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October 21, 2022
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The world's first 3D-printed rocket launched successfully on Wednesday, marking a step forward for the California company behind the innovative spacecraft, though it failed to reach orbit.
Billed as less costly to produce and fly, the unmanned Terran 1 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 11:25 pm (0325 GMT Thursday) but suffered an "anomaly" during second-stage separation as it streamed towards low Earth orbit, according to a livestream broadcast by aerospace startup Relativity Space.
The company did not immediately give further details.
While it failed to reach orbit, Wednesday's launch proved that the rocket -- whose mass is 85 percent 3D-printed -- could withstand the rigors of lift-off.
The successful launch came on the third attempt. It had originally been scheduled to launch on March 8 but was postponed at the last minute because of propellant temperature issues.
A second attempt on March 11 was scrubbed due to fuel pressure problems.
Had Terran 1 reached low Earth orbit, it would have been the first privately funded vehicle using methane fuel to do so on its first try, according to Relativity.
Terran 1 was not carrying a payload for its first flight, but the rocket will eventually be capable of putting up to 2,755 pounds (1,250 kilograms) into low Earth orbit.
The rocket is 110 feet (33.5 meters) tall with a diameter of 7.5 feet (2.2 meters).
Eighty-five percent of its mass is 3D-printed with metal alloys, including the nine Aeon 1 engines used in its first stage and the one Aeon Vacuum engine employed in the second.
It is the largest ever 3D-printed object and was made using the world's largest 3D metal printers, according to the Long Beach-based company.
Built in 60 days
Relativity's goal is to produce a rocket that is 95 percent 3D-printed.
Terran 1 is powered by engines using liquid oxygen and liquid natural gas -- the "propellants of the future," capable of eventually fueling a voyage to Mars, Relativity says.
SpaceX's Starship and Vulcan rockets being developed by United Launch Alliance use the same fuel.
Relativity is also building a larger rocket, the Terran R, capable of putting a payload of 44,000 pounds (20,000 kg) into low Earth orbit.
The first launch of a Terran R, which is designed to be fully reusable, is scheduled for next year.
A satellite operator can wait for years for a spot on an Arianespace or SpaceX rocket, and Relativity Space hopes to accelerate the timeline with its 3D-printed rockets.
Relativity said its 3D-printed versions use 100 times fewer parts than traditional rockets and can be built from raw materials in just 60 days.
Relativity has signed commercial launch contracts worth $1.65 billion, mostly for the Terran R, according to CEO Tim Ellis, who co-founded the company in 2015.
© Agence France-Presse
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'Shocking and immoral': Report details private equity's stranglehold on US healthcare
March 23, 2023
Private equity's ownership of U.S. healthcare providers is incompatible with the needs and best interests of patients and should be checked with federal legislation, according to a
report published Wednesday by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.
Critics of for-profit care have long decried private equity's focus on maximizing returns through practices including slashing staff, surprising patients with astronomical bills, and eschewing low-margin care upon which vulnerable populations rely. The new report—authored primarily by Public Citizen healthcare policy advocate Eagan Kemp—examines investment firms' impact on more than a dozen healthcare sectors, from reproductive health through end-of-life care.
"Private equity acquisitions in the healthcare sector have steadily climbed since the financial crisis in 2009, particularly in the past five years," a summary of the report notes. "Unlike acquisitions of hospitals, which typically occur under a public spotlight, the private equity industry's acquisitions of physician practices and other healthcare business lines often occur with little or no disclosure or public scrutiny, hindering the ability of regulators and watchdogs to monitor the effects of private equity ownership."
According to the report:
In general, the private equity industry's business model poses risks to the long-term sustainability of entities that the industry acquires. That is, in large part, because private equity purchases are typically financed with debt that is immediately transferred onto the books of the businesses acquired, thus leaving the acquired entities with debt burdens to manage. Meanwhile, private equity investors seek outsize returns on an accelerated timeline, generally aiming to exit investments in three to five years with returns of 20%-30% per year. This objective induces them to take short-sighted steps to supercharge profits or otherwise wring capital out of the assets they acquire.
The risks posed by private equity investments in healthcare are particularly acute. After all, the services healthcare providers offer can spell the difference between life and death. Private equity has targeted segments of the healthcare industry since at least the 1990s, with many predictable outcomes. Among them, shocking lapses in safety have occurred, prices have risen faster than at non-private equity acquired entities, and patients have been subjected to price gouging schemes.
The conflict between providers' obligations to provide the best care and private equity investors' insatiable appetites for maximized [returns] provides is clear. "You can't serve two masters," a doctor who previously worked for private equity-owned U.S. Dermatology Partners toldBloomberg. "You can't serve patients and investors."
"Thanks to a lack of transparency, we don't know everything about private equity's incursion into healthcare. But what we do know is shocking and immoral" said Kemp. "The damage that private equity has wrought on Americans' healthcare from cradle to grave, simply for profit, has become a life-or-death situation. Transparency and oversight are needed, stat."
The report suggests legislative solutions including Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-Mass.) Stop Wall Street Looting Act and Rep. Pramila Jayapal's Healthcare Ownership Transparency Act. The latter, according to Jayapal's office, "would require private equity firms and other financial interests to disclose ownership stakes in healthcare facilities including nursing homes."
