June 17, 2022 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, well worth your time, go here.
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Year: 2022
Wavy crescent ridges on Mars
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on November 19, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the science team has labeled “Crescentic forms,” which in some ways resemble crescents that I featured in a cool image back in November 2020.
Unlike those earlier crescents, today’s are linked together to form a longer wavy line. Furthermore, today’s crescents include some positive relief, with some parts standing above the surrounding terrain. The earlier crescents were entirely carved out of the ground, forming depressions.
And yet, the method of formation for both must be somewhat similar. I say this based on their location, as shown in the overview map below.
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Cheap Trick – Stop this Game
An evening pause: Performed live 1980.
Hat tip Dan Morris.
Wildfire reaches Kitt Peak National Observatory
A wildfire has crested the peak and reached the Kitt Peak National Observatory, threatening a number of telescopes there.
Around 2:00 a.m. MST Friday morning the fire, contrary to the expectations of the firecrews, crested the southwest ridge where the Hiltner 2.4-meter Telescope, McGraw-Hill 1.3-meter Telescope, Very Long Baseline Array Dish and UArizona 12-meter Telescope are located. Because of the ongoing nature of the situation, it is currently not possible to assess whether any damage to the structures has occurred. We will report any damage as soon as possible.
Based on this report, however, it does appear that officials expect several of these telescopes to be damaged by the fire.
Today’s blacklisted American: Biden administration increases closures of gun stores by 500%
The goal of Democrats: Banning the 2nd amendment
They’re coming for you next: The Biden administration has increased its forced closures of legal gun stores by more than 500%, often revoking licenses for minor reasons such as typos.
In the years before the Biden-Harris administration took over the White House, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives usually revoked an average of 40 Federal Firearm Licenses (FFLs) per year. But, in the 11 months since Joe Biden declared war on “rogue gun dealers,” the ATF has revoked 273 FFLs — an increase of more than 500%. However, rather than targeting the true rogues, Biden’s ATF is revoking FFLs for the most minor of paperwork errors, which were never a concern for the ATF until Biden weaponized the agency.
“This has nothing to do with the ATF and everything to do with the DOJ,” said John Clark of FFL Consultants. Clark is a firearm industry expert who said the ATF announced the number of revocations at a recent Firearm Industry Conference. “The vast majority of the ATF don’t like this any more than the industry does,” he said. “It’s Biden.” [emphasis mine]
Meanwhile, the investigative journalism project of the the Second Amendment Foundation has been stonewalled by the ATF, having filed freedom of information requests with it on this issue almost a year ago, with no response.
The consequences of this harsh Biden policy has of course not reduced the number of gun crimes, in the slightest. What it has done however is to discourage gun dealers from working with the ATF, out of fear of being shut down for the slightest infraction:
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Scheduled maintenance for Friday afternoon…
Readers: Be aware that my web guy will be doing some needed maintenance this afternoon from around 3 to 6 pm (Eastern). During that time period Behind the Black will be down for an hour or so.
Musk sued even as a handful of employees organize to slander him
Musk hate: In the past twenty-four hours, the rising effort to damage SpaceX and Elon Musk by many in our generally petty and envious elitist culture reached new levels, as illustrated by two different stories.
First, it appears a small group of anonymous “woke” employees at SpaceX organized a campaign to publish a letter condemning Elon Musk.
An open letter to company executives was posted in an internal SpaceX Microsoft Teams channel with more than 2,600 employees, the Verge reported on Thursday (June 16). The letter asks the founder of SpaceX and Tesla to change his ways. “Elon’s behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks,” the letter states.
…”As our CEO and most prominent spokesperson, Elon is seen as the face of SpaceX — every tweet that Elon sends is a de facto public statement by the company,” the letter adds. “It is critical to make clear to our teams and to our potential talent pool that his messaging does not reflect our work, our mission or our values.”
Unlike most corporations today — that routinely kow-tow to such attacks — SpaceX’s management pushed back hard, with the company’s CEO, Gwynne Shotwell, immediately issuing a strong company-wide email condemning the letter and announcing that an investigation has identified several people involved and has fired them. From her email:
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Ariane-6 rocket delayed again
Capitalism in space: The first launch of ArianeGroup’s new rocket, Ariane-6, has been delayed again, and will not launch this year as planned.
The new delay appears mostly related to getting the rocket’s ground systems up and running.
The rocket, being built for the European Space Agency’s commercial division, Arianespace, had originally been scheduled for launch in 2020. Initially the rocket struggled to find customers, because it is not reusable and is thus more expensive. That changed in the past few months with the Ukraine War eliminating Russian rockets as a competitor combined with a new gigantic launch contract from Amazon to launch a large number of its Kuiper satellites using Ariane-6.
SpaceX launches another 53 Starlink satellites
Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch another 53 Starlink satellites into orbit, initiating a weekend where the company hopes to complete three launches in three days.
At the time of this writing, the satellites had not yet been deployed. The first stage landed successfully on the drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, completing its 13th flight, a new record. The video of the landing at the link was also one of the clearest yet, with little drop-out or distortion.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
24 SpaceX
18 China
8 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
3 ULA
American private enterprise now leads China 33 to 18 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 33 to 29.
Firefly founder stepping down as CEO
Capitalism in space: Tom Markusic, the founder of the smallsat rocket startup Firefly, is now stepping down as CEO, apparently forced out by the company’s new investors.
The company said that Markusic would shift from chief executive to a new role of chief technical advisor, effective June 16. He will remain a member of the company’s board and a “significant minority investor” in the company.
The move comes four months after AE Industrial Partners (AEI), a private equity firm, agreed to acquire a “significant stake” in Firefly from Noosphere Venture Partners, which sold its interest in Firefly at the request of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. Noopshere is a fund run by Ukrainian-born investor Max Polyakov. In March, AEI said it was leading Firefly’s $75 million Series B round.
The statement suggested that Firefly’s new owners wanted new leadership for the company as it prepares a second launch of its Alpha rocket. That launch is expected no earlier than mid-July from Vandenberg Space Force Base, nearly a year after the first Alpha launch failed.
Essentially, the two people that created this company and then saved it have been forced outt, largely as a result of federal government demands. Polyakov was forced to sell to AEI by the government because he was not American, and it appears AEI then forced Markusic out.
TESS discovers solar system of rocky super-Earths only 33 light years away
Astronomers, using the space telescope TESS, have discovered two rocky super-Earths orbiting a red dwarf star HD 260655, only 33 light years away.
Both planets are “super-Earths” – terrestrial worlds like ours, only bigger. Planet b is about 1.2 times as big around as Earth, planet c 1.5 times. In this case, however, neither world is likely to support life. The temperature on planet b, nearest to the star, is estimated at 816 degrees Fahrenheit (435 Celsius), [while] planet [has a temperature of] c 543 Fahrenheit (284 Celsius), though actual temperature depends on the presence and nature of possible atmospheres.
The star’s nearness as well as the fact that these planets transit across its face means further study can not only determine if they have atmospheres, it can also roughly measure the atmospheres’ make-up.
Stratolaunch completes seventh test flight of Roc
Capitalism in space: Stratolaunch successfully completed the seventh test flight of its giant airplane Roc yesterday, with plane reaching its highest altitude yet, 27,000 feet.
The company is still targeting next year for the first flights using its Talon-A vehicle, dropped from Roc, to test hypersonic flight capabilities for the Air Force.