Year: 2018

Democratic Party hate and demagoguery on display

2:27 pm

This Hot Air story about an over-the-top attack by Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) of Trump’s most recent Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, perfectly encapsulates the hate and demagoguery of the Democratic Party.

Anyone they disagree with is “evil.” Anyone they oppose must be stopped, by any means necessary. To show that I am not exaggerating, listen to Cory Booker himself:

A transcript of Booker’s words:

I’m here to call on folk to understand that in a moral moment there is no neutral. In a moral moment there is no bystanders. You are either complicit in the evil, you are either contributing to the wrong, or you are fighting against it.

[Referencing the 23 Psalm of the Bible, Booker then said] It doesn’t say that I sit in the valley of the shadow of death. It doesn’t say I’m sitting on the sidelines in the valley of the shadow of death. It says I am walking through the valley of the shadow of death. It says I am taking agency that I am going to make it through this crisis.

And so I am calling on everyone right now who understands what’s at stake, who understands who Kavanaugh is. My ancestors said “if someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” He has shown us who he is.

I must add that Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) can be seen behind Booker nodding enthusiastically in support of his every word.

So, who is this evil Kavanaugh? The thumbnail description below, from another story describing Booker’s attack, captures a few of the more important details about the man himself:

Kavanaugh, a Christian father of two who regularly donates his time to serve food to the homeless, has been pilloried in the media for taking on credit card debt to purchase season tickets to the Washington Nationals. The double Yale graduate has also been criticized and labeled a “frat boy” by liberal advocacy groups due to his first name and alleged penchant for beer drinking.

You might disagree with Kavanaugh’s legal stance, but to call him evil? This is demagoguery of the worst sort, which is defined as “impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions of the populace.” It is also what the Democratic Party is nowadays, a collection of demagogues with no reasoned positions and who seem to hate anything that gets in their way.

If there is any hope for our country, the midterm elections will see the Democratic Party smashed, with major losses across the board. I unfortunately do not yet see that happening.

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NOAA still struggling to get GOES 17 working

1:12 pm

NOAA is still struggling to pinpoint and correct the problem in GOES 17, launched in March, that prevents it from taking certain infrared weather images.

In a teleconference with reporters, NOAA officials said they had been able to improve the availability of infrared and near-infrared channels on the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) instrument on the GOES-17 satellite since the agency first reported the problem two months ago. The spacecraft, originally known as GOES-S, launched in March. “ABI is already demonstrating improved performance from what was initially observed,” said Pam Sullivan, director of the GOES-R system program. Currently, 13 of the instrument’s 16 channels are available 24 hours a day, with the other three able to operate at least 20 hours a day.

That will change, though, on a seasonal basis, depending on the amount of sunlight that shines into the instrument. By September, the hottest part of the orbit, only 10 of 16 channels will be available 24 hours a day, she said, with the other six available “most of the day.”

The satellite is second satellite launched out of a four satellite constellation that NOAA is building for $11 billion. They have now also admitted that the same problem exists on the first satellite, but does not seem to be effecting performance in the same way.

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NASA considering more cuts to WFIRST

10:34 am

NASA is considering more cuts to the Wide Field Infrared Space Telescope (WFIRST), presently budgeted at $3.2 billion.

I suspect a contributing factor for these cuts are the problems with the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA has to pay for its new cost overruns and delays, and the fairest place to find those cuts would be from within the astrophysics division.

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NASA delays launch of Parker Solar probe, again

9:41 am

For the second time NASA has delayed the launch of the Parker Solar probe due to issues related to the Delta IV Heavy rocket.

The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy was originally scheduled to launch the Parker Solar Probe on Aug. 4, before what NASA described as “a minor tubing leak” was discovered at the processing facility in Titusville. The launch slipped to Aug. 6 and now NASA and its mission partners are targeting Aug. 11 for a 45-minute launch window at 3:48 a.m. from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The latest delay comes after “a small strip of foam was found inside the (spacecraft) fairing,” during final inspections after the spacecraft was encapsulated in the Delta IV Heavy nose cone, according to NASA.

