How the Purge in Saudi Arabia might link to the Democratic computers in Congress

This essay is going to outline some interesting associations that appear to exist between a number of very unconnected news stories in the past few months, links that might help explain how recent events in Saudi Arabia might have something to do with the U.S. Congress and car dealerships in the U.S. and Africa.

First of all I want to emphasize that I really have no idea if the associations I am going to note even exist. I am no expert on foreign policy, other than being a very well-read follower of the news. However, my skills as a historian have often allowed me to spot connections between disparate events that further research very frequently confirms as true. In this regard I think it very worthwhile to reveal what I have noticed, and let the chips fall where they may.

This trail must first begin with President Trump’s first foreign policy trip in May as President, going first to Saudi Arabia followed by visits to Israel and Europe.
» Read more

Academic fascism in 2017

Rather than publish another weekly update on the fascist culture that presently dominates many American campuses, I thought I would look back on the year and compile a list of all the colleges I reported where acts of oppression or the silencing of free speech were carried out by the administration, facility, or student body.

There were many ways I could have compiled this list. In the end, I decided to list the colleges alphabetically by state, and then sort the states into three groups, based on how those states voted in the past two presidential elections. States that voted Democratic or Republican both times are grouped together as either Democratic- or Republican-dominated. States that flipped from one party to the other (all flipping Republican, by the way) were listed as battleground states. If a college had more than oppressive incident during the year the number of incidents is indicated in parenthesis.

Because the list is so long, I have placed it, as well my analysis of it, below the fold. Before you read on, make sure you scan down take a look at the list of colleges itself.
» Read more

Trump administration finally takes over Justice and FBI

Four stories at the end of this week, all apparently timed to hit the press over the weekend and thus be less noticeable, all indicate that the Trump administration, specifically Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray, might finally be taking control respectively of the Justice Department and the FBI from the Democratic partisan hold-overs from the Obama administration, who for all intents and purposes have apparently been running those agencies during Trump’s first year in office.

The first story is significant in that the lawyer reassigned, James Baker, was also the lawyer used by Andrew McCabe for his defense during his eight hours of stone-walling during a closed-door House hearing this week about his part in the Mueller Russian collusion investigation, and is also a good friend to fired FBI director James Comey. The Trump administration has now removed this lawyer from the game.

The middle two stories indicate that the Trump administration is not going to let Obama and Clinton off the hook for their own apparent collusion with both the Russians and terrorists. (An update: It behooves every American to read the full and very detailed Politico report about the Obama administration’s effort to shut down any investigations of Hezbollah’s drug operation in order to get the Iran deal signed. I finally got around to reading it carefully, and found it to be quite damning, both for Obama and for everyone in his administration. And remember, this is coming from a media source that has generally been favorable to Democrats.)

The last story involves what appears increasingly to be a terrible abuse of power by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Justice Department in its prosecution of the Bundy family following their stand-off with federal officials, a prosecution that has now resulted in a mistrial because the Justice Department improperly withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense.

That it took this long for the Trump administration to make these moves strongly illustrates how fragile our hold on democracy presently is. Trump was duly elected. By law, he is in charge, and has the right to fire anyone in the executive branch, as well as set policy there. Yet, he and his appointed cabinet officials have apparently felt they needed to tiptoe carefully during the first year of their administration, as if the people that Obama appointed and the policies he established were still in control.

Even now, I am unsure that these actions will put the Trump administration truly in charge of the administrative state. There is ample evidence in both the Uranium One deal and Iran deal that the Obama administration committed acts that at the least should destroy political careers, and at the most might even send some people to prison. Unless one of those scenarios actually happens, however, Trump will have done little to rein in the administration state. They will continue to act as if they can do whatever they want, defying elected officials, with impunity, because it will be apparent that there are no consequences for such actions.

A weaponized and partisan Justice Department and FBI

On many of today’s complicated political stories, I tend to hang back and avoid posting my thoughts about them when the stories initially break. Often I do so because the story itself is either unreliable or simply trivial, and time is needed to find this out. Often I wait because I want more information to confirm my initial conclusions. Sometimes I wait because I consider the story merely a Republican partisan attack that is not strong on the merits and will fade with time.

