December 2, 2022 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
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Year: 2022
Fieldsports Britain – Rat removal using dogs
An evening pause: Best to play this with the captions on, considering the thick accents. As noted on the youtube webpage:
Andy Crow is clearing the barn of straw which has become home to lots and lots of rats – and he wants them off the farmyard. As a final effort to get rid of as many as possible Andy has enrolled the help of a couple of terriers, a lurcher and a lab/springer cross. As he moves the bales the dogs and sticks start flying.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
December 2, 2022 Quick space links
Courtesy of Jay, BtB’s intrepid stringer, trolling Tweeter so we don’t have to.
- ULA CEO Tori Bruno claims Blue Origin is building one BE-4 engine per week
You need to scroll down and read the thread, from the bottom up, to reach this conclusion. Whether Bruno is right remains unknown. Nothing Blue Origin has done so far suggests they are yet capable of this.
- Russian private company S7 negotiates with government to finalize transfer of its ownership of Sea Launch
Putin and his stooges have been pressuring S7 for years to gain control of Sea Launch, essentially bankrupting this private operation with fees and taxes.
- Russia’s Sphere broadband satellite constellation gets international regulatory approval
Whether this 600 satellite constellation eventually launches remains unknown, due to the Ukraine War sanctions that prevent Russia from obtaining financing and many necessary components.
- JAXA notes delivery in October ’22 of the propulsion system for its upgraded HTV-X1 cargo freighter to the assembly factory
The second image at the link shows the propulsion system attached to an earlier version of the HTV, with solar panels attached to the spacecraft walls rather than as fold-out solar panels as planned for the HTV-X1.
- Shenzhou-14, with three astronauts, is now scheduled to return on December 4, 2022
This second tweet shows the primary and backup landing zones.
- South Korea awards contract Hanwha Aerospace $212 million contract to build three Nuri rockets
It appears the government wants to transfer production from the South Korean space agency, KARI, to this private company, though it also appears the government is not ceding ownership to the private company.
- Major management organization at Astra
According to CEO Chris Kemp, the reorganization has four engineering and manufacturing managers reporting directly to him, reducing a layer of management. Of the four managers involved, two once worked at Blue Origin, one at SpaceX, and one at Google.
Pushback: Kroger must pay $180K to two Arkansas workers, fired for refusing to support the queer agenda
Bring a gun to a knife fight: To settle a lawsuit Kroeger has agreed to pay $180K to two Arkansas workers whom the company had fired when both asked to be excused from wearing company aprons that included a rainbow heart that they believed endorsed the queer agenda.
Workers at the store got the new uniforms in April 2019 that included a rainbow heart embroidered on the top left portion of the bib, according to court documents. Both of the workers believe the “literal interpretation of the Bible,” held “religious belief that homosexuality is a sin” and “sincerely believed the apron violated (their) religious beliefs,” according to the lawsuit.
One employee asked to wear their nametag over the logo. Another asked for a different apron. Both employees were fired within two months.
The image to the right shows an apron with this rainbow heart. While some suggest this heart has nothing to do with promoting homosexual rights, the company’s strong advocacy of the queer agenda says otherwise. From Kroger’s own website:
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Martian glaciers below 30 degrees latitude
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 28, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). While it shows what looks like a somewhat typical Martian glacial flow pushing through a gap between hills, this glacial flow is not typical. It sits at just under 30 degrees north latitude, closer to the equator than almost any glacial feature on Mars. Moreover, the younger impact crater on top suggests this glacier has been here for some time. Though the impact is younger than the crater, it is not that young, as the dark streaks normally seen in the first years after impact are gone.
Thus, this glacier suggests that not only can near surface Martian ice exist closer than 30 degrees latitude from the equator, it can survive there for a considerable amount of time.
Nor is this glacial flow, so close to the equator, unusual for this region of Mars.
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Sunspot update: The Sun’s unprecedented pause to maximum continues
It is the beginning of the month, and NOAA has once again published its update of its monthly graph that tracks the number of sunspots on the Sun’s Earth-facing hemisphere. Below is the newest graph, adding November’s numbers to the timeline and annotated by me with some additional details added to provide context.
Sunspot activity dropped in November, though still remained significantly higher than the prediction, a sunspot number of 77.6 compared to the predicted number of 57.4. At 77.6, the Sun continues the pause that began in June in the ramp up to solar maximum. For the past half year the Sun’s sunspot output has essentially stalled at approximately the same level.
FCC puts the squeeze on SpaceX’s Starlink
More than two years after SpaceX had first requested regulatory permission to launch its full 30,000 Starlink satellite constellation, FCC (under the Biden administration) has finally made a decision, and in doing so it has arbitrarily reduced the number of satellites SpaceX can launch to 7,500.
