Month: May 2020

From Pennsylvania: more proof the lock downs were insane

1:48 pm

An analysis of all the deaths so far in Pennsylvania reveals once again the absurdity of the government-imposed shut downs that have thrown millions out of work and destroyed whole industries.

[A]lmost 70% of deaths occurred in nursing home and care home settings, and 90% of the deaths were among people who had one or more complicating factors such as heart disease or other severe conditions. The letter goes on to state that as of May 15th, 2020, only 5% of available hospital beds were occupied by COVID19 patients and just over 1% were on ventilators.

The quote is summarizing the details from a letter released by the speaker of Pennsylvania’s House. It shows, without any doubt, that there was never going to be a big influx of Wuhan flu patients. Most of those that got ill were already in nursing homes, or under care for many other serious chronic illnesses. They were already in the healthcare system, meaning the system would not have been overwhelmed.

Moreover, this data once again shows that almost everyone in the population is under no threat from the disease. It only kills those who are old and already badly sick. There is no reason to fear your neighbors, your friends, the people you see on the street. You can go out and hug them. In fact, do it, so that you all get infected and thus kill this damn epidemic sooner so that the old and sick will no longer be threatened by it.

Don’t believe me? Then consider these similar stories:

We have bankrupted ourselves for no reason.

The brainless, panicked, and emotional fear-mongering over this disease has been unconscionable, immoral, and totally unjustified. The data shows overwhelmingly that Elon Musk is right. “The politicians & unelected bureaucrats who stole our liberty should be tarred, feathered & thrown out of town!”

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Atlas 5 launches X-37B spacecraft

8:35 am

Capitalism in space: ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket this morning successfully launched one of the military’s two X-37B reusable mini-shuttles into orbit.

I have embedded the video of the launch below the fold, with the launch occurring at 23:50.

As has been standard procedure during all previous X-37B missions, only a few details about the payloads have been released, though the military has said it wishes to be a bit more open this time.

“This sixth mission is a big step for the X-37B program,” said Randy Walden, director and program executive officer for the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office. “This will be the first X-37B mission to use a service module to host experiments. The incorporation of a service module on this mission enables us to continue to expand the capabilities of the spacecraft and host more experiments than any of the previous missions.” The service module is attached to the aft end of the X-37B spaceplane, providing additional capacity for experiments and payloads. The X-37B itself, measuring more than 29 feet (8.9 meters) long, also has a cargo bay inside its fuselage.

Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett said Wednesday that the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office is partnering with the U.S. Space force and the Air Force Research Laboratory on the next X-37B mission. … “This important mission will host more experiments than any prior X-37B flight, including two NASA experiments,” Barrett said Wednesday. “One is a sample plate evaluating the reaction of select significant materials to the conditions in space. The second studies the effect of ambient space radiation on seeds.”

The X-37B also carries a space-based solar power experiment. “A third experiment designed by the Naval Research Laboratory transforms solar power into radio frequency microwave energy, then studies transmitting that energy to Earth,” Barrett said.

Once in orbit, the X-37B will also release a small satellite named FalconSat 8. Developed by Air Force Academy cadets in partnership with the Air Force Research Laboratory, the small satellite carries five experimental payloads. It will be operated by by the Air Force Academy’s Cadet Space Operations Squadron

They have not said how long this X-37B will remain in orbit.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

8 China
6 SpaceX
6 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
3 ULA

The U.S. now leads China 11 to 8 in the national rankings, and will likely increase that lead very early tomorrow in the next day or so when SpaceX completes its next scheduled Falcon 9 Starlink launch. (Because of weather they have pushed back one day.
» Read more

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The Artemis Accords: The Trump administration’s effort to bypass the Outer Space Treaty

1:00 pm

Capitalism in space: The Trump administration yesterday released the guidelines it will require any international or private partner to follow if they wish to participate in its Artemis lunar and planetary manned program.