Though I have previously posted my impression that Robert Mueller investigation into Russian-Trump collusion during the campaign is nothing more than a Democratic Party witch hunt against the Trump administration, I have recently held back noting recent stories because I wanted to compile them to see if they really did fit this pattern. Below are those stories, all of which have appeared in the past two weeks. They strongly prove that Mueller’s investigation is exactly what I first surmised.

These stories all confirm a July story that was headlined: Here’s a Look at Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 15 Attorneys: A Who’s Who of Liberal Activism. Of those 15 attorneys, four have now been proven to be part of the Democratic Party partisan machine. Furthermore, evidence has been found that the FBI agent directly involved with both the Clinton and Trump investigations, Peter Strzok, moved to change the Clinton investigation conclusions to exonerate her, despite the evidence, while he was also repeatedly expressing strong partisan and anti-Trump opinions to one of those 15 attorneys.

One anti-Trump text by FBI agent Strzok is especially disturbing. In responding to a statement by Special Counsel Liz Page that she thought there was no way Trump could win, Strzok wrote the following:
» Read more

Mars rover update: December 18, 2017

Summary: The scientists and engineers of both Curiosity and Opportunity have route decisions to make.

Curiosity

null

For the overall context of Curiosity’s travels, see Pinpointing Curiosity’s location in Gale Crater.

Since my November 16 update, Curiosity’s travels crossing Vera Rubin Ridge, a geological bedding plain dubbed the Hematite Unit, has continued apace. They however have not been following the route that had been planned beforehand, as shown by the yellow dotted line on the right. Instead, they have headed south, along the red dotted line. For the past week or so they have been doing a variety of research tasks in the same area, analyzing samples taken months before, studying sand deposits, and taking many images of some interesting rock layers.

I also suspect that the lack of movement in the past week is partly because they need to make some route-finding decisions. The planned yellow route shown above appears to be somewhat rough in the full resolution orbital image. While I suspect they will still head in that direction, I also think they are doing some very careful analysis of this route and beyond, to make sure they will not end up in a cul de sac where the rover will not be able to continue its climb of Mount Sharp.

Opportunity

For the context of Opportunity’s recent travels along the rim of Endeavour Crater, see my May 15, 2017 rover update.
» Read more

The roots of our modern fascist and bankrupt academia

Since October I have been posting each week a collection of links illustrating the sad and fascist state of modern American academia. It is now time to post another collection, but this time I will also provide some thoughts that might help explain the roots of this intellectual bankruptcy.

These stories not only illustrate the fascist nature of today’s academic community, they once again show that these so-called institutions of higher learning know nothing about the concepts of liberty, individual responsibility, and thoughtful dialogue that are the hallmarks of western civilization.

First we have the story out of Texas State University of a student writing an op-ed calling for genocide against whites.

Essentially, the author argued that whites are by definition bigoted, and therefore must be wiped out. Though the student body at Texas State appeared to respond correctly to this racist column, one has to wonder how it got published in the first place.

Then we have some stories illustrating the bankruptcy of intellectual thought at some campuses.

The first story in this group is especially interesting. Considering the hate now routinely exhibited on college campuses against whites (as illustrated by second story above as well as my first group of stories above), I think it now behooves every white person attending Brown University to self-identify as black. Doing so makes no sense and has no connection with reality or truth, but hey, what do those values have to do with modern education?

Similarly, the last two stories, about how students disrupted a lecture, preventing its completion, shows that the administration of the University of Connecticut actually agrees with these hecklers’ goals. Rather than punish the hecklers and protesters, the university acted to shut down free speech entirely. Whoopie!

Further examples can be found in my previous updates from October 11, October 13, October 20, October 25, November 3, November 9, and November 22. Before October you can simply do a search on Behind the Black for “academia” and you will find numerous additional horror stories.

What are the roots of this madness? A recent experience on my part might help provide an explanation. I recently finished reading a college philosophy book called Classics of Western Thought: The Modern World that had been assigned to me when I attended college in the early 1970s. Then, I had been assigned to read only one or two of the essays (I don’t remember which), and since then it had been sitting on my bookshelf unread. I recently decided it would be worthwhile to read it all, from the start, as it covers intellectual thought beginning in the 1600s, just before the Enlightenment, with the following chapters providing these excerpts:
» Read more

The Sun goes quiet! Sunspot update for November 2017

The past month was the most inactive month for sunspots since the middle of 2009, when the last solar minimum was just ending and the Sun was beginning its ramp up to solar maximum.

