Year: 2023

Ancient flood lava on the upper slopes of the solar system’s largest volcano

12:40 pm

Ancient flood lava
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on July 13, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

In this one picture can be seen a glimpse of the entire history of the numerous lava eruptions that once dominated Mars when its giant volcanoes were active one to three billion years ago. The three aligned craterlike depressions likely signal the existence of a large lava tube below ground, placed there during an early large eruption, when the volcano was spewing out so much flood lava that such large tubes could form. The smaller meandering surface rills signal later eruptions that carried less flood lava and thus produced a smaller drainage features.

And finally, the rough and cracked appearance of the surface indicates the ancient age of those last eruptions, probably laid down about a billion years ago. Since then, the volcano has been dormant, and the frozen lava here has had time to erode, become roughened, and show signs of slowly wearing away.
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Engineers use lasers to create paving material from simulated lunar soil

9:22 am

Engineers in Europe have now successfully used lasers to melt the top surface of a simulated lunar regolith in order to turn that lunar soil into paving materials for roads and landing pads.

Though the experiement used a laser, that was only a surrogate for what would be done on the Moon, using sunlight focused by a magnifying lens.

Proceeding through trial and error, they devised a strategy using a 4.5 cm (1.8 inch) diameter laser beam to produce triangular, hollow-centred geometric shapes approximately 20 cm (8 inches) across. These could be interlocked to create solid surfaces across large areas of lunar soil which could serve as roads or landing pads.

Advenit adds: “It actually turned out to be easier to work with regolith with a larger spot size, because at millimetre scale heating produces molten balls that surface tension makes hard to aggregate together. The larger beam produces a stable layer of molten regolith that is easier to control. The resulting material is glasslike and brittle, but will mainly be subject to downward compression forces. Even if it breaks we can still go on using it, repairing it as necessary.”

The press release however noted almost as an aside what might be the most important result from this work: “The most practical response is to keep dust at bay by paving over areas of activity on the Moon, including roads and landing pads.” Lunar dust is very abrasive, is found everywhere, and is considered a fundamental and entirely unsolved problem for any future lunar base. This melting process, by sunlight, could conceivably eliminate the problem entirely at any base location by melting the surface dust.

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SpaceX to offer Starlink for cell phones

9:06 am

SpaceX has now announced that its Starlink internet service will soon be available for cell phones that are already in use, allowing them access to service even in places where no cell towers exist.

Direct to Cell works with existing LTE phones wherever you can see the sky. No changes to hardware, firmware, or special apps are required, providing seamless access to text, voice, and data.

First Starlink will only provide text service in 2024, and then expand to voice and data in 2025.

This capability means that SpaceX will not only be in direct competition with AST SpaceMobile, which recently launched a satellite to test similar capabilities, it will be far ahead of it in that competition. In fact, SpaceX is setting Starlink up as the go-to company for all smartphones and home internet services. By 2025 you will not need any other provider to have phone and internet service globally.

No wonder private investment firms have been willing to invest almost $11 billion in the company. They see big profits on the horizon.

That our federal government dislikes this fact, and is doing everything it can to crush Elon Musk and the company, tells us much about government itself. It isn’t interested in promoting human success. Instead, its instinct is to squelch it.

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NASA delays two ISS spacewalks as Russian engineers assess now stopped leak on Nauka module

8:54 am

NASA yesterday confirmed it is delaying by at least one week two ISS spacewalks in order to allow more time for Russian engineers to analyze the causes of the coolant leak on Nauka module and assess its short and long term consequences for the station.

The spacewalks were deferred from their original target dates to allow engineers additional time to complete their analysis of the coolant leak, which occurred on Oct. 9 and has now stopped. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words are the most important takeaway. The leak has stopped leaking, though we have not been told why. The Russians might have closed off the leaking radiator from the system, or maybe the leak stopped on its own for unknown reasons. More information is clearly required.

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First manned Starliner mission now delayed to April 2024

8:45 am

In a press release yesterday that outlined the updates to NASA’s scheduled manned missions to ISS, the agency confirmed that the first manned Starliner mission has now been delayed one more month, from March until April 2024.

