That sonar-type sound heard on Starliner’s speakers was simply feedback
In a short post today NASA noted that the mysterious sonar-type sound heard on Starliner’s speakers over the weekend was nothing more than simple feedback caused by an “audio configuration between the space station and Starliner” and that the sound stopped when that configuration was adjusted.
The space station audio system is complex, allowing multiple spacecraft and modules to be interconnected, and it is common to experience noise and feedback. The crew is asked to contact mission control when they hear sounds originating in the comm system. The speaker feedback Wilmore reported has no technical impact to the crew, Starliner, or station operations
In other words, this is not a rare event, and from the beginning was not considered by the astronauts, ground engineers, or NASA management to be a matter of concern. The fix was apparently simple and straightforward, and is part of the work done whenever any new vehicle gets docked and tied into ISS’s systems.
It appears however to have caused many in the news media and in the space world to go nuts simply because it was linked to Starliner and Boeing. This is similar to the recent pattern of assigning all blame to Boeing whenever any Boeing-built plane has technical problems, even if that plane had been purchased by the airline decades earlier and its maintenance was solely the responsibility of the airline for that long.
Boeing is definitely a company in trouble, on many levels. We shouldn’t however look for problems there in the company when they clearly don’t exist.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
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In a short post today NASA noted that the mysterious sonar-type sound heard on Starliner’s speakers over the weekend was nothing more than simple feedback caused by an “audio configuration between the space station and Starliner” and that the sound stopped when that configuration was adjusted.
The space station audio system is complex, allowing multiple spacecraft and modules to be interconnected, and it is common to experience noise and feedback. The crew is asked to contact mission control when they hear sounds originating in the comm system. The speaker feedback Wilmore reported has no technical impact to the crew, Starliner, or station operations
In other words, this is not a rare event, and from the beginning was not considered by the astronauts, ground engineers, or NASA management to be a matter of concern. The fix was apparently simple and straightforward, and is part of the work done whenever any new vehicle gets docked and tied into ISS’s systems.
It appears however to have caused many in the news media and in the space world to go nuts simply because it was linked to Starliner and Boeing. This is similar to the recent pattern of assigning all blame to Boeing whenever any Boeing-built plane has technical problems, even if that plane had been purchased by the airline decades earlier and its maintenance was solely the responsibility of the airline for that long.
Boeing is definitely a company in trouble, on many levels. We shouldn’t however look for problems there in the company when they clearly don’t exist.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Contact (1997)
decoding the transmissions…
https://youtu.be/DRD-tO7jV9U
1:07
wayne: I am surprised you didn’t find the film footage of my coke bottle reference. :)
Mr. Z.,
I saw your reference in the other post, but I can’t place it.
wayne: A clue: Waltzing Matilda.
Robert, were you referring to the coke bottle at the beginning of the movie “the gods must be crazy”?
David M. Cook: Nope. More clues: My reference was to an end-of-the-world movie from the 1950s.
Sounded to me like EMI from one Hz bursts of serial data. Been there, done that.
No clue!
You’ll have to answer to the Coca-Cola company
https://youtu.be/DUAK7t3Lf8s?t=144
In space no one can hear you meme
https://t.ly/Fihus
2 minute conversation about Boeing Starliner pinging sonar noise coming from speaker
https://t.ly/w2shM
wayne: Another clue: The film involved a nuclear war that eventually wiped out all life on Earth.
Mr. Z.,
waltzing matilda, apocalyptic, everyone dies… {I dislike that song so it threw me off completely]
ok, think I got it. (very grim…we had to read this in literature class. only saw the film 2-3 times.)
“On the Beach” (1959)
https://youtu.be/QAuvFjVNtz8?t=343
You have to slip this into a John Batchelor & Boeing clip! He would understand the reference!
James–
hilarious!
Okay, great coke bottle reference!
Now for bonus points, what was the only actual English word that the random coke-bottle Morse-code generator ever spelled out?!
Ray Van Dune–
Holy cow– great obscure, esoteric, cultural reference! I have no clue…
Pivoting.
Been thinking about the premise of this book/movie, and it doesn’t make sense.