On November 29th, 2022, the FCC completed that review and granted SpaceX permission to launch just 7,500 of the ~30,000 Starlink Gen2 satellites it had requested permission for more than 30 months prior. The FCC offered no explanation of how it arrived at its arbitrary 75% reduction, nor why the resulting number is slightly lower than a different 7,518-satellite Starlink Gen1 constellation SpaceX had already received a license to deploy in late 2018. Adding insult to injury, the FCC repeatedly acknowledges that “the total number of satellites SpaceX is authorized to deploy is not increased by our action today, and in fact is slightly reduced.”
That claimed reduction is thanks to the fact that shortly before this decision, SpaceX told the FCC in good faith that it would voluntarily avoid launching the dedicated V-band Starlink constellation it already received a license for in order “to significantly reduce the total number of satellites ultimately on orbit.” Instead, once Starlink Gen2 was approved, it would request permission to add V-band payloads to a subset of the 29,988 planned Gen2 satellites, achieving a similar result without the need for another 7,518 satellites.
In response, the FCC slashed the total number of Starlink Gen2 satellites permitted to less than the number of satellites approved by the FCC’s November 2018 Starlink V-band authorization; limited those satellites to middle-ground orbits, entirely precluding Gen2 launches to higher or lower orbits; and didn’t even structure its compromise in a way that would at least allow SpaceX to fully complete three Starlink Gen2 ‘shells.’ Worse, the FCC’s partial grant barely mentioned SpaceX’s detailed plans to use new E-band antennas on Starlink Gen2 satellites and next-generation ground stations, simply stating that it will “defer acting on” the request until “further review and coordination with Federal users.”
Apparently, the FCC’s decision here was essentially a rubber-stamp of recommendations by Amazon, whose Kuiper constellation (so far entirely unlaunched) would be SpaceX’s direct competitor. In other words, the FCC is now taking sides against Starlink to favor its competitors.
Read the entire article. In every way this FCC decision smacks of politics, partly to help a Democratic ally (Jeff Bezos) and partly to hurt someone the Democrats now see as an enemy (Elon Musk).
Delays threaten Europa Clipper mission
A variety of issues delaying completion of the science instruments on the Europa Clipper mission are now threatening to prevent the spacecraft from meeting its 2024 launch date.
[W]ith less than two years to go before launch, only three of those instruments have been installed on the main spacecraft body, and five haven’t yet arrived at JPL.
Some context: Europa Clipper has been under development since 1997, though actual design work did not begin until 2013, nine years ago. It presently has a budget of $4.25 billion (more than double its first proposed budget of $2 billion). Yet now, less than years from launch, seven of ten instruments are behind schedule?
What is really disgusting about this story is that it is par for the course for NASA, which almost never finishes anything on time or on budget.
Orion fires engine, leaves lunar orbit
After firing its engines yesterday, NASA’s Orion spacecraft has left lunar orbit and begun a long looping route that will zip past the Moon and then head back to Earth.
The burn changed Orion’s velocity by about 454 feet per second and was performed using the Orion main engine on the European Service Module. The engine is an orbital maneuvering system engine modified for use on Orion and built by Aerojet Rocketdyne. The engine has the ability to provide 6,000 pounds of thrust. The proven engine flying on Artemis I flew on 19 space shuttle flights, beginning with STS-41G in October 1984 and ending with STS-112 in October 2002.
The burn is one of two maneuvers required ahead of Orion’s splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 11. The second will occur on Monday, Dec. 5, when the spacecraft will fly 79.2 miles above the lunar surface and perform the return powered flyby burn, which will commit Orion on its course toward Earth.
The spacecraft will splashdown on December 11, 2022, if all goes right.
Allison Williams – Nature Boy
An evening pause: The producers of this video, VideosRecordedLive, describe this as music used as the theme for the television show, Mad Men, to which they added lyrics from a Nat King Cole song. However, Annie Haslam performed this song with these lyrics as far back as 1997.
No matter. They do a beautiful job.
Hat tip Wayne Devette.
December 1, 2022 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer, Jay.
- Next two OneWeb satellite launches will be by SpaceX
India will launch the one after that.
- Popular Science magazine gives NASAWeb an award!
Pure idiocy, and another embarrassment for Popular Science, after it awarded Boeing an award for its magnificent work on Starliner.
- AST SpaceMobile looks to raise more investment capital
It appears the company — which wants to launch a constellation that would provide service to ordinary cell phones — has been squeezed between supply chain delays and FCC deadlines, which could cause it to lose its rights to certain frequencies. The extra cash is aimed at speeding satellite development.
Today’s blacklisted American: Princeton considering blacklisting John Witherspoon, Founding Father and signer of the Declaration of Independence
John Witherspoon: a target for cancellation
The modern dark age: Princeton University is now considering removing from its campus a statue of John Witherspoon, Founding Father, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the college’s sixth president, because some students have whined about the fact that in his life he also at one time owned two slaves.
A petition, started by three graduate students in the Philosophy Department, states that the “prominent place on campus of the John Witherspoon statue is inappropriate” and calls on the university to “remove it from its pedestal in Firestone Plaza.”
The petition asks that officials replace the statue with an informational plaque that reflects both the “positive and negative aspects of Witherspoon’s legacy.”