The first crewed flight of the Starliner spacecraft, named NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT), is planned for no earlier than mid-April. CFT will send NASA astronauts and test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on a demonstration flight to prove the end-to-end capabilities of the Starliner system. Starliner will launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, spend approximately eight days docked to the space station, and return to Earth with a parachute and airbag-assisted ground landing in the desert of the western United States. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words underline the fact that this date is merely a target, and has been announced as part of the entire schedule for all the manned missions to ISS next year, fitting it in between two SpaceX crewed Dragon flights. It assumes Boeing will have the spacecraft ready by then, but based on that company’s track record, that assumption remains dangerous. Boeing has a lot of work to do, including parachute drop tests to fix the parachute cords as well as replacing the flammable electric tape installed throughout the capsule.

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Falcon Heavy successfully launches Psyche asteroid mission

8:25 am

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket this morning successfully launched the Psyche mission to the metal asteroid Psyche, lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The two side boosters successfully landed at their landing zones at the cape, each completing their fourth flight.

Psyche will now spend the next six years traveling to the asteroid Psyche, first flying by Mars in 2026 to gain some speed to get there. It will then go into orbit around the asteroid for almost two years.

The leaders in 2023 launch race:

72 SpaceX
45 China
13 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise now leads China in successfully launches 84 to 45, and the entire world combined 84 to 73. SpaceX by itself only trails the entire world combined (excluding American companies) 72 to 73.

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Pushback: Naming the names of the leftist haters supporting Hamas in America

1:39 pm

Nazi brown shirts destroying Jewish businesses on Kristallnacht
Nazi brown shirts destroying Jewish businesses on Kristallnacht

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Even though there really is little difference between the tactics used by Hamas in Israel now versus the tactics used by Antifa/BLM in the U.S. in 2020, the difference in the way the public is reacting is significant and must be noted.

The tactics themselves are straightforward. Set up a gang of thugs to commit violence and mayhem against anyone you disagree with. The Nazis used this approach with great success in its effort to demonize and destroy its enemies and the Jews in Germany. Antifa and BLM repeated that Nazi success in 2020, rioting, looting, and burning whole neighborhoods. The response from the public then was either downright fear and submissiveness, or an eager endorsement of these groups in the vague hope that saying nice things about them while sending them money might encourage them to go away.

In other words, just like in 1930s Germany, the general reaction was to kow-tow to these bullies, which only inspired them to commit more bullying. My blacklist column since 2020 illustrates that sad history.

With Hamas today however the response has been far far different. Not only is the public expressing outrage against Hamas’s brutality and genocidal behavior, it is also expressing anger and outrage against those who are trying to pander to it. The push back has been glorious to see.
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Martian pseudo-frost terrain

12:20 pm

Martian pseudo-frost terrain
Click for original image.

Cool image time! It is always dangerous to come to any quick conclusions about what you see from pictures from another planet. The photograph to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 19, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and shows what at first glance looks like a surface similar to frosting seen on window panes on Earth in the winter, where water condensation freezes to form crystalline patterns.

Your first glance would be wrong. This terrain is about 120 miles north of the Martian equator, placing inside the dry equatorial regions where no near-surface ice is known to exist. If this geological feature is formed by the same condensation processes that create ice frost, then it must involve the deposition of some other type of material.

The explanation would also have to account for the change in the terrain, from finely patterned on the right to more crystalline on the left.
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Space Force puts a halt to the use of AI because of security issues

9:09 am

The Space Force has decided to stop using any artificial intelligence computer tools (AI) because of the security risks that presently risk in using them.

The Sept. 29 memorandum, addressed to the Guardian Workforce, the term for Space Force members, pauses the use of any government data on web-based generative AI tools, which can create text, images or other media from simple prompts. The memo says they “are not authorized” for use on government systems unless specifically approved.

Chatbots and tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT have exploded in popularity. They make use of language models that are trained on vast amounts of data to predict and generate new text. Such LLMs have given birth to an entire generation of AI tools that can, for example, search through troves of documents, pull out key details and present them as coherent reports in a variety of linguistic styles.

