Year: 2020

Russia hostile to Trump declaration to promote private enterprise in space

9:33 am

Russia today issued the first international response to the Trump executive order yesterday calling for private enterprise and property in space, and that response was decidedly negative.

Attempts to seize the territories of other planets are harmful to international cooperation, Deputy Director General of Roscosmos for International Cooperation Sergey Saveliev said on Tuesday. “Attempts to expropriate outer space and aggressive plans to actually seize territories of other planets hardly set the countries for fruitful cooperation,” Saveliev said.

He recalled that there were examples in history when one country decided to start seizing territories in its interests. “Everyone remembers what came of it,” Saveliev added.

Part of the goal of Trump’s order was to try to garner international support for the idea of allowing private property in space. The Russian response today suggests that they will not go along, and instead will use the words of the Outer Space Treaty to block such rights.

As I have been saying for years, the real solution is to pull out of the treaty. It forbids us from establishing our laws anywhere in space, which means future space-farers will be second class citizens, with their only rights determined by the UN, not the Bill of Rights.

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Big sections break off of interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov

9:23 am

The uncertainty of science: New observations of the interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov as it exits our solar system indicate that large fragments have recently broken from it, and that the comet might possibly be on the verge of breaking up.

Astronomers have seen evidence of two fragments, but the data suggests these are relatively small compared to the entire comet. On the other hand,

Before perihelion, Jewitt’s analysis of Hubble images showed that Comet Borisov is much smaller than had been thought. The comet’s nucleus is not directly visible, but in the January 10th Astrophysical Journal Letters, Jewitt put its diameter between 0.4 and 1 kilometer. That’s small enough that solar vaporization of surface ices on the side facing the Sun could spin up its rotation beyond gravity’s ability to hold it together.

However, the comet’s size is tricky to estimate, as its surface appears to be emitting so much gas and dust that it obscures the nucleus. The fragment that Jewitt observed is about as bright as the comet itself, but because its surface is so icy and active, he thinks the fragment’s mass is less than 1% of the whole comet. That would make the split more like a side mirror dropping off a car than a car falling apart. Why the fragment split from the comet is unclear, but possibilities include thermal vaporization after new material was exposed, as well as the force from the comet’s spin if it’s spinning as fast as Jewitt suggests.

Whether the comet is about to break up remains unknown. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone was racing to put a mission together to visit it?

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Boeing to do second unmanned test flight of Starliner

12:59 am

Capitalism in space: Boeing officials said yesterday that they now plan a second unmanned demo mission to ISS of their Starliner manned capsule in order to make sure they have cleared up all the issues that plagued the first unmanned flight in December.

The company on Monday confirmed a report in the Washington Post that it will fly a second uncrewed demonstration mission — which Boeing calls an Orbital Flight Test — before astronauts ride a Starliner into orbit.

“We have chosen to refly our Orbital Flight Test to demonstrate the quality of the Starliner system,” Boeing said in a statement Monay. “Flying another uncrewed flight will allow us to complete all flight test objectives and evaluate the performance of the second Starliner vehicle at no cost to the taxpayer. We will then proceed to the tremendous responsibility and privilege of flying astronauts to the International Space Station.”

Right now they are aiming for an October/November launch date.

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Trump signs executive order supporting private ownership in space

3:16 pm

President Trump today signed a new executive order reiterating the United States’ support for private enterprise in space, including the ownership of any resources mined or obtained from other orbiting bodies, such as the Moon and the asteroids.

The text of the order is here. It acts to underline previous laws passed by Congress supporting private ownership in space. It also does three things:

1. It makes it very clear that the U.S. will oppose any effort by the international community to impose the Moon Treaty in space. This U.N. law, which is not the Outer Space Treaty that has governed space since 1967, was never ratified by the U.S., and in fact was only signed by seventeen countries. Its provisions were hostile to private property and private enterprise, essentially making both impossible in space. Thus, today’s executive order states:

The United States is not a party to the Moon Agreement. Further, the United States does not consider the Moon Agreement to be an effective or necessary instrument to guide nation states regarding the promotion of commercial participation in the long-term exploration, scientific discovery, and use of the Moon, Mars, or other celestial bodies. Accordingly, the Secretary of State shall object to any attempt by any other state or international organization to treat the Moon Agreement as reflecting or otherwise expressing customary international law.