The guidelines, which you can download here [pdf], list ten very broad and vague principles. Most reiterate support for the most successful requirements of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, such as:

  • the requirement that all activities be conducted for peaceful purposes
  • the requirement that everyone design equipment for interoperability and to international standards
  • the requirement that everyone take reasonable steps possible to render assistance to astronauts in distress
  • the requirement that everyone publicly register anything they launch
  • the requirement that everyone release their scientific data publicly
  • the requirement that all parties take actions to mitigate space junk

The remaining four principles appear designed to bend the Outer Space Treaty in the direction of allowing countries and companies to have some control over the territories they occupy in space.
» Read more

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Large majority of COVID-19 infections are asymptomatic

9:17 pm

The evidence continues to build that the majority of people who get infected with the Wuhan flu end up showing no symptoms and do not even know they caught the virus.

The author gives eight solid examples where testing found a large population infected, with most asymptomatic. These included the crew and passengers on three different ships, prison systems in four different states (85% to 98% asymptomatic), a meat-packing plant, the homeless, pregnant women, and even in three nursing homes (!):

A survey published in the New England Journal of Medicine at an anonymous nursing home found that more than half with positive results were asymptomatic. In another nursing home in Washington state, 56% of those who tested positive were asymptomatic. One nursing home in Miami County, Ohio, tested every resident last week, and so far all of those who tested positive are still asymptomatic. [emphasis mine]

He also notes that in all but the last example, the number of fatalities were tiny, or none.

He then makes four common sense points. First,

The overwhelming majority of those infected are asymptomatic, which grows to an absolute super-majority when you factor in the mildly symptomatic. The fatality rate is therefore very small and very confined to a known population. Thus, it makes no sense to lock down younger and healthier people who overwhelmingly don’t get seriously ill, much less deathly ill, even if they contract the virus.

This confirms what was suggested from the beginning, that the death rate for the Wuhan flu is likely comparable to the flu.

Second, this shows it is absurd to release criminals. They almost certainly already have the disease, and weren’t bothered by it. They should serve out their punishments.

Third, “Contact tracing of the entire country is utterly insane. Most people have been spreading this virus while asymptomatic for months. What is left to trace?”

And finally,

By going back to normal with basic precautions for most of the population, we will be able to achieve herd immunity much less painfully than previously thought while shielding the more vulnerable population. … The fact that so many of the more exposed and vulnerable already got it and so many were asymptomatic means we could achieve herd immunity much quicker with fewer lives lost, certainly compared to lockdown.

The lock downs must end. We need to stop panicking and go back to normal. This disease is not the plague the press and politicians have been pushing. It does not require extreme measures to fight.

19 comments

The uncertainties of mask use demand that no one be forced to wear them

1:26 pm

The uncertainty of science: Regular readers of Behind the Black will know that I have made it very clear I consider the requirement to wear a mask by government officials to be an incredible and inappropriate overreach of their authority, partly because they don’t have that legal right, and partly because the science is very uncertain, with some studies strongly suggesting that the mask could have serious negative health effects.

Still, the science remains uncertain. Because of this uncertainty, it seems to me in a free society, where everyone respects the idea of freedom, wearing a mask must be left up to each individual.

Sadly, the social justice warriors of our society no longer believe in freedom, and will try to shame and discredit you if you say publicly you will not wear a mask. In the past week I have had two friends tell me bluntly that they will never again be in the same room with me, because they insist that everyone should wear a mask in public, all the time. (This saddens me because I had considered them friends, and it appears those friendships are now over.) One even said “Not wearing a mask in public or with people who are not your immediate family is a true sign of disrespect for others, to put it mildly.”

The context of that last quote is important. » Read more

52 comments

OSIRIS-REx’s landing spot on the asteroid Bennu

10:24 am

Bennu, annotated
Click for full resolution unlabeled image.

The OSIRIS-REx science team today released another image of the asteroid Bennu, this time showing the planned Nightingale touch-and-go sample grab landing site.

The image to the right, reduced, cropped, and annotated by me, is that image. From the caption:

The crater where sample site Nightingale is located can be seen near the top, center of the image – it is a small region containing dark, fine-grained material. Bennu’s prime meridian boulder, Simurgh Saxum , is also visible in the lower left of the image, near the asteroid’s limb. Directly east of Simurgh is Roc Saxum . The field of view is 0.3 miles (0.5 km). For reference, Simurgh is 125 ft (38 m) across, which is about the size of a commercial airliner.