NOAA on Sunday posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, covering sunspot activity for November. As I have done every month since 2010, I have posted that graph below, with annotations.

November 2017 Solar Cycle graph

The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community. The green curves show the community’s two original predictions from April 2007, with half the scientists predicting a very strong maximum and half predicting a weak one. The red curve is their revised May 2009 prediction.

I have also added a straight yellow line near the bottom of the graph, indicating how the lack of activity this past month corresponds with the lack of activity in the summer of 2009, just when that unusually long and deep solar minimum was beginning to end.

November 2017 sunspot record

To get an idea how few sunspots were seen in November, the graph on the right, produced by SILSO (Sunspot Index and Long-term Solar Observations) on December 1, shows only 10 days during the entire month when any sunspots were active on the Sun’s visible hemisphere. And even those sunspot were few and weak, resulting in tiny sunspot numbers total.

Nor is December looking any different, with no sunspots recorded so far, four days into the month.

The plunge to solar minimum continues to appear to be happening faster than normal. At this pace, solar minimum will arrive in early 2018, making this one of the shortest solar cycles on record. That in itself would be unprecedented, as short cycles in the past have always accompanied very active solar maximums, not weak maximums like the maximum we have just seen.

I still expect the ramp down to solar minimum to slow down and stretch out to 2019, as would be more normal, but I also would not bet any money on this expectation, at this point.

The big question remains: Will the solar cycle continue as normal after this upcoming solar minimum, or will we instead see our first grand minimum since the Maunder Minimum in the 1600s, a period lasting for about a century with no obvious sunspots that also corresponded to the Little Ice Age?

Mars rover update: November 16, 2017

Summary: Curiosity does drill tests, crosses Vera Rubin Ridge. Opportunity finds evidence of either ice or wind scouring on rocks in Perseverance Valley.

Curiosity

For the overall context of Curiosity’s travels, see Pinpointing Curiosity’s location in Gale Crater.

Curiosity looks up Vera Rubin Ridge, Sol 1850

Since my last update on September 6, Curiosity has continued its travels up and across Vera Rubin Ridge, a geological bedding plain dubbed the Hematite Unit. The panorama above, created by reader Phil Veerkamp, shows the view looking up the ridge slope. If you click on it you can see the full resolution image, with lots of interesting geological details.

The panorama below, also created by Veerkamp, shows the view on Sol 1866, two weeks later, as the slope begins to flatten out and the distant foothills of Mount Sharp become visible. (If you click on the image you can see a very slightly reduced version of the full resolution panorama.) This image also shows the next change in geology. From orbit the Hematite Unit darkens suddenly at its higher altitudes, and Curiosity at this point was approaching that transition. The rover is now, on Sol 1876, sitting on that boundary, where they will spend a few days making observations before moving on.

Curiosity on the Hematite Unit, Sol 1866

null

The image on the right shows Curiosity’s approximate position, about halfway across the Hematite Unit and with the rover’s approximate future route indicated, as shown in this October 3, 2016 press release.

In the two months since my last rover update the Curiosity engineering team has spent a lot of time imaging and studying the Hematite Unit. They have also spent a considerable amount of time doing new tests on the rover’s drill in an effort to get around its stuck feed mechanism in order to drill again. Only yesterday they took another series of close-up images of the drill in this continuing effort.

As indicated by the October 3 2016 press release, the rover still has a good way to go before it begins entering the distant canyons and large foothills. While they should leave the Hematite Unit and enter the Clay Unit beyond in only a few more months, I expect it will be at least a year before they pass through the Clay Unit and reach the much more spectacular Sulfate Unit, where the rover will explore at least one deep canyon as well as a recurring dark feature on a slope that scientists think might be a water seep.

Opportunity

For the context of Opportunity’s recent travels along the rim of Endeavour Crater, see my May 15, 2017 rover update.
» Read more

Exploring one of Mars’ giant volcanoes

Master index

For the past two weeks JPL’s image site has been releasing a string of images taken by Mars Odyssey of the smallest of Mars’ four giant volcanoes.

