Month: March 2021

NASA completes assembly of SLS’s first two solid rocket boosters

10:11 am

The stacking and assembly of the first two solid rocket boosters for the first launch of SLS has been completed at Cape Canaveral.

The boosters, built by Northrop Grumman, now only wait for the arrival of Boeing’s core stage, which is still awaiting the successful completion of its final static test, now tentatively set for sometime in the next week or so.

Stacking of the boosters began in November 2020, which means that the first SLS launch must happen by November ’21 because the boosters have a limited life span of about a year. To make that November launch happen on time however is becoming increasingly difficult. Assuming the mid-March core static static fire test in Mississippi is successful, NASA will have to then ship the stage to Florida and get it assembled with those two boosters. NASA has previously said it will take about six months to do this. Their margin between now and November is thus getting quite tight.

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NASA forges deal with private company to put American on Russian Soyuz

9:57 am

Capitalism in space: It appears NASA used the private company Axiom as its go-between to obtain a seat for an American astronaut on the next Soyuz launch to ISS in April.

The deal is very complex.

Based on the initial partnership arrangement between the Russians and NASA, astronauts for both countries would fly in equal numbers on each other’s spacecraft in a barter arrangement that involved no exchange of funds. Russia however has been balking at flying its astronauts on Dragon, claiming it does not yet meet their standards for a manned spacecraft. Thus, they have been demanding that NASA pay them to fly an American on Soyuz.

NASA meanwhile doesn’t have the funds, but it still wants to make sure there is always an American on board ISS, and to do that requires a second ferry besides Dragon to provide redundancy. With Boeing’s Starliner delayed, they have been trying to get a seat on Soyuz as part of that barter deal, to no avail.

The solution? Private enterprise! To get that Soyuz seat at no cost it appears NASA made a barter deal with the private space company Axiom. Axiom is apparently paying the Russians for a seat on next month’s Soyuz flight, which will be filled by a NASA astronaut, and gets in return from NASA a free spare seat on a later American capsule.

The result? NASA pays nothing to the Russians, and still gets its seat on Soyuz. Where Axiom is getting the financing for its purchase is unclear, but because it is getting an extra seat at no cost that it can sell later for a big profit, I suspect that financing was not difficult to obtain.

The details for Axiom’s deal with Roscosmos have not as yet been revealed, though I am sure the Russians charged Axiom plenty for the seat on Soyuz. I also suspect that amount was far less then what the Russians would have charged NASA directly.

Once Starliner finally becomes operational NASA will have enough redundancy for getting Americans to ISS it will no longer need the Russians. Hopefully that will happen by the end of this year. If so, such shenanigans will no longer be required.

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Starship #11 moves to launchpad

4:00 pm

Capitalism in space: Less than a week since the flight and destruction of Starship prototype #10 post flight, SpaceX has now moved Starship #11 to the launchpad.

There is no firm word on when they will attempt to fly this prototype, but based on past history, they will likely do at least one static fire test this week and schedule the flight for next week. All will depend of course on weather and on the results of the static fire test. For example, with #10 they found they needed to replace one engine after the first static fire test.

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China and Russia sign partnership agreement for lunar exploration

2:11 pm

The new colonial movement: China and Russia today signed an agreement outlining a partnership to jointly build a base and orbiting station on and around the Moon.

The International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) is described as a comprehensive scientific experiment base built on the lunar surface or on the lunar orbit that can carry out multi-disciplinary and multi-objective scientific research activities including exploration and utilization, lunar-based observation, basic scientific experiment and technical verification, and long-term autonomous operation. Statements from Roscosmos and CNSA underline that the project will be “open to all interested countries and international partners.”

Though not explicitly stated it is understood that the ILRS would be constructed at the lunar south pole.

Russia is slowly breaking off its partnership with the U.S. because the U.S. is insisting it sign the Artemis Accords, which require all signatories to honor property rights in space. Neither Russian nor China wish to do that, instead reserving those rights wholly to their own governments, their citizens be damned.