Nightingale is only about 50 feet across, which is about a third the size of the kind of smooth areas they had designed their grab-and-go equipment around. This global image illustrates the difficulties they face with that sample grab. Though there appear to be larger areas in this photo that seem smooth, they really are not. The asteroid has no dust, and the sample grab equipment is designed to suck up particles smaller than 0.8 inches in diameter. Most of the surface is covered with pebbles and gravel larger than this.

Thus they needed to find a spot where the bulk of the material is “fine-grained.” Nightingale fits that bill, though it has a small footprint and also has larger particles that pose a risk to the sample grab because they could damage the spacecraft, or clog the sample grab equipment.

Either way, for the spacecraft to autonomously guide itself accurately down to this small spot, surrounded as it is by much larger boulders, will be challenging, and is why they have done one dress rehearsal already, getting as close as 213 feet, and will do a second in June, getting down to 82 feet.

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China a major investor in World View

8:39 am

It appears that one of the major financial backers of the Arizona-based high-altitude balloon company World View is a Chinese investment company with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

World View’s long-time investors include Tencent Holdings, a Chinese tech company that operates the WeChat messaging and social media service that is among the world’s largest. And like other tech companies in China, it has close working ties to the ruling Communist Party in Beijing. Tencent has sought to expand its relations with American tech firms, a move that has raised national security concerns that the Chinese government could be surreptitiously gathering information using American technology.

Hartman [World View CEO] said that isn’t happening, noting the Pentagon’s Defense Counterintelligence Security Agency examined the company last year to ensure its work was secure from foreign interference. The agency cleared World View to handle work for the military.

Tencent has “zero access, zero input and zero control,” Hartman said.

The article at the link is focused mostly on the Democratic candidate for the Senate in Arizona, Mark Kelly, and his ties to World View with its Chinese investor. To my mind the World View links are more important, as World View under Hartman has been selling its high altitude balloons as a way to do military surveillance and reconnaissance at less cost and with more flexibility than with satellites.

Getting investment capital from China means that, despite Hartman’s reassurances, China will likely get access to this technology, either to use in its own country, or maybe even use surreptitiously in the U.S., inside a World View balloon.

As much as I really would like to see World View succeed, as long as they rely on Chinese money they should be denied any military contracts. And Kelly’s involvement as a co-founder of the company, without raising this issue himself, does suggest his focus on protecting the U.S. from foreign influence and spying is quite weak. It does indicate that he can be brought, from the highest bidder, whoever that bidder might be.

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Another scientist arrested for failing to disclose ties to China

2:24 pm

The Trump administration today arrested another scientist, this time one who took money from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), for failing to disclose his ties to China.

Dr. Qing Wang, a former Cleveland Clinic Foundation (CCF) employee, is charged with false claims and wire fraud related to more than $3.6 million in grant funding that Dr. Wang and his research group received from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

According to the criminal complaint, Dr. Wang knowingly failed to disclose to NIH that he had an affiliation with and held the position of Dean of the College of Life Sciences and Technology at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) and received grant funds from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (CNSF) for some of the same scientific research funded by the NIH grant. As a result, Dr. Wang’s false representations and promises led NIH to approve and fund grants to Dr. Wang and his research group at CCF.

It is also alleged that Dr. Wang participated in the Thousand Talents Program, a program established by the Chinese government to recruit individuals with access to or knowledge of foreign technology and intellectual property. As a result of his admission into the TTP, China provided $3 million in research support to enhance the facilities and operations at HUST. Dr. Wang received free travel and lodging for his trips to China, to include a three-bedroom apartment on campus for his personal use. This also occurred at the time Dr. Wang was receiving NIH grant funds yet failed to disclose this affiliation to the NIH.

This is the second arrested this week, and the fourth in the past three months.

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Flash from a 2050 news report: Strange forgotten legal document found in Washington ruins

2:06 pm

The following news story from 2050 just arrived across my desk, coming from private sources I cannot reveal:

Archeologists, while digging in some ruins in the abandoned city of Washington, DC, today discovered a previously unknown government document, apparently once protected by glass and considered important in ancient times. The document, the title of which was so damaged that only the words “The Bill of” could be read, was mostly burnt and crumpled, with much of the text obscured by spray-paint, spelling out the holy words “No Justice! No Peace!”. A few sentences however were decipherable:

–The right of the people to be secure in their persons, house, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violat–

–No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury–

–nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken–

We all can thank heaven that such a document was not the law of the land, here in the U.S., during the horrible COVID-19 pandemic years past. It might have prevented our heroic governors and wise scientists in Washington from acting to shut down society so that the the disease would not spread, thus protecting us all from its evil power.

