Peter Van Wirt

Space Systems Engineer. Vice President and Partner, Teaching Science and Technology Inc.

[Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius]

https://t.co/jbAJOmByEJ

[Peter Van Wirt @vanwirtp]

@CynicalPublius They violate the oath that they took at each step of their promotion.

[Peter Van Wirt @vanwirtp]

@tslaming TRL valley of death. Lots of stuff looks good at 3 and never makes it to 6.

[Michael Mathes @MichaelMathes]

“England historically has struggled here in Massachusetts”
— #WorldCup announcer on Fox
👀

[Peter Van Wirt @vanwirtp]

There are four reasons why FSD is a better driver than I am.
#1. It can see in all directions continuously. I cannot.
#2 It never gets distracted. I can.
#3 It reacts to danger much faster than I can.
#4 It can see in low visibility situations much better than a human.

[Peter Van Wirt @vanwirtp]

@niccruzpatane @SpaceX Amazingly, we can now use the word "just" in describing 1700-2100 satellites. My, how our space world has changed.

[Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius]

The population of Lackland AFB is ~24,000.

160 is 0.6% of 24,000.

The current flu rate across the entire USA as of today is approximately the same (see below from Grok).

It's so easy to disprove these liars, they never even try to check their own facts because of their blind hatred of Trump and his team.

You think you hate journalists enough...

[Brivael Le Pogam @brivael]

Il y a un truc qui me fascine.

C'est qu'Elon soit aussi seul.

Des milliers de milliardaires sur cette planète. Des gens qui ont assez d'argent pour ne plus jamais rien craindre de personne. Et un seul ouvre sa gueule.

Il existe une expérience fascinante en éthologie : la boîte des rats de Didier Desor.

On met six rats dans une cage. Pour manger, il faut plonger dans un tunnel immergé et rapporter les croquettes. Très vite, une structure émerge toute seule : deux exploiteurs qui ne plongent jamais et volent la nourriture des autres, deux exploités qui plongent et se font racketter, un souffre-douleur qui ramasse les miettes.

Et un seul autonome. Le rat qui plonge lui-même, rapporte sa propre nourriture, la défend, et ne se soumet à personne.

Le plus troublant : peu importe la composition du groupe. Tu remets six exploiteurs ensemble, la même structure se reforme. Tu remets six autonomes ensemble, pareil. Comme s'il existait une loi naturelle qui fixe la proportion de courage disponible dans une population. Une loi de la paire de couilles, distribuée par la nature avec une avarice remarquable.

Dans la boîte des rats à milliardaires, Elon est le seul autonome.

Les autres ont les mêmes moyens que lui. Souvent les mêmes opinions que lui. C'est ça le plus fascinant : en privé, la grande majorité des milliardaires sont d'accord avec Elon. Sur la liberté d'expression, sur la dérive idéologique des médias, sur le wokisme, sur tout. Ils le disent à voix basse dans les dîners, ils l'écrivent dans des messages privés, ils hochent la tête.

Et puis ils retournent financer les ONG qui les protègent, sponsoriser les médias qui les épargnent, signer les tribunes qui les dédouanent. Ils plongent, rapportent les croquettes, et se laissent racketter par la meute. Avec des centaines de milliards sur le compte.

L'argent ne donne pas le courage. Il révèle juste combien tu en avais au départ.

Un seul rat a refusé le jeu. Il a dit "go fuck yourself" aux exploiteurs devant le monde entier, il a accepté de perdre des milliards, et trois ans plus tard il est le premier trillionnaire de l'histoire.

La nature est bien faite : c'est toujours le rat autonome qui finit par posséder la boîte.

[ThePersistence @ScottPresler]

Since I’m still trending, just wanted to take the opportunity to remind our Senate that part of the reason we have 53 Republican colleagues today & not 52 is because of Pennsylvania.

Senator Bob Casey Jr. was defeated by a mere 15,000 votes.

I would also like to remind our Senate that you would have an even greater majority today had you secured our elections years ago.

In 2024, we should have won AZ, MI, NV, & WI.

If you take into account the debacle of the 2020 election followed by Georgia Senate runoff elections, Republicans should have closer to 60 seats.

So, if you pass the SAVE America Act, you will be rewarded with votes & likely bigger majorities.

If you do not pass the SAVE America Act, then I can guarantee that Louisiana & Texas won’t be the last time that incumbent Senators were defeated

— peacefully & respectfully.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Murderous migrants beheading innocent people in their home town is what’s making people angry, not “social media”!