Generative AI “will undoubtedly revolutionize our workforce and enhance Guardian’s ability to operate at speed,” Lisa Costa, Space Force’s chief technology and innovation officer, said in the memo. But Costa also cited concerns over cybersecurity, data handling and procurement requirements, saying that the adoption of AI and LLMs needs to be “responsible.”

This decision appears very wise. The insane fad in the last year to quickly adopt and even rely on AI has more than baffled me. Why are we in a such rush to let a robot do our for thinking and creative work for us? Have we become so lazy and dependent on computers that we’d rather let them do everything?

It is always dangerous to jump on a fad, without thought. That the Space Force has realized this is excellent news.

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Long delayed and overbudget NASA satellite refueling mission expects more delays and further budget overruns

8:59 am

According to a new inspector general report, a long delayed and significantly overbudget NASA satellite refueling mission, dubbed OSAM-1 and first proposed around 2010, will experience more delays and further budget overruns in order to get it off the ground by 2026, at the earliest.

A NASA plan to robotically repair and refuel satellites in orbit is way behind schedule and well over budget, says NASA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), with most of the blame falling on space tech contractor Maxar.

Maxar, one of the largest private businesses working on NASA’s On-Orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing mission (OSAM-1), has been involved in the project since 2016, when the space agency’s idea was smaller in scope and known as Restore-L. According to the OIG, Maxar is two years behind schedule on delivering the the project’s spacecraft bus and its Space Infrastructure Dexterous Robot (SPIDER) robotic arm, and it’s unlikely OSAM-1 will come in under its $2.05 billion budget nor meet the December 2026 launch date NASA committed to in 2022. The bus is the main craft framework, and its attached SPIDER will hopefully repair and refuel satellites in orbit, once it all gets off the ground and works.

NASA isn’t without blame for the delays, the OIG said, but Goddard Space Flight Center’s (the NASA facility where the project is being managed) “struggle with development of several key components of the servicing payload” wasn’t the main issue. “We found that project cost increases and schedule delays were primarily due to the poor performance of Maxar … and its inability to provide the spacecraft bus and SPIDER in accordance with contract requirements,” inspectors concluded in their report.

The plan has always been to refuel the Landsat-7 spacecraft in order to demonstrate robotic in-space servicing of satellites. When first proposed, the idea was untested, and the project was intended to get this industry off the ground. Since then however Northrop Grumman’s MEV servicing robot satellite has leap-frogged NASA to twice reactivate two geosynchronous satellites. At the same time, at least a half dozen other private startups have now done robotic rendezvous and docking demos in orbit, and have actual contracts for their own servicing missions.

Moreover, all the private missions have concepts that are far simplier and cheaper than NASA’s. Rather pump fuel into the defunct satellite’s tanks, the MEV simply docks with the satellite using its now useless main engine nozzle, and once attached becomes a service module with its own fuel and engines to orient and move the satellite. The other servicing startups are doing similar things. No need to develop complex robot arms and fueling systems.

In other words, private industry can learn little from this NASA’s mission. By the time it launches the industry will likely be able to run rings around it. It has become a waste of money that should be shut down, now.

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India schedules Gaganyaan launch abort test for October 21st

8:40 am

India’s space agency ISRO has now scheduled the first unmanned launch abort test of its Gaganyaan manned capsule for October 21, 2023.

The test Crew Module (CM), according to the statement, will be akin to the pressurized module that’ll hold crew members during their ascent to space — this version, however, will be unpressurized. It will be launched via a single-stage liquid rocket specifically developed for this mission that will simulate an abort scenario; the true CM, by contrast, will ride atop a 143-foot-tall (43.5-meter) Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM3) rocket with a solid stage, liquid stage and cryogenic stage. The latter recently received human safety certifications, R. Hutton, project director of the Gaganyaan mission, said during a conference last month.

At present ISRO is targeting 2024 for the first manned mission, but that target date remains very uncertain.

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