2. The order re-emphasized the U.S.’s commitment to allowing private companies to retain ownership of any resources they mine from other worlds. Though the Outer Space Treaty appears to allow this, there is some uncertainty, and because that treaty also forbids nations from claiming any territory to establish their sovereignty and laws upon that territory, establishing the ownership of mining resources under U.S. law remains unsure. Today’s order essentially states that U.S. law will apply to those resources:

Americans should have the right to engage in commercial exploration, recovery, and use of resources in outer space, consistent with applicable law. Outer space is a legally and physically unique domain of human activity, and the United States does not view it as a global commons. Accordingly, it shall be the policy of the United States to encourage international support for the public and private recovery and use of resources in outer space, consistent with applicable law.

3. The order makes clear that the U.S. will use all of its influence to convince all other space-faring nations to agree to this approach.

This last item might be the most important. If the Trump administration can convince all other nations to some new approach that allows for private property in space, the difficulties created by the Outer Space Treaty might be bypassed.

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COVID-19 model predictions continue to be too high

1:59 pm

Two stories off the wire today illustrate again the overheated and over-stated predictions of the computer models being used by federal and government officials are simply wrong.

The first prediction resulted in a panic that caused hospitals nationwide to cease all “non-essential” medical procedures out of fear they would overwhelmed with serious Wuhan virus sufferers. Instead, hospitals sit empty with little activity and some have had to cut staff and hours because the loss of the income from those “non-essential” procedures is bankrupting them. And in New York, the worst hit state, the model was four times too high:

The model projected that New York would need 65,400 hospital beds by April 4, but only 15,905 were actually used, according to former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson.

The second story reports that the IHME model that the White House and state governors have been relying on to justify shutting down the entire U.S. economy, bankrupting millions of small businesses, and putting millions of people out of work, has reduced its prediction for deaths from COVID-19 from about 93,000 to about 82,000, a number is still certainly too high based on the actual deaths so far. Earlier they were claiming hundreds of thousands could die.

Meanwhile, policy nationwide has been based on the assumption, clearly stated by Dr. Deborah Birx, head of the White House coronavirus task force, that “No state, no metro area, will be spared.”

The numbers however make this statement seem absurd. This state-by-state analysis today shows that the bulk of the problem is focused in the New York metropolitan area:

Thus, we can ascertain by these numbers that 53% of all U.S. Coronavirus deaths are coming from the two states of New York and New Jersey.

…If you throw out the numbers for the top five and bottom five states, removing the extreme highs and lows – the other 40 U.S. states (including Puerto Rico) will have suffered an average of 70 deaths from Coronavirus.

In other words, we have allowed our politicians to bankrupt us over an illness that has killed so few people in most of the country (most of which were aged and likely very sick already) that the numbers could almost have been considered rounding errors.

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Changing Mars

1:12 pm

The maculae splotch dubbed Maui
For the full images click here (2019) and here (2020).

While Mars appears to be a dead planet, with no clear evidence of life so far discovered, the planet is hardly inactive. Things are changing there continuously, even if it happens at a slower pace than here on Earth.

To the right are two images, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, taken by the high resolution camera of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The first was on January 19, 2019, shortly after the end of the global dust storm that engulfed Mars during that Martian year. The second was taken on February 14, 2020, half a Martian year later. Both show one of a string of dark splotches located on the western flanks of the giant volcano Olympus Mons. Scientists call these splotches maculae, and because of their superficial resemblance to the islands of Hawaii, have given them names matching those islands. This particular patch is dubbed Maui. Below is a map showing all the splotches and their position relative to Olympus Mons, taken from a 2019 presentation [pdf].
» Read more

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NOAA’s prediction for the next solar maximum

10:02 am

Last week NOAA introduced a newly revamped graph for tracking the monthly activity of sunspots on the Sun’s visible hemisphere. (You can see an example of the old graph, used by them for more than fifteen years, here.)

In order to properly understand the context of future sunspot activity, it is important to understand how the new graph aligns with the old. My first attempt to do so in my April 3, 2020 sunspot update, unfortunately was a failure. While most of my conclusions in that update remain correct, my attempt to place NOAA’s prediction for the next solar cycle on my graph was in error.

I had not realized that NOAA had changed its sunspot number scale on the graph’s vertical axis. In their old graph they had used the monthly sunspot number count from the Royal Observatory of Belgium. The new graph instead used the sunspot number from NOAA’s own Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). Both numbers are creditable, but the solar scientist community has switched entirely to the latter in the past few years because they consider its criteria for determining the count across all past cycles to be more accurate.

