November 21, 2017 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
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Author: Robert Zimmerman
Matt Wessel and Katie Wessel – Anyone Else But You
An evening pause: Seems very appropriate for Thanksgiving. This cover was performed by the couple immediately after they had gotten married.
Hat tip Edward Thelen, who said he prefers this to the original, an opinion to which I agree whole-heartedly.
Delivery from Earth
An evening pause: A short film about the moment the first human was born on Mars, as seen from the perspective of a Navajo family on Earth.
Hat tip Jeff Poplin.
This week in fascist academia
Time for another update on the sad state of freedom on American campuses. As always, I make sure the university name is listed so you know where you don’t want to send your kids, or your money.
- Why Campus Rape Tribunals Hand Down So Many ‘Guilty’ Verdicts
- Florida State University suspends free speech and freedom of assembly until further notice
- Tufts University students say Ben Shapiro’s views put them in ‘danger’
- Duke University Professor Bars Student Newspaper Staff from Enrolling in Her Course
- Vandals repeatedly strike pro-life messages at University of Florida
- Knox College leaders defend decision to cancel play after students criticized it as ‘racist’
- Stanford University staff encourage students to tear down flyers for talk on radical Islam
- Stanford University Dean Caught On Film Engineering Disruption of Robert Spencer Event
The first story highlights how little college administrations respect, or even understand, the most basic legal rights of their students. Rather than follow the law, college administrators nationwide have been quite willing to set up kangaroo courts to punish students for sex crimes without the slightest due process. The result has been that many colleges find themselves being sued, and losing those suits. May many of them find themselves bankrupt for this abuse.
The last two stories are about the same event. Robert Spencer, a thoughtful and accurate scholar on Islam who is not afraid to talk about its violent traditions and history, was invited to give a speech at Stanford. The administration there did everything it could to squelch attendance. As he says, “It’s not a university anymore. It’s just an Antifa recruitment center.”
Not all the news is bad. At Macomb Community College in Michigan the college was forced to change its restrictive speech policy when it was sued by a conservative student organization.
In April, members of a campus chapter of Turning Point USA — a conservative organization whose website says it promotes “the principles of freedom, free markets and limited government” — wanted to tell students about the importance of fossil fuels. One member even donned a Tyrannosaurus rex costume for the occasion.
But while pointing out “the value of fossil fuels to human flourishing currently outweighs environmental concerns,” Turning Point was shut down by campus police “because at MCC public expressive activity is strictly prohibited without prior permission and a permit from the administration,” according to a federal lawsuit Turning Point filed against the school in August in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. “Public colleges, far from being immune to the obligations of the First Amendment, are supposed to be ‘the marketplace of ideas,’ where students can freely exchange ideas with one another, learning how to respectfully debate and dialogue with those whose views differ from their own,” the suit said.
On Wednesday, the college announced it would change its “expressive activity policy,” and the lawsuit would be dismissed.
Overall, the culture on today’s campuses remains oppressive, with the thuggish behavior coming from students, teachers, and administrators. What they are finding, however, is that this bad behavior is now being challenged, and since American culture and law is deeply hostile to such fascism, they are finding themselves increasingly on the losing side. To cite another example, the woman who stole a man’s “Make America Great Again” hat and whose ignorance and outright hate was highlighted by me in a previous report now faces serious criminal charges for her illegal actions.
November 21, 2017 Zimmerman Space Show podcast
The podcast for my two hour appearance last night on the Space Show is now available here.
A spot on Mars, as seen by different orbiters over the past half century
The science team of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have assembled a collection of images of the same location on Mars that were taken by different Martian orbiters, beginning with the first fly-by by Mariner 4 in 1965 and ending with MRO’s HiRise camera. The image on the right, reduced in resolution to post here, shows these images superimposed on that location, with resolutions ranging from 1.25 kilometers per pixel (Mariner 4) down to 50 meters per pixel (MRO).
This mosaic essentially captures the technological history of the first half century of space exploration in a single image. Mariner 4 was only able to take 22 fuzzy pictures during its fly-by. Today’s orbiters take thousands and thousands, with resolutions so sharp they can often identify small rocks and boulders.
The mosaic also illustrates well the uncertainty of science. When Mariner 4 took the first pictures some scientists thought that there might be artificially built canals on Mars. Instead, the probe showed a dead cratered world much like the Moon. Later images proved that conclusion to be wrong as well, with today’s images showing Mars to be a very complex and active world, with a geological history both baffling and dynamic. Even now, after a half century of improved observations, we still are unsure whether life there once existed, or even if exists today.
