Foo Fighters – Times like these
An evening pause: Video of the recording session.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
Year: 2016
China grows mouse embryos in space
During a two week unmanned biology satellite mission, Chinese scientists successfully demonstrated that mouse embryos can develop in weightlessness.
The team developed an embryo culture system and placed it within a small enclosed chamber [on the spacecraft] that provides the ideal conditions for the embryos to develop in space. While the chamber was in orbit, a camera attached to the experiment took photographs of the embryos as they developed in microgravity, and sent these images back to Earth. With the aid of their imaging technology, the researchers were able to observe how the mammalian two-cell stage embryos developed into blastocysts under microgravity after four days. Blastocysts are structures formed in the very early development of mammals. In humans blastocysts begin to form five days after fertilization.
The researchers will now compare their space-developed embryos to those cultured in normal laboratory environments on Earth to see what differences there are between the two at both a cellular and molecular level.
None of this proves that life can be conceived and grow in weightlessness. It does however suggest that it might be possible.
50 year old time capsule in Houston reveals space artifacts
In opening a time capsule from 1966 at a Houston library, workers discovered a flag flown in space by Pete Conrad on Gemini 5, and a model of the Gemini capsule and Titan rocket that launched it.
The capsule unfortunately had gotten water-logged, so that many of the paper items inside were damaged.
I must admit it seems strange to me to open a time capsule when people are still alive (like myself) from the time the capsule was sealed, as the basic purpose of the capsule should be to pass information on to future generations, long after its builders are gone.
Want to live in a hobbit-hole? You can!
Link here. The article shows a collection of underground homes inspired by The Hobbit, including several whose designs are available for either purchase or construction.
Liver damage from weightlessness?
The uncertainty of science: Mice flown for almost two weeks on the last space shuttle mission in 2011 have shown evidence of the early symptoms of liver disease.
The mice spent time orbiting the Earth on the final space shuttle flight in 2011. Once they returned home, teams of scientists were allowed to share and study their internal organs.
Jonscher’s team found that spaceflight resulted in increased fat storage in the liver, comparing pair-fed mice on Earth to those on the shuttle. This was accompanied by a loss of retinol, an animal form of Vitamin A, and changes to levels of genes responsible for breaking down fats. As a result, mice showed signs of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and potential early indicators for the beginnings of fibrosis, which can be one of the more progressive consequences of NAFLD. “It generally takes a long time, months to years, to induce fibrosis in mice, even when eating an unhealthy diet,” Jonscher said. “If a mouse is showing nascent signs of fibrosis without a change in diet after 13 ½ days, what is happening to the humans?”
This result doesn’t prove that weightlessness causes liver damage. It only suggests that more research is needed, though the data from six month to year long missions suggest that the liver harm to humans is either non-existent or temporary.
April 19, 2016 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold. We talked about SpaceX’s new spaceport in Texas, its upcoming launch schedule, the prepwork on its recovered first stage. We also talked about dinosaurs, and how the theory that they were killed by an asteroid is decidedly uncertain.
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“You have no right to speak.”
The quote in the headline gives only a taste of the thuggery, bigotry, and hate expressed by the protesters at the University of Missouri last fall against whites and anyone who dared disagree with them. Go here to get the full flavor, which includes women being harassed and threatened merely because she happened to be white, protesters threatening to kill whites because they weren’t immediately getting what they wanted, and of course, at least one teacher, Melissa Click, threatening a student journalist with violence for reporting on the protests.
I am still only giving you a taste. The worst part of the story is that the fascists on all of today’s campuses were very well represented by the thugs who took over the University of Missouri last year. It isn’t any different elsewhere. Don’t dare express dissent to the left wing orthodoxy, or you might find yourself the target of violence and hate.
Rodgers and Hammerstein – Oklahoma!
An evening pause: From the 1955 movie, Oklahoma. This Broadway musical is one of the best examples of the fundamental differences between American culture and what preceded it. In the past, all music, drama, fiction, etc, revolved around telling the stories of the powerful, the nobility, the rulers, and the great. In the United States, “of the people, for the people, by the people,” literature, art, drama, and music has focused instead mostly on the lives and concerns of ordinary people. In this musical, for example, the story is about how two ordinary cowpokes decide to give up their roaming ways to settle down and become farmers, all for love. And in doing so, Rodgers and Hammerstein end up also telling the story of the American west as it transitioned from the wild west of gold rush boom towns and cattle drive cowboys into a settled society of cities and families.
And the music and choreography is great too!
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
The coming dark age, part 2,322
The first story below tells us that a significant number of voters in New York are so ignorant of the political process that they haven’t the slightest idea who is running for president. The second story tells us that we have decided to use the principles of western civilization as the basis for a suicide pact The third story is about a video of college students (which I have embedded below the fold) who are unable to challenge a 5’9″ tall white guy who tells them he is actually a a 6’5″ Chinese female child in the first grade. Watch it and weep for the future.
Largest jet engine ever test fired
The competition heats up: General Electric has completed the first test firing of the largest airplane jet engine ever built.
With a front fan spreading a full 11 ft (3.35 m), the GE9X is a world record holder and generates thrust in the order of 100,000 lb. To accommodate the aeronautical behemoth, the Peebles facility was recently upgraded with a larger air intake, extra fuel tanks to feed the giant engine, and high temperature gear to deal with the hotter, more efficient design.
GE says that the GE9X is currently undergoing its first Full Engine To Test (FETT). This is the next level of the test series, which began in 2011 at the component level, and marks the first test of the complete system, which comes only six months after the engine design was finalized. GE says that this relatively early testing was to ensure that the test data was available as soon as possible for the certification engines, which are scheduled to be installed in GE Aviation’s flying test bed for certification of flight testing in 2018.
Russian government rescues Proton manufacturer
The Russian government has moved to cover more than $300 million in debts incurred by the Khrunichev Space Center, the company that builds the Proton rocket.
The company’s problems center around its loss of market share, partly because of repeated launch failures of the Proton rocket in the last five years, and partly because of SpaceX’s lower launch prices.
Senate committee throws money at NASA
The Senate appropriations subcommittee has announced its proposed 2017 budget for NASA, including significant budget increases for SLS and Orion.
SLS is the big winner in the bill, according to a summary of its contents provided by the committee. The heavy-lift launch vehicle would get $2.15 billion, $150 million more than it received in 2016 and $840 million above the administration’s request. The SLS funding includes $300 million directed for work on the Exploration Upper Stage with the goal of having it ready as soon as 2021, the earliest planned date for the first crewed SLS/Orion mission.
The bill also provides $1.3 billion for Orion, $30 million above 2016 and $180 million above the administration’s request. It also directs Orion to be ready for its first crewed mission in 2021.
The bill provides $5.4 billion for science programs overall, $200 million below the request. The summary does not break out spending among the various science mission directorates. Commercial crew would get $1.18 billion, the amount requested by NASA, and space technology would get $687 million, the same as 2016 but $140 million less than requested.
Meanwhile, in order to keep NASA’s overall budget about the same as last year the subcommittee, led by porkmeister Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), apparently trimmed the agency’s science budget.
The full plan will be revealed tomorrow. Moreover, the House still has to make its budget proposal, and then the House and Senate have to agree. Regardless, this Senate budget proposal is more indication that this Republican Congress is going to throw endless gobs of money at SLS and Orion, so the boondoggle can fly once, maybe twice, and then get mothballed. What a waste.
It also tells us how insincere many Republican elected officials are when they claim they are for fiscal responsibility.