The Belgium numbers have traditionally been about one third lower than SWPC’s. Not realizing that NOAA’s new prediction was based on the SWPC numbers, I therefore placed it on the graph using the Belgium numbers and thus made the peak of the solar maximum 33% too high.

Below is NOAA’s new graph, annotated properly with both the past and new solar cycle predictions added now correctly.
» Read more

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Astra furloughs and lays off a fifth of its workforce

9:08 am

The smallsat rocket company Astra Space recently reduced its workforce from 150 to 120, with most of those let go furloughed for three months during the Wuhan flu panic with some laid off entirely.

This reduction appears due mostly because of the panic, as it has killed their efforts to raise more investment capital. However, the “anomaly” that caused the complete loss of a rocket during countdown a few weeks ago might also have contributed. According to this article, which gives some more details of that “anomaly,” which apparently was a fire that destroyed the rocket, caused by “an unfortunate mistake.”

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China tests parachutes to control 1st stage

9:00 am

During China’s Long March 3B launch on March 9, engineers tested the use of parachutes and “control devices” on the rocket’s first stage in order to better position the stage’s crash.

After the booster separated from the rocket, the parachutes opened in a sequence to control its attitude and direction, and data of the fall trajectory and landing site were sent to ground control in Xichang, southwest China’s Sichuan Province.

…It took just 25 minutes for staff to find the debris, compared to hours or up to a fortnight previously, [according to the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT)].

The article from China’s state-run press at the link also bragged that they have been working on this new technology for a decade. That I think is a lie. The Long March 3B was developed in the 1990s and, until SpaceX successfully proved it possible to land a first stage in 2015, there was no hint they were doing anything to protect their citizens from crashing first stages.

Only in the past years have they performed any tests of such technology, including grid fins that appeared clearly stolen from SpaceX’s design. It is good that they are finally doing this, but their lack of interest in protecting their own citizens beforehand tells us quite a lot of both Chinese culture and the communist/socialist/fascist dictatorship that leads it.

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More evidence that U.S. health system is not being overwhelmed by COVID-19

10:18 pm

In an article today in the National Review focused on a lot of good coronavirus news the past week, a number stories jumped out at me, mostly focused on the surplus hospital beds available in the states of Florida, New Jersey, Washington, Maryland, Vermont, Ohio, Utah, and in southern Arizona, and in the cities of Dallas, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Orange County.

In other words, my conclusion earlier this week that the U.S. hospital system was not going to be overwhelmed by COVID-19 is proving to be true. Even in New York, which appears to have the biggest problem, they have arranged with twenty hotels to convert rooms for hospital care.

Much of this surplus is unfortunately caused by the forced lockdowns that have forbidden hospitals to do any elective surgeries (with “elective” sometimes defined so broadly that they have caused some hospitals to cut staff and hours) as well as the too-high predictions that have probably caused them to plan for more beds than they will need.

Nonetheless, these surpluses are good news.

Meanwhile, the daily death toll rose significantly today in the U.S., reaching almost 1,500, after several days where it appeared to have stabilized around 1,000. This rise is not unexpected, and further rises will also not be a surprise. The moment of truth however will be when it begins to drop, which should probably happen in less than two weeks. When that happens, we will then finally be able to get a realistic estimate of the total mortality from COVID-19.

I will add that based on the numbers of actual deaths so far in the U.S., it still appears to me that the prediction of between 100,000 to 240,000 U.S. deaths by Trump’s experts is going to be much too high, and very very wrong.

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Trump fires inspector general who sparked fake Ukraine whistleblower complaint

9:23 pm

Maybe the house-cleaning is finally beginning? President Trump today fired Michael Atkinson, the inspector general covering the intelligence agencies who approved the fake Ukraine whistleblower complaint that the Democrats used to justify their impeachment of the President.

I call that whistleblower’s complaint fake because 1) he wasn’t party to the phonecall in which he accused Trump of misbehavior, 2) the transcripts of the call itself showed none of the misbehavior he claimed, and 3) he was never willing to testify publicly to his accusation. Instead, he ran and hid.

It was pure fraud, a political hit job by Atkinson and the Democrats. Note too that there were indications that Atkinson, who was as an inspector general supposed to be independent of partisan politics, worked closely with the House Democrats to shape the whistleblower’s accusation.

Corrupt through and through. He should have been fired six months ago, especially because the impeachment chain of events he started tried to overthrow a legally elected president.

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