XCOR bankruptcy leaves behind $27.5 million in debt
Capitalism in space: XCOR’s bankruptcy has revealed that the company owed $27.5 million to creditors, the largest of which are government agencies that gave the company money in the hope its operations would bring business to their regions.
Space Florida is the largest secured credit at $3.6 million. The state-run agency’s has a “blanket security interest in personal property.” XCOR had made a deal to manufacture and operate its Lynx suborbital space plane from Florida.
XCOR estimates it spent $25 to $30 million developing the unfinished Lynx. An additional $15 to $20 million would be required to complete the vehicle, according to the documents.
Midland Development Corporation (MDC) has $10 million in unsecured claims. The funding was provided to XCOR to move from its base in Mojave, Calif., to the West Texas city, a process the company did not complete before it filed for bankruptcy earlier this month.
In addition, a private spacesuit company, Orbital Outfitters, appears to have gone of business in connection with this bankruptcy.
Robbie the Robot sells for $5.3 million in auction
The science fiction movie prop Robbie the Robot has sold at auction for $5.3 million, making it the second most expensive movie prop in history.
The complete Robby suit, control panel, his jeep, numerous spares, alternate original “claw” hands, and the original wooden stage shipping crates, were sold yesterday (November 21, 2017 ) by Bonhams in New York for US$5,375,000 including buyers premium.
The only purpose-built movie prop to have ever sold for more is Marilyn Monroe’s “subway dress” from The Seven Year Itch (1955) which was sold by Profiles in History for $5,520,000 (inc. buyers premium) in 2011.
New technology for future missions to Venus
Link here. The article begins by focusing on new hardened computer chips that can survive the harsh conditions of the Venusian surface, then moves to discussing our state of knowledge of the Earth’s sister planet, and the possibilities of future missions.
The article is definitely worth reading, but it tends I think to exaggerate how close the technology might be for building landers and rovers that can survive for long periods on Venus. This paragraph, describing the hardened chip that survived a simulated Venus environment for 60 days, highlights this:
A modern silicon chip can contain 7 billion transistors; each of the chips running in the Venus chamber has 175. Neudeck also uses an old-school transistor design, long since abandoned in conventional microelectronics. It’s basically a hyperexpensive, obtuse pocket calculator. But a pocket calculator running on Venus could be valuable indeed. “This is already the complexity of many of the early scientific missions flown back in the ’60s and ’70s,” Neudeck says, and more powerful than the chips on Apollo flight computers. “You really can do science.”
Exploring Venus is essential and necessary for us to truly understand how planets form and evolve. Developing technology that can survive that harsh environment is equally necessary, as it will make all future space exploration easier and more capable. This engineering work appears to be taking the first steps in this direction.
SpaceX aiming for a launch rate of 30 to 40 launches per year
Capitalism in space: According to SpaceX’s CEO, they plan to up their annual launch rate by 50% in 2018, and hope to average 30 to 40 launches per year thereafter.
They also hope to introduce their Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) by 2022, but will continue operations with both the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, if that is what their customers prefer.
India proposes new oppressive space law
India’s government has proposed a new space law that essentially places all control of future space projects under the control of the central government.
The proposed law, which is open for comment for the next month, can be read here [pdf]. I’ve read it, and it astonishes me in its oppressiveness and hostility to private enterprise. This clause, one of many similar clauses, sums this up quite well:
Any form of intellectual property right developed, generated or created onboard a space object in outer space, shall be deemed to be the property of the Central Government.
The law would also require anyone who wants to launch a space project to get a license from the government, and gives the government the power to control that license in all aspects, including the power to cancel it for practically any reason.
If this law passes I expect that India’s burgeoning space industry will suffer significantly, especially because it will make it difficult to attract investment capital. Instead, it will be the central government that will run the business, and in the long run such government businesses always do badly.
Samantha Whates – Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)
An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace, who tells this story about the song’s origin: ” Future country music star, Jeannie Seely, worked as a secretary at Liberty and Imperial Records in 1963. The producer for the record company, Eddie Ray, was looking for a new song for Rythm & Blues legend, Irma Thomas.
“After each day’s work, Seely would work on her own compositions on the studio piano. One day, Seely was asked to attend an Artists and Repertoire meeting by Ray. She came to the meeting with her stenography pad but was told, no, he wanted her to sing that song she was writing the night before.
“‘Anyone Who Knows What Love Is’ became a 1964 hit for Irma Thomas in both the R&B and Pop charts. It was the first song Seely had published.”
