DiDuLa – Arabica
An evening pause: Performed live in St. Petersburg, 2004.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Year: 2022
Ariane 5 successfully launches three satellites
Arianespace’s Ariane 5 rocket successfully launched two communications satellites plus a weather satellite today, leaving that rocket only two more launches left before it is permanently retired.
As this was only the fifth successful launch this year by Arianespace (representing Europe), the leader board in the 2022 launch race remains unchanged:
58 China
56 SpaceX
21 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA
The U.S. still leads China 80 to 58 in the national rankings, but now trails the entire world combined 90 to 80.
December 13, 2022 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- NASA begins testing of more SLS rocket engines
This story is certainly connected to the decision to buy more SLS’s from Boeing. The new rockets however won’t launch for years, so I suspect this testing is partly an effort to justify the high cost of SLS.
- Sierra Space successfully blows up a subscale inflatable station module
Video at the link. The press release is here. The test was to confirm the module’s ability to survive inflation in space.
- India and Russia discussing sale of 10 Russian rocket engines to India
It would be puzzling if this deal went through, as India has made a very aggressive (and successful) effort in the past decade to replace all foreign engines on its rockets with homebuilt engines.
The featureless volcanic ash plains of Mars
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 10, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what appears to be a relatively featureless plain with a surface resembling stucco.
At -9 degrees south latitude, this is in the Martian dry equatorial regions. No ice or glaciers here. However, the consistent orientation of the knobs and hills suggest dunes and sand blown by prevailing winds, and that guess holds some truth. This location is deep within the Medusae Fossae Formation, the largest volcanic ash deposit on Mars, covering an area about as big as India, and believed to be the source of most of the red planet’s dust.
We are thus looking at thick layer of ash, its surface shaped over eons by the winds of Mars’ thin atmosphere.
» Read more
Today’s blacklisted Americans: Archaeologists go underground to practice their research
Mindless conforming robots: What today’s leftist academia demands
The modern dark age: In order to do their archaeological research free from the Marxist and bigotry tropes now required in academia — or else be blacklisted — many young archaeologists are now going underground, forming anonymous chat groups to discuss their work safe from blacklisting.
The essay at the link first outlines in detail the oppressive leftist culture that now makes honest and open scientific research difficult if not impossible among our intellectual class. Dare to say or write anything that even suggests some cultures are different or better than others and you will be ostracized so quickly you won’t know what happened to you.
» Read more
Research: Those who get the jab are intolerant and eager to discriminate
According to a new peer-reviewed research paper in Nature that studied more than 15,000 people in 21 countries, those who chose to get COVID shots are strongly intolerant of those who have not, and express that intolerance with an eagerness to deny others their human rights.
The research found that vaccinated people express discriminatory attitudes towards individuals who are unvaccinated at levels as high as or higher than discriminatory attitudes directed towards other common targets of prejudice, such as immigrant populations or people who struggle with drug addiction. On the whole, this prejudice tends to be one-sided; only in the USA and Germany do the authors find that unvaccinated individuals feel some antipathy towards those who are vaccinated, although no statistical evidence of negative stereotyping or exclusionary attitudes towards these latter individuals were observed. Researchers also found evidence in support of discriminatory attitudes against the unvaccinated in all countries except Hungary and Romania and find that discriminatory attitudes are more strongly expressed in cultures with stronger cooperative norms.
You can read the paper here.
I can guess that the higher level of anger by the unjabbed to the jabbed in the U.S. is directly because the discrimination and intolerance imposed by the jabbed, such as Joe Biden’s shot mandates, violated what Americans consider their fundamental Constitutional rights. Who wouldn’t be hostile to someone who illegally cost you your job, your career, or even all your social contacts, because you didn’t want to get a COVID shot?
The study however is in general very depressing, because it tells us that the open-mindedness and toleration that was the hallmark of western civilization is largely gone. The future, built by the intolerant attitudes of today’s majority populations, will be a vicious and narrow-minded place.
NASA approves $1.2 billion asteroid-hunting space telescope
NASA has given the go-ahead to build NEO-Surveyor for $1.2 billion, more than twice the cost of its original proposal, to launch by 2028 and then look for potentially dangerous asteroids.
