October 26, 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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Author: Robert Zimmerman
National Geographic – Alien Body Invader
An evening pause: This is not a science fiction movie, but it could be.
Hat tip Cotour.
Martian rectilinear ridges
Click for original image.
Today’s cool image is also a bafflement. The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on July 25, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The ridges in this picture are labeled by the scientists “Rectilinear Ridges,” but they really do not resemble any of the Martian rectilinear ridge types outlined in this paper [pdf], all of which appear to have a much more pronounced criss-cross pattern.
These ridges however are more meandering, and instead to my eye seem more like inverted channels, ancient channels whose beds became compacted and then became ridges when the less dense surrounding material eroded away. The problem with this conclusion however is the lack of any obvious tributary pattern. If these were once channels where either liquid water or glaciers once flowed, none of them seem to exhibit any drainage pattern. The ridges go in all directions.
The context map below only increases the mystery.
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Today’s blacklisted American: School officials in Florida and Michigan retaliate against parents for being involved in their kids’ schooling
As I did last week on October 20 and 21, today’s blacklist column will cover two stories, both of which are similar and show a pattern of abuse by those in power.
The October 20th story focused on hospitals blacklisting nurses, either for being white or Christian. The October 21st story told the story of teachers being fired for opposing the introduction of the queer agenda in toddler daycare and in elementary schools.
Today’s story describes how school officials in two different states instigated investigations designed solely to destroy the livelihood of parents, simply because those parents questioned the way those officials were doing their job.
Note that in all three cases, the nurses, teachers, and parents were blacklisted simply because they had expressed in public a disagreement with the policies of those in charge. Apparently, to those now in charge, the first amendment has been suspended, so that any dissent against them can be punished harshly.
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Orbit Fab, the company building gas stations in space, gets new investor
Though the amount invested has not been revealed, Orbit Fab announced yesterday that it has obtained a new investor to fuel its effort to build the first gas stations in space.
Orbit Fab said that 8090 Industries was a “new major investor” in the company, but did not disclose the size of the investment. The company had previously raised a total of $17 million, including more than $10 million in a September 2021 round that included Lockheed Martin Ventures and Northrop Grumman.
Orbit Fab’s goal is to provide satellite makers a way to more easily and cheaply refuel their satellites, thus allowing them to not only launch for less cost but to last longer once in orbit. In August it announced it is aiming to launch a hydrazine refueling depot for geosynchronous satellites by 2025.
Lucy’s view of the Earth-Moon system during its October fly-by
Click for original image.
Lucy’s planned route to explore the Trojan asteroids
In the days prior to its October 16, 2022 fly-by of the Earth, the Lucy asteroid probe took several calibration images of the Earth and the Moon. The photo above, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, shows both the Earth and the Moon together. From the caption:
On October 13, 2022, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured this image of the Earth and the Moon from a distance of 890,000 miles (1.4 million km). The image was taken as part of an instrument calibration sequence as the spacecraft approached Earth for its first of three Earth gravity assists. These Earth flybys provide Lucy with the speed required to reach the Trojan asteroids — small bodies that orbit the Sun at the same distance as Jupiter.
In the original, the Moon is so dim, compared to the Earth, that it was hard to find in the picture. I therefore brightened it considerably more than the Earth to make it easily seen above.
After 50 years Edward Stone retires as the project scientist for Voyagers 1 and 2
Edward Stone, the only project scientist the interstellar spacecraft Voyagers 1 and 2 have ever known, has now retired after 50 years service.
Stone accepted scientific leadership of the historic mission in 1972, five years before the launch of its two spacecraft, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Under his guidance, the Voyagers explored the four giant planets and became the first human-made objects to reach interstellar space, the region between the stars containing material generated by the death of nearby stars.
Until now, Stone was the only person to have served as project scientist for Voyager, maintaining his position even while serving as director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California from 1991 to 2001. JPL manages the Voyager mission for NASA. Stone retired from JPL in 2001 but continued to serve as the mission’s project scientist.
The new Voyager project scientist however is not new to the project.