Radiation exposure and fall-out don’t work exactly the way portrayed. It’s nuclear-war, fear-porn.
Ray Van Dune: Gosh, I’d have to rewatch the film to answer that trivia question. I remember they mention the one actual word, but I don’t remember what the word was.
Wayne: It seems to me that if a major nuclear war took place only in the northern hemisphere, the radiation in the atmosphere would initially be confined in that hemisphere, but eventually would leak into the southern hemisphere as described. In what way is this wrong?
I think the premise of the book, begins with a conclusion, that may or may not be true. Not to minimize the destructive power.
The question sorta comes down to what type of radiation, when, where, and ground vs. airburst.
Very little (relatively) fallout is produced with an air burst, for example.
The Time We Nuked Five Men to Prove a Point
https://youtu.be/_eRcmjW9BUY
(10:00)
Robert Zimmerman: Yeah the circulation cells are very isolated. I didn’t have any luck finding a science article on the open Internet that measured leakage at the equator https://www.rmets.org/metmatters/global-atmospheric-circulation
But long term you can prove the mixing yourself with a recording geiger count (wifi model $650 on Amazon) and a HEPA air filter. Run it outside for 24 hours then bring the filter paper part inside and measure the radi drop over time; minute by minute. Hard part is turning the graph into a good estimate of what radioactive daughter products are represented by the linear combination of various half lives. Then from published data on above ground testing show evidence from South Pacific. Easier said than done
DOWNWINDERS – Did the Government kill John Wayne? 6min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srbMbqlLsxo
Filmed 3 miles from my childhood home.
Full one hour Down winders documentary/propaganda.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77gJtV13ouo
The radiation exposure over years of testing is many times the fallout of Chernobyl. Test performed when wind conditions were just right so the majority the radiation would blow towards southern Utah which was the test bed on a population to see what would happen.
Everyone I knew lost loved ones, including my own grandparents and friends with brain tumors and leukemia dying young.
The same area for the past 20 years has the fastest growing population in the country. A new PGA golf course and billion dollar hotel is about to open up between Ivins and Santa Clara near the mouth of Snow Canyon. Crazy
Windscale Accident: October 1957
“Our Reactor is on Fire”
https://youtu.be/vcsyMvQtlKs
47:48
“While most of the bombs tested at Nevada were not as strong as their counterparts used in the Pacific Island Proving Grounds, they still produced large amounts of radioactive fallout. It is estimated that nearly 150 million curies of radioactive material was released through the atmospheric tests conducted from 1951 to 1962. This amount of radiation equates to about twenty times the amount of radiation released during the Chernobyl nuclear accident.”
“The goal of Harry was to test the new hollow-core design, which was expected to be the most efficient bomb design up to that point. By “efficient,” scientists meant that very little fissionable material would be needed to create a relatively large explosion. Indeed, Harry surprised scientists, yielding thirty-two kilotons. This was a full twenty kilotons above the advisable yield level to limit radiation exposure, as determined by the Atomic Energy Commission’s Chief Medical Officer.”
“The fallout produced by Harry was carried by strong early morning winds northeast toward St. George, Utah and other surrounding communities. The larger than expected amount of fallout, and the subsequent health risks believed to be associated with it, earned the test the nickname “Dirty Harry.””
The nickname had truth behind it. Operation Upshot-Knothole created 50% of all of the radiation the public within a 300-mile radius was exposed to during the entirety of testing at the Nevada Site. 75% of Upshot-Knothole’s radiation came from the Harry Shot. Geiger counters in the center of St. George reportedly experienced radiation spikes of 300-350 milliroentgens, fully maxing out some of the counters that were used. However, very few citizens were told to shelter. Witnesses claim that children were still playing at morning recess, a full hour after the radiation had settled. It would take several more hours for the message to be relayed that individuals should take cover.
