Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay:
As I’ve said numerous times, I’ll believe this engine is a flight engine when I see it in flight.
The link goes to the research paper from the Beijing Institute of Space Mechanics and Electricity, which is in Chinese except for the abstract. This tweet highlights the “leg deploying test and full-scale landing impact experiment” from that paper.
The instruction manual of the Democratic Party
Soon after Joe Biden was confirmed by Congress as the next president of the United States, I noted how the Democratic Party appeared eager to assembly a new blacklist, aimed at isolating and destroying anyone who ever dared to challenge or even disagree with them. As I wrote then,
Oh boy, it’s the 1950s again and its time for witchhunts from Congress and big corporations.
Unlike the 1950s, however, the question will not be whether you have ever been a member of the Communist Party. No, now the question will be much more effective and to the point. It will be “Have you ever been conservative or a member of the Republican Party?”
Led by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), Democrats in the House were then talking about compiling a list of all Trump Republicans in the media so that Congress could more easily censor and blacklist them.
While that specific effort never came to fruition, for the next two years the Democrats in power — in Congress, in state houses, in academia, in social media, in entertainment, and in corporations — have repeatedly confirmed this is their goal. Dare to disagree with them about anything, from masks to COVID shots to any of their policy decisions and they will do whatever they can to destroy you.
And yet, the leadership of the Democratic Party during this new blacklisting rage has tried to be coy about their repressive effort, either by denying this effort even exists or trying to excuse it by further slandering their opponents as “racists”, “insurrectionists,” or “domestic terrorists.”
In the past week that coyness vanished. Three different very powerful Democrat politicians said the quiet part out loud: We consider all Republicans evil, merely because they oppose us!
First, right after he had won the Democratic Party’s primary in Florida to run for governor against Ron DeSantis, Charlie Crist on August 24, 2022 made it clear what he thought of anyone who might consider voting for DeSantis:
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Click for full image.
Click for interactive map.
The panorama above was created by Curiosity’s right navigation camera on August 28, 2022, and shows the strangely paved Martian terrain directly in front of the rover now that it is inside the valley of Gediz Vallis, scattered flat rocks interspersed with dust. The yellow lines in the overview map to the right indicates the area covered by this panorama. The red dotted line indicates the rover’s likely future route to circle around the small mesa Chenapua.
The paved rocks however may not be separate, but merely covered in their low spots by dust. What makes these light rocks significant is that they appear to be the first close examples of the sulfate-bearing layer that the rover has seen in the higher reaches of Mount Sharp since it landed in Gale Crater more than ten years ago. You can see this bright layer clearly in the distance in a panorama taken by Curiosity in June 2021. The rover has now finally reached it, and is about to delve into another layer in the geological history of Mars, a layer that appears easily weathered and carved by the thin Martian atmosphere.
Other details in this panorama are of important note. In the overview map, I have indicated that a recurring slope lineae is supposed to exist on the cliff face of the mesa dubbed Orinoco. These lineae, seen from orbit, appear to be streaks on slopes that come and go seasonally. No one has come up with a theory to explain them, though the most favored theory today says they are staining dust flows of some kind.
However, if you click on the panorama and zoom in on the cliff face of Orinoco, you will see an incredibly rough rocky terrain. It seems impossible for any streak of any kind to flow down this cliff anywhere, suggesting that the streaks might possibly be like the rays that radiate out from craters on the Moon, visible only from orbit and invisible on the surface.
The marker layer is another important geological target, now almost within reach. This flat layer is found in many places on the flanks of Mount Sharp, all at about the same approximate elevation. It is distinctly flat and relatively smooth. Knowing why it stands out so differently from the layers above and below will help geologists better write the geological history of this Martian mountain and the crater in which it sits.
An issue in one of the refurbished shuttle main engines that are used in SLS’s core stage caused the launch today to be scrubbed.
