A Icelandic volcanic eruption, for the people
An evening pause: Hat tip Rex Ridenoure.
Author: Robert Zimmerman
Election audit in New Hampshire confirms unreliability of machine tabulators
Auditors today completed a hand recount of the votes in the town of Windham, New Hampshire and concluded that the count proves the machine tabulators are unreliable and do not produce trustworthy totals.
Hand recount finished & #’s very closely match the hand recount #’s done on Nov 12. Windham voting machine election results are confirmed to be unreliable. @WAuditors still investigating causes & contributing factors.
None of the local results are changed because of these new results, but the audit was done because a hand recount done in November showed serious discrepancies, with the hand count consistently finding more votes for Republicans compared to what was tabulated by the machines.
On Election Night, Republicans swept all four of Windham’s state representative seats. One Democrat, Kristi St. Laurent, fell short by just 24 votes and requested a recount.
But during the recount, the margin between St. Laurent and the Republican candidates changed significantly. The vote totals for all of the Republican candidates in the race increased by about 300, while St. Laurent’s vote count decreased by nearly 100.
While the outcome of the race didn’t change — the four Republican victories from Election Day were upheld at the recount — the change in vote totals raised serious questions for many from both parties.
The audit has now confirmed what the hand count has suggested. Both matched closely, but differed significantly from the machine totals, the numbers of which apparently penalized Republican candidates consistently.
They are now beginning an investigation into what caused the discrepancies. I would say above all the town should dump these machines and replace them with something that can be trusted, even if it means we go back to primitive times and hand count all elections.
Curiosity climbing Mount Sharp
Click for full image.
Today’s cool image, to the right and cropped to post here, was taken on April 18, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Released today by MRO’s science team, it shows the rover Curiosity sitting on top of the 20-foot high rock outcrop the scientists have dubbed Mt. Mercou. The 16,400 foot high Mt. Sharp is to the south, with the rim of Gale Crater about 30 miles to the north.
I have annotated the image to show the rover’s route both before and after the moment when this picture was taken. As the caption at the link notes, the rover is currently working its way up Mt. Mercou, a route that was not initially in their plans, as shown by the wider MRO view below.
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Today’s blacklisted American: Professor fired for reading anti-slavery novel to students
Burning witches: What St. John’s university wished it could do
to a Jewish professor.
They’re coming for you next: Hannah Berliner Fischthal, a professor at St. John’s University in New York and the daughter of Holocaust survivors, was immediately fired because she read aloud in her literature class a selection from Mark Twain’s anti-slavery book, Pudd’nhead Wilson, that included the “N-word”.
On March 3 she was called into a meeting with HR about her use of the N-word in class, the subsequent discussion of it and a comment she allegedly made about a Black student’s hair. Fischthal said she only made a remark about a student’s head being wrapped up during class and it had nothing to do with her hair.
She said she was also criticized for mentioning her family’s experience in the Holocaust during class.
On March 5 she was suspended pending an investigation she had violated the university’s policy against bias. On April 29 she was fired.
The school had been alerted to her terrible crime of reading accurately from an accurate book portraying the actual culture of the pre-Civil War south by at least one of her students, who apparently was so weak-minded that even hearing this word that-shall-not-be-named was ““unnecessary and very painful.” It didn’t matter to this brainless student that the book was written to condemn slavery and bigotry. All that mattered is that a word of six letters was spoken aloud and she or he was forced to hear it.
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ESA proposes constellation of lunar communications and navigation satellites
The European Space Agency is proposing in this decade to build a constellation of communications and GPS-type satellites, dubbed Moonlight, to orbit the Moon.
ESA is asking two industrial consortia in Europe to define what an integrated sat-nav and telecoms system at the Moon would look like.
It’ll include a constellation of at least three, but probably more, positioning-and-relay satellites to give global coverage, and will likely include some surface beacons, too, to augment the accuracy of the navigation signals.