Cassini’s last full mosaic of Saturn and its moons
Cool image time! The image above, cropped and reduced in resolution to show here, was created by Cassini from 42 images taken on September 13, 2017, two days before the spacecraft dived into Saturn to end its mission.
Be sure to take a look at the full image. It shows six of Saturn’s moons, as well as many stars.
China launches three commercial remote sensing satellites
Early today China’s Long March 6 rocket successfully placed three commercial remote sensing satellites into orbit.
The Long March 6 is about comparable to Indian’s PSLV rocket, though slightly more powerful.
Another Navy ship collision in the Pacific
Another Navy ship was involved in a collision in the Pacific on Saturday, this time with a Japanese tugboat.
The USS Benfold, a guided-missile destroyer, sustained minor damage when a tugboat lost propulsion and drifted into the ship, the Navy said. No one was injured on either vessel and an initial assessment of the damage showed that the destroyer only sustained minimal damage including scrapes.
It sounds as if the majority of the blame falls on the tugboat, though one must still wonder how a Navy destroyer was unable to avoid the drifting tugboat.
I’m not a robot
An evening pause: Everything about this gives me the creeps.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
New study says recurring dark streaks on Mars are from flowing sand, not water
The uncertainty of science: A new study has concluded that the recurring dark streaks on Martian slopes are caused not from flowing seeps of water but from small sand avalanches.
Continuing examination of these still-perplexing seasonal dark streaks with a powerful camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows they exist only on slopes steep enough for dry grains to descend the way they do on faces of active dunes.
The findings published today in Nature Geoscience argue against the presence of enough liquid water for microbial life to thrive at these sites. However, exactly how these numerous flows begin and gradually grow has not yet been explained. Authors of the report propose possibilities that include involvement of small amounts of water, indicated by detection of hydrated salts observed at some of the flow sites.
The results do not exclude the possibility that water plays a part, but do suggest it plays a much smaller part, or none at all.
Solid gold Lunar Module replica sells for $149K
In an auction of space memorabilia on Friday a solid gold replica of an Apollo Lunar Module sold for more than $149K.
It appears that the market for space memorabilia is hot right now.
India’s Google Lunar X-Prize competitor still short of funds
With only a few months left to fly its mission, Google Lunar X-Prize finalist TeamIndus is still about $23 million short in the funds it needs to finish and fly its lunar rover.
Rahul Narayan of TeamIndus admitted that a part of the budget is yet to be raised, although he did not directly comment on the missed payments. “TeamIndus inked its launch services agreement with Antrix (the commercial arm of ISRO) in late 2016. The entire TeamIndus moon mission programme is expected to cost approximately $70 million, of which nearly two-thirds has already been committed. We do not comment on individual cost line items in accordance to our agreements with various partners,” Narayan said.
This would mean that the team still requires over $23 million in funds to meet its target. The company also has limited time left to complete its developmental work for the moon rover.
There are five finalists left, and it appears that three have launch issues that might prevent them from flying by the March 31 2018 deadline. If TeamIndus does not get the funds to fly it will also prevent the Japanese team from flying since they are sharing the same rocket. Moon Express meanwhile needs an operational Electron rocket, which still has not flown a successful orbital mission.
Air Force to shift focus to smallsat constellations
The head of the the Air Force’s Strategic Command revealed this past weekend that he wants the military to quickly shift its focus to buying small satellite constellations.
As one of nine U.S. combatant commanders, Hyten has a say in how the Pentagon plans investments in new technology. With regard to military satellites, STRATCOM will advocate for a change away from “exquisite” costly systems that take years to develop in favor of “more resilient, more distributed capabilities.” This is the thinking of the new “space enterprise vision” adopted by the Air force and the National Reconnaissance Office, Hyten said. “That vision is about defending ourselves. In that vision you won’t find any of those big, exquisite, long-term satellites.”
“I’ve made a call at U.S. Strategic Command that we’ll embrace that as a vision of the future because I think it’s the correct one,” he added. STRATCOM will “drive requirements,” Hyten noted, “And, as a combatant commander, I won’t support the development any further of large, big, fat, juicy targets. I won’t support that,” he insisted. “We are going to go down a different path. And we have to go down that path quickly.”
Makes sense to me. Not only will the Air Force save money, but their satellite assets will be harder to attack and easier to sustain and replace should they be attacked.
For the satellite industry this shift will accelerate the growth of the smallsat industry, and provide a lot more business for the new smallsat rocket industry that is now emerging.