Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn – And Am I Born to Die
An evening pause: Listen to the words. They ask the most fundamental questions of existence.
Hat tip Tom Wright.
Author: Robert Zimmerman
Pence reiterates Trump administration’s willingness to abandon SLS
Turf war! At today’s National Space Council meeting, vice-president Mike Pence reiterated the Trump administration’s willingness to replace SLS with commercial rockets, if that is what it will take to get Americans back to the Moon by 2024.
Pence said the schedule for completing SLS must be accelerated, but also opened the door to using rockets built by a commercial spaceflight company for the lunar mission. “We’re not committed to any one contractor. If our current contractors can’t meet this objective, then we’ll find ones that will,” he said. “And if commercial rockets are the only way to get American astronauts to the moon in the next five years, then commercial rockets it will be.”
It is very clear now that the Trump administration is beginning the political war necessary for shutting down the SLS boondoggle, something that cannot happen easily considering how its large workforce is scattered in so many states and congressional districts. To make it happen, they need to publicly illustrate its failure, repeatedly, but do so in a manner that does not overly antagonize SLS’s supporters. This is why both Pence and NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine have been careful to express support for SLS, even as they hint at its replacement.
The battle is joined, however, and that could be a very good thing for the American space industry, in the coming years.
Strange craters in the Martian northern lowlands
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The image on the right, cropped and rotated to post here, was taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and released in the monthly image dump provided by the science team. The release had no caption. It merely described this as a “Layered mound in crater.”
That is certainly what is is. However, layering suggests a regionwide process. The crater to the immediate northeast (the rim of which can be seen in the upper corner of this image), does not have the same kind of layering. (Be sure to click on the image to see that other crater.) Its crater floor is instead a blob of chaotic knobs, with the only layering scattered in spots along its north interior rim.
That the layering of both craters favors the north suggests a relationship, but what that is is beyond me. Prevailing winds? Maybe, but I don’t have the knowledge to explain how that process would work.
It is not even certain that these two craters were formed by impact. They are located in the northern lowlands where an intermittent ocean is believed to have once existed, and thus might be remnants of that ocean’s floor. That they both have a muddy appearance reinforces this hypothesis, but once again, I would not bet much money on this theory. The features here could also be expressing the effect of an impact on a muddy seafloor.
In either case the craters imply that the ocean that might have once been here existed a long enough time ago for these craters to form (either by impact or some other process) and then evolve. This has been a relatively dry place for a very long time.
OneSpace to attempt first orbital launch this week
OneSpace, one of a bunch of companies in China attempting to launch smallsats, is expected to attempt its first orbital launch this week.
The article gives a nice overview of the present competition in China between several of these smallsat private companies, dubbed OneSpace, LandSpace, ISpace, and LinkSpace. All are funded through private investment capital, so all claim to be a private companies. However, nothing done in space in China is done without the approval and direction of the government. They might be designed as private companies, but they are also designed expressly to serve the needs of the Chinese government. That their company names are all so similar only strengthens this conclusion.
Key House Democrat announces opposition to Trump’s Space Force proposal
Adam Smith (D-Washington), the House Democrat who now heads the committee that approves military space funding, has announced his opposition to Trump’s Space Force proposal.
He revealed two objections. One, he claimed the proposal was top heavy in management, with its leadership delegated to one civilian and two generals. The second complaint I think is more pertinent.
The Trump proposal includes language about the Space Force’s civilian workforce that the Democrats just can’t stomach. In his statement, Smith says that “a large part of the proposal is an attack on the rights of DoD civilian employees. It asks for broad authority to waive long-standing and effective elements of civil service rules, pay rates, merit-based hiring, and senior civilian management practices.”
As usual, the Democrats are more interested in acting as union reps for the government workforce than serving the needs of the country. Trump’s proposal, as put forth, might not make sense, but Smith is clearly not interested in fixing it. Instead, he wants shape this new bureaucracy so that it provides him and DC with more funding and power. The country can go to hell.
Russia cuts Proton price to match SpaceX
Capitalism in space: Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, yesterday said that Russia will cut costs so that the price they charge for a Proton launch will match SpaceX.