We all know that surfing on a beach, buying plant seeds, going to the barber, running a restaurant or a sports bar, buying jewelry, going to school or the library, are all deadly acts that could spread the disease, and anyone who encouraged such behavior had to be arrested immediately, with their worldly goods confiscated. It was the only way we were able to keep us all safe!

Because such rules were not in effect in 2020, our glorious supreme leader, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (blessed be her name), is now able to rule us in peace and prosperity. The schools and libraries are shut, the roads are silent, the skies are empty, no fossil fuels are burnt, and we manage well on our daily rations of corn meal and bread, safely ensconced in our protective cells, away from all others who could hurt us.

Moreover, with the help of the government’s partners Google and Facebook, the internet and social discourse is now peaceful and reasonable, with only correct thoughts allowed. No more are we troubled by those ill-tempered fools with strange opinions that only stirred up trouble and prevented our leaders from ruling properly without limitations.

It is now the best of all possible worlds. Hail the new millennium!

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Texas business reopens in defiance of shut down with armed security

12:18 pm

The future: A Texas tatoo parlor decided last week to reopen in defiance of the shut down regulations imposed by its state government, and did so with the help of armed security.

When Jamie Williams decided to reopen her East Texas tattoo studio last week in defiance of the state’s coronavirus restrictions, she asked Philip Archibald for help. He showed up with his dog Zeus, his friends and his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.

Archibald established an armed perimeter in the parking lot outside Crash-N-Burn Tattoo, secured by five men with military-style rifles, tactical shotguns, camouflage vests and walkie-talkies. One of them already had a large tattoo of his own. “We the People,” it said.

“I think it should be a business’s right if they want to close or open,” said Archibald, a 29-year-old online fitness trainer from the Dallas area who lately has made it his personal mission to help Texas business owners challenge government orders to keep their doors shut during the coronavirus pandemic. “What is coming to arrest a person who is opening their business according to their constitutional rights? That’s confrontation.”

More businesses need to do the same. If enough do it, the police thugs will have no choice but to back off and let these Americans go about their business of freely pursuing life, liberty, and happiness.

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Senate approves FISA renewal

12:11 pm

Ya gotta have your KGB! The Senate today approved 80-16 a renewal of the FISA court, allowing that corrupt secret tribunal to continue its spying on Americans.

Since the Senate revised the House bill slightly, the new version will have to go back to the House for approval. It is unclear if the House will approve it as written, or if Trump will sign any of these versions.

Republicans, who spear-headed the passage of this bill, will claim that its new restrictions will protect the rights of Americans. They are lying.

While senators agreed to add the Lee-Leahy bill, they also rejected two other amendments: one from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) preventing FISA warrants from being used against Americans and one from Sens. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) preventing law enforcement from obtaining internet browsing and search history without a warrant.

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The epidemic has passed its peak

9:55 am

Link here. The author goes into great detail, with numerous graphs, illustrating that in nation after nation and state after state, the peak of the epidemic has passed, and we have done all the flattening of the curve we are ever going to do. Among a range of recommendations, he concludes that

In those countries and states that are past the peak, declare the emergency is over and open everything back up. Acknowledge that the chance to flatten the curve is gone, and revoke each and every emergency order. They are only valid for the duration of the emergency. [emphasis in original]

He notes, as I have repeatedly, that the lock downs have not worked. For example, he finds that the overall epidemic in Sweden, which did not lock down its society, trends smack dab in the middle when compared with all other countries. The lock downs made no difference.

If we need to do anything, he emphasizes again that you do not quarantine the healthy, you quarantine the sick.

He also notes that the economic crash, caused by those lock downs, has caused far more harm that the virus ever would have.

It’s like … it’s like … well, about the only example I can think of which has equivalent idiocy is if a mosquito were to land on your head and you grabbed a sledgehammer to get rid of it.

The lock downs must end, now. We need to accept the reality that the Wuhan virus is here to stay, and that it is really quite comparable to the range of similar viruses humans have lived with for eons.

