October 8, 2021 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
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Year: 2021
Numberphile – The Strange Orbit of Earth’s “Second Moon”
An evening pause: There is joyful art hidden in all existence. You simply have to have the open-mindedness to look for it.
Hat tip Tom Donohue.
Off day
Sorry for the light posting today. For many reasons I got no sleep last night, and then today had to see the dentist. Ugh.
I’ll probably pick it up tomorrow as we don’t have any major plans for this weekend.
I should add that even though I am not posting much today, my readers are filling the gap with some truly thoughtful comments.
Today’s blacklisted American: Policeman suspended for four months for praying
No freedom of speech allowed in Louisville.
They’re coming for you next: Matt Schrenger, a police officer in Louisville, Kentucky, was suspended for four months simply because, while off duty and not in uniform, he quietly prayed with his father on the street outside an abortion clinic.
The prayer event took place on February 2021.
That same day, Schrenger was locked out from his work computers, relieved of his police vehicle, and removed from the patrol schedule. Schrenger was suspended and he was stripped of his police powers, pending investigation of his off-duty prayer.
Schrenger was wrongly accused of violating Louisville Metro Police Department Standard Operating Procedures and Kentucky law. By way of a letter dated June 15, 2021, LMPD [Louisville Metro Police Department] Chief Shields admitted that none of the allegations against Officer Schrenger could be sustained. Even after that letter, Schenger’s police powers inexplicably were not restored until June 29, 2021. Even though the facts of the incident were not in dispute, it took the police department more than four months, plus a week, to make its decision after the off-duty prayer incident. [emphasis mine]
The article also notes that on that same day numerous other officers were participating in both a gay rights parade and a Black Lives Matter protest, while on duty and in uniform, and received no punishment though those actions did violate Kentucky law and the department’s procedures.
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Data from Perseverance confirms Jezero Crater once held a lake
According to a newly published paper, the data obtained by the rover Perseverance has confirmed and refined what orbital data has suggested, that Jezero Crater once held a lake. From the abstract:
We analyze images taken by the rover in the three months after landing. The fan has outcrop faces that were invisible from orbit, which record the hydrological evolution of Jezero crater. We interpret the presence of inclined strata in these outcrops as evidence of deltas that advanced into a lake. In contrast, the uppermost fan strata are composed of boulder conglomerates, which imply deposition by episodic high-energy floods. This sedimentary succession indicates a transition, from a sustained hydrologic activity in a persistent lake environment, to highly energetic short-duration fluvial flows.
In other words, the crater first held a lake, which as it slowly dried out was periodically renewed by flash floods. The distinct delta of material that made Jezero Crater the prime landing site was apparently formed during the period when the lake existed. The conditions that caused the subsequent flash floods is as yet not been determined, though it likely is related to the red planet’s long term evolution.
The image above, figure 5 from the paper, shows the inferred lake in that early history. The red cross marks Perseverance’s landing site.
This data reinforces the fundamental scientific mystery of Mars. It shows evidence that liquid water once flowed on the surface of Mars, even though other long term data of the planet’s history says the Martian atmosphere has been too thin and too cold to allow that to happen. There is evidence that the atmosphere might have once been thicker, but no computer model or theory has been able to produce a time when it was warm enough.
Astronauts name next new Dragon capsule to fly “Endurance”
The astronauts who will fly on SpaceX’s new Dragon capsule at the end of this month have named it “Endurance”, for a variety of reasons.
“First off,” said [mission commander Raja Chari], “it is a tribute to the tenacity of the human spirit as we push humans and machines farther than we ever have, going both to stay and extended stays in low Earth orbit, opening it up to private companies and private astronauts and knowing we will continue our exploration to go into even further and continue.”
“Also, it is a nod to the development teams, production teams [and] training teams that got us here, who have endured through a pandemic,” he said.
…Lastly, there was a historical connection — one that spoke to the mission they are about to embark on and the skills it will take for it be successful.”I go straight to the Shackleton voyage,” said Marshburn, referring to Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 expedition to cross Antarctica. Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, was trapped in ice and he and his crew endured months of hardship before being rescued.
SpaceX’s fleet of manned capsules now includes Endeavour, Resilience, and Endurance. A fourth capsule is scheduled to fly in April ’22, but no name as yet has been announced.
Chang’e-5 lunar samples youngest ever found
The uncertainty of science: The lunar samples returned to Earth by China’s Chang’e-5 lander have been found to be the youngest ever found, about two billion years old and a billion years younger than any other previous sample, with a composition that confirms the material in this area was also the youngest volcanism so far found on the Moon.
Collecting young lunar rocks was one of the main objectives for the Chang’e-5 mission, which sent a lander to the Moon in December 2020. The craft grabbed 1.7 kilogram (4 pounds) of lunar regolith from the vast volcanic plain of Oceanus Procellarum and flew back to Earth within the month. Observations from lunar orbit had identified this mare to be younger than other areas by its paucity of craters, which suggested that the lava there had flowed more recently. By dating the samples returned to Earth, the scientists confirm that volcanism occurred later in Oceanus Procellarum than other areas of the Moon.
Many news stories are claiming that the young age of these samples is a surprise, but this isn’t true. It was expected, as the quote above indicates.
However, the composition of the rocks did not match what was expected. Though created by volcanism, it appears the material did not have kind of composition seen in other lunar volcanic rocks. This is now a new puzzle for scientists.
James Hill – Billie Jean
An evening pause: Performed live, 2011, with his imaginary band.