The launch director halted today’s Artemis I launch attempt at approximately 8:34 a.m. EDT. The Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft remain in a safe and stable configuration. Launch controllers were continuing to evaluate why a bleed test to get the RS-25 engines on the bottom of the core stage to the proper temperature range for liftoff was not successful, and ran out of time in the two-hour launch window. Engineers are continuing to gather additional data.
More information here and here. From the second link:
The four RS-25 engines on Artemis I are ones that were still in service at the end of the Shuttle program. But, for Artemis I, at least one component on each of the Core Stage engines comes from the three engines that powered Columbia to orbit on STS-1 on April 12, 1981. “It might be a valve, it might be a bolt, for others, it’s pieces of wiring, little things like that,” said Aerojet Rocketdyne’s Bill Muddle, RS-25 lead field integration engineer, in an interview with NASASpaceflight. “But there is something from the STS-1 engines on each of these [for Artemis I].”
Originally NASA had wanted to do this same bleed test during one of the two wet dress rehearsal countdowns prior to today’s launch attempt, but other issues with the rocket during those rehearsals made it impossible. As a result, the agency discovered this issue during the launch countdown.
Nor was this engine problem the only issue during this morning’s countdown.
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Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight used its Falcon 9 rocket to put another 54 Starlink satellites into orbit.
The flight’s fairings completed their third flight. The first stage successfully completed its second flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. That stage however had an interesting first flight:
Known as B1069, the booster was damaged during recovery on a drone ship Dec. 21 after launching its first mission, sending a Dragon cargo ship toward the International Space Station. The rough recovery damaged the rocket’s engines and landing legs, causing the rocket to return aboard the drone ship to Port Canaveral on a tilt. The damage forced SpaceX and NASA to switch to a backup Falcon 9 booster for the launch of four astronauts to the space station in April. That launch was originally supposed to use B1069, which has been refurbished with new engines and other components.
In the past, rocket companies and NASA would have automatically thrown out this stage after being damaged. SpaceX however now treats these first stages like airplanes, repairable for reflight, even if damaged. Tonight’s flight proved the robustness of this strategy, and it did it carrying the most mass of any previous Falcon 9 launch.
The leaders in 2022 launch race:
38 SpaceX
33 China
11 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
5 ULA
American private enterprise now leads China 53 to 33, and the entire world combined 53 to 51.
NASA engineers have begun the countdown for an August 29, 2022 launch of its SLS rocket during a two-hour launch window that opens at 8:33 am (Eastern).
At present weather is 70% favorable for launch.
The official live stream can be found here, if you are inclined to spend your weekend listening to NASA’s PR.
A U.S. appeals court has rejected a lawsuit by Starlink competitors Dish and Viasat that had claimed a plan by SpaceX to deploy some satellites in a lower orbit would have “potential environmental harms when satellites are taken out of orbit; light pollution that alters the night sky; orbital debris; collision risks that may affect Viasat; and because ‘Viasat will suffer unwarranted competitive injury.'”
This decision was the second time the courts have rejected this lawsuit, which by Viasat’s own words above is expressly designed mostly to block a competitor, not protect the environment or reduce space junk.
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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An evening pause: Hat tip Dan Morris.
Readers: I am in need of evening pause suggestions! If you’ve seen something on the web that you think would fit, note this fact as a comment below. Do NOT post a link to your suggestion. I will email you and schedule it.
And if you’ve suggested previously, please feel free to email me some new stuff! The guidelines:
1. The subject line should say “evening pause.”
2. Don’t send more than three in any email. I prefer however if you send them one email at a time.
3. Variety! Don’t send me five from the same artist. I can only use one. Pick your favorite and send that.
4. Live performance preferred.
5. Quirky technology, humor, and short entertaining films also work.
6. Search BtB first to make sure your suggestion hasn’t already been posted.
7. I might not respond immediately, as I schedule these in a bunch.
8. Avoid the politics of the day. The pause is a break from such discussion.
Click for full image. For the original of the inset go here.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated and cropped to post here, was taken on June 13, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as “fractures in West Candor Chasma,” one of the side canyons that form Mars’ gigantic Valles Marineris, the largest canyon system known in the solar system.
