90 Miles From Tyranny

Sunday, December 26, 2021

NASA Launches Massive, $10 Billion Telescope Into Space. It’s 100 Times More Powerful Than Hubble

NASA launched the pioneering James Webb Space Telescope into space Saturday from French Guiana, according to Business Insider.

The telescope, known as Webb, cost $10 billion and is 100 times more powerful and six times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope that launched in 1990, according to Business Insider.

Business Insider reported that Webb is the result of a partnership between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency.

An Ariane 5 rocket with Webb inside launched at 7:20 a.m. ET before it shed the outer shell, the body, and the engines, according to Business Insider.

Reuters reported that flight engineers celebrated as Webb then smoothly glided off into space.

Merry Christmas! We got you a new telescope.

The James Webb Space Telescope launched today, beginning a one-million-mile journey to see 13.5 billion years into the past. Follow @NASAWebb and join the quest to #UnfoldTheUniverse: https://t.co/TlYpoUHdJu pic.twitter.com/ilwWPuIJun

— NASA (@NASA) December 25, 2021

The launch is one of multiple for NASA in 2021. The agency, in partnership with SpaceX, planned and launched a rocket in November designed to collide with a threatening asteroid.

Business Insider reported that Webb will potentially further human knowledge of the universe and identify distant planets with alien life.

NASA associate administrator Thomas Zurbuchen said that people have “never seen the universe as Webb will show it to us,” according to Business Insider.

Over the next six months, the telescope will unfold, align mirrors, calibrate instruments, reach a temperature of minus 380 degrees Fahrenheit, and reach a distance of...

New Jersey is set to pay approximately $53 million in settling claims its negligence contributed to the deaths of over 100 veterans in state-run homes amid the coronavirus pandemic, attorneys announced Thursday.

NBC Philadelphia reported:

The settlement reached this week involved the families of 119 residents of veterans homes in Paramus and Menlo Park, according to attorney Paul da Costa. Da Costa’s firm represented 72 of the claimants, who will receive about $32 million in total. The families had filed notices of intent to sue but hadn’t yet formally filed lawsuits, da Costa said.

“This settlement of course does not replace their lost loved ones who served their countries honorably, but it certainly represents a good measure of civil justice,” da Costa said. “My clients do take satisfaction in the fact that there has been a resolution that they believe gives a voice to their lost loved ones.”

Over 200 residents in the homes died amid the pandemic, and Gov. Phil Murphy’s (D) administration was heavily criticized in April last year after instructing the homes not to turn away patients who tested positive for the illness.

The order was eventually rescinded, according the the NBC article.

In May 2020, New Jersey Democrats were silent regarding Murphy’s decision to place coronavirus patients in nursing homes, Breitbart News reported at the time.

“The rising problem of coronavirus deaths prompted New Jersey state Senate Republicans to call for an investigation into the coronavirus outbreak at New Jersey nursing homes,” the outlet said.

In September last year, approximately 100 people gathered outside Veterans Memorial Home at Menlo Park to demand an investigation into the virus deaths, NJ.com reported.

Video showed participants holding balloons and photos of their loved ones:

The Justice Department later issued a letter to Murphy asking about its nursing home death count, saying it was launching an investigation into the state’s veterans homes “after receiving what it described as incomplete answers to an earlier request for data,” the NBC report continued.

In the beginning of the pandemic, the state took measures to protect long-term care facilities such as veterans homes from liabilities for...