An evening pause: Hat tip Judd Clark, who gives this background, “Written by Billie Holiday, who first recorded it on April 20, 1939 on the Commodore label. Performed by Billie Holiday in 1957 in a television special, The Sound of Jazz.”
Earlier today China successfully launched a three-person crew to its Tiangong-3 space station, its Long March 2F rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in the northwest of China.
No word on where the four strap-on boosters, the payload fairing, the core stages, and the upper stage crashed inside China, using very toxic hypergolic fuels. This new crew will replace the present crew, who are completing a six-month tour. The new crew will complete a similar-length mission.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
42 SpaceX
17 China
6 Russia
5 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 49 to 29, while SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 42 to 36.
Bill Nelson exhibiting his ignorance to Congress
On April 17, 2024 Bill Nelson, former Democratic Party senator and now NASA’s administrator, testified at a budget hearing in the House of Representives about the proposed 2025 NASA budget proposed by the Biden administration.
Such testimony is routinely boring and tells us nothing, which is why I no longer waste much time listening to it.
Other do, however, and as a result we all find out about moments of stupidity such as this one, spouted by Nelson:
“What do you think the Chinese are trying to get at, at the back side of the moon?” Rep. David Trone (D-MD) asked Nelson at a congressional hearing last week.
“They are going to have a lander on the far side of the moon, which is the side which is always in dark. Uh, we’re not planning to go there,” he said.
Trone followed up by asking, “And why not? What’s the benefit of doing so?”
“We don’t know what’s on the back side of the moon, so, uh, that would be something that they would discover,” the NASA administrator told lawmakers on Capitol Hill. “But our decision is that it’s more profitable for us to go to the South Pole of the moon because that’s where we think the water is,” he added.
First, Nelson exhibits the same kind of utter ignorance about basic space science as did congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) when she proclaimed on April 8, 2024 that the Moon “was made up mostly of gases.” Nelson says the “dark side” is always dark, when it is well known for many centuries that the back side of the Moon is sometimes referred to as the “dark side” not because it is dark, but because it is never visible to us on Earth, and until the space age no one knew what was there.
Furthermore, since the 1960s however we have known what is there, even if Nelson is an ignoramus about these basic facts. Landing there to research it up close and in detail is a entirely laudable science goal, something American scientists have wanted to do for decades. China is simply doing it.
Finally, China is also targeting the south pole for its lunar base, something Nelson seems utterly unaware, an ignorance that is shocking considering their lunar base goals are potentially in direct conflict with our lunar base goals.
You would think the administrator of NASA would know these basic facts.
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Click for original image.
The cool image to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on February 22, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It gives us another example the many-layered geological history of Mars, seen in numerous locations across the entire Martian surface.
This example shows many thin layers, going downhill about 450 feet from the mesa near the bottom of the picture to the low point near the picture’s top. At this resolution there appear to be roughly two dozen prominent layers in that descent, but a closer look suggests many more layers within those large layers. Like the terrain that Curiosity is traversing on Mount Sharp, the closer one gets the more layers one sees. And each layer signifies a different geological event, possibly even marking the annual seasons, each either adding or removing a layer of dust or ice, or placing down a new layer of lava.
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At a conference in China this week, the chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program, Wu Weiren, outlined roughly the plans for building China’s International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) on the Moon.
According to Wu, the first phase of the ILRS construction project will see a basic station built by 2035 in the lunar south pole region. This basic station will have comprehensive scientific facilities with complete basic functions and supporting elements to carry out regular scientific experiments, and develop and utilize resources on a limited scale.
The second phase will see expansion of the station, set for completion by 2045, with a moon-orbiting space station as the hub and facilities featuring complete functions, considerable scale and stable operation. It will carry out comprehensive lunar-based scientific research and resource development and utilization, and conduct technical verification as well as scientific experiments and research for a manned landing on Mars.
This schedule contradicts other recent government statements that suggested the first phrase would be completed by 2030. Either way, we now have a rough timeline which, based on China’s past announcements, should be a reasonably accurate measure of what it now plans to do.
The timeline however is very long, and many other events outside of this program, such as war with Taiwan or sudden changes in the leadership of the ruling communist party, could change it drastically.
Russia yesterday vetoed a UN resolution by the U.S and Japan that proposed banning all nuclear weapons as well as “other weapons of mass destruction” in space.
This is all a game by the diplomats and politicians in power on both sides.