Thus, we have a deal for Russia and China to work together. China actually doesn’t need Russia, as it has clearly shown in the past five years that its space capabilities are quite sufficient and well funded. Russia however needs China, as its capabilities have been declining in recent years due to corruption within its aerospace industry as well as a shortage of funds caused by a poor economy and the drop in oil prices.

Working together however could help speed what they achieve while simultaneously fueling the growing international competition in space. In the end this will benefit everyone, as more will get done faster.

How we shall settle the disagreement over property rights and government power in space is a entirely different question, one that I address at great length in my next soon-to-be published book, entitled Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and into the future. Stay tuned!

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Today’s blacklisted American: Leftist professor who demanded others be fired for their conservative opinions has now been fired for her leftist opinions

1:31 pm

The cancelled Bill of Rights

They’re coming for you next: Lora Burnett, a leftist professor who demanded that conservative teachers be fired or punished for expressing their conservative opinions, in February lost her university job due to the virulence of her own leftist opinions, expressed in a number of very ugly tweets.

The Collin [College] administration has now confirmed it won’t renew the untenured scholar’s contract, which ends in May, for not conducting herself “in a professional manner.”

Burnett shared images from the human resources letter she received, which allege she violated “delineated standards of conduct” through her “insubordination, making private personnel issues public that impair the college’s operations, and personal criticisms of co-workers, supervisors, and/or those who merely disagree with you.”

She characterized the firing as retaliation for “mean tweets.”

No, those tweets were not merely “mean,” they were part of a long tract record of demanding the punishment or firing of anyone whose politics disagreed with Burnett’s. For example,
» Read more

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A iceberg of water ice floating on a Martian dry ice sea

12:19 pm

Ice mesa near Mars' south pole
Click for full image.

British biologist John Haldane once once wrote, “The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”

Today’s cool image to the right, cropped to post here, is a fine example of Haldane’s words. It was taken on January 15, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter of a single lone mesalike feature sticking up in a flat expanse of Mars’ south polar dry ice/water ice cap.

I emailed Shane Byrne of the Lunar and Planetary Lab University of Arizona, who had requested the photo, to ask him what he thinks we are looking at. His response:

This region has a thick layer of CO2 ice sandwiched between water ice that’s above and below. CO2 ice is denser than water ice so I think a fragment of water ice of the underlying layer has risen up through the denser CO2 ice that covers this area (what geologists call a diapir).

Byrne also admits this remains merely “just a wild theory,” not yet confirmed.

Assuming this theory to be right, in a sense then this mesa is not really a mesa at all but an iceberg of water, floating not in a saltwater liquid ocean as on Earth but on a frozen sea of dry ice. Talk about queer! The wider shot below, taken by MRO’s context camera, illustrates how isolated this water iceberg is on that dry ice sea.
» Read more

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SpaceX requests FCC permission to expand Starlink service to trucks, ships, & planes

9:44 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has submitted a request to the FCC to expand its Starlink customer base by providing the service not only to rural areas but to large moving vehicles, such as trucks, ships, & planes.

In its application to the FCC, filed on Friday, SpaceX said expanding Starlink availability to moving vehicles throughout the U.S. and to moving vessels and aircraft worldwide would serve the public interest. “The urgency to provide broadband service to unserved and underserved areas has never been clearer,” David Goldman, SpaceX’s director of satellite policy, said in the filing.

Goldman said SpaceX’s “Earth Stations in Motion,” or ESIMs, would be “electrically identical” versions of the $499 antenna systems that are already being sold to beta customers. He suggested that they’d be counted among the million end-user stations that have already been authorized by the FCC.

…SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a tweet that Starlink’s ESIM terminals would be “much too big” to mount on cars — such as the electric cars that are made by Tesla, the other company that Musk heads — but would be suitable for large trucks and RVs.