Pavonis Mons is one of the three aligned Tharsis Volcanoes. The four Tharsis volcanoes are Ascreaus Mons, Pavonis Mons, Arsia Mons, and Olympus Mars. All four are shield type volcanoes. Shield volcanoes are formed by lava flows originating near or at the summit, building up layers upon layers of lava. The Hawaiian islands on Earth are shield volcanoes. The three aligned volcanoes are located along a topographic rise in the Tharsis region. Along this trend there are increased tectonic features and additional lava flows. Pavonis Mons is the smallest of the four volcanoes, rising 14km above the mean Mars surface level with a width of 375km. It has a complex summit caldera, with the smallest caldera deeper than the larger caldera. Like most shield volcanoes the surface has a low profile. In the case of Pavonis Mons the average slope is only 4 degrees.

The image on the right is the context image, annotated by me to show where all these images were taken. The images can accessed individually below.

Each of these images has some interesting geological features, such as collapses, lava tubes, faults, and flow features. Meanwhile, the central calderas are remarkable smooth, with only a few craters indicating their relatively young age.

The most fascinating geological fact gleaned from these images is that they reveal a larger geological trend that runs through all of the three aligned giant volcanoes to the east of Olympus Mons.

The linear and sinuous features mark the locations of lava tubes and graben that occur on both sides of the volcano along a regional trend that passes thru Pavonis Mons, Ascreaus Mons (to the north), and Arsia Mons (to the south).

This trend probably also indicates the fundamental geology that caused all three volcanoes to align as they have.

Arsia Mons is of particular interest in that water clouds form periodically above its western slope, where there is also evidence of past glaciation. Scientists strongly suspect that there is a lot of water ice trapped underground here, possibly inside the many lava tubes that meander down its slopes. These facts also suggest that this might be one of the first places humans go to live, when they finally go to live on Mars.

I am looking for a library to donate my space history files

I am in the process of updating my will, and in the process I am searching for a library or university or archive that would be an appropriate place to leave my space history archives, collected during the past two and a half decades. This archive includes recordings of numerous interviews with Russian and American astronauts and engineers as well as numerous scientists. It also documents quite thoroughly the first half century of the space age.

I had considered giving this archive to the four year university here in Tucson, but it appears they really don’t want it. My last conversation with the head of their special collections was quite hostile, making me wonder if he might have glanced at my webpage and was triggered by it.

If someone has a suggestion, please comment here or email me. My main desire is that this collection should stay intact. I also desire that whichever university or library accepts it also agree to this clause:

It is my request however that these space materials, which cover the history of the first half century of space exploration by someone who witnessed it and thus will be of special interest to future residents not living on Earth, shall be transferred to the first university established on a world other than Earth that is willing to cover the cost for that transfer. Should such transfer occur, the [Earth-bound university/archive] will have the right to retain copies of all materials.

The first meeting of the National Space Council

The first meeting of the National Space Council just wrapped up. You can see highlights here. I have several thoughts.

The entire event was very carefully staged, with the planned outcomes determined beforehand. The three panels of speakers were organized to match up with the three main actions the council intended to pursue, with the questions from the various high level Trump cabinet members clearly arranged to line up with each panel. Moreover, the fact that all these panel members were there and participating in this staged event suggests that Trump himself is directly interested, and insisted they do so.

The first action was a decision to rework the country’s overall space policy, including its future goals for exploring the solar system. This action item was linked with statements by officials from Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Orbital ATK, and was clearly intended to placate their desire to keep what they all called “sustained” and “reliable” funding. It was also clearly linked to Pence’s opening remarks, which insisted that the U.S. should return to the Moon, permanently, and use that as a jumping off point for exploring Mars and the rest of the solar system.

The second action was a commitment to review, in the next 45 days, the entire regulatory bureaucracy that private companies must face. This was linked to the testimony from officials from SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Sierra Nevada.

The third action was a focus on the military and national security aspects of space, focused on the development of a “space strategic framework” that will apparently link the military needs with the growing commercial space industry. This framework has been under development for several months. The council actually spent the most time questioning the national security witnesses on this issue. This focus also aligns with the main interest in space held by Trump’s nominee for NASA administrator, Congressman Jim Bridenstine (R-Oklahoma). Interestingly, Bridenstine was in the audience, but was given no speaking opportunity, unlike the NASA acting administrator, Robert Lightfoot, who Pence specifically provided a moment to speak.

Overall, this meeting indicates that the Trump administration is likely not going to do much to drain the swamp that presently dominates our space effort. Trump’s interest in reducing regulation remains strong, but it also appears he and his administration is also strongly committed to continuing the crony capitalism that is wasting literally billions of dollars in space and helping to put the nation into unrecoverable debt.

