Year: 2023

May 17, 2023 Zimmerman/Pratt on Texas podcast

1:35 pm

Robert Pratt today posted the second part of our long discussion begun last week about some of the more egregious recent examples of blacklisting in America. You can listen to it at the Pratt on Texas podcast, at this link. I have also embedded it below.

This might have been one of the best discussions between Robert and myself about the Enlightenment, about rational thought, about religion, and about critical thinking (or the lack thereof in modern society). I strongly urge my readers to spend 26 minutes listening. It is well worth it.
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Today’s blacklisted American: 12-year-old sent home from school twice for understanding the 1st amendment better than his teachers

1:04 pm

The shirt that offended teachers at Nichols Middle School
Liam Morrison, wearing the evil shirt that he wore the
second time teachers at Nichols Middle School sent
him home.

They’re coming for you next: When 12-year-old Liam Morrison came to Nichols Middle School in Massachusetts on March 21, 2023 wearing a T-shirt with the words “There are only two genders” on the front, two teachers pulled him from class and told him he would have to remove the shirt or he couldn’t return to class. He refused, and so his father came to pick him up.

The teachers claimed he was causing a disruption, that some other unnamed students felt unsafe seeing the shirt. Liam however had experienced the exact opposite. Not only did he hear no complaints, he found many other students telling him they liked the shirt and wanted one for themselves.

Rather than retell his tale in its entirety, however, let’s hear it from his own mouth. I have embedded below Liam Morrison’s statement to the Middleborough School Committee on April 13. Note how clear and articulate he is. If I had to guess, he is getting a lot of education outside of his Massachusetts public school, because based on these events I would have no faith they are teaching him anything of value.
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Astronomers make first radio observations of key type of supernova

10:45 am

The uncertainty of science: Using a variety of telescopes, astronomers have not only made the first radio observations of key type of supernova, they have also detected helium in the data, suggesting that this particular supernova of that type was still atypical.

This marks the first confirmed Type Ia supernova triggered by a white dwarf star that pulled material from a companion star with an outer layer consisting primarily of helium; normally, in the rare cases where the material stripped from the outer layers of the donor star could be detected in spectra, this was mostly hydrogen.

Type Ia supernovae are important for astronomers since they are used to measure the expansion of the universe. However, the origin of these explosions has remained an open question. While it is established that the explosion is caused by a compact white dwarf star that somehow accretes too much matter from a companion star, the exact process and the nature of the progenitor is not known. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted sentences are really the most important take-away from this research. Type Ia supernovae were the phenomenon used by cosmologists to detect the unexpected acceleration of the universe’s expansion billions of years ago. That research assumed these supernovae were well understood and consistently produced the same amount of energy and light, no matter how far away they were or the specific conditions which caused them.

This new supernovae research illustrates how absurd that assumption was. Type Ia supernovae are produced by the interaction of two stars, both of which could have innumerable unique features. It is therefore unreasonable as a scientist to assume all such supernovae are going to be identical in their output. And yet, that is what the cosmologists did in declaring the discovery of dark energy in the late 1990s.

It is also what the scientists who performed this research do. To quote one of the co-authors: “While normal Type Ia supernovae appear to always explode with the same brightness, this supernova tells us that there are many different pathways to a white dwarf star explosion.”

Forgive me if I remain very skeptical.

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What kind of barred spiral galaxy is the Milky Way?

10:14 am

Three types of barred spiral galaxies
Click for original image.

The uncertainty of science: Though astronomers have long believed that the Milky Way galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy, defined as having a major straight arm coming out in two directions from its nucleus with other spiral arms surrounding it, determining the exact structure has been difficult because of our presence within the galaxy.

The image to the right, taken from a paper just published, shows three different types of barred spirals. On the left is one where the surrounding spiral arms hardly exist. In the center the central bar is surrounded by multiple arms. On the right is a barred spiral with just one major spiral arm.

Though it has been generally accepted that the Milky Way belongs in the center category, astronomers remain unsure about the actual spiral structure. Previous work had suggested the galaxy actually had four major arms, not two as seen by most barred spirals. As noted in the paper, “If that is the case, the [Milky Way] may be an atypical galaxy in the universe.”

The research from the new paper however now proposes that the Milky Way is actually not atypical, but instead more resembles the center image, with two main arms and multiple segmented arms beyond. From the abstract:

Using the precise locations of very young objects, for the first time, we propose that our galaxy has a multiple-arm morphology that consists of two-arm symmetry (the Perseus and Norma Arms) in the inner parts and that extends to the outer parts, where there are several long, irregular arms (the Centaurus, Sagittarius, Carina, Outer, and Local Arms).

The astronomers cheerfully admit that this conclusion is uncertain, and will need many further observations for confirmation.

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Italy delays restart of its gravitational wave detector Virgo

9:36 am

After three years of upgrades, the engineers running Italy’s Virgo gravitational wave detector have decided to delay its restart later this month due to unexplained noise issues found inside some older components.

Getting to these parts to find the cause of the noise however will not be simple, as they are housed inside a vacuum chamber.

[According to Virgo spokesperson Gianluca Gemme. “Until we break the vacuum and open the towers to check the interferometer components directly, we cannot be one hundred percent sure what the problem is. … We therefore decided to take action now to resolve the technical issue that is slowing down the interferometer’s sensitivity growth. These are operations that, apart from the work we will have to do, involve time to remove and then restore the ultra-high vacuum conditions.