The article at the link notes in detail how this request poses a serious competitive threat to two of SpaceX’s biggest rivals, Klymeta and Amazon’s Kuiper constellation. This is true, but it is so mostly because SpaceX has already launched more than a thousand satellites in its constellation, and is simply taking advantage of its advanced position to undercut its rivals.

For example, though Klymeta might be using already orbiting satellites put up by different companies, it is also charging twice what SpaceX wants to charge for its antenna system, making Starlink a more attractive product. Amazon meanwhile appears years away from launching its first satellite. It might have a better design, but such things are worthless if they aren’t built and operational.

These companies have no one to blame but themselves if Starlink grabs their hope-for market share. And the FCC should not block SpaceX just to protect them.

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Russian astronauts begin work to seal 2nd Zvezda leak on ISS

9:27 am

After successfully sealing the largest crack on the twenty-year-old Zvezda module on ISS, Russian astronauts have now begun work on sealing a second such crack.

The report, from Russia’s state-run news service TASS, is not very informative. It does not report the size of the leaks, their nature, and any other important conclusions the Russians have gathered about Zvezda’s overall condition and future, based on these cracks.

Nor has state-run NASA been very transparent on this subject, releasing little further information. The silence from these government entities about the cracks is very worrisome, as it suggests these fixes are merely bandaids on a more serious issue with Zvezda’s structure, and our dishonest and bureaucratic governments do not wish to reveal this fact to the public.

I hope I am wrong, but suspect I am not. If Russia follows its pattern for the past half century, they will provide a more detailed report only after the problem has been completely solved. If these patches are merely temporary fixes over a more serious problem, don’t expect that detailed report for some time.

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Meteorite recovered in driveway in UK only days after landing

9:18 am

Meteorite hunters successfully recovered a meteorite only days after it plowed through the atmosphere and landed in a driveway in Gloucestershire in the United Kingdom on February 28th.

The fragment, weighing nearly 300 grams, and other pieces of the space rock were located after scientists reconstructed the flight path of the fireball that unleashed a sonic boom as it tore across the sky shortly before 10pm UK time on Sunday 28 February. The black chunk of rock, a carbonaceous chondrite never seen before in the UK, thumped on to a driveway in the Cotswolds town of Winchcombe, scientists at the Natural History Museum in London said, adding that further fragments were retrieved nearby.

Ashley Green, a scientist at the museum, said it was “a dream come true” to be one of the first people to see and study a meteorite that had been recovered almost immediately after coming down.

Footage of the bright streak captured by the public, and a camera network operated by the Natural History Museum’s UK Fireball Alliance, helped researchers calculate that the meteor had spent most of its orbit between Mars and Jupiter before it ploughed into Earth’s atmosphere.

I seriously doubt that no carbonaceous chondrite asteroids have never been found in Great Britain before. Instead, what the reporter misunderstood was that this was the first such asteroid in the UK recovered immediately after its arrival. Carbonaceous chondrites are very fragile. Much of their material will quickly erode and disappear, preventing researchers from obtaining a complete census of their entire make-up. Grabbing this thing mere days after landing means they will have a sample more closely resembling these kinds of asteroids in space.

In this way this rock is not much different than the samples being brought back from Hayabusa-2 and OSIRIS-REx. It isn’t as pristine, but it certainly carries far more information that meteorites recovered decades or even centuries after landing.

Similar quick recoveries in the past few years have forced some major rethinking about the make-up of the asteroid population. This meteorite will likely add to that revolution.

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Hubble goes into safe mode

3:19 pm

Due to a software issue, the Hubble Space Telescope shifted into safe mode early yesterday and stopped doing its programmed science observations.

The engineers seem confident all will eventually be well, but we must also remember the telescope’s infrastructure (not its instruments) was built in the early 1980s and has been in space since 1990. That makes many parts of this telescope 40 years old. We are increasingly faced with the possibility of a fatal fault occurring that shuts it down for good, with no way at the present time to reach it and fix it, and with the only comparable optical space telescope in the works one being built by China to fly in formation with its space station.