“The target we have at the moment is that the constellation would be able to allow for an accuracy of 100m and probably better. We think we are able to get to 30m in the first instance,” explained Paul Verhoef, the director of ESA’s navigation department.
The two consortiums are the UK’s Surrey Satellite and Italy’s Telespazio.
It also appears the ESA is proposing making this system available to all lunar exploration missions, whether they be part of the U.S.’s Artemis program or China’s lunar plans. If so, it is commercially smart, as they will have plenty of customers to buy their services.
Delays force ULA to replace Vulcan rocket with Atlas 5 on military launch
Because the development of ULA’s new Vulcan rocket is behind schedule, the Space Force has agreed to allow the company to replace it with an Atlas 5 rocket on a ’22 launch.
That mission, known as USSF-51, was awarded to ULA in August 2020 and is scheduled to launch in late 2022. The company had bid its newly developed Vulcan to fly that mission but the vehicle is not going to be ready on time. As a result, the Space Force agreed to allow ULA to launch USSF-51 on the company’s legacy vehicle the Atlas 5.
…Switching vehicles financially penalizes ULA. According to the company, the Atlas 5 is more expensive than Vulcan. Phase 2 provisions allow ULA to change vehicles but at no cost penalty to the government.
This story however is important because of what it tells us about the state of Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine, required by both Vulcan and Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket.
At this moment ULA is saying that the first launch of Vulcan is still scheduled for late this year, launching Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander to the Moon. However, for that launch to happen the rocket requires working BE-4 rocket engines for its first stage. In January Blue Origin announced it had finally completed a full throttle test of that engine after problems lasting several years, and would soon be delivering flight-worthy engines to ULA.
It is now late May, and the article at the link revealed this very significant and somewhat shocking detail buried in the text:
Blue Origin in 2020 delivered pathfinder engines for ground tests but has yet to provide a flight-qualified engine for Vulcan’s first flight. A spokeswoman for Blue Origin said May 20 the company is “on track to deliver BE-4 engines this year.” [emphasis mine]
It seems completely impossible for ULA to launch that lunar lander on Vulcan this year if it does not yet have any flight-worthy engines on hand to incorporate and test in the rocket. Worse, it appears that Blue Origin might not deliver those engines for months yet.
This story thus suggests that we will not see launches of either ULA’s new Vulcan rocket or Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket for a considerable time.
China scrubs launch of station cargo freighter again
For the second time in two days China has scrubbed the launch of the first unmanned Tianzhou cargo freighter to the core module of its space station,
As before, the Chinese only said that the scrub was due to unstated “technical issues.”
They will likely try again tomorrow, but that is pure speculation. Without a more detailed report from China, we really have no idea what is happening.
SpaceX grabbing 90% of the launch contracts to the Moon
Capitalism in space: The announcement yesterday by Firefly that it has awarded SpaceX the launch contract for its Blue Ghost lunar lander mission (scheduled for launch in ’23) is significant because it continues a remarkable pattern of dominance by SpaceX of the lunar launch market.
Right now, of the seven scheduled robot missions to the Moon, SpaceX will launch all but one. The full list, in no particular order:
- Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander: SpaceX’s Falcon 9
- NASA’s VIPER rover: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy
- Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander: SpaceX’s Falcon 9
- Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander: ULA’s Vulcan Centaur
- Ispace’s lander: SpaceX’s Falcon 9
- Ispace’s dual rovers: SpaceX’s Falcon 9
- Masten’s XL-1 lander: SpaceX’s Falcon 9
In addition, SpaceX launched Israel’s Beresheet lander in 2019 on a Falcon 9.
Furthermore, SpaceX has won the contract from NASA for the agency’s first manned lunar lander, using Starship. It has also won the contract to launch the initial components of NASA’s Lunar Gateway space station on a Falcon Heavy.
There are other lunar missions in the works (by Russia, China, and others), but these are all the launches awarded as commercial contracts to private rocket companies in recent years. Thus, of these ten lunar missions, SpaceX has launched or is launching nine. That’s a 90% market share!
