May 22, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- China’s Xichang spaceport brags that it had in 2022 zero injuries or casualties from rocket debris falling
This is one of China’s interior spaceports, so they apparently recognize that their rocket stages can fall on someone’s head, and are proud that in 2022 they avoided any such tragedies. Well, bully for them.
- Data from China’s Mars rover Zhurong suggests there was an ancient ocean once at its landing zone
The fundamental question remains: How could liquid water have been there in a climate that is too cold and an atmosphere too thin?
- India confirms it will launch Chandrayaan-3 to the Moon on July 12, 2023
The landing date near the south pole will be August 23, 2023.
- India targets May 29, 2023 for the next launch of its large GSLV rocket
It will place a GPS-type satellite into oribt.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- China’s Xichang spaceport brags that it had in 2022 zero injuries or casualties from rocket debris falling
This is one of China’s interior spaceports, so they apparently recognize that their rocket stages can fall on someone’s head, and are proud that in 2022 they avoided any such tragedies. Well, bully for them.
- Data from China’s Mars rover Zhurong suggests there was an ancient ocean once at its landing zone
The fundamental question remains: How could liquid water have been there in a climate that is too cold and an atmosphere too thin?
- India confirms it will launch Chandrayaan-3 to the Moon on July 12, 2023
The landing date near the south pole will be August 23, 2023.
- India targets May 29, 2023 for the next launch of its large GSLV rocket
It will place a GPS-type satellite into oribt.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Robert wrote: “This is one of China’s interior spaceports, so they apparently recognize that their rocket stages can fall on someone’s head, and are proud that in 2022 they avoided any such tragedies. Well, bully for them.”
This is a good thing. It shows that they care. Right up until there is an injury or casualty, then they are likely to just say “oops. Better luck next time.”
The Z-man asked;
“The fundamental question remains: How could liquid water have been there in a climate that is too cold and an atmosphere too thin?”
The evidence for flowing liquid is everywhere. (we assume it’s water). At one time I would not have believed it, until the pictures from the satellites started coming back.
The way Mars is today, is not how it has always been.
I have believed for a long time the hypothesis that the collapse of our mostly oxygen atmosphere
into water, killing the dinosaurs, and the beginning of the “ice ages” was triggered by of cloud of gas from the local chimney, perhaps from a supernova, similar to the dust between us and the center of our own galaxy.
It passed through changing our solar system forever, adding vast amounts of hydrolyzed carbon (methane) and hydrolyzed nitrogen (ammonia) as well as other light gases on all the planets in our solar system. (adding mass to all the planets and ice to the outer moons)
Europa is much smaller than Mars, and yet is the said to have a large amount of liquid under the ice.
There’s good evidence that Mars was once completely covered in similar ice, and because of it’s proximity to the sun, it’s once thicker atmosphere and volume has blown away with the solar wind.
All that’s left is the ice caps.
If there was liquid under the ice slushing around with every rotation, it would explain why there’s no shoreline, (except maybe the cliffs that’s around some of the volcanoes) and extreme erosion of the canyons and bare rock formations that wind alone cannot explain, especially in a low density atmosphere.
As the liquid under the ice froze, becoming glacier, it was just a matter time before it all evaporated away and left the planet… Except for what sunk deep below the sand.
Perhaps there wasn’t much water that was liquid, much of the impact craters survived except in the northern hemisphere.
Just guessing with a lot of imagination…
By the way, Zhurong went to hibernation a year ago and hasn’t woken up… It might be dead.