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Today’s blacklisted great literature: Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss, and Western Civilization itself

1:17 pm

They’re coming for you next: In the past few days there has been a big uproar concerning the decision by Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the publisher of all of Dr. Seuss’s books, to cease publication of six of Seuss’s books — “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street”, “If I Ran the Zoo”, “McElligot’s Pool”, “On Beyond Zebra!”, “Scrambled Eggs Super!”, and “The Cat’s Quizzer” — because of imagined “racist and insensitive imagery.”

On its face this decision is ridiculous, especially because Dr. Suess, whose real name was Theodor Geisel, was an ardent defender of liberty who aggressively fought against bigots and Nazis and fascists his entire life.. As recently as a year ago the company that now manages his writing would have been laughed at and shamed so loudly and completely for this decision that it would have very quickly backed down.

No more. Rather than defy stupidity the world now embraces it, as indicated by Ebay’s decision only two days later to ban the sale of any used copies of these books on its auction website.

Nor is this attack on great literature the only example. There are others that are not getting the same coverage that are as bad if not more egregious.
» Read more

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Mars: Planet of many glaciers

12:08 pm

Moraines on Mars
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image more than simply cool, it reveals a wider picture of Mars that should be quite exciting to future colonists. The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on January 30, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). What drew my attention to it was the title given to this uncaptioned photo: “Moraine-Like Ridges in Nereidum Montes.”

Moraines are the debris pile pushed ahead of any glacier. The picture shows what appear to be a series of moraines, likely caused by different periods of glacier activity when the glacier was growing. It also suggests that past active periods were more active than later ones, as with each active period the moraine did not get pushed out quite as far.

The location, Nereidum Montes, intrigued me, as I am not that familiar with it. I emailed the scientist who requested the image, Dan Berman, senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona, and asked him for more information. He suggested I read a very recent paper he co-wrote entitled “Ice-rich landforms of the southern mid-latitudes of Mars: A case study in Nereidum Montes.” From that paper I was able to produce the map of Mars below that shows the regions on the planet where scientists now think hold the greatest concentrations of glaciers.
» Read more

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OSIRIS-REx begins last approach of Bennu

9:12 am

Approaching Bennu for the last time
Click for full image.

The science team for OSIRIS-REx released today the first picture taken as the spacecraft begins its last approach of the asteroid Bennu. To the right is that picture, cropped and expanded to post here. From the caption:

This image shows a top-down view of asteroid Bennu, with a portion of the asteroid’s equatorial ridge and northern hemisphere illuminated. It was taken by the PolyCam camera on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on March 4, from a distance of about 186 miles (300 km). The spacecraft’s cameras are pointed directly at Bennu’s north pole. Two large equatorial craters are visible on the asteroid’s edge (center and center left).

If all goes well, the probe will fly past the asteroid on April 7th, obtaining high resolution images of its entire surface as it rotates below, including very close-up images of the Nightingale sample grab location during its closest approach.

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Yutu-2 and Chang’e-4 reactivated for 28th lunar day on Moon

9:01 am

The new colonial movement: Engineers have reactivated both Yutu-2 and Chang’e-4 to begin their 28th lunar day on the far side of the Moon.

The article, from China’s state-run press, provides only one real tidbit of information, that Yutu-2 has now traveled 429 meters (1,378 feet) from the landing site. They still have about a mile to go to reach their next big geological target, which should take years at the pace the rover is setting.

Both spacecraft though have been unmitigated successes. Their nominal mission had been to survive three lunar day-night cycles, about 90 Earth days. They have survived 28, or more than two years since landing in January 2019.

This success suggests that China’s Mars rover has a good chance of doing as well. Its planned mission length is also 90 days, similar to the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, both of which lasted many years.