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Moranbong Band – Csardas & Gypsy Airs
An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace, who notes,
Talk about an eclectic Evening Pause. “Csardas” was written by Italian, Vittorio Monti, in the early 20th century. “Gypsy Airs” was composed by Spaniard, Pablo de Sarasate, in the late 19th century. Both compositions are inspired by Hungarian music. And the orchestra is North Korean.
The band was organized by North Korea’s Supreme Leader, Kim Jong Un. This performance was from 2012. From the link this interesting tidbit:
In December 2015, Kim Jong-un sent the band to perform in a series of shows in Beijing to improve relations between China and North Korea; these would have been the band’s first performances outside of North Korea. However, the band left Beijing on a scheduled flight to Pyongyang only a few hours before their performance was scheduled. China’s Xinhua news agency stated that all of the band’s performances had been cancelled due to “communication issues at the working level.” The Korea Herald reported that North Korea had cancelled the tour because China had requested that North Korea’s missiles should not be shown during performances.
The steep sudden foothill of Olympus Mons
Today’s cool image starts from afar and zooms inward. The elevation map to the right shows Olympus Mons, the largest volcano on Mars and in fact the entire solar system. About 600 miles across, from the edge to its peak this volcano rises about 54,000 feet, with an actual height relative to Mars’ “sea level” of just under 70,000 feet, more than twice as high as Mount Everest on Earth.
The cross-section of this volcano is so large it would cover almost all of France if placed on Earth. As a shield volcano, it was formed by many many volcano flows that laid down many layers of lava, with some in its northwest quadrant thought to be as recent as 2 to 115 million years ago.
Our cool image today is located at the white rectangle at the southeast edge of this volcano, and illustrates how those many lava flows could create such a large shield volcano with such a large cross section.
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China scrubs launch of Tianzhou freighter to its Tianhe station module
The first launch of a Tianzhou freighter to China’s first module, dubbed Tianhe, of its planned Chinese Space Station (CSS), was scrubbed early this morning for unstated “technical reasons.”
Not only has China’s state-run press or its space agency not revealed what caused the scrub, they have said nothing about a new launch date. This cargo freighter however apparently needs to be in place before the arrival of the station’s first crew, now roughly scheduled for sometime in June.
SpaceX begins stacking Superheavy prototype for flight
Capitalism in space: It appears that the third Superheavy prototype, BN3 (Booster #3), is now being stacked and prepared for the first near-orbital flight of Starship, which SpaceX is still hoping to launch before the end of this year.
SpaceX has at least six BN3 sections – amounting to 22 rings and two of three tank domes – either completed or awaiting integration. The process of stacking BN3 began sometime in the last 7-10 days when SpaceX joined two four-ring sections – including the booster’s common dome, likely pictured above.
SpaceX has mostly completed BN3’s engine section, including a thrust dome with plumbing cutouts for a full 28 Raptor engines. Most recently, what looks like a Super Heavy fuel manifold appeared in Boca Chica. That manifold will attach to the end of a supersized Super Heavy transfer tube – also spotted in work – used to route methane through the liquid oxygen tank to fuel its Raptor engines. Fueling 28 large, high-performance Raptors is no mean feat and requires a rat’s nest of plumbing to feed them more than 15 metric tons (~30,000 lb) of propellant every second at full throttle.
Put simply, a majority of Super Heavy booster BN3’s hardware appears to be ready or almost ready for integration. The eight rings now stacked represent approximately 20% of the rocket’s full height, leaving another 30 or so rings – 54m (~180 ft) – to go.
That flight, the flight plan of which has already been submitted to the FCC, would take off from Boca Chica, circle about three-quarters of the globe, and land in the Pacific to the northwest of Hawaii. While not a full orbit, this flight would demonstrate an orbital capability while allowing for a controlled safe re-entry at a planned location, a wise approach for that first orbital attempt.