Hate from the left

The last few days have been a horror show of hate. While most decent people were appalled by the murderous attack in Las Vegas and horrified by the evil of the man who did it, it appears the thing that offended the left most of all was not the murderer, but the guns he used and the nerve of conservatives and Republicans to defend the 2nd amendment of the Constitution in defying their non-stop efforts to repeal it. That outrage against conservatives often bordered on insane and outright hate, completely divorced from facts or reality.

This list of stories is only a small sampling. The hateful attacks the past few days on conservatives and anyone connected with Trump and the Republican Party by Democrats and leftists have been non-stop and repeatedly vicious.

The last story above however reveals clearly where these attacks are going. The left, and the Democratic Party that supports the left’s ideology, wants to end freedom and obtain unrivaled and unopposed power. Anything that stands in their way must be destroyed, including the Bill of Rights. Moore’s proposal to repeal the 2nd amendment is not the only proposal put forth by Democrats in recent years trying to repeal parts of the Bill of Rights. For example, in June Democratic Congressmen held a sit-in in the House, protesting the due process clause in the 5th amendment. Then, in 2014 the Democrats proposed repealing the 1st amendment. We already know that the left has worked tirelessly for the past century to make the 9th and 10th amendments moot so the federal government will rule over areas of law that were reserved to the states, or the people.

That’s 5 of the Bill of Right’s 10 amendments that leftists and the Democratic Party oppose. If I was dig a bit deeper I am sure I can find examples where they have worked to repeal the other five as well.

I want make it clear where this Democratic Party and its supporters in academia and Hollywood now stands. They hate all opposition, and want to repeal the constitutional protections created to protect ordinary people from tyranny. If you stand for freedom, you cannot stand with them.

And if you don’t believe me, watch this video and the hate coming from this woman against someone who was merely wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. She steals it, then says his free speech and property rights should be suspended, merely because she hates him. Others might say it is because she disagrees with him, but what I see is unbridled hate, pure and vicious.

We need to recognize this hate for what it is. It is what caused so many liberals in the past two days to attack conservatives, not the murderer who killed dozens in Las Vegas. And it is this kind of hate that always leads to oppression, mass murder, and tyranny.

Pioneer

Pioneer

I am today announcing the publication of Pioneer, a science fiction book I first wrote back in 1982 that has languished in my files now for more than three decades. As I note in the introduction,

It was never published because at the time I could not find an agent to market it to book publishers, and was then too naive and shy to attempt to do such things myself.

In viewing several recent science fiction movies, however, I was motivated to pull the final draft of Pioneer from my files, wondering if it might be marketable. I hadn’t read it in decades, and had literally forgotten the story. I started reading expecting a typical first novel, somewhat incoherent and emotionally immature.

Instead I was quite surprised and enthralled. I couldn’t put the book down. Moreover, I was astonished at the coherence of the story and characters. “This is a good book!” I exclaimed to my wife Diane. Nor am I bragging when I say this, since the person who wrote it is someone from many decades ago and who essentially no longer exists.

Thus, I decided it was time to get Pioneer published, especially since this is now a very easy thing to do, no longer requiring either an agent or a book publisher.

The press release announcing the book’s publication provides the story’s premise:
» Read more

Space hype versus reality

Three stories today illustrate the importance of maintaining some skepticism when reading the claims of rocket companies.

I could probably also include the story earlier today about the model rocket test launch that was hyped absurdly by the company and the British newspapers that reported it.

The first story reports the comments of a local politician claiming that SpaceX will be launching from its Boca Chica Texas spaceport by the end of 2018. Interesting, but I’d rather go by what the company itself says, and what SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell says today is “Our Texas site still doing landscaping, could be avail in ~ 2 yrs; no rush given our capacity at two Fla pads.”

In other words, the local official’s prediction was a bit overstated, and therefore should not be taken too seriously.

The second story however can be taken a bit more seriously, since it is a report from an actual company official, Clay Mowry, Blue Origin’s vice president of sales, marketing and customer experience. He explains that they hope to resume New Shepard suborbital test flights before the end of the year, with manned test flights occurring in 2018. However, he says little about why there was such a long gap in New Shepard launches after they completed their last test flight in October 2016. At that time they said they would be doing more test flights in early 2017, but by the spring of 2017 had back tracked.