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Commission: U.S. should increase its severe limits on Chinese space contacts

9:32 am

A new report by a congressionally-mandated commission has concluded that practically all of China’s space effort is tightly linked to its military, and that the U.S. should significantly tighten and reduce its space interactions with China, in numerous ways, to avoid that country’s theft of technology.

[T]he commission urges Congress to smack down almost any interaction by any US entity — including private companies and universities — with China on any aspect of space activities.

For example, the commission raises its metaphorical eyebrow at the bilateral research agreement between Beijing Institute of Technology’s (BIT) Institute of International Law and George Washington University’s (GWU) Elliott School of International Affairs. The two organizations signed a cooperation agreement in September 2013, and their joint study program largely focuses on the development of norms and international space governance.

The study characterizes BIT’s involvement as “actively working to shape research and promote PRC standards in international space law,” and ominously notes that GWU’s Space Policy Institute has support of a wide variety of “important U.S. defense contractors and federally funded R&D centers.”

The report can be downloaded here. It does not mince words, outlining in great detail the fusion between China’s military and all of its space efforts, while using science as a cover to develop ties with U.S. universities and research facilities.

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Supermassive black hole binary flares as predicted

9:17 am

The distant binary of two super massive black holes, dubbed QJ287, flared within four hours of its predicted time in July 2019, proving the existence of this system.

The central black hole has a mass 18 billion times that of the Sun. The smaller black hole has a mass of 150 million Suns. Its orbit is twelve years long, and when it makes its close approach the interaction between these two monsters causes high energy flares.

We know all this because astronomers have been watching OJ 287 since the 1890s, before they knew what it was. In the intervening century, the system has shot off two outbursts roughly every 12 years, almost like clockwork.

Yet this pattern took time to decipher, as the bigger black hole in OJ 287 is also a blazar. Its black hole, or the disk that feeds it, powers twin plasma jets shooting out along opposite directions, and one of these jets is pointed almost right at Earth. The volatility of this plasma-and-photon stream makes OJ 287 a highly variable visible-light source. It wasn’t until a century after its discovery that astronomers realized that there was a periodic signal hidden within the noise — and that dual dancing black holes could cause it.

Observations in 2005 confirmed those ideas, and astronomers made increasingly precise predictions for subsequent flares in 2007 and 2015. Now, Seppo Laine (Spitzer Science Center, Caltech), Lankeswar Dey (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India), and colleagues are publishing observations of the latest flare in the Astrophysical Journal. The authors predicted, and then watched for, a flare expected to arrive in the early hours of July 31, 2019.

QJ287 is 3.5 billion light years away, which makes this prediction and the observations even more remarkable.

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List of Obama officials who illegally used wiretaps to spy on Americans

2:41 pm

The federal government’s intelligence services have for many years been authorized to listen in on the phone conversations of foreign nationals for the purpose of detecting any potential threats to the United States.

However, if those conversations happen to include an American citizen, they are also forbidden from revealing who that person is to anyone, including and especially their political bosses, except in extraordinary circumstances, because these spies are not allowed to spy on Americans, without reasonable cause and a warrant. And even when these names were revealed, “unmasked” in intelligence parlance, until the Obama administration such unmasking was only permitted to a very small and select number of people.

The Obama administration changed this. Obama allowed the unmasking to be revealed to numerous people in his administration, and worse, his administration made unmasking a tool for spying on his political opponents. This is how Obama and the FBI knew that Trump’s former National Security Chief Mike Flynn had been talking to the Russian ambassador (as was proper for him to do during the transition time between the two administrations). They had listened in, and then unmasked Flynn’s name, improperly.

Well, we now know some of the people in the Obama administration who ordered these illegal unmaskings.

The list revealed that then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power made unmasking requests seven times between Nov. 30, 2016 and Jan. 11, 2017. The list revealed that Clapper made three requests from Dec. 2, 2016 through Jan. 7, 2017; and that Brennan made two requests, one on Dec. 14 and one on Dec. 15, 2016. Comey also made a request on Dec. 15, 2016. On Jan. 5, 2017, McDonough made one request, and on Jan. 12, 2017, Biden made one request.

The day McDonough requested the information is the same day as an Oval Office meeting that has drawn scrutiny in the wake of the Flynn developments. The meeting included Obama, Biden, Clapper, Brennan, Comey, then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice and then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.

