other words, X isn’t suing MMFA for lying — it’s suing them for seeking out bad things about a business and not reporting those things in a sufficiently positive light.

This is a painfully tortured argument aimed at establishing that private citizens pushing private businesses to avoid buying ads on a website is illegal censorship. Contra numerous promises that Musk is a “free speech absolutist,” it’s leaning on the legal system to shut down criticism instead of simply answering it with more facts. The ruling doesn’t technically agree with X’s claims; it says MMFA presents a “compelling alternative version” of events by pointing out it’s not lying. But O’Connor says it’s not his job to “choose among competing inferences,” so both versions can get argued at a later stage. MMFA declined to comment on the ruling.

Drawing a weak case out is an unmitigated win for X and Musk, who have effectively infinite legal resources. It’s a win for the Musk-favored strategy of forum shopping. It’s a loss for MMFA, which laid off staffers in the wake of this suit and two equally specious investigations by Republican state attorneys general sympathetic to Musk, both of which have been blocked by other judges.

It’s also coming a few weeks after NPR reported that O’Connor holds between $15,001 and $50,000 worth of stock in Tesla, one of Musk’s other companies. The judge recused himself from a lawsuit Musk filed against advertisers who stopped placing ads on X, but apparently because he owned stock in one of those advertisers. O’Connor (who benefits when Musk’s famously intertwined network of companies prospers) flatly dismissed the argument that Musk (who owns X) or Tesla (which according to a separate lawsuit sent “volunteers” to moonlight at X) has any meaningful legal connection to X.

It’s a striking contrast with the outcome of yet another lawsuit that X filed against its critics. In California, Judge Charles Breyer dismissed a complaint against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, where X used different but equally tortured legal reasoning to attack claims that it wasn’t addressing hateful conduct. “Although X Corp accuses CCDH of trying ‘to censor viewpoints’ … it is X Corp that demands ‘at least tens of millions of dollars’ in damages — presumably enough to torpedo the operations of a small nonprofit — because of the views expressed in the nonprofit’s publications,” it reads, in an observation that could apply equally to MMFA. Elsewhere, the judge is even blunter: “this case is about punishing the defendants for their speech.”

Read More