The claim that they might be flying again before the end of the year, however, still carries weight, in that it matches earlier statements. In other words, Blue Origin has been very careful not to make promises it cannot meet. In rocket science this care cannot always be met, but they clearly have tried hard. This is why I take Mowry’s statement that they hope to fly humans on New Shepard in 2018 with some trust.

The third story is a perfect example of how a company loses trust. Virgin Orbit is part of the Virgin set of companies run by Richard Branson, and used to be part of Virgin Galactic. Branson and Virgin Galactic have been making promises now for more than a decade, none of which have born fruit. This unreliability has made me very skeptical about anything they say, which is also why I do not report their claims much anymore. When they actually fly something I will write about it.

For awhile I thought Virgin Orbit was a different bird, as the executives there have been more careful, only making cautious promises and then more or less fulfilling them. The story above however gives me pause. Even as they admit they have had to delay their test program their president still insists that they will be able to ramp up to two launches per month by 2020. Considering the fact that no single private company has yet managed to do such a thing, in the more than half century since the beginnings of the space age, I think it is a little dangerous for this guy to make this claim, even before the company has even launched its first rocket. Virgin Orbit might do it, but such wild claims make me very suspicious of them.

And then there was today’s earlier story about Starchaser Industries. They launch a model rocket 4000 feet in the air, and from this they claim that they will be putting humans on a suborbital rocket in only two years. If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you, cheap.

The bottom line here is to use some common sense and thoughtful judgment in reading stories about future space achievements. The first three stories above are actually all well written, well researched, and very careful in how they report their stories. It however is not necessarily their job to tell you whether the claims are trustworthy, especially if the claims seem reasonable based upon the available information. The last however is an example of bad journalism, rewriting a press release without doing any research at all.

In all cases, it is important to distinguish between stories about what is going to happen versus what is happening. I always prefer the latter, since a real achievement will always trump a mere prediction. And when it comes to the space industry and rocket science, predictions surely must take a back seat to reality.

Cassini says goodbye to Saturn

Saturn, October 2016

Cool image time! The picture above, reduced in resolution to show here, was taken in October 2016 during one of Cassini’s last distant orbits that gave it a global view of Saturn and its rings. Since it began its dives close to the gas giant such views have not been possible.

The mission ends this coming Saturday with a dive into Saturn. It was launched in October 1997, and after a seven year journey has spent the last thirteen years in orbit around the planet, providing us the first long term glimpse of a gas giant as its seasons evolved.

Cassini has been orbiting Saturn for nearly a half of a Saturnian year but that journey is nearing its end. This extended stay has permitted observations of the long-term variability of the planet, moons, rings, and magnetosphere, observations not possible from short, fly-by style missions.

When the spacecraft arrived at Saturn in 2004, the planet’s northern hemisphere, seen here at top, was in darkness, just beginning to emerge from winter (see Cassini’s Holiday Greetings​). Now at journey’s end, the entire north pole is bathed in the continuous sunlight of summer.

The spacecraft was also able to observe the seasonal changes that occurred to Titan. It also studied the plumes coming from the tiger stripe cracks on Enceladus, shown below the fold in a movie created by Cassini over a 14 hour time period in August 2017.

I expect that scientists will be exploring Cassini’s data archive for decades, finding many things not noticed in their initial viewing. Unfortunately, we will not have another spacecraft taking new pictures in orbit around Saturn to compare with Cassini’s past images for many decades to come. On Saturday, we go blind.
» Read more

Mars rover update: September 6, 2017

Summary: Curiosity ascends up steepest part of Vera Rubin Ridge, getting just below the ridgetop, while Opportunity inspects its footprint in Perseverance Valley.

Curiosity

For the overall context of Curiosity’s travels, see Pinpointing Curiosity’s location in Gale Crater.

Curiosity panorama, Sol 1807

Curiosity's location, Sol 1802

Since my last update on August 11, Curiosity has been slowly working its way along the base of Vera Rubin Ridge, and up its slope. Today’s update from the science team describes how the rover is now on the steepest part of that slope, which is also just below the ridgetop. The panorama above looks east at the ridge, at the sand-duned foothills in the Murray Formation that Curiosity has been traversing since March 2016, and the crater plains beyond.