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Starship update: #11 about to roll out; #10 landing analysis

8:46 am

Link here. As has been the case now for almost a year, the cadence at this SpaceX facility continues to be brisk.

Just days after SN10 completed the first – albeit hard – Starship prototype landing, SN11 is set to rollout to the launch site for its own attempt. Incremental progress is being made with the test flights, with another tweak to the landing sequence set to be implemented, based on data gained from SN10. Meanwhile, the first Super Heavy prototype continues stacking operations while parts for up to Starship SN20 are being staged at the Production Site.

The update also includes details about the explosion of prototype #10 — which apparently landed harder than it should have which caused damage to tanks which then caused the explosion — as well as details about future expansion plans at the Boca Chica facility.

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February Birthday fund-raising campaign for Behind the Black: THANK YOU

10:01 pm

Readers!

My annual February birthday month fund-raising campaign for Behind the Black is now over. It was the best February campaign ever, and the second best of all of my month-long fund-raising campaigns.

There were too many people who contributed to thank you all personally. If I did so I would not have time for the next day or so to actually do any further posts, and I suspect my supporters would prefer me posting on space and culture over getting individual thank you notes.

Let this public thank suffice. I say this often, but I must tell you all that you cannot imagine how much your support means to me. I’ve spent my life fighting a culture hostile to my perspective, a hostility that has often served to squelch my success. Your donations have now allowed me to bypass that hostility to reach a large audience.

Even though the February campaign is over, if you still wish to donate or subscribe you still can do so, by either clicking on the tip jar at the top of the column to the right (on desktops) or near the bottom of the page (on mobile phones), or mailing a check to the address shown in that tip jar.

This thank you post will remain at the top of the page for the next few days.

Yours sincerely,
Robert Zimmerman

Scroll down for new updates.

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Perseverance begins journey with 1st test drive

9:22 pm

Perseverance's future planned route
Click for full image.

On March 4th the engineers on the Perseverance science team successfully completed the rover’s first test drive.

Ground teams commanded the rover to drive forward, turn in place, and then back up. The first 33-minute test drive covered just 21 feet, or 6.5 meters,but Perseverance will soon travel much farther. “Our first drive went incredibly well,” said Anais Zarifian, a Perseverance mobility test engineer at JPL.

Perseverance has six aluminum wheels, each with titanium spokes for support, and a suspension capable of traveling over rocks as big as the wheels themselves. The one-ton rover is based on the design of NASA’s Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in 2012, but with some improvements.

The wheels on Perseverance are sightly narrower, have a larger diameter, and are made of thicker materials, Zarifian said. Engineers also changed the tread pattern on the wheels to reduce the risk of damage from sharp rocks, which created dings and cuts in Curiosity’s wheels.

The map above shows the route the science team has presently chosen for Perseverance, a revision from earlier routes created prior to landing. The white dot on the right is the rover’s present position, the blue and purple lines are two alternative routes they are considering for their route to the delta coming out of Neretva Vallis. The yellow route up the delta is especially exciting in that it gets them onto it much sooner than previous plans.

Which route they choose for the initial journey I think will partly depend on which provides the best location to test fly Ingenuity, the experimental helicopter on the rover. Scientists and engineers I am sure are presently poring over high resolution images from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) in order to make that choice. At this link, centered on Perseverance’s present location, you can take a look at all those images by MRO by selecting the arrow icon at the top and then clicking on any red box. Because so many photos have been taken there is a lot of overlap, so each click will give you many pictures to look at.

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Ice-filled Martian sinkhole

2:19 pm

Ice-filled pit on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The pit shown in the high resolution photo to the right (image rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here) was taken on January 25, 2021 and labeled by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) “Collapse Pit in Graben with Ice Fill.”

There is a lot of information in that title. First, a graben is a geological feature where a section of terrain drops relative to the surrounding terrain, producing a depression. Second, it appears the graben in this region is mostly filled with debris, probably wind-blown dust or sand or volcanic ash.

