China today successfully launched two more GPS satellites, using its Long March 3B rocket.
The leaders in the 2018 launch standings:
21 China
14 SpaceX
8 Russia
5 ULA
4 Japan
4 Europe
With this launch China regains its lead over the U.S. in the national rankings, 21 launches to 20.
Capitalism in space: It appears that SpaceX is planning to do its first reflight of a used Block 5 booster on August 4.
This will be SpaceX’s third Falcon 9 Block 5 launch in less than two weeks if the schedule holds. More important than the schedule, perhaps, is the fact that it would appear that SpaceX intends to reuse the first Block 5 booster (B1046) for this particular launch. To lay out the foundation of this claim, it’s known that SpaceX’s CCAFS Pad 40 integration facilities are only capable of fitting one booster and the strongback (transporter/erector/launcher, TEL) at a time, evidenced both by sourced comments and views inside the hangar.
Meanwhile, an unmistakeable Block 5 booster – with black interstage and octaweb coverings – was spotted being transported through Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) earlier this week, just after Falcon 9 B1047 launched (July 21 EDT) and freed up space for another booster inside the horizontal integration facility (HIF) at Pad 40. Given that only one Block 5 booster has been recovered on the East Coast and that B1047 was still out at sea earlier this week, the sooty booster traveling through CCAFS thus has to have been B1046, and it was making a beeline for LC-40.
SpaceX is once again demonstrating why they have taken over the global launch industry. They are proving that they will be able to routinely reuse a relatively small number of first stage boosters, frequently, and cheaply.
CORRECTION: I initially wrote this post under the mistaken impression that the booster being reflown was going to do so after only fourteen days. This was wrong. The booster was flown two months ago, in May.
The Martian global dust storm that started in mid-June and has left the rover Opportunity with little power appears to be finally clearing.
Don’t expect any word from Opportunity however for at least a month. The storm might be dying off, but it will take time for the dust to settle out of the atmosphere, especially in Mars’s light gravity.
An evening pause: I know very little about opera, having never been much of a fan, but I must admit that the old woman’s song here is most intriguing, and seems to lay the foundation for a good tale.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
The Ninth Circuit Court has ruled that a lawsuit by injured Trump supporters against San Jose and seven of its police officers can proceed.
A three-judge panel unanimously affirmed U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh of the Northern District of California’s 2017 ruling denying the city of San Jose’s efforts to dismiss the suit against seven police officers. The plaintiffs say the officers channeled them into a violent crowd on June 2, 2016, as they exited a rally for then-presidential candidate Trump at the McEnery Convention Center. Rally-goers say they were punched and pelted with eggs while nearby law enforcement officers did nothing to protect them.
“We find the officers violated clearly established rights and are not entitled to qualified immunity at this stage of the proceedings,” Senior Judge Dorothy Wright Nelson wrote for the panel, which also included Judges Andrew Kleinfeld and William Fletcher. “Being attacked by anti-Trump protesters was only a possibility when the attendees arrived at the rally,” Nelson wrote. “The officers greatly increased that risk of violence when they shepherded and directed the attendees towards the unruly mob waiting outside the Convention Center.”
The panel also declined to block the 20 plaintiffs’ claims against San Jose, which Koh allowed to stand, saying it lacked jurisdiction to consider that portion of the city’s appeal.
Unfortunately, the big fish will get off scott free.
The suit originally named San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia and Mayor Sam Liccardo. Liccardo was dropped as a defendant from an amended version of the suit in November 2016 and Koh’s ruling dismissed claims against Garcia.
They’re coming for you next: When a pro-Trump group decided to gather at the now destroyed star of Donald Trump at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a mob quickly formed cursing them, then threatening them, then attacking them physically.
The video at the link is a little unclear once the fighting starts about who is fighting who. What is clear is that a mob very clearly wanted to shut down a pro-Trump demonstration, and was very eager to use violence to make that happen.
This is not the America I grew up in. The idea that someone would attack someone else, merely because of their opinion, was inconceivable in the culture of my youth. And when it did happen, it was quickly condemned, by everyone. Now, such behavior is celebrated.
Cool image time! I honestly can’t think of any better term but “vegetable grater” to describe the strange surface in the image on the right, cropped from the full sized image that was released with the July 11, 2018 monthly release of new images from the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
If you click on the image you can see the whole image, which merely shows more of the same terrain over a wider area. When I cropped it, I literally picked a random 450×450 pixel-sized area, since other than slight variations the entire terrain in the full image is as equally rough. The resolution captures objects as big as five feet across.