[Walker⚡️ @WalkerAmerica]

The State has one purpose: to enforce the Law. The purpose of the Law is to organize for the collective defense of private property (the most essential form of which is your body, your physical safety).

We give the State the monopoly on legal violence so they may use violence to protect us and our property from plunderers and invaders who seek to harm our bodies and steal our property.

When the State fails to enforce the Law, fails to use violence against plunderers and invaders, that is a Failed State.

When you live in a Failed State, where the State abdicates its duty to enforce the Law and defend its citizens, ordinary men are forced to enforce the Law themselves. Ordinary men are forced to use violence against violent plunderers.

Ordinary men do not want to use violence; they are not violent men. They are simply men who want to protect their families, their property, and their country from the real violent men who seek to destroy everything they love and hold dear.

The UK is a Failed State. It seems ordinary men in Belfast have finally had enough.

[Kurt Schlichter @KurtSchlichter]

OK, Platner’s got a few skeletons in his Porta-Potty, but for you non-military folks, just stop on the disability stuff. As veterans know, you’re not being accurate and there’s no need to be inaccurate when there’s so much to be accurate about.

100% disability does NOT mean you are 100% unable to perform physically. It means you have sufficient problems to get 100% of the disability maximum pension. Your problems add up to a total. If you have enough problems, you max out and get 100%.

There are a lot of people who get 100% of the disability maximum who can perform regular functions in society. They have jobs and lives. The govt is paying you for the physical deficits that you’ve suffered on military duty. Those include hearing, orthopedic problems, and even PTSD. Many of the disabilities are not visible.

I don’t know about Graham Platner’s disability evaluation. It’s a pretty rigorous process. I’ve been through it. I do not have 100%, nor did I seek it. The comparatively minor stuff that is wrong with me that is service connected you can’t see.

When you start talking about how he’s out working yet receiving 100% disability, you immediately discredit yourself with veterans and people who understand how the system actually works. 100% disability does not mean 100% unable to function. Again, it means 100% of the maximum disability payment, which frankly isn’t that much.

It’s not like you don’t have plenty of material for this creep. Focus on that.

[Peter Van Wirt @vanwirtp]

@SpaceNews92 Kilograms don't matter. Ops cost matters. SpaceX did not optimize for light weight; they optimized for low ops cost. Propellant is cheap. People are expensive.

[mike bski @BskiMike22802]

Let me ruin your June for a second.

Every year when National Gun Violence Awareness Month rolls around, the same people who have not read a single page of John Lott's 13,312-regression peer-reviewed study start posting pictures of children and demanding you feel responsible for deaths you did not cause and had nothing to do with.

So. Let us talk about children. Since they brought it up.

In 2006, the CDC recorded 642 accidental firearm deaths in the entire United States. For children under the age of ten — the number was 31. Thirteen under age five. Eighteen between five and nine.

Tragic? Absolutely. Every single one.

But here is the number that will not appear on a single "Orange Friday" awareness post: 80.

Eighty children under the age of five drown in bathtubs every year. Every. Single. Year.

ALMOST THREE TIMES as many children drown in bathtubs annually as die from ALL firearm accidents combined — including adults. And forty more drown in five-gallon water buckets. The kind you buy at Home Depot for $4.99.

I have given this information at talks and watched jaws drop, because people genuinely believe the number is in the thousands. They have been so thoroughly marinated in "gun violence awareness" content that their perception of actual risk is completely detached from reality. That is not an accident. That is the point of the campaign.

Where is Bathtub Awareness Month? Where is the congressional hearing on five-gallon bucket control? Where is the hashtag? Where are the orange ribbons for the children who drowned while their parents were in the next room?

There are none. Because the campaign was never about children. It was never about safety. If it were about safety, they would be equally outraged about cars — which killed 1,305 children that same year. Or fire. Or drowning. But they are not. The selective fury lands exclusively on firearms. And if you are a scientist, which I happen to be, you do not get to cherry-pick your data based on which conclusion you prefer. Quinn's Law Number Six: facts are the enemy of liberalism.

Now let us talk about what the actual data says about guns and safety, because John Lott ran 13,000-plus statistical regressions across every county in America and the results are not ambiguous.

Fifty-six percent of convicted felons surveyed in a ten-state study said they would NOT attack a target they believed was armed. Fifty-six percent. The deterrence is real, it is documented, and it functions whether or not a shot is ever fired. The firearm you carry protects your neighbor whether your neighbor knows it or not.