Linda Spilker will succeed Stone as Voyager’s project scientist as the twin probes continue to explore interstellar space. Spilker was a member of the Voyager science team during the mission’s flybys of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. She later became project scientist for NASA’s now-retired Cassini mission to Saturn, and rejoined Voyager as deputy project scientist in 2021.
InSight still hangs in, barely
A new update on the status of the Mars lander InSight was released today, showing its power output daily through October 22, 2022. The graph to the right shows this update. From the report:
As of October 22, 2022, InSight’s seismometer is collecting data again after being switched off to conserve energy after a recent dust storm. The lander was generating an average of 280 watt-hours of energy per Martian day, or sol. The tau, or level of dust cover in the atmosphere, was estimated at 1.45 (typical tau levels outside of dust season range from 0.6-0.7).
These power levels are very low, so low I am surprised the science team thought it was able to start the seismometer again. It could be they expect the lander to fail any moment, and decided to maximize the data it can get in the little time it has left.
A press conference is planned for Thursday, October 27, 2022 to provide an update on InSight’s future, as well it appears to describe a recent discovery (likely the exact moment some recent impacts took place) based on data from InSight and images from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). This was already reported in mid-September, but more impacts might have been identified.
It is also possible the MRO images detected some other change on the surface (not an impact) that InSight’s seismometer picked up. If so, the briefing will be far more interesting.
Russian Progress freighter successfully launches to ISS
Using its Soyuz-2 rocket Russia tonight successfully launched a new Progress freighter to ISS.
The spacecraft will take two days to rendezvous and dock with ISS, thus delivering 2.5 tons of cargo.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
48 SpaceX
45 China
18 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA
American private enterprise still leads China 68 to 45 in the national rankings, though it now trails the rest of the world combined 72 to 68.
Jerry Reed – Lord Mr Ford
An evening pause: Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
October 25, 2022 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Smart Dragon 3 rocket spotted on street in Haiyang, Shandong Province
This solid-fueled rocket will likely launch from the sea platform developed out of Haiyang. It has yet to complete an orbital launch.
- Protein crystal experiment to be launched on next Cygnus freighter to ISS
The tweet includes a cool picture of a protein crystal. From the experiment’s abstract:
The Ring Sheared Drop investigation examines the formation and growth of amyloids and fibrils without the complications associated with the solid walls of a container, because in microgravity, surface tension provides containment of the liquid. Fibrous, extracellular protein deposits found in organs and tissues, amyloids are associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Results could contribute to better understanding of these diseases as well as to development of advanced materials.
Forgive me if I am skeptical about this work. Protein crystal experiments have been going on on ISS now for more than two decades, without any clarity whether any have actually turned out useful on Earth. When I have seen presentations about them, I have repeatedly wondered if this isn’t more about creating papers and funding, not actual new knowledge that has a useful application.
If I am wrong I would love to be educated otherwise.
- China’s X-37B copycat spaceplane raises its orbit; gets funding boost
Launched on August 4th, China has released no information about its mission or its planned duration. The program however got new funding from China’s science bureaucracy in September.
Pushback: Nationwide group fights university blacklisting of those who refuse COVID shots
Bring a gun to a knife fight: A new group, dubbed No College Mandates, is now campaigning nationwide against the effort of universities to blacklist anyone who has not gotten any COVID shots.
Formed in December 2021, the organization recently launched a protest letter campaign to colleges that still require the vaccine and boosters and have “forced these young adults into compliance,” according to a news release.
“We decided to target colleges because they were among the first educational institutions mandating vaccines,” Lucia Sinatra, co-founder of the group, told The College Fix via email. “Colleges have known since August 2021 that the virus can transmit equally between unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals yet they mandated boosters and some have begun to mandate the bivalent booster,” she said.
The organization has sent its protest letter to over 300 colleges. The letter to Yale is typical, noting in detail how the CDC has now admitted that the jab does not stop transmission and that the mandates were pointless. Yet the college still insists that teachers, students, and visitors all must get the jab, plus at least one booster. As the letter notes, these senseless rules do nothing to prevent the Wuhan flu, while normalizing blacklisting.
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