Third, at this particular spot the filling material sank, like a sinkhole on Earth, creating the pit.

And fourth, and maybe most intriguing, the scientists think that this pit is now filled with ice. At 47 degrees north latitude, the location is prime for such ice, and the interior material resembles similar glacial features seen in many other mid-latitude craters.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: YouTube strips Epoch Times from making money on its videos

1:01 pm

They’re coming for you next: In late January Google’s YouTube stripped the news organization the Epoch Times from making any money on the videos it posts on that website, solely because of its conservative content.

As usual, YouTube claimed that this blacklisting was simply the company following its “Community guidelines.”

“All channels on YouTube need to comply with our Community Guidelines, and in order to monetize, channels must comply with the YouTube Partner Program policies, which include our Advertiser-Friendly Guidelines,” the spokesperson also said. “Channels that repeatedly violate these policies are suspended from our partner program.”

The spokesperson noted that channels removed from its partner program are able to appeal the decision or reapply to YPP in 30 days, provided the underlying issues that led to suspension have been addressed to YouTube’s liking.

Let me translate those guidelines into plain English: You can only publish material that agrees with Google’s leftist and bigoted identity politics. Anything else must be censored.

It is now more than thirty days since YouTube’s action, and as far as I can tell, the blacklisting of the Epoch Times remains unchanged.

Is Google still your search engine? If so, shame on you. It takes less than 30 seconds to change your browser’s go-to search engine to either DuckDuckGo or Qwant or Myprivatesearch or Startpage. If enough people did this Google’s power could be quickly dissipated.

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Rover update: Panorama from Curiosity; Perseverance unwinds

10:25 am

Summary: Curiosity has crept to the foot of Mt Sharp at last, while Perseverance checks out its equipment.

Curiosity

Curiosity panorama Sol 3049
Click for full resolution.

Overview map

This rover update will be short but very sweet. While the press and public has been oo’ing and ah’ing over the first panorama from Perseverance, Curiosity yesterday produced its own panorama above showing the looming cliffs of Mt. Sharp, now only a short distance away. The original images can be found here, here, here, and here.

The overview map to the right, from the “Where is Curiosity?” webpage, shows the rover’s location, with the yellow lines roughly indicating the view afforded by the panorama above. If you compare this panorama with the one I posted in my previous rover update on February 12, 2021, you can get a sense of how far the rover has traveled in just the past two weeks. It now sits near the end of the red dotted line pointing at the mountain, right next to what had been a distant cliff and now is only a short distance to the rover’s right.

Somewhere on the mountain slopes ahead scientists have spotted in orbiter images recurring slope lineae, seasonal streaks on slopes that appear in the spring and fade as they year passes. As Curiosity arrives at the next geological layer a short distance ahead at the base of these cliffs (dubbed the sulfate unit), it will spend probably several months studying both that sulfate unit as well as those lineae. Expect the rover to drill a few holes for samples as it watches to see any changes that might occur on that lineae.

Now, on to Perseverance!
» Read more

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NASA increases ISS prices to commercial customers by 700%

9:03 am

On February 25th NASA quietly announced that it was increasing the prices it charges for private commercial payloads to ISS sevenfold, immediately putting some customers out of business.

In the statement, published with little fanfare on the agency’s website, NASA said it was updating that price list “to reflect full reimbursement for the value of NASA resources.” The decision to do so, NASA said, was based on “discussions with stakeholders, the current market growth, and in anticipation of future commercial entities capable of providing similar services.”

By removing the subsidy, the prices of those services went up significantly. The cost to transport one kilogram of cargo up to the station, known as “upmass,” went from $3,000 to $20,000. The cost to bring that one kilogram back down from the station, “downmass,” went from $6,000 to $40,000. One hour of crew member time, previously $17,500, is now $130,000.

