May 30, 2025

THERE’S STILL SOME LIFE LEFT IN THE LEAD SLED: F-4 Phantoms Sought By Private Space Launch Company Starfighters International.

The Kennedy Space Center-based research, test, and now space launch company Starfighters International, which has been flying F-104 Starfighters privately for decades is now, is in the process of acquiring a dozen F-4 Phantoms. The deal would see the iconic third-generation Cold War fighters fly primarily in service of the firm’s space launch operations, which aim to provide rapid and flexible access to low Earth orbit (LEO) for small satellites, as well as suborbital offerings.

Starfighters International began as a company around three decades ago, and grew from doing air shows to becoming largely a research and development support firm with a very unique address. The company and its fleet of antique Mach 2-capable F-104 Starfighters, which includes seven airframes today, moved into Kennedy Space Center in 2007. There they would have access to arguably one of the most famous and largest runways on earth, the Shuttle Landing Facility. Now they are in the process of building a 150,000-square-foot facility in Midland, Texas, to support the firm’s more ambitious space launch aims.

And this is precisely where the F-4 Phantoms come into play.

While the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter is capable of zooming up into the stratosphere at high speed, they cannot carry heavier, outsized launch vehicles at the required performance that will allow larger payloads to be inserted into low Earth orbit. The F-4s — at least in concept — can.

More lift is always better.

Posted at 7:36 am by Stephen Green 3

I’D LIKE TO SEE AN IRS RULE ON TREATMENT OF EXCESSIVE UNRECOUPED ADVANCES:

Posted at 7:24 am by Glenn Reynolds 11

FOR STARTERS, THERE IS ONLY ONE:  What is Truth?

Posted at 1:38 am by Sarah Hoyt 11

May 29, 2025

OPEN THREAD: Because I love you and want you to be happy.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds 1612

DAVID HARSANYI: No, David French, we have no constitutional duty to subsidize Harvard.

Now, I’m not accusing David French of being blind to the struggles of Jewish students. I am accusing him of being blinded by the presence of Donald Trump. Are the president’s motivations political? Probably. So what? So are those of Harvard’s defenders.

Harvard, a private institution, can do as it likes. There’s nothing illegal about coddling extremists or pumping out credentialed pseudointellectuals. If the Trump administration failed to follow a bureaucratic process before freezing funds to the university, fine. Get it done. But what “constitutional principle” dictates that the federal government must provide this specific institution with $3 billion in federal contracts and grants? Giving it to them was a policy decision made by the executive branch. Withdrawing the funding is the same.

French reasons that the administration should, at very least, “target the entity and individuals responsible” for the bad behavior. Defund the Middle Eastern studies department, rather than, say, the pediatric cancer research department. I’m sympathetic to this idea. But funding, as we all understand, is fungible. Targeting one department will do nothing to change the culture.

Moreover, leadership is responsible for the culture. It allowed, nay, nurtured, a Middle East Studies department staffed by a slew of nutjobs. It’s not the only department. Think about it this way: There is a far higher likelihood of finding an apologist of Islamic terrorism than a Christian conservative on the Harvard faculty. Less than 3% of the Harvard faculty identify as conservative. There are real-world consequences for Harvard’s radicalism, as their grads are staffing newsrooms, influential law firms, and government agencies without ever hearing a dissenting view.

Why is French supporting Harvard when they haven’t hosted a Drag Queen Story Hour in over a year?

Posted at 9:14 pm by Ed Driscoll 94