That meeting was the first time Yates learned about Flynn’s calls with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, according to notes from her special counsel interview which were released last week. Yates, in her interview, indicated Obama was aware of Flynn’s intercepted December 2016 phone calls with Kislyak during the presidential transition period. [emphasis mine]

I have highlighted the dates because it is interesting that all these unmaskings occurred during that transition period, after Trump had won the election but before he took office. It is almost as if the Obama administration and his stooges in the FBI, CIA, and other departments are gathering information to use against Trump and his people.

Which is exactly what they were doing. They wanted to overthrow that legal election, and were digging around trying to create a scandal to do so. They didn’t find anything, but what they had gave them the chance to manufacture the Russian collusion hoax.

Note that this list is not complete. It is only the start. What we know now is that Power, Clapper, Brennan, Comey, McDouough, and Biden misused their power against their political opponents.

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Kevin James – Out of Touch

1:48 pm

This short film epitomizes the fascist nature of today’s lock down, social distancing crowd, working in lockstep with government power. It has been making the rounds on a variety of news websites. I think it needs to be highlighted.

The time has come to tell these ugly snitches that we don’t care what they think, and that we are going to live as we decide, freely.

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The blobby wettish flows of Mars

12:21 pm

flow-like feature in Utopia Planitia
Click for full image.

Cool image time! Rather than talk about shut downs, lying politicians, and our tragically fear-filled society, let’s go exploring on Mars. The image to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on February 8, 2020. Dubbed a “Flow-Like Feature within the Adamas Labyrinthus”, it shows what appears to be a very distorted and eroded pedestal crater surrounded by strange triangular-shaped flow features.

It also shows, as does much other research, that the northern mid-latitudes of Mars have a lot of frozen water, much of it buried very close to the surface.

Assuming this is a pedestal crater (which it might not be), this feature has to be very old. Pedestal craters require age, as to stand out above the surrounding terrain a lot of time is needed to erode that terrain away. This age is confirmed by the bunch of newer craters on top.

At the same time, the partially filled small crater near its bottom, as well as the soft eroded depressions on top, suggest that much of this surface has been reshaped by more recent flows, changing its shape over time.

The surrounding triangular flows probably occurred at the original impact, and suggest that there is ice near the surface, making the material here act almost like wet mud when heated. Since this location is right in the middle of the mid-latitude bands where scientists have found lots of evidence of buried glaciers and ice near the surface, this supposition seems reasonable.

The overall location provides some further context.
» Read more

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Parker extends length of science operations during upcoming fifth solar fly-by

9:22 am

The science team for the Parker Solar Probe have decided to extend the period the spacecraft’s instruments are operating during its fifth close fly-by of the Sun, based on the data they have obtained from the first four fly-bys.

On May 9, 2020, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe began its longest observation campaign to date. The spacecraft, which has already completed four progressively closer orbits around the Sun, activated its instruments at a distance of 62.5 million miles from the Sun’s surface, some 39 million miles farther from the Sun than a typical solar encounter. The four instrument suites will continue to collect data through June 28, markedly longer than the mission’s standard 11-day encounters.

The nearly two-month campaign is spurred by Parker Solar Probe’s earlier observations, which revealed significant rotation of the solar wind and solar wind phenomena occurring much farther from the Sun than previously thought. The earlier activation of the science instruments allows the team to cover a larger range in order to trace the evolution of the solar wind as it moves away from the Sun.

Perihelion will occur on June 7 at a distance of 11.6 million miles from the Sun. That will match the previous record set during Parker’s previous orbit for the closest solar fly-by ever. They will then follow this with another fly-by of Venus, which will tighten the orbit even more.

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NASA signs deal with Russians for one Soyuz seat to ISS

9:17 am

Citing a need to provide some back-up in case there are more delays getting the American manned capsules being built by SpaceX and Boeing into operation, NASA yesterday announced that it has signed a deal with Roscosmos to buy one seat on the October Soyuz launch to ISS.

The statement did not disclose the value of the deal, but NASA spokesman Josh Finch told SpaceNews the agreement is valued at $90.25 million. That includes the seat on the Soyuz spacecraft and various training, pre-launch and post-landing services. In addition, Finch said that NASA will compensate Roscosmos for bumping a Russian cosmonaut off that Soyuz mission by flying an unspecified amount of Russian cargo to the station on NASA commercial cargo spacecraft.