Russia is struggling to regain its Proton customer base after the launch failures of the past few years. I don’t think matching SpaceX’s prices will do it. Right now satellite companies view them as offering a less reliable product, and until they can prove this impression false they need to offer their rocket for even less that SpaceX.
This is in fact what SpaceX did at the beginning. Its rockets were untested and thus risky to use. To compensate they offered a cheaper way to space. Now Russia has to do the same, or the business will continue to go to others. I wonder if Rogozin understands this.
Update of Starhopper testing in Texas
Link here. Nothing spectacular yet, just steady and relatively quick developments.
I did find one aspect of these events a little disturbing:
In quick order, residents of Boca Chica Village were notified via mail of imminent tests and road closures that would occur as early as this week, the week of 18 March.
The notice to residents revealed that a security checkpoint would be set up on the road leading to Boca Chica Village and that residents would have to show proof of residence in order to gain access to their homes; any passengers in those vehicles would also have to show proof of residence.
This indicates that no guests will be allowed past the security checkpoint during the coming flight test operations of Starhopper.
A hard checkpoint beyond which no access to Boca Chica Beach will be granted will be further down the road.
By what right do the authorities have the power to prevent American citizens from bringing guests to their homes? None. If I lived in this development I would fight this, hard.
Ansambl Black Angels – 5 elements (Earth, Water, Air, Fire and Love)
An evening pause: Stay with it. The title will become clear, and you will then want to stay with the end.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
U.S. recognizes Israeli sovereignty of Golan Heights
The United States today officially recognized the Israeli claim of sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
President Trump on Monday formally recognized the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, giving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a much-needed boost as he raced home to respond to a rocket attack that struck near Tel Aviv, wounding seven.
Mr. Trump’s proclamation reversed about a half-century of U.S. policy, which viewed the Golan Heights as Syrian territory occupied by Israel. “This was a long time in the making, it should have taken place many decades ago,” Mr. Trump said as he signed the papers inside the White House.
The rocket attack came from Gaza, causing Netanyahu to cut short his U.S. trip to deal with it.
Remember Gaza? That was the territory that Israel once controlled, and unilaterally left in order to give the Palestinians their own sovereign state. They have since used that sovereignty to elect terrorists as their leaders, and to lob bombs at innocent Israelis.
European Court upholds conviction for condemning Mohammad’s child marriage
Fascist Europe: The European Court today upheld the Austrian conviction and punishment of a woman merely because she gave a talk where she described and then condemned Mohammad’s child marriage to a six-year-old, that he consummated with a rape when the child was nine.
Sabaditsch-Wolff, a diplomat’s daughter who has lived and worked in the Middle East, was censured for having spoken at a meeting organized by the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party 10 years ago in Vienna. Her intention was to speak about the treatment of women and the practice of jihad (“Holy War”) in countries such as Iran and Libya, on the basis of her own experience.
During her speech aimed at an audience of about 30 people, she spoke freely about the prophet Muhammad and his relationship with Aisha, whom he saw and desired when she was six years old. He married her on the spot, and the union was consummated when she was nine. He “liked to do it with children,” she said, adding that she had argued with her sister about the words she would use to describe the facts.
She insisted on being straightforward: “A 56-year-old and a six-year-old? What do we call it, if it is not pedophilia?”
A journalist present at the meeting taped her words. His editor-in-chief went on to turn them over to the police, and Sabaditsch-Wolff was indicted for inciting hatred toward Muslims and for having disparaged their prophet as unworthy of veneration.
She was not found guilty of the first violation. But she was condemned for the “disparagement” in 2011 to a 480-euro fine (about 550 U.S. dollars) or up to 60 days imprisonment.
The court has essentially endorsed the heckler’s veto, though we all know that if a Christian tried to do the same they would be denied. What will now happen is that the European Union will team up with vast numbers of new Muslim immigrants it forced its member nations to accept in the past decade to impose sharia on Europe.
College political course chooses authors by race
Bigoted academia: A college course at the University of Colorado-Denver that is falsely dubbed “American Political Thought” specifically excludes any white authors from its reading list.