In the following days, the public became extremely concerned with the Harry Shot. Concern became so widespread that the AEC had to issue an emergency film to convince the public that they were safe. The AEC did not, however, offer corrective or preventive measures — such as not consuming local vegetables and milk for a period of time, or staying indoors immediately following a detonation — for future tests. Instead, the entire situation was smoothed over so that a panic did not ensue, and the population remained in the dark about possible health consequences.“
“cancer rates continued to soar into the 1970s. Leukemia rates in Downwind Utah Mormon communities exceeded their non-Downwind counterparts by approximately five times. Pockets of thyroid cancer, especially in young children, spiked in areas which had never experienced childhood cancers.”
“The site was home to 928 atmospheric and underground nuclear tests, 100 of which were atmospheric“
I’ve tried to count the craters on Google earth to verify.
The biggest crater, I believe to be the one that got away from them that happened in 70’s when I was a teenager, just after sunset in summer when a Countyfair was occurring. The small Ivins community was watching a projector Disney movie outdoors (no AC) when Utah Hill lit up like the sun was rising. It continue to expand turning from a bright red to a dark red as it filled the western horizon. The next day we had a dust storm so severe that it darkened the sun and the fair was canceled.
https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/nevada-test-site-downwinders/
I must be the only one relieved that the sounds were not a poltergeist, alien infestation, or something more sinister like when the Event Horizon was found.
Had to throw this one in for Wayne, made in the days of VHS, The truth about nuclear fear. Nuclear engineer Galen Winsor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMqHTbXm3rs
“In what way is this wrong?”
Imagine fallout as a bunch of popcorn kernels, floating in the wind (work with me, here… :). Each time one goes off, it causes some issues, and if enough of them go off near a person (or worse, inside of a person), then they get sick or die.
But each kernel can only “pop” so many times as it goes down the decay chain before it becomes inert. The faster it pops, the sooner it becomes harmless; the slower it pops, the less harm it can cause in each hour of contact. The really nasty stuff in fallout tends to follow the “Rule of 7s”: after 7 hours, radiation strength is at 10%, after 7^2 hours, 1%, and 7^3 hours (2 weeks), 0.1%. So, On the Beach’s assumption that lethal airborne radiation would persist long enough to spread across the entire planet and kill all humans is probably off by a few orders of magnitude. In addition, only groundbursts produce meaningful fallout; airbursts produce very little, and it tends to get dispersed into the atmosphere until almost all of the popcorn has popped.
Big D: Now that’s interesting, and helpful. I wonder however if it is as simple as this, considering the scenario in the movie, whereby a major war took place with a lot of nuclear warheads dropped everywhere in the north.
Either way, the movie’s point was clearly to demonstrate the utter futility of a nuclear war, which would I think be so devastating that it makes no sense to ever do it.
Max-
I’ve heard of that guy (Winsor) before but totally unclear on his background or his ultimate status with the agency. Did they ever autopsy his body?
Big D:
Very nice visual image.
I’m not advocating a nuclear exchange, I’m just sayin’, the premise of the book is “nuclear-war = everyone dies,” and that’s not exactly correct.
” I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops! Uh, depending on the breaks.”
Gen. Turgidson
“Effects of Nuclear Weapons”
https://atomicarchive.com/resources/documents/effects/glasstone-dolan/chapter2.html
The Most Destructive Attack in History –
Operation Meetinghouse: March 9-10, 1945
https://youtu.be/Z9VlmOCAbJ4
22:08
He died in 2008 at 82 years old in Richland Washington probably not far from where he worked enriching uranium/making plutonium.
All his bona fides of a nuclear plant inspector was read by the man who introduced him. Apparently eating radioactive material on stage did not harm him.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/143108924/galen_hulet-winsor
as for the feedback noise mystery, Remember “what’s the frequency Kenneth”? This could start another cult following and maybe even a song with the phrase. “Do you hear that noise?”
The point of me posting the downwind information is to show how the most irradiated community in the world is now thriving with some of the highest real estate values.
At first, the radiation devastated farms and wildlife but was stimulating plant life which fed the bug, rabbit and frog plagues that came after. Then the coyotes became so plentiful you couldn’t sleep at night for the howling! It seems everything is back to normal now, except for a huge population of Desert tortoise that we didn’t have before.
People have always moved to the area for health reasons, taking advantage of the hot dry climate and it’s beauty. How ironic. Proves/suggests that nuclear winter only last a generation with a five times higher death rate than normal for a few years.