The launch window closes on August 19, so there better not be many more problems.

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Liquid water found beneath Martian south pole

9:32 am

Data from Europe’s Mars Express orbiter has detected a pond of liquid water buried beneath the Martian south pole.

The radar investigation shows that south polar region of Mars is made of many layers of ice and dust down to a depth of about 1.5 km in the 200 km-wide area analysed in this study. A particularly bright radar reflection underneath the layered deposits is identified within a 20 km-wide zone.

Analysing the properties of the reflected radar signals and considering the composition of the layered deposits and expected temperature profile below the surface, the scientists interpret the bright feature as an interface between the ice and a stable body of liquid water, which could be laden with salty, saturated sediments. For MARSIS to be able to detect such a patch of water, it would need to be at least several tens of centimetres thick.

The data here is somewhat uncertain, but is also not to be dismissed. It is very likely this is liquid water.

I must add that this is not really a big surprise. Many scientists expected this. Also, this water is not very accessible, and is also located at the pole, the Mars’s harshest environment. Just because it is liquid is not a reason to aim to mine it. There is plenty of evidence of ice in much more accessible and reasonable locations.

What this discovery suggests is that it is possible to have liquid water on Mars. The great geological mystery of the planet is while that much of its geology appears formed by flowing water, scientists have not been able to devise good climate histories that make that flowing water possible. This discovery helps those scientists in devising those histories.

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SpaceX and Arianespace both launch multiple satellites

9:22 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX and Arianespace both had successful early morning commercial launches today.

The Ariane 5 delivered 4 Galileo GPS satellites, while SpaceX placed in orbit 10 Iridium communications satellites. SpaceX also successfully recovered the first stage.

The leaders in the 2018 launch standings:

20 China
14 SpaceX
8 Russia
5 ULA
4 Japan
4 Arianespace

In the national rankings, the U.S. and China are once again tied, now at 20-20.

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Santa Barbara requires jail time for giving out plastic straws

6:09 pm

Fascist California: The city of Santa Barbara has now passed a law that will impose jail time to any restaurant employee who hands out plastic straws.

The city of Santa Barbara has passed an ordinance that will allow restaurant employees to be punished with up to six months of jail time or a $1,000 fine for giving plastic straws to their customers.

The bill was passed unanimously last Tuesday, and covers bars, restaurants, and other food-service businesses. Establishments will still be allowed to hand out plastic stirrers, but only if customers request them.

This is always how fascist states begin, by passing what seems to be very innocuous laws that have golden and pure good intentions. They they pass more laws, and more laws, and impose stricter rules, and demand more and more from everyone, until the only individuals who are free are those in charge, since none of these rules are ever applied to them.

California has been traveling this road already for many years. They are right now about a decade behind Venezuela. I would not move there, at this time, if I were you. You will regret it.

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Another skylight entrance pit found on Mars

1:22 pm

Pit in Hephaestus Fossae

Cool image time! In my routine monthly review of the hundreds of new images released from the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), I came across another most intriguing geological feature, the image of which is posted to the right, after cropping.

As the scale shows, the pit is about 300 feet across. Calculating the pit’s depth would require someone with better math skills than I. The website provides information about the sun angle, which can be used to extrapolate the shadows and then roughly calculate the depth.

The most fascinating aspect of this pit is the impression of incredible thinness for the pit’s overhung edges. All of the pit’s edges appear significantly overhung, and the thickness of the overhang seems incredibly paper-thin. This thinness is likely only an illusion, though in Mars’s light gravity it is perfectly possible for the overhang to be far thinner and more extended than anything you would find on Earth.

The image itself is in color, though the only color visible is within the pit itself. In that blueness at the base it seems to me that there is a pile of dust/debris, but once again, that conclusion should not be taken very seriously.

If you take a look at the full image, what is impressive is the bland flatness of the surrounding terrain. There is no hint that there might be underground passages hidden here. While most of the scattered craters are probably impact craters, many (especially those with unsymmetrical shapes) could be collapse features indicating the presence of underground voids. None however is very deep. Nor is there any other pits visible.