Once this work is completed it will then require further testing to make sure all is well. It is therefore unclear when Virgo will resume observations.

Meanwhile, the two detectors in the United States plan to resume operations as scheduled later this month. Without Virgo working in tandem, however, the resolution for any detections will be reduced.

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ULA’s first Vulcan rocket returns to assembly building after fueling tests

9:22 am

After completing a tanking test, engineers have now moved ULA s first Vulcan rocket back to the assembly building for some additional work prior to the first wet dress rehearsal countdown and static fire test.

A ULA spokesperson said the company’s engineers “collected excellent data” during the May 12 tanking test, which mimicked a launch countdown with holds, readiness polls, and other milestones. “Based on the test, there are several parameters that will be adjusted prior to conducting the Flight Readiness Firing,” the ULA spokesperson said in a statement. “We are rolling back to the Vertical Integration Facility, where our access is better and the vehicle is protected to isolate and perform those adjustments.”

The static fire test will occur prior to attaching two strap-on solid-fueled side boosters, provided by Northrop Grumman, that are needed for the first launch. That launch is presently scheduled for sometime this summer, but first the static fire test has to take place successfully, with no issues, and these boosters need to be attached.

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China’s Long March 3B puts another GPS-type satellite into orbit

8:58 pm

China early on Wednesday, May 17, 2023 (China time) used its Long March 3B to successfully launch a GPS-type satellite, adding one more satellite to its constellation of similar satellites.

As the launch was from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the interior, the rocket’s core stage and four strap-on boosters crashed somewhere inside China. No word on whether they landed near habitable areas.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

31 SpaceX
18 China
6 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads China 35 to 18 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 35 to 30. SpaceX by itself trails the entire world, including other American companies, 31 to 34 in launches this year.

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May 16, 2023 Quick space links

4:49 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

 

 

  • Astra and Momentus face cash crunch

    • Both have serious financial issues, but Momentus probably a better chance of surviving since it is actually flying its Vigoride tugs. Astra has nothing flying at the moment.

 

 

 

 

 

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Brain terrain in and around pedestal crater on Mars

1:13 pm

Brain terrain in and around a pedestal crater on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on March 10, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

As I noted in a cool image only two weeks ago, brain terrain is a geological feature wholly unique to Mars that planetary geologists still do not understand or can explain. They know its knobby interweaving nodules (resembling the convolutions of the human brain) are related to near surface ice and its sublimation into gas, but no one has much confidence in any of the theories that posit the process that forms it.

In this case the brain terrain not only fills the crater, it appears to surround it as well, but only appearing at spots where a smooth top layer has begun to break apart. Moreover, the crater appears to be a pedestal crater, whereby much of the less dense surrounding terrain has vanished, leaving the compacted crater sitting higher.
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Surprise! The mainstream press still refuses to admit there was never any evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russians

11:38 am

CNN's Jake Tapper, the face of the corrupt mainstream media
CNN’s Jake Tapper, the face of the corrupt mainstream
media

The release of the Durham final report [pdf] this week has produced a flurry of stories, reiterating the wholly unsurprising news that there was never any evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russians and the entire story was a fraud, based on no evidence and drummed up by Democratic Party operatives working for Hillary Clinton both inside and outside of the FBI and Department of Justice.

The leftist mainstream press and the Democratic Party-controlled federal government of course reacted in mixed ways. First, Jake Tapper at CNN reluctantly admitted that the report is “devastating to the FBI, and to a degree it does exonerate Donald Trump.” In the same breath however he also tried to minimize the reports damning conclusions, which proved unequivocally that the reporting on this story from day one by him and everyone at CNN was either incompetent or outright lies.

The FBI meanwhile responded to the report with a short three sentence statement, admitting “missteps” were made but “dozens of corrective actions” have been taken since to make sure the agency “continues to do its work with the rigor, objectivity, and professionalism the American people deserve and rightly expect.”

Yeah, right. If you believe this hogwash from the FBI I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you, cheap.

Meanwhile other leftist mainstream news outlets scrambled to spin the report, to discredit it without even reading it.

Liars in 2017 and liars now, in 2023.

In truth, the facts brought out by the Durham report, detailed nicely in analyses here and here, simply restate what was patently obvious in 2017, for anyone with the willingness to look dispassionately at the plain facts. As I wrote in July 2017,
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Rocket Lab completes Photon transport spacecraft for Varda’s private returnable space capsule

9:20 am

The private rocket company Rocket Lab has now completed construction on the Photon transport spacecraft that the private company Varda has purchased to maneuver and then de-orbit its private returnable space capsule in which it plans to manufacture pharmaceuticals while in orbit and then return to Earth for sale.

Rocket Lab made the spacecraft at its Long Beach manufacturing site to provide power, communications, propulsion and attitude control to a capsule that will produce pharmaceutical products in microgravity. In addition to providing support during the in-space phase of Varda’s mission, the Photon will put Varda’s capsule carrying finished pharmaceuticals on a return trajectory to Earth.

This is the first of four Photon spacecraft that Varda has purchased from Rocket Lab. Varda appears to be attempting to continue the pharmaceutical work that McDonnell-Douglas did on the space shuttle, and was on the verge of flying a full-scale production mission for profit, when the Challenger accident occurred in 1986 and ended all further commercial work on the shuttle.

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