Hat tip Dan Morris.
Today’s blacklisted American: Seattle runs segregated critical race theory classes, teaching that whites are evil
Eagerly discriminated against in Seattle
“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” The city government of Seattle is funding a series of segregated critical race theory (CRT) seminars for its employees, with whites and blacks sent to different sessions, which then teach from these different perspectives that all whites are racist and evil and work to oppress blacks.
City staffers ‘who identify as people of color’ were invited to the three-hour ‘Internalized Racial Inferiority’ session on September 3, after it was organized by the city-funded Race and Social Justice Initiative (RSJI), revealed KTTH radio host Jason Rantz on Monday.
A similar sister session was offered exclusively to white workers, which taught attendees that they are ‘responsible’ for racism because of the color of their skin.
The lesson was billed as a way to explore ‘the process which American conditioning, socialization and history leads People of Color to internalize racialized beliefs, ideas and behaviors about themselves, undergirding the power of White Supremacy.’ It also outlined 10 ‘truths’ that must be accepted by city employees, which include, ‘colonialism is at the root of white supremacy,’ ‘Racism is based on the legal and social construction of whiteness’ and ‘Government has a responsibility to be anti-racist.’
Those ten truths, shown in seminar documents at the link, also specifically demand that blacks and American Indians be given special and favored treatment.
Essentially, these are Nazi-like courses designed to foster hate between the races, and encourage all to oppress whites. Worse, the racist 10 “truths” that form the heart of these seminars are all lies, based on nothing but Marxist propaganda.
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SpaceX to double its fleet of reusable manned Dragon capsules
Capitalism in space: Based on the launch plans now announced, SpaceX will double its fleet of reusable manned Dragon capsules from two to four.
The upcoming October 30th launch of a new crew to ISS will use a new as yet unnamed Dragon capsule. In addition, the April ’22 flight will use another new capsule.
The four previous manned Dragon flights used Resilience (twice) and Endeavour (twice).
At the moment SpaceX appears to be reserving Resilience for non-ISS tourist flights. It was used in September in this way for the Inspiration4 private mission, and I expect it will be used again for the December Space Adventures tourist flight. For these non-ISS flights SpaceX removed Resilience’s docking port, replacing it with a large window.
The result will be that a private American company will own its own fleet of manned spaceships, three of which can dock with ISS, and one of which aimed at just orbiting the Earth. That’s a private company, not a nation. And that private company made it happen in just a little over a decade.
Who knows what wonders capitalism and freedom could accomplish, if we simply had the courage to let it?
Advocacy group in India calls for criminal prosecution of Musk and Starlink
A non-profit advocacy group in India, dubbed Telecom Watchdog, has demanded that the Indian government prosecute Elon Musk and Starlink because it asks for and gets $100 deposits from customers without guaranteeing a specific delivery date for its Starlink internet service.
The organisation further asked the telecom regulator to take effective steps to ensure refund with interest, and reprimand the telecom department (DoT) officials of “inaction” on the prevailing issue. [It also] said that the firm was cheating consumers by accepting pre-orders with a deposit of Rs 7,500 ($100) for yet-to-be-launched service.
It is unclear who funds Telecom Watchdog. I would not be surprised if it is backed by those in India who have also have vested interest in SpaceX’s chief competitor, OneWeb. The Indian company, Bharti Enterprises Ltd, has invested $500 million to OneWeb, which plans to initiate service to India next year. Starlink poses a serious financial threat to that roll-out.
Report: Reduce contamination restrictions for some future Mars missions
A new policy paper from the National Academies has proposed reducing the planetary protection rules for some future Mars missions, concluding that Earth life cannot survive on Mars for long, and as long as a lander or rover does not land close to cave entrances or on extensive ice, the need to decontaminate is significantly reduced. From the press release:
In this report, the Committee focused on regions on Mars that might not be negatively impacted if visited by spacecraft that are not stringently sterilized. For missions that do not access the subsurface, such regions could include a significant portion of the surface of Mars, because the UV environment is so biocidal that terrestrial organisms are, in most cases, not likely to survive more than one to two sols, or Martian days. For missions that access the subsurface (down to 1 meter), regions on Mars expected to have patchy or no water ice below the surface might also be visited by spacecraft more relaxed bioburden requirements, because such patchy ice is likely not conducive to the proliferation of terrestrial microorganisms.
The report finds that it is imperative that any mission sent to Mars with reduced bioburden requirements remain some conservative distance from any subsurface access points, such as cave openings. Furthermore, though less stringent than current requirements, these missions with relaxed bioburden requirements would still need some level of cleanliness, which could be achieved for instance using standard aerospace cleanliness practices.
The report essentially concluded that missions to Mars’ dry equatorial regions as well as its glacial mid-latitudes pose no risk to contaminating the red planet with Earth life.
While the press release pushes the idea that this is a reduction in the planetary protection rules, it could be seen in a much worse light. Based on the proposed rules, missions to the Martian poles or higher latitudes, where ice is extensive and not “patchy,” might be entirely forbidden. This will significantly limit Martian exploration by the United States. Meanwhile, China and Russia and others will be faced with no such restrictions.
Note too that this report likely forbids SpaceX from landing its Starship in the company’s candidate landing sites, all of which are in the northern lowland plains ranging from 35 to 40 degrees north latitude. This region is thought to have extensive ice sheets very close to the surface. To land there, the rules proposed will either require extremely strict and very costly decontamination procedures, many of which do not even exist as yet, or will forbid landing there at all.