U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Wednesday echoed [U.S. ambassador] Thomas-Greenfield, reiterating that “the United States assesses that Russia is developing a new satellite carrying a nuclear device.” If Putin has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space, Sullivan said, “Russia would not have vetoed this resolution.”
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia dismissed the resolution as “absolutely absurd and politicized,” and said it didn’t go far enough in banning all types of weapons in space. Russia and China proposed an amendment to the U.S.-Japan draft that would call on all countries, especially those with major space capabilities, “to prevent for all time the placement of weapons in outer space, and the threat of use of force in outer spaces.”
The vote was 7 countries in favor, 7 against, and one abstention and the amendment was defeated because it failed to get the minimum 9 “yes” votes required for adoption.
So Russia vetos the U.S. resolution, and the U.S. and its allies veto the Russian resolution. In both cases neither side intends to stop work on its space weaponry, nor will either allow any independent inspections of their facilities. Moreover, both resolutions are irrelevant, because these nations are all signatories to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which already outlaws the placement of nuclear weapons in space.
As I said, it is all a game, intended not to stop deployment of such weapons but to try to embarrass their opponents.
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has now issued the range license for the Saxavord spaceport on the Shetland Islands, following up issuing it a spaceport license in December.
A range licence is a legal requirement ahead of a space launch, but is not in itself permission to launch. This licence grants the broad approval to provide ‘range control services.’ Specifics will depend on the launch vehicle and will be outlined as part of relevant launch licences.
Work by the Civil Aviation Authority continues in assessing potential launch operators from SaxaVord.
Sounds good, eh? Not so fast. It took the CAA about two years to issue these two spaceport licenses, but that doesn’t give anyone the right to launch from Saxavord. The CAA must still issue launch licenses to the specific rocket companies wishing to launch. Though the German rocket startup Rocket Factory Augsburg wants to do the first orbital test flight this year from Saxavord, it still must get that launch license. Do not be surprised if it takes the CAA more than a year to issue it.
The map above is one low resolution example of a new detailed geological atlas that Chinese scientists have created and just released, using data obtained from all of China’s recent lunar missions, both orbiters and landers.
More information here.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has released the highest-resolution geological maps of the Moon yet. The Geologic Atlas of the Lunar Globe, which took more than 100 researchers over a decade to compile, reveals a total of 12,341 craters, 81 basins and 17 rock types, along with other basic geological information about the lunar surface. The maps were made at the unprecedented scale of 1:2,500,000.
…The CAS also released a book called Map Quadrangles of the Geologic Atlas of the Moon, comprising 30 sector diagrams which together form a visualization of the whole Moon.
The map has been released in both Chinese and English.
Having integrated together the core first stage and the upper stage of the first Ariane-6 rocket, engineers have now lifted both vertical on the launch pad in preparation for its launch sometime in June or July.
Next two strap-on boosters will be attached to the core stage, as well as the payloads made up of eighteen different smallsats and experiments, including two test re-entry capsules testing their ability to bring payloads safely back to Earth.
Capitalism in space: Japan’s space agency JAXA has now awarded the orbital tug startup Astroscale a contract to complete the removal of an abandoned upper stage from a previously launched rocket.
Astroscale has already flown the first phase of this project, with its ADRAS-J tug flying in March and April a demo rendezvous mission with the rocket stage, getting to within several hundred meters of the stage. The second phase, now approved, will grab the stage with a robot arm and then de-orbit it. No date for the launch of that second phase was announced.
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
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An evening pause: From the youtube page: “I wanna be the best dancer in the world.”
Hat tip Tom Wilson.
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reducedl, and enhanced to post here, was taken on February 24, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Dubbed a “terrain sample” by the camera team, it was likely taken not as part of any specific research project but to fill a gap in the camera’s schedule so as to maintain that camera’s proper temperature. When they have to do this, they try to pick interesting targets, though there is no guarantee the result will be very interesting.
In this case the camera team already knew this location would have intriguing geology, based on an earlier terrain sample taken a year ago only eight miles to the south. The landscape here is a flat plateaus surrounding flat depressions, some of which appear connected by drainage channels. Today’s picture shows one flat depression with a short tail-like channel flowing into it.
Note the pockmarked surface. The many holes could be impact craters, but they also could be holes caused when the near-surface ice at this location sublimated into gas and bubbled upward to escape. Now all we see is dry bedrock, the flat ground riddled with holes.