To my eye, I don’t see fractures as much as swirling and curving outcrop ridges, as if the twisted layering here is so steeply tilted so that it is almost vertical, with the more resistant edges sticking up out of the dust and dunes. The color corrected inset zooms in on some of these swirls, though this better view hardly clarifies things. Note how the upper curves seem to suddenly cut off, almost as if someone had sliced them with a knife. Don’t ask me to explain.
The overview map shows us where this spot is within Valles Marineris.
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The left proves it really does want to round up its enemies and kill them
They’re coming for you next: Twice in the past two days Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) has been swatted, with the police coming to her house armed and ready to fire because they had received a false report saying that a shooting had occurred there and that the situation was dangerous.
Two police officers rushed to Greene’s home in Rome, Ga., in response to a call they received at 2:53 a.m. The call, according to the Rome Police Department, was about “a male possibly shooting his family members and then himself.”
MSN reported that “the suspect, who called through an internet chat that appeared to be a suicide crisis line, falsely told police responders that a man ‘came out as trans-gender and claimed they shot the family’ at Greene’s address, the report said.” The caller gave his name as Wayne Greene and told police on the call: “If anyone tried to stop me from shooting myself, I will shoot them.” He also warned cops that “they would be waiting for us.”
At the house, there was, of course, no Wayne Greene. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene once again met the police officers at the front door, as she did in the early hours of Wednesday morning. They told her about the call and, according to the Rome Police Department, “confirmed this was a second false report.” The report added that the call can’t be traced, “due to the person(s) using a VPN.”
Called swatting, such false reports are expressly designed to harass the victim, and even get them killed should the police over-react and fire at the house out of fear of the non-existent gunman.
That this happened twice in two nights strongly suggests the caller truly wants this murder to happen. The caller even admitted to as much in a later recorded call to the police, in which the caller also admitted the motive was for political reasons. Greene’s political positions were unacceptable, and thus she must be removed:
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On August 24th one of the four FCC commissioners, Brendan Carr, questioned the legality of FCC’s decision on August 10th to cancel the $900 million subsidy it had awarded SpaceX for providing internet capability to rural communities using Starlink.
The Federal Communications Commission denied Starlink nearly $900 million in rural broadband subsidies “without legal justification,” one of the regulator’s four commissioners said Aug. 24.
While the FCC was obligated to review subsidies provisionally awarded for SpaceX’s broadband service in December 2020, Commissioner Brendan Carr said the agency exceeded “the scope of that authority” when it rejected them nearly two years later.
…Carr said he was surprised to learn about the decision from a press release while he was on a work trip to Alaska, adding that it was made without a vote or authorization from the FCC’s Commissioners. [emphasis mine]
Carr also noted that the reasoning used by the FCC in its cancellation notice made no sense. For example, the FCC had referenced the cost SpaceX charges customers for buying the Starlink terminal, $599, in justifying the cancellation. Carr noted that “the FCC is not authorized to deny winning RDOF bids based on the price of equipment, ‘let alone based on an arbitrary one selectively applied to one winner.'”
When the cancellation was announced, I wrote that my first instinct was that it was solely political in nature, and that it stemmed from the growing animus in the federal bureaucracy and in the Biden administration to Elon Musk, combined with a lobbying effort by SpaceX’s competitors against Starlink. I think Carr’s statements this week confirm my instincts entirely. The cancellation was purely political.
Nonetheless, I think it a good thing the FCC cancelled this subsidy, which is really nothing more than welfare for big corporations. SpaceX doesn’t need it. The federal government doesn’t have the money. And the program itself is now clearly corrupt. The taxpayer would be better off if the entire subsidy program was shut down.