The image on the right shows Curiosity’s approximate position, with the point of view of the panorama indicated. The image also shows their planned upcoming route across the Hematite Unit. As they note in their update:

Curiosity now has great, unobstructed views across the lowlands of Gale crater to the rear of the rover. The view is improving as the air becomes clearer heading into the colder seasons. The first image link below shows a Navcam view into the distance past a cliff face just to the left of the rover. The image is tilted due to the to the unusually high 15.5 degree tilt of the rover as it climbs the ridge. Part of Mount Sharp is in the background. The second link shows an image looking ahead, where we see much more rock and less soil. The foreground shows that some of the pebbles are relatively well rounded. The rock face up ahead is smooth, which will mean easier driving.

That report I think is somewhat optimistic.
» Read more

Global warming and Glacier National Park

One of the main activities for almost everyone visiting Glacier National Park is to drive across the park on Going-to-the-Sun Road, which crosses the mountains and probably has some of the most spectacular scenery of any road in the United States. During our visit this week we entered the park from the west side, spent several days there hiking trails, then took this road across to the east side, where we did more hiking.

The highest point on Going-to-the-Sun Road is Logan Pass. The park service has built a visitor center there, where everyone stops to do a short hike and admire the views. The trail head for the more challenging Highline Trail, which we did soon after arrival, is also here.

Outside the Logan Pass visitor center are a variety of displays. One focused on the changing environment at Glacier, and not surprisingly, it made a point of talking about the documented shrinkage of the glaciers during the past century. Below is an image of the pertinent quote from that display:

Display outside Logan Pass visiter center

When I saw this I was quite amused. The glaciers in the park are expected to be gone in only three more years, by 2020? Not a chance. I thought, they are going to have to change this sign soon. In fact, based on my experience with past failed global warming predictions, I was actually surprised they had let this display stay there this long, and hadn’t already made it vanish to be replaced with a new doomsday prediction that was far enough in the future that they could use if for awhile to generate new fear (and funding) before it too turned out to be wrong.

Anyway, in driving east and down from Logan Point, Diane and I eventually reached the east entrance to the park, where there was another visitor center. Like Logan Pass, this center also had a collection of outdoor displays, with one display once again focused on the park’s changing environment. Below is the pertinent quote from that display:
» Read more

The Eclipse

The eclipse approaching totality

Just arrived at Glacier, where the internet access is bad, and there is no cell service. Thus, this might be my last post for the week. I will try to post in the evening, but this is a vacation, so it will not be my first priority. If I could do it in my room that would okay, but I have to go down to the lobby of the Lake McDonald Lodge.

Anyway the image to the right was taken by me by holding my hand filter out at arm’s length, blocking the sun, and snapping a picture with my camera. It came out far better than I expected, as you can actually see the sun in the filter, partly blocked.

Totality was amazing. I was amazed by two things. First, how quiet it became. There were about hundred people scattered about the hotel lawn, with dogs and kids playing around. The hotel manager’s husband set up speakers for music and to make announcements, but when totality arrived he played nothing. People stopped talking. A hush fell over everything. Moreover, I think we somehow imagine a subconscious roar from the full sun. Covered as it was, with its soft corona gleaming gently around it, it suddenly seemed still.

Secondly, the amazing unlikeliness of the Moon being at just the right distance and size to periodically cause this event seemed almost miraculous. Watching it happen drove this point home to me. And since eclipses themselves have been a critical event in the intellectual development of humanity, helping to drive learning and our understanding of the universe, it truly makes me wonder at the majesty of it. I do not believe in any particular religion or their rituals (though I consider the Bible, the Old Testament especially, to be a very good manual for creating a good life and society), but I do not deny the existence of a higher power. Something made this place, and set it up in this wonderous way. Today’s eclipse only served to demonstrate this fact to me again.

Posting will be light for the rest of the week. If I get a chance I will add some more pictures to this post tomorrow.
» Read more

A celebration of hate and ignorance

The last few days have not been good ones for American free speech and freedom. Not only have we seen violence perpetrated to silence the free expression of dissent, we have seen an effort after the fact to use that violence as a club for destroying any opposition to the liberal and leftist dogma that dominates the American political and academic community.

The following links will provide a nice overview of how our cultural elites, especially on the left, have responded to this weekend’s terrible events in Charlottesville, Virginia, where one person was killed and almost twenty injured when a car rammed into a crowd of competing racist demonstrators.