Below is a global map of Mars with the location of this pit indicated by a black cross. It is just on the edge of the transition zone between the lower northern plains and the southern highlands, where the shoreline of an intermittent sea is thought by some scientists to have once existed. This is also an area where not a lot of high resolution images have been taken, mostly because of its apparent blandness as seen in previous imagery.

This image demonstrates however that Mars is going to have interesting geology everywhere, and that we won’t really know it well until we have explored it all.
» Read more

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A Chinese skyscraper with a waterfall

10:48 am

Link here. The builders literally included a 350 foot high waterfall that exits the skyscraper and falls down the building’s side.

A spokesperson for the property, Mr Cheng, told Kan Kan News that the main water source is from recycled tap water, rain water or from other channels. ‘Our building has a four-storey underground water storage and drainage system, from which the water is pumped and recycled,’ Mr Cheng said.

The electricity bill for just one hour of operation is a whopping 800 yuan (£89), he added. ‘That’s why we don’t switch on the waterfall every day – only for special festivities in the city,’ he said. And each time, the waterfall is set to run for only about 10 to 20 minutes to save electricity.

Architects for skyscrapers are getting increasingly creative. They have added trees, vines, greenery everywhere. A waterfall, however, is really clever, though I’m not sure how practical this will be, in the long run. Water falling that distance can do a lot of damage over time.

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Interstellar Technologies releases video of launch failure

10:33 am

Capitalism in space: The private Japanese company Interstellar Technologies today released a video of its June 30th launch failure.

The company is investigating the exact cause of the June 30 failure, which saw the 33-foot (10-meter) tall MOMO-2 lift off from a test site near the town of Taiki on Japan’s island of Hokkaido before crashing to the ground seconds later after it lost thrust. “The cause of the MOMO-2 failure is still under investigation,” Takahiro Inagawa, IST’s CEO, told Astrowatch.net. “However, we assume that its engine and hot-gas thruster for the roll control are responsible.

They say they are proceeding toward their third launch attempt.

[A]lthough the exact date of the launch has not been disclosed, Inagawa said that MOMO-3’s flight should be expected within months. “We will begin the next launch as soon as we are ready,” Inagawa said. “We were able to launch MOMO-2 within less than a year after MOMO-1. The launch interval of MOMO-3 and MOMO-2 will be shorter.”

I have embedded the video of the launch failure below the fold. You do want to view this. Trust me.
» Read more

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Congress nixes Space Force, for now

10:22 am

You can put your decoder rings back in the attic! The Defense authorization for fiscal year 2019 that has now been negotiated between the House and Senate does not include any mention of Trump’s proposed “Space Force.”

President Trump himself has taken center stage in advocating for a Space Force. While the terms Space Corps and Space Force are sometimes used interchangeably, Space Corps notionally refers to an entity with the Air Force while Space Force is separate from the Air Force. Trump made clear last month what he wants: “We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the Space Force. Separate but equal.”

The President cannot accomplish that on his own, however. Congress must authorize and fund a new service. Because of the attention Trump is bringing to the issue, one question was whether the NDAA conference committee might say something about it even though the House- and Senate-passed bills did not.

The answer is no. While the conference report adopts the House provision requiring creation of a U.S. Space Command within USSTRATCOM to carry out joint space warfighting and addresses a number of other space issues, it does not require creation of a Space Force or Space Corps (or another alternative, a Space Guard similar to the Coast Guard). The conference report does require the Secretary of Defense to develop a space warfighting policy and a plan that identifies joint mission-essential tasks for space as a warfighting domain (Sec. 1607).

In other words, Congress has punted, for the moment. They have not said no to the idea, but they also are not ready to create a new armed force devoted expressly to fighting war in space.

Makes sense to me. A military force in space is going to be necessary, without question and especially because of the terms imposed on us by the Outer Space Treaty. It just isn’t the time yet for such a thing.

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