The sudden change in prices, which took effect immediately, took some ISS users by surprise. An executive with one company, who spoke on background because that company is still evaluating the impacts of the pricing change, was not aware of NASA’s decision to raise prices until contacted by SpaceNews.

“NASA has not done a good job communicating with the stakeholders,” said Jeffrey Manber, chief executive of Nanoracks. “We are in discussions with customers and suddenly we are being notified of a major increase.” That sudden increase in prices, he said, forced Nanoracks to suspend discussions with two potential customers, who he said were “priced out of their budget” by the increase.

Note that NASA’s statement apparently contained a lie. It claimed the agency talked with “stakeholders,” but apparently those stakeholders knew nothing about it until it happened.

I strongly suspect this is a Biden administration decision, not one from NASA. Democratic Party politicians don’t see government as a servant of the people, but as a tool to rule them. A private industry is beginning to sprout using government resources in space, and rather than encourage its growth they instead want to squeeze as much cash from it as possible.

Moreover, why is NASA charging anything for bringing cargo to ISS? They don’t provide the transportation, launch companies like SpaceX and ULA do. The only appropriate charge NASA should be charging is rental at the station.

If this was a NASA decision solely and Trump was in power, I would expect it to be soon canceled. Under Biden there is no chance. More likely that administration either endorsed it or imposed it.

What this means is that future commercial flights will soon shift away from ISS. I expect Axiom to work hard to get its station modules launched and separated from ISS as quickly as possible. I also expect to see more independent Dragon manned tourist missions, like the one planned for this fall, that do not dock with the station.

In fact, here is a thought that I think has already entered Elon Musk’s brain. In the next year SpaceX is likely going to do its first Starship orbital test flight. Why not put a test habitable module on board that can be used by tourists at a reasonable price? There is money to be made here, especially because NASA is gouging its customers and there is plenty of margin to undercut the agency’s absurd prices.

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Virgin Galactic’s chairman sells all of his stock in the company

8:43 am

Getting out when the getting is good: The chairman of Virgin Galactic who was part of the deal that allowed the company to go public has now sold all of his stock in the company.

Billionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya sold his entire personal stake in Virgin Galactic this week, a regulatory filing revealed on Friday.

The space-tourism company’s chairman cashed out his 6.2 million shares at an average price of $35, netting him around $211 million. Palihapitiya, along with his business partner Ian Osborne, still indirectly own 15.8 million shares via SCH Sponsor Corp, their investment vehicle.

Palihapitiya previously sold 3.8 million Virgin Galactic shares in December, tweeting that he needed to free up cash to fund several new projects this year.

Like Branson, this guy took the company public, made some absurd claims about its future, got several Wall Street analysts to rave about his plans, and then when the stock was high because of these fake promises, got out. He knows, as did Branson, that Virgin Galactic has practically a zero chance of making a dime in the future. He just worked a con to use it to make him some cash on the backs of a lot of other stock buyers who should have known better.

This company might fly a few paying customers on some suborbital flights, but its long term future is very bleak.

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Dao Vallis: A giant river of ice on Mars

1:38 pm

The glacier in Dao Vallis
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on December 26, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows an apparent glacial flow in a canyon heading downhill to the southwest, with evidence of a gully on its western wall whose collapse apparently squeezed into that glacial flow, pushing it to the east.

What makes this particular image interesting is not its uniqueness but just the opposite. Almost every high resolution picture along the length of this 750 mile long canyon, dubbed Dao Vallis, shows the same thing, an ice-filled ravine with that ice flowing like a river downhill.

The overview map below provides some spectacular context.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Student blackballed for saying “a man is a man, a woman is a woman”

11:38 am

They’re coming for you next: The “Education” department for one of New York’s state universities has suspended a student from its program because he had the nerve to simply say in public that “A man is a man, a woman is a woman. A man is not a woman and a woman is not a man.”

“After review of all available materials, I find that, based on your continued public stance and social media presence, you do not consistently demonstrate behaviors required by the Conceptual Framework of the School of Education,” the Dean of the School of Education wrote in an email to Stevens.