A September 2022 Public Citizen report detailed how federal regulators had failed to implement a 2010 law requiring nursing homes to disclose their owners. Other investigations during the Covid-19 pandemic found that home healthcare, hospice, and nursing facilities and services owned by investment firms often provided a lower standard of care.
"We applaud Rep. Jayapal's ongoing effort to shine a light on the dangerous toll private equity vultures are taking on our health," Public Citizen president Robert Weissman said in a statement. "Adequate regulation of this predatory industry is acutely critical when it comes to the healthcare sector."
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'Bullhorn antisemitism': Critics shoot down Rudy Giuliani’s George Soros airport anecdote
March 23, 2023
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani traveled to Ukraine in 2019 and brought back a tale about liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros that he was recorded sharing in a podcast appearance that made its way to the internet on Wednesday night.
Recall that Giuliani's Ukraine visit – which included a stop-off in Budapest, Hungary – was to speak with prosecutors in Kyiv "for a documentary series meant to bolster unproven and debunked claims of corruption," CNN explained at the time. That refers to ex-President Donald Trump's failed efforts to blackmail Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into giving him dirt on then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, which led to his first impeachment.
Giuliani regaled his anecdote alongside Christina Bobb, one of Trump's defense attorneys whom Fulton, County District Attorney Fani Willis is looking to question about Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. Bobb is also involved in the ongoing classified-documents-at-Mar-a-Lago saga. United States Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith believes that Trump misled his attorneys about the materials that he had in his possession.
READ MORE: 'What about Bill Clinton?' Rudy Giuliani calls Manhattan DA a 'piece of I don't know what'
"When we made our trip to Ukraine, I almost got, almost got arrested, almost got killed, almost got caught by Soros," Giuliani said.
"So I haven't asked you enough questions about this trip," a background man bellowed.
"Soros tried to figure out how we were leaving to cut off. To cut off. We got a private plane, he was gonna cut it off. We, we were originally on a plane the next morning and we knew they were gonna cause trouble at the airport. They were gonna cause trouble with our visa, cause trouble with this, cause trouble with that. So we rented a private plane that night. But we didn't realize he controls the private airport and he found out that he rented a plane, but he couldn't get there on time. And literally, our plane is taking off – it's like right outta 'Casa Blanca' – and his car is actually, she saw him," he said.
"Yeah. The car. She told, she told me that. Yeah. The car pulls up as she's coming through the, through the, uh, path, uh, the, the pathway from the doorway. Yeah. And she says, I thought she was exaggerating. 'I think I got a picture of the car' and she said, 'sorry. I'm sorry. I was in the car,'" Giuliani continued.
READ MORE: 'What a buffoon': Rudy Giuliani ridiculed after proclaiming himself a 'moderate biblical scholar'
"Was it actually him?" Bobb exclaimed.
"Yeah. Oh, Pam was in the car. That's what you said," replied Giuliani.
Pam's surname was unspoken.
"Oh man. I didn't realize it was actually him. I knew that. But we had, we had some very, very substantial, but you, you took off before they could get you, right?" Bobb wondered.
"Yeah. We had some very substantial security," Giuliani affirmed.
"Wait, you left out the best part of the story. So you see the car pulling up, you guys are just pulling on the plane. You had a hurry up. Right? Tell that part of the story. You had to hurry up to take off. Because they're trying to..." Bobb requested.
"Yeah, they're trying, they're trying to stop us. They're trying to come out on the on, they're trying to come out on the jetway I think our pilot [inaudible]," Giuliani chuckled.
Multiple voices began chattering simultaneously, with one man yelling out, "Yeah, you gotta, that's the, that's the part we gotta know!"
Giuliani boasted that "it would have been an international incident" as the clip ends.
Whether or not this actually occurred is unknown. The Twitterverse were unconvinced.
Republicans against Trumpism: "Imagine believing it really happened."
SarahCA: "When my dad started showing signs of dementia, his adult children took measures to keep him from practicing law and embarrassing himself. Too bad Rudy has no one who cares except the MyPillow guy."
Kaylan_TX: "I want some of what he's on."
Qpublican f*ckery detected: "Of all the things that never happened, this never happened the most."
JUSTICENOW!: "I seem to remember this goes back a few years? So; a 90-year-old, fabulously wealthy guy drove a car onto the airport tarmac trying to block an airplane? Okay, Rudy."
sweetleaf says abolish the Electoral College: "So a 92-year-old multi-billionaire personally risked his life to perform a Hollywood-style stunt by blocking an airplane with his car?"
SleePercell: "Was Hillary in the passenger seat and Hunter in the back?"
D Villella: "Does anyone believe anything Rudy Colludy says?"
Free Ukraine: "That was George Santos."
Mr. Braves: "George Soros, the most powerful man according to the GOP, the Keyser Söze of the world, can stop Rudy 'tutty' from leaving the country when George Soros owns the pilots, planes, airports, air traffic controller personnel, etc. I don't believe you, Rudy."
Jules Just Jules: "Runway incursions are kind of a big deal and we would have heard about this."
Dave: "Are there people out there thinking 'I can totally see George Soros racing out on the runway in his car and playing chicken with Rudy’s plane'?"
Russell Drew: "I think Rudy Giuliani has been inhaling too many of his own farts. His mind has turned to absolute mush. Pretty incredible how Republicans have decided to vilify a highly successful, 90-year-old, Jewish survivor of the Holocaust. Bullhorn antisemitism right there."
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