It also proves that you should never trust your government! they will never tell you the truth, we’re just guinea pigs for testing for their “higher purpose”.
For instance, the CDC announces that’s the Gene therapy Covid shot (which is not authorize for anyone under 12) has been added to the vaccine schedule for three doses before one years old. (babies do not develop the immune system, can’t make antibodies until after one years old)
The freedom of information act administrator revealed that there has been no bird flu virus or monkeypox virus isolated inside the United States. No verified cases.
No wonder vaccine recipients is at a record low, people are getting smarter…
“I wonder however if it is as simple as this”
It’s even simpler; the author and the screenwriter either don’t know what they’re talking about, or deliberately exaggerate, mislead, or outright lie about things in order to scare people. The author posited the universal use of cobalt-salted bombs, which in practice were never even really tested as weapons and nobody ever put anything like that into mass production. The same thing happened with the recent “Nuclear War: A Scenario”, which apparently got a few pieces “sort of” right, but the author whiffed so badly on other elements that the outcome is largely nonsense. I tried to make it through her Rogan interview, but had to give up halfway through before I started shouting at the monitor.
Nuclear Winter is much the same; it was largely made up whole cloth (and some of its acolytes would also participate in Global Cooling/Global Warming/Climate Change) in order to scare people into opposing nuclear war under any circumstances, even if that meant becoming enslaved by socialist governments. It *should* have died a public death after regional cooling was predicted as a result of Saddam’s environmental vandalism, which as it turned out had far less of an effect on the weather than Mt. Pinatubo did!
The part that frustrates me the most about the whole mess is that by getting the dangers of Global Thermonuclear War so completely *wrong*, the anti-war crowd has spent decades indoctrinating us in exactly the wrong response: “Everybody dies horribly from magic radiation, so there’s no point in even trying to live”. Nuclear war is awful, horrible, heart-breaking, and potentially civilization-ending. But not because we’d all die from fallout. The true killers of the atomic bomb are old-fashioned War, Pestilence, and Famine. Imagine if the US hadn’t turned around and delivered massive amounts of foodstuffs and medicines to Japan after the surrender, when we (barely!) averted a horrific famine caused by our wartime disruption of their production and distribution of foodstuffs. Large chunks of the world could easily find themselves in the same situation due to the disruption of international trade–or even just supply chain disruption between the farmers, the cities, and the refineries/chemical plants the farmers rely upon to supply them with fuel, fertilizers, and agricultural chemicals. Modern technologies and economics have allowed us to support far more people on this rock than medieval technology ever could have, and if we bomb ourselves back to that level, we could easily see 90% of the population survive the initial exchange, only for 90% of the survivors to die over the next few years due to lack of food/water/medicine/shelter (or violence in competing for same).
The proper response to the nuclear threat (aside from deterrence and defenses) is a strong Civil Defense program, designed to save as many people as possible–which means an emphasis on getting essential parts of the economy back up and running in an emergency mode, not just shelters. And yet, because “fallout will kill us all”, Civil Defense got gutted and basically destroyed as a “cost-saving” measure. And as individuals, we can do our part (Would You Like To Know More?(tm) ) by stocking up on essentials and know-how. You don’t even need a bomb shelter unless you like near an actual, valid strategic target (and most people don’t). You can make a fallout shelter in your living room if you have the proper supplies on hand (a basement is much easier, if you have one), and whether you need one depends on what got hit by a ground-burst and which way the upper-level winds are blowing. The most important part is not to simply give up and wait for death, but to work together as like-minded individuals trying to make things better.
Sorry for the long post. I grew up believing in a lot of that hogwash and it really bothered me when I learned just how much of it was misleading or flat-out wrong.
REM
What is the Frequency, Kenneth?”
https://youtu.be/PEtlBzcBDfE
Big D:
-Again, nicely put.
-I saw that Rogan interview (Jacobson) and yeah– she got it all muddled up, big time. (and just goes to show, Rogan always agrees with whomever is sitting in front of him. I like Joe, but he’s missing some vital History & Factoids.)