The university claims that Stevens violated the school’s inclusivity doctrine, which requires teachers to foster “a diverse campus community marked by mutual respect for the unique talents and contributions of each individual.”

The Dean also insinuated that future teachers are required to support all aspects of homosexuality and gender identity. … The Dean told Stevens that his scientific stance on biology is “in conflict” with the state’s Dignity for All Students Act. “You continue to maintain, ‘I do not recognize the gender that they claim to be if they are not biologically that gender,’” the Dean said. “This public position is in conflict with the Dignity for All Students Act requiring teachers to maintain a classroom environment protecting the mental and emotional well-being of all students.”

In other words, no student in this university education program is allowed to publicly state some common basic facts about life, humanity, and biology. We must make believe we believe in falsehoods simply because others demand we do so. If what you say contradicts the beliefs of these bullies you must be blacklisted, blackballed, canceled, and destroyed.

Worse, can you imagine the incompetent educators that are going to come out of this program? Do you want these people teaching your children?

Not only has the student received threats of violence from others because of his stance, the university’s president, Denise Battles, also blasted him in a university-wide email. She claimed,

“There are clear legal limitations to what a public university can do in response to objectionable speech,” the president wrote. “As a result, there are few tools at our disposal to reduce the pain that such speech may cause.”

It is not there job to “reduce the pain” some speech might cause in others. That’s what freedom of speech is all about, protecting offensive speech so that society can absorb all sides of a debate.

Battles’ position also shows that she is taking sides. Her goal is entirely focused on protecting leftists and sexual deviants from hearing anything they might not agree with and which thus might offend their delicate self-images. She cares not at all about the pain inflicted on this student. He doesn’t rate a safe space ever.

Finally, Battles and the university have clearly decided to violate the legal limitations placed on them by the first amendment, despite what she claims. Their actions to punish this student for his legally-protected speech make them very vulnerable to a major lawsuit, one that they are likely to lose.

More important, why is anyone going to such a school? You not only won’t learn anything useful, you will be taught many things that are false and harmful.

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NASA lunar rover experiences big budget overruns

9:48 am

NASA revealed yesterday that the budget for VIPER, a new NASA-built lunar rover, has increased from $250 million to $433.5 million.

The cost of the mission has gone up significantly. At the time NASA announced VIPER in October 2019, it projected a cost of about $250 million. As part of the confirmation review, known as Key Decision Point C, NASA set a formal cost commitment for the mission. NASA spokesperson Alison Hawkes said March 3 that the new lifecycle cost for the mission is $433.5 million.

NASA didn’t disclose the reason for the cost increase, but NASA officials said in June 2020 that they were postponing VIPER’s launch by about a year to late 2023 to change the rover’s design so it can meet the goal of operating for 100 days on the lunar surface. At the time, the agency declined to comment on VIPER’s cost.

This is very typical of modern NASA. Even though its planetary program produces some spectacular spacecraft and results, that program — like all NASA-built programs — rarely does so for the budget promised. For the planetary program, however, the overage for VIPER is startlingly high, especially in so short a time.

Be prepared for more delays and overages for this project, since that is usually what happens for NASA projects that experience such large budget increases.

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China releases first Tianwen-1 images of rover landing site

9:32 am

The rover landing site for Tianwen-1's rover

The new colonial movement: China yesterday released the first two images taken by its Mars orbiter Tianwen-1 of its planned rover landing site in the northern lowland plains of Mars.

The image to the right is a mosaic of two wide angle photos from the context camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The white cross is the spot of the latitude and longitude that had previously been leaked to the Chinese press as the landing site. The white box shows the area covered by the only high resolution MRO photo, as of October 2020. Since then MRO has taken a number of additional high resolution images of this area.

The red boxes mark the areas covered by Tianwen-1’s two new images. Below is a reduced version of the larger of these two photos.
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