Looking at the full image there does seem to be flow patterns moving across the middle of the image, but if so these flow patterns had no effect on the surface roughness, other than indicating a very slight difference in the size of the knobs and pits. Overall, very strange.
The location of this place on Mars is in the cratered southern highlands, to the southwest of Hellas Basin, as indicated by the black cross in the image below.
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They’re coming for you next: The New York Times and the Associated Press have now made broad requests for the email records of Ashley Kavanaugh, wife of the current Supreme Court nominee, while she was town manager for the Village of Chevy Chase Section 5 (that’s only part of the village).
The two news organizations took different approaches to obtain the e-mails. According to the documents, the AP made a sweeping request for “all emails sent or received” by Ashley Kavanaugh’s Village of Chevy Chase email address.
By contrast, The New York Times is currently requesting that The Village of Chevy Chase Section 5 hand over “any emails to or from Ms. Kavanaugh that contain any of the keywords or terms listed below.”
And what a list it is, including words like “liberal,” “abortion,” “gay,” and “federalist,” while also explicitly asking for e-mails containing the names of certain individuals.
It’s a witch hunt, and a perfect illustration of McCarthyism of the left. “Have you ever been a member of the Republican Party, or do you know anyone who has?” As noted at the link,
[I]t’s all but clear that the PIA request from the NYT and the AP isn’t to shine a light on the workings of Chevy Chase local government; it’s to invade Mrs. Kavanaugh’s correspondence to dig up dirt on her husband. The nature of the search parameters from the NYT make that excruciatingly clear, unless the NYT has an ongoing in-depth exposé on the use of “federalist” thought in local governments.
…This is an intimidation tactic designed to discourage the next Supreme Court justice appointed by Donald Trump or any other Republican president, warning everyone that spouses will become fair game not just in electoral politics but in non-electoral politics as well.
This is only the beginning. The witch hunt, having failed against Trump, must continue until it succeeds, even if it means broadening it so that everyone who opposes the left is always guilty, and subject to as much blacklisting and thuggery as possible.
They’re coming for you next: The report by a Minnesota congressman to the police about a series of threats made against his daughters due to his political positions appears to be part of a rising tide of similar violent threats made against members of Congress, mostly Republicans.
Republican Rep. Jason Lewis told Fox News he has contacted the police over threats to him and even his daughters in the wake of reports about controversial statements he made as a radio show host. “It was serious enough for my office to alert the Capitol Police,” Lewis told Fox News.
The Minnesota congressman said his daughters were threatened in sick messages received by his office. It marks the latest in a wave of threats against not just Republican lawmakers themselves but their families.
Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., also revealed threats against his daughters this month, telling Todd Starnes that “some of the stuff that has been said has been quite sick” and the number of threats has increased dramatically since the last election.
Total reported threats against congressmen doubled from 2016 to 2017, according to the House Sergeant at Arms.
The threats are being made to both sides of the political aisle, though Republicans are getting a larger share. And as long as Democrats continue to coddle and even encourage such behavior, things are only going to get worse, and they themselves are going to find themselves in the cross-hairs as well. It is to their self-interest to calm things down. Sadly, I do not see Democrats doing this.
Russian scientists have successfully brought two roundworms back to life after being frozen for almost 42,000 years.
Russian scientists said the two prehistoric worms, out of a group of about 300, are moving and eating after they came back to life in a lab at the Institute of Physico-Chemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science in Moscow, the Siberian Times reported. “After being defrosted, the nematodes showed signs of life,” a report from the Russian scientists said, according to the Siberian Times.
One of the worms was found near the Alazeya River in 2015 and is believed to be about 41,700 years old, according to the study published in the Doklady Biological Sciences. They were found about 11.5 feet underground.
The other worm was found in 2002 in a fossil rodent burrow near the Kolyma River. These samples were taken from about 100 feet underground.
If confirmed, this result is not only astonishing, it has significant implications, as it suggests that the science fiction idea of freezing people for long interstellar flights might actually be possible, eventually.
Link here. He would have been 106 today, and was probably one of the more important, and sadly rare, pro-freedom economists of the 20th century.
The link has some excellent videos of Friedman, all worth watching.
This however continues to be my favorite Friedman quote:
Japanese officials have been arrested and offices at the space agency JAXA raided in a bribery scandal that also involves Japan’s education ministry.
It appears an official in the education ministry was bribing people, including one individual at JAXA, with meals and liquor in order to gain an advantage in contract bidding.