Notably, NEO Surveyor was earlier estimated to cost between $500 million and $600 million, or around half of the new commitment. The NASA statement said that the cost and schedule commitments outlined align the mission with “program management best practices that account for potential technical risks and budgetary uncertainty beyond the development project’s control.” Earlier this year, the project’s launch was delayed two years, from 2026, due to agency budget concerns.
The mission is designed to discover 90% of potentially Earth-threatening asteroids and comets 460 feet (140 meters) or larger that come within 30 million miles (48 million kilometers) of Earth’s orbit. The spacecraft will carry out the survey while from Earth-sun Lagrange Point 1, a gravitationally stable spot in space about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) inside the Earth’s orbit around the sun.
A prediction: It will cost more, and not launch on time. NASA’s decision to double the budget and delay the launch two years suggests it did not trust the JPL cost and time estimates. Based on most NASA-centered projects, however, it is likely the new numbers will still be insufficient.
Another space station company, ThinkOrbital, enters the competition
Though it failed to win a NASA contract to build its manned space station concept, the company ThinkOrbital has instead won small two research grants from the Space Force.
Earlier this year ThinkOrbital — with partners Redwire, KMI and Arizona State University — won two research contracts worth $260,000 under the U.S. Space Force Orbital Prime program for in-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing. Rosen said the plan is to refine the design concept for a space structure that could be used for debris removal and recycling.
“We’re working on a hub and spoke concept where smaller satellites would go out and gather the debris, bring it back to a central location, process it and we could either turn them into fuel or deorbit them,” said Rosen. “We could process debris at that hub, for example, and turn aluminum into aluminum powder that could be used for spacecraft fuel.”
ThinkOrbital is hoping to be selected for the next phase of Orbital Prime which could be worth up to $1.5 million.
This new concept would not be manned, but would instead be used by unmanned robots as service depot.
Bezos and Blue Origin to star in animated kids show
If you can’t build anything, than draw it! Jeff Bezos and his space company Blue Origin are now set to star in a kids animated show called “Blue Origins Space Rangers”.
The children’s series will feature the voices of Bezos, who founded his space tourism business Blue Origin in 2000, as well as “Good Morning America” co-host Michael Strahan, who was a passenger in December 2021 on Blue Origin NS-19 on a 10-minute spaceflight. Bezos took his supersonic joy ride to space in July 2021.
Nor is this the only show that Blue Origin is part of. A feature film set to release in 2023 will feature Blue Origin’s proposed (but not yet built) Orbital Reef space station.
All of this is fun and good, but it once again raises a question of focus. Is Bezos and Blue Origin really focused on building rockets and space stations, or it is mostly a pr operation for Bezos to sell himself? The overall lack of progress on its real rockets and space stations suggests the latter.
InSight still going, but barely
The InSight science team issued another update today, outlining the continuing low power levels produced by the Mars lander, barely enough to keep its seismometer, and nothing else, running.
As of Dec. 12, 2022, InSight is generating an average of ~285 watt-hours of energy per Martian day, or sol. The tau, or level of dust cover in the atmosphere, was estimated at .96 (typical tau levels outside of dust season range from 0.6-0.7).
I have added these numbers to the graph at right in order to show their context over time. Since the October dust storm the levels have held steady, even as the dust in the atmosphere has cleared somewhat.
Nonetheless, InSight’s future continues to be day-to-day. Should it fail to respond to two consecutive scheduled communications sessions, the team will declare it dead, and make no effort at recovery. Though they have been expecting this to happen since the end of October, the lander continues to hang on.
Third Coast Percussion – Madeira River
An evening pause: This music by Philip Glass, seems quite appropriate for December.
Hat tip Doug Johnson.
December 12, 2022 Quick space links
Courtesy of Jay, BtB’s stringer.
- ASTRA shares drop in one year from $8.78 down to $0.45
If the price does not increase to above one dollar by April, NASDAQ has said it would delist it. This price however is less than it was a month ago, so the trend has not been positive.
- A look at Chinese pseudo-company Landspace
The review treats all these Chinese companies like private American companies, without recognizing that they do nothing without the approval and full supervision of the government.
- French satellite antenna company Anywaves raises $3 million in investment capital
The company’s goal is to expand its business in the U.S.
- Video of Relativity engine test
The music track is quite annoying.
- Shenzhou-15 upper stage reentered atmosphere on December 11th, with some debris hitting the ocean
The debris landed southeast of Madagascar