I wonder if there are other political reasons behind this deal, besides insuring American access to ISS. $90 million is a lot of money to the Russians, and considering their impending loss of income from NASA (with us no longer buying Soyuz seats in the future) as well as their loss of most of their commercial launch business, it could be that NASA managers wanted to shore up Roscosmos’s financial situation. Remember, at NASA there are many who swear a greater loyalty to space operations from all countries, even at the expense of the United States.

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Lock down failure

2:05 pm

First we were told that it was necessary to impose “social distancing rules” and shut down the economy for a few weeks in order to prevent the healthcare system from being overwhelmed by a sudden influx of COVID-19 cases, predicted to possibly be in the millions. From a typical panicked news report on March 16:

Health officials take for granted that COVID-19 will continue to infect millions of people around the world over the coming weeks and months. However, as the outbreak in Italy shows, the rate at which a population becomes infected makes all the difference in whether there are enough hospital beds (and doctors, and resources) to treat the sick.

In epidemiology, the idea of slowing a virus’ spread so that fewer people need to seek treatment at any given time is known as “flattening the curve.” It explains why so many countries are implementing “social distancing” guidelines — including a “shelter in place” order that affects 6.7 million people in Northern California, even though COVID-19 outbreaks there might not yet seem severe.

Fortunately, the prediction that millions would become sick was so wrong it is now considered a joke. Moreover, it was quickly obvious that the healthcare system was not going to be overwhelmed.

So of course, we can now end these stringent social distancing rules and the lock downs, right?

Hah. Now we are being told that the new social rules and the government-imposed economic shut downs are necessary to stop the spread of the disease, to protect us from further infection, to make us all safe from coronavirus, forever. And if we do have to ease the lock downs at all, we have to do it as slowly as possible, and to change our behaviors forever. Masks must be worn, businesses can no longer serve as many at a time, and we must change and limit our freedoms, just because we might possibly save one life!

Consider the fascist Democratic governor of Pennsylvania and his demand that the state remain locked down for as long as possible.
» Read more

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Another professor arrested for lying about his Chinese ties

9:32 am

It’s an epidemic! Another professor, this time from the University of Arkansas, was arrested yesterday for lying about his ties to China while obtaining NASA grant money.

Simon Saw-Teong Ang, 63, of Fayetteville, received more than $5 million in federal funding for research projects but violated university policy in failing to reveal his ties to Beijing. The alleged deception resulted in wire transfers being sent from NASA to the school based on his alleged fraudulent misrepresentations.

He was arrested Friday and made a court appearance Monday.

He didn’t just violate university policy. It is illegal to hide such ties when doing work for the U.S. government. In fact, you can’t have them and get federal funds.

As I say, it’s an epidemic. This is the third American professor arrested since February (see here and here) for lying about their contacts with China while obtaining federal funds.

I also strongly suspect that this epidemic is not yet over.

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Branson selling 25% of Virgin Galactic shares to save airline business

9:19 am

Capitalism in space:It appears that Richard Branson is selling about 25% of shares in Virgin Galactic in order to prop up his airline and travel businesses that have been crushed by the Wuhan flu panic.

Branson’s Virgin Group may sell as many as 25 million shares in the space-travel firm, with the proceeds going to his leisure and travel businesses, according to a statement on Monday. The 69-year-old Briton is trying to save Virgin Atlantic, which has struggled to qualify for a UK-supported loan program aimed at helping businesses survive the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. He’s seeking outside investors for the airline, while also weighing an infusion of his own funds.

The irony here is that Virgin Galactic has been a big financial money sink since its inception in the mid-2000s, having never flown a single customer in its fifteen-plus year existence. However, Branson has bamboozled a lot of people into buying its stock in the past year, since it went public, causing the stock to rise from its initial price of about $12 to about $18 to $20. This sell-off gives Branson an almost 100% profit on the stock, a good deal indeed for him, even if the company never makes a dime.

He says he is pumping the money back into his other businesses, but we shall see.

What the sale means however is that Branson no longer has a majority share in Virgin Galactic. The biggest shareholder is now Social Capital Hedosophia, created by venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya.

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