The syllabus fails to mention any of the major figures in America’s founding, including the Founding Fathers. When challenged by The College Fix on the lack of these voices in the syllabus given the title of the course, [Professor Chad] Shomura argued that he aims to encourage students to expand their perception of which thinkers are included in mainstream American thought. Shomura even admitted that past students have criticized the disconnect between the title of the course and the assigned texts.
Even if the course was titled “Fringe Figures in American Political Thought” it would still be bigoted. The criteria used to pick the reading material is not based on content but purely on race.
There was a time when everyone would have seen this professor for the bigot that he is. Now, we make excuses.
The layering at the Martian poles
Click for full image.
Click for full image.
In the past month the science teams of both Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) have released images showing the strange layering found in Burroughs Crater, located near the Martian south pole.
The top image above is the MRO image, rotated and cropped to post here. To the right is a cropped and reduced section of the TGO image.
Though both images look at the inside rim of the crater, they cover sections at opposite ends of the crater. The MRO image of the crater’s east interior rim, with the lowest areas to the right, while the TGO image shows the crater’s northwest interior rim, with the lowest areas on the bottom. As noted at the TGO image site:
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Does the Mueller report suggest there is hope?
I have come to three somewhat contradictory conclusions in thinking this weekend about the unexpectedly reasonable conclusions announced in the final Mueller report, stating that, despite two years of intense investigation which at times bordered on a witch hunt, there was no collusion between Trump and the Russians to win the election.
1. Robert Mueller is a hack who works hard for the liberal Washington swamp, doing their bidding whenever he can. The summary letter of his report by Attorney General William Barr inadvertently reveals this.
In the first paragraph of Barr’s letter he describes Mueller’s report has entitled “Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election.” This would imply that Mueller’s goal was to investigate all possible aspects of Russian interference, including collusion that might have also taken place in the Clinton campaign.
However, in the very next paragraph Barr states,
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Rogozin: Investigation into Soyuz sabotage to continue on ISS
In his remarks to journalists today Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin also said that the Russian investigation into the hole that was drilled in a Soyuz capsule last year is not over, and that they plan to do further “experiments” on ISS.
“The samples collected on the ISS are insufficient for final conclusions. Apparently, additional experiments in orbit will be required,” Rogozin said.
What those “additional experiments in orbit” will be was not explained. I suspect he is referring to the security cameras the Russians are installing on their part of ISS, with the hope of catching the saboteur in the act.
What I think is going on here is that they have not been able to uncover who did this on the ground, and are now trying to imply it might have been sabotage by a U.S. astronaut. Rogozin can’t say this outright, because he wants to keep good relations with the U.S. in the partnership on ISS. He can hint at it, however, and let his own press run with it.
Russia offers to take over ISS if US exits
How kind of them! Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, told journalists today that Russia has formulated a proposal to take over ISS operations completely should the U.S. withdraw from the station.
“This is Roscosmos’ proposal. We believe that we can keep the station in case the Americans decide to withdraw from this project, through other countries and partners. We have technological and technical capabilities to keep the station on the orbit and fully provide both electric energy and water there,” Rogozin said.
Roscosmos’ director general explained that the Russian section may add new modules on the basis of the Science-Power Module (SPM), the first version of which will be launched to the station in 2022. “Here the Russian Federation has a unique opportunity. We can duplicate the SPM. Its design makes it possible to turn into home for other states – there can be the SPM-2, SPM-3, SPM-4, they may grow further, extending the international part of the station. We formulated this proposal, and we suggest our new partners doing it,” Rogozin said. [emphasis mine]
The highlighted text reveals Russia’s real goal. They take over station operations, and then sell to other nations modules for the station. Does the UAE want its own space station manned program? Buy a Russian-built module of your own, get it attached to ISS, and “Voila!” you have a very sophisticated and relatively permanent in-space facility all your own. And Russia will provide you the manned ferrying services!
This idea makes great sense. The Russians could even do it should the U.S. stick with ISS. It allows them to offer something far superior to the private, small, and short-lived separate station modules that a variety of private American companies are developing and offering for purchase or rent.
