For the birds
An evening pause: Time for a bit of silliness.
Year: 2015
25 famous predictions that turned out to be wildly wrong
Link here.
Notice the pattern. These predictions are all negative, expressing doubts and having no faith in the possibilities of what humans can achieve. Use this as a guide when you hear comparable negative predictions today. As someone once said, “When a scientist says something is impossible it just means it will take a little longer.”
An update on the Falcon 9 landing attempt
Link here.
Lots of interesting details describing the entire first stage landing attempt. Two interesting facts: 1. The barge was not seriously damaged by the landing crash and will be ready for the next attempt. 2. It appears they will try for a barge touchdown again instead of on land.
More strikes at Vostochny
Another worker strike has broken out at the new Russian spaceport at Vostochny by workers who say they have not been paid their wages.
The strike itself is not the significant fact here. The significant fact is that even though the project has been under the close supervision of Putin himself since September, the wages were still not paid. Supervisors have been pocketing wages even as very high Russian officials have been publicly demanding that they get the construction back on schedule. And this story suggests that they continue to do so.
The entire situation implies a very extensive level of corruption at all levels of the Russian infrastructure, something that will make it very difficult for them to accomplish much in their future efforts in space.
Japan to the moon!
The competition heats up: Japan’s space agency has announced plans to send an unmanned lander to the Moon, as early as 2018, as part of a longer range plan to explore Mars.
They also intend to use their new Epsilon rocket to launch it.
Gee, I wonder if the successful efforts of India and China to send probes to both the Moon and Mars had some influence on this decision.
Ceres’ bright spots come into view
Cool image time! As Dawn’s orbit around Ceres has slowly brought the spacecraft up over its north pole and towards its daylight side, it has now become possible to once again spot the giant asteroid’s bright spots.
The science team has also released a very short animation that shows Ceres rotating below it with these bright spots coming into view.
TMT construction postponed again
The builders of the Thirty Meter Telescope have temporarily extended the suspension of construction originally demanded by Hawaii’s governor.
The tone of the article, especially the comments by the governor, suggests that the state is accepting the reality that they have no legal right to stop construction, and are making that fact very public. Instead, the govenor is now beginning the public relations campaign to make construction possible despite the protests, including negotiating some other givebacks to the protesters to shut them up. Sadly, those giveback appear to be the decommissioning of some other working telescopes as well as some increased restrictions on access to the mountain by the public.
Massenet – Meditation from Thais
An evening pause: The violin player, Daniil Bulayev, is especially impressive, being only 8 years old.
Hat tip Danae.
Incorrectly built SLS welding machine to be rebuilt
You can’t make this stuff up. A giant welding machine, built for NASA’s multi-billion dollar Space Launch System (SLS), needs to be rebuilt because the contractor failed to reinforce the floor, as required, prior to construction.
Sweden’s ESAB Welding & Cutting, which has its North American headquarters in Florence, South Carolina, built the the roughly 50-meter tall Vertical Assembly Center as a subcontractor to SLS contractor Boeing at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.
ESAB was supposed to reinforce Michoud’s floor before installing the welding tool, but did not, NASA SLS Program Manager Todd May told SpaceNews after an April 15 panel session during the 31st Space Symposium here. As a result, the enormous machine leaned ever so slightly, cocking the rails that guide massive rings used to lift parts of the 8.4-meter-diameter SLS stages The rings wound up 0.06 degrees out of alignment, which may not sound like much, “but when you’re talking about something that’s 217 feet [66.14 meters] tall, that adds up,” May said.
Asked why ESAB did not reinforce the foundation as it was supposed to, May said only it was a result of “a miscommunication between two [Boeing] subcontractors and ESAB.”
How everyone at NASA, Boeing, and ESAB could have forgotten to do the reinforcing, even though it was specified in the contract, baffles me. It also suggests that the quality control in the SLS rocket program has some serious problems.
Update: The original story at Space News that I originally linked to disappeared sometime in the next week, and was replaced with a slightly more detailed and more positive story, now linked above.
Dragon has berthed with ISS
After a successful launch three days ago Dragon successfully berthed with ISS on Friday, bringing 4,000 pounds of cargo, including an Italian-built expresso machine designed to work in weightlessness.
Sierra Nevada and Germany sign agreement
The competition heats up: Sierra Nevada has signed a new development agreement with Germany in connection with its Dream Chaser reusable mini-shuttle.
The agreement does not appear to involve any money and thus is largely symbolic. Nonetheless, it shows again that Germany is interested in having Dream Chaser built, and is throwing its support behind the manned spacecraft.
Mercury mission to end on April 30
After four years in orbit and with its fuel gone, Messenger is now expected to crash into the surface of Mercury on April 30.