When states passed right-to-carry laws, multiple-victim public shootings — what the media insists on calling "mass shootings" to maximize terror — dropped by 67 percent. Deaths in those events dropped by 75 percent. Injuries by 81 percent. States that adopted these laws virtually ELIMINATED mass public shootings within four to five years. The remaining events? They happened almost exclusively in the specific locations where guns remained banned. The gun-free zones. The places we hang the sign that only the law-abiding ever read.

There were between 760,000 and 3.6 million defensive gun uses in the United States last year alone, depending on which of fifteen national polls you consult. A JAMA Network Open study from March 2025 estimated 489,000 DGUs in which a firearm was actually discharged. The Department of Justice's own National Crime Victimization Survey puts the conservative floor at 65,000 defensive uses per year against assaults, robberies, and home invasions.

No dead body. No coverage. No awareness month.

Here is one more number for you: 74. Seventy-four percent of convicted felons in a National Institute of Justice survey said they actively avoided homes they believed were occupied by armed residents. Criminals respond to incentives. That is not ideology — that is basic deterrence theory, and it is confirmed by the people who actually commit the crimes.

I also want you to think carefully about something the Supreme Court already settled. DeShaney v. Winnebago County (1989). Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005). Two separate rulings establishing that the government has NO legal obligation to protect you as an individual. None. You are your own first responder. That is not my opinion — that is settled constitutional law from the highest court in this country.

So the political class that just told you the government is not required to protect you... is also the one demanding you surrender the tool you use to protect yourself.

I want fewer people dead. That is why I know the data. That is why I read the book. That is why I am furious every June when emotion and fundraising replace science and evidence in a "debate" that has actual life-or-death consequences for real people.

You want to honor the children? Honor ALL of them. The ones who drowned. The ones who died in car crashes. And the ones who will never be born because a woman alone in her house at 2 a.m. had no way to stop what was coming through her door.

But what do I know — I am only a published textbook author, a science teacher, a father of four, and a combat medic who spent his career reducing human suffering and who actually read the peer-reviewed data before forming an opinion.

IF you agree:
LIKE this post so the algorithm shows it to people who need to read it.
SHARE this.
COMMENT below — did you know the bathtub number? Or did the narrative keep that from you? Tell me.

And if you want MORE of this -- the data, the history, the science, the stories -- JOIN Bski's Classroom community on X or YouTube.

#MAGA #Veterans #Trump
@JoJoFromJerz @GuntherEagleman @catturd2

[Peter Van Wirt @vanwirtp]

Theft of intellectual property is still theft.

[The Rational Animal 🤔 @theobjectivist]

The looter never rests. He produces nothing, then claims a share of everything.

"Built on humanity's collective knowledge." There is no such thing. Knowledge is not poured into a common vat at birth. Every advance was made by a specific mind: Aristotle's logic, Newton's calculus, Edison's filament, Turing's machine. Each thought alone, and each gave the result to the world by choice. By your logic, the wheel belongs to humanity, so every car maker owes you a stake. The alphabet was "collective," so seize every author. This is the oldest fraud there is: declare a man's achievement the property of those who didn't make it.

The men who built AI used their own reason and capital to create what no collective ever did. Your answer is to brand them oligarchs and demand ownership of their work at the point of a law.

You did not build it. You did not fund it. You spent your life attacking the men who do. The producer owes you nothing.

[Iamnobody @iamnobody1961]

I use to travel with a rubber horse head
I would hang the DND sign on the door of my hotel room, and make the bed up like this before I left
I always knew if they blew though the sign and came in
One LV trip, they called the room when I was there, and told me
"please don't do that again, the maid screamed and almost had a heart attack'

[David Jacobs @DrJacobsRad]

The world is about to get a master class in antisemitism.

Israel's minister Ben Gvir's behavior towards the flotilla activists was unacceptable. I said so myself.

World leaders all posted angry denunciations of the Israeli government and summoned Israeli ambassadors for a dressing down.

Here, the same activists are receiving much more brutal treatment at the hands of the Spanish government. What we won't see however is an international outcry against the Spanish government.

This imbalance isn't due to the vagaries of international diplomacy. People hold the Jewish state to a higher standard than they do any other state, and fundamentally it's due of bigotry and hatred.

@AnitaAnandMP

[Peter Van Wirt @vanwirtp]

@HoboNarcanner @highfreqhertz Lower gravity loss by doing the vertical phase quicker.