Of course, NASA could do the same, by allowing our private companies to attach modules of their own to ISS, for their own purposes. Historically, however, NASA’s management has been hostile to private enterprise, and in the past has frequently acted to oppose independent commercial activities on ISS. For example, when Russians wanted to fly Dennis Tito to ISS NASA strongly opposed this, and tried to stop it.
NASA has been changing in the past decades, however, so it could be that if the Russians push this hard, the competition could help the factions in NASA who are favor of private and free competition gain control of station management.
Electron launch scrubbed, rescheduled for March 26
Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab’s launch today of a DARPA satellite was scrubbed when a video transmitter did not work as expected.
“The team has identified a video transmitter 13dB down with low performance,” Rocket Lab tweeted. “It’s not an issue for flight, but we want to understand why, so we’re waiving off for the day.”
Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s founder and CEO, added that the rocket was “technically good to fly, as we have redundant links, but we don’t know why the performance dropped and that makes me uncomfortable.”
In an update a few hours later, Rocket Lab said crews aim to replace the suspect video transmitter in time for a second launch attempt Tuesday (U.S. time). The four-hour launch window Tuesday will open at 6:30 p.m. EDT (2230 GMT).
Rocket Lab had hoped to move to monthly launches beginning in February. While they will probably do so before the year is out, it seems it might take most of the year to get to that pace.
Swedish Facebook suspends journalist for defending freedom of speech
They’re coming for you next: An independent journalist in Sweden says that she was suspended from Swedish Facebook for seven days for posting an essay supporting British reporter Tommy Robinson and the concept of true freedom of speech, where you defend all opinions, even those you oppose.
Independent journalist and freedom fighter Katerina Janouch wrote a short introduction for an article in her own online magazine “Katerina Magasin.” The article, written by another Swedish writer – Madeleine Rönnqvist Lilja — is about the British freedom fighter Tommy Robinson. In her text, Katerina wrote: “Defending freedom of expression when you agree is a breeze, but if we are to have any freedom of speech worth mentioning, it must also be defended when it is challenged and not all agree.” She then pointed out that it “may be your turn next”.
And Swedish Facebook took Katerina at her word and suspended her.
It would not surprise me if this claim is 100% true. However, the article does not provide detailed information about what Swedish Facebook claimed was the reason, if any, for the suspension, and the source article that does give those details is in Swedish. It is therefore possible that Facebook had some other reason for its actions. I just can’t confirm that.
I must emphasize however that I am trying to be unreasonably fair here. The behavior of large tech companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. has been routinely leftist and increasingly hostile to opposing opinions. Moreover, this is Swedish Facebook, where I expect the political culture is even more leftist and intolerant of opposing views. I would expect them to try an shut down any postings that express strong reservations about Islam, because the left for some reason has apparently decided that Muslims are a protected and oppressed minority that must never be challenged.
For those who are unfamiliar with Tommy Robinson, he is an activist and online writer who has been imprisoned and harassed by British authorities because he has been uncompromising in his reporting of radical Islam.
March 21, 2019 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
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Looking at LPs, CDs, and DVDs with an electron microscope
An evening pause: This video is even more interesting than my title above, in that the guy making it used his electron microscope to make an animation showing what it looks like when a record needle is running through the tracks of a record. Most cool.
And since vinyl appears to actually be making a comeback, I think that even the younger members of my readership will know what a record is.
Hat tip Thomas Biggar.
Mueller submits report, ends investigation
Special Council Robert Mueller today submitted his report to his new boss Attorney General Bill Barr at the Department of Justice, officially ending his two year long investigation that was supposedly aimed at proving collusion between Donald Trump and the Russian government in order to get him elected.
In those two years, Mueller made a few indictments, none of which had anything to do with Trump-Russian collusion. Most were process crimes, created during the investigation against individuals for either not answering questions perfectly or because Mueller went on a fishing expedition until he found something. None would have happened had this faux investigation had not been instigated.
Moreover, according to the news story at the link, Mueller is “not recommending any further indictments” with this submission.
Or to put it more bluntly, this was all a sham, aimed at deposing the legally elected president of the United States.
Meanwhile, evidence of real collusion, involving Obama and Hillary Clinton and the Russians, was ignored, and in fact the FBI took hostile actions against those involved in revealing it.