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Using more than two decades of data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, scientists have created two movies of the supernovae remnants the Crab nebula and Cassiopeia A.
I have embedded those movies below. From the press release:
Over 22 years, Chandra has taken many observations of the Crab Nebula. With this long runtime, astronomers see clear changes in both the ring and the jets in the new movie. Previous Chandra movies showed images taken from much shorter time periods — a 5-month period between 2000 and 2001 and over 7 months between 2010 and 2011 for another. The longer timeframe highlights mesmerizing fluctuations, including whip-like variations in the X-ray jet that are only seen in this much longer movie. A new set of Chandra observations will be conducted later this year to follow changes in the jet since the last Chandra data was obtained in early 2022.
…Cassiopeia A (Cas A for short) is the remains of a supernova that is estimated to have exploded about 340 years ago in Earth’s sky. While other Chandra movies of Cas A have previously been released, including one with data extending from 2000 to 2013, this new movie is substantially longer featuring data from 2000 through to 2019.
A cartoon showing Apophis’s path in 2029
At a conference this week several new missions to the asteroid Apophis during its close Earth fly-by in 2029 were proposed by both private companies and government entities.
With all of these missions, the big obstacle is funding. Most are either only partly funded, or not at all.
At the moment the only mission actually on its way to Apophis is OSIRIS-APEX, which having completed its sample return mission to Bennu was then sent to Apophis.
China today announced the addition of three more international partners in its project to build a permanent base on the Moon, dubbed the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS).
The new partners of the ILRS include Nicaragua, the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization and the Arab Union for Astronomy and Space Sciences. China will collaborate with these three parties on various issues concerning the ILRS, including its demonstration, engineering implementation, operation and application, according to the CNSA.
China’s project now has ten partner nations (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela) and eleven academic or governmental bureaucracies.
If all goes as planned, China hopes to have the basic station established by 2030, which it will periodcially and intermittently send astronauts.
Though it was primarily designed to prove its landing system and was never expected to resume operations after enduring the long 14-day-long lunar night, Japan’s SLIM lunar lander has successfully survived its third lunar night, resuming contact with Earth yesterday.
JAXA said on the social media platform X that SLIM’s key functions are still working despite repeated harsh cycles of temperature changes. The agency said it plans to closely monitor the lander’s deterioration.
While the newly downloaded data and photos have some scientific value, the important data is the spacecraft’s engineering status. Finding out what continues to work and what fails after each lunar night will inform engineers on what to do best to build future lunar landers and rovers.
Both SpaceX and Rocket Lab successfully completed launches today. First SpaceX launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral. The first stage completed its ninth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
Shortly thereafter, Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket lifted off from one of its launchpads in New Zealand, placing two technology demonstration satellites in orbit, one testing a solar sail from NASA and the other from South Korea testing a cubesat doing optical observations of Earth. Though the first stage had the markings of a stage designed for resuse, there was no indication in the company’s live stream of any attempt to recover it.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
42 SpaceX
16 China
6 Russia
5 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 49 to 28, while SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 42 to 35.
An evening pause: Performed on the organ of Rochdale Town Hall, Rochdale, UK.
Hat tip Judd Clark. To all: I could use suggestions from others. Right now Judd is doing the lion’s share of work, suggesting a lot of great evening pauses. I want more variety, however, including suggestions from many others. If you have suggested something before you know the routine. If you haven’t and want to, post a comment here, but DON’T post the link in your comment. I will contact you for it.
The modern Republican Party and its voters
Many conservatives both in Congress and out have recently railed in fury at the compromises that House speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has made with the Democrats in order to pass large multi-billion dollar foreign aid bills to help the Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan protect their sovereignty and borders, while doing nothing to pass any bills to secure the American border at all.
That fury is best represented by Marjorie Taylor Greene, (R-Georgia), who has filed a motion to vacate the speaker but as yet has not followed through to force a vote. She has repeatedly condemned his willingness to work to pass Democratic Party proposals while doing little to help Republicans get their bills passed.
The problem however for Johnson is the same one faced by the previous Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, as well as the Republican speaker before him, Paul Ryan, and the speaker before him, John Boehner. All struggled to get Republican proposals passed, and all failed. None could garner a majority strong enough, especially because the Democrats stood firm and united in opposition and many Republicans were actually more allied with the Democratic Party agenda. It is this same problem that Greene faces and is why she has not moved to force a vote for a new speaker.
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