That is how our elites responded, not with conciliatory remarks aimed at bringing people together, but with anger and hate, hate of Trump, hate of the Republican Party, hate of the NRA, hate of whites, hate for anyone that dared disagree with their leftist agenda. Then, when Trump issued a statement condemning all violence in the name of bigotry, the response was equally hateful:
» Read more

Mars rover update: August 11, 2017

Summary: After a two week hiatus because the Sun was between the Earth and Mars and blocking communications, both rovers are once again on the move.

Curiosity

For the overall context of Curiosity’s travels, see Pinpointing Curiosity’s location in Gale Crater.

Curiosity panorama, Sol 1782

Vera Rubin Ridge close-up

Since my last update on July 12,, Curiosity spent most of the month waiting out the solar conjunction that placed the Sun between the Earth and Mars and blocked communications. In the past few days, however, the rover has begun to send down images again while resuming its journey up Mt. Sharp. The panorama above, reduced to show here, was taken by the rover’s left navigation camera, and shows the mountain, the ridge, and the route the rover will take to circle around the steepest sections to get up onto the ridge. To see the full resolution panorama click on the picture.

To the right is a full resolution section of the area in the white box. As you can see, the geology of the ridge is many-layered, with numerous vertical seams or cracks. In order to track the geological changes across these layers as the rover climbs, the science team is as expected taking a systematic approach.

Lately, one of our biggest science objectives is to conduct bedrock APXS measurements with every 5-meter climb in elevation. This allows us to systematically analyze geochemical changes in the Murray formation as we continue to climb Mount Sharp. Yesterday’s drive brought us 6 meters higher in elevation, so another touch and go for today it is!

Below is a cropped and reduced resolution image of the most recent orbital traverse image, dated sol 1754. The dotted line shows where I think the rover’s has traveled in the last 28 sols. I have also annotated what I think is the point of view of the panorama above.
» Read more

A Martian Journey

The exploration of the solar system has barely begun. Though we regularly get to see some spectacular images taken by the fleet of unmanned planetary probes that now circle or rove the various planets throughout the solar system, we mustn’t think we have seen very much. In truth, we have only gotten a very distant glimpse of only a few tiny spots, most of which have been viewed from very far away. Even at the highest resolution the images do not really tell us what it really will be like when we can stroll across those surfaces routinely.

To give you an idea of how much remains hidden, let’s take a journey inward from Mars orbit. The image below looks down on a good portion of the Martian globe, with the giant volcano Olympus Mons on the left, its three companion volcanoes in line to the east, and the vast valley of Valles Marineris east of these. This valley would cover the continental United States almost entirely, and extend significantly beyond into the oceans on either side.

Olympus Mons and Valles Marineris

This was essentially our first good look at Mars, taken from orbit by Mariner 9 in 1971.
» Read more

John McCain, Liar

In commenting about the failure yesterday by Senate Republicans to pass a trimmed down version of an Obamcare repeal by a vote of 49-51, Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has this to say:

There are going be a great many Americans who tonight feel a sense of betrayal. …If you stand up and campaign and say we are going to repeal Obamacare and you vote for Obamacare, those are not consistent. And the American people are entirely justified in saying any politician who told me that and voted the other way didn’t tell me the truth. They lied to me.

He then added:

“No party can remain in power by lying to the American people.”

Cruz is right, but only partly. The entire Republican Party did not lie to its voters. Instead, a small contingent of fake Republicans lied, led by John McCain, king liar and the most likely person to stab a friend in the back I have ever seen.
» Read more

Mueller widens witch hunt investigation

Special counsel Robert Mueller today widened his investigation on President Trump’s contacts with Russia during the campaign to now include Trump’s entire business transactions.

I haven’t posted anything about the Russian collusion story until now, because on its face it is absurd. As noted repeatedly by even Trump’s critics, there is no evidence of any illegal acts by anyone. Moreover, the media focus on the Russians distracts from the heart of the DNC hack, that it revealed illegal pay-offs and corruption by Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, and others in the Democratic Party. I don’t really care that much how these emails were obtained since what they uncovered is far worse.

What prompts me to post now is to underline the corruption of Robert Mueller himself. It is already well known that the investigation team he has put together includes at least seven Democratic donors, including an attorney who donated $34,000 to Democratic candidates. What I want to highlight is his blatant partisan actions to help cover up the IRS scandal for the Obama administration. I only remembered this recently, but when Mueller was called to testify to the House about his newly begun FBI investigation into that scandal, he couldn’t name the head of that investigation, even though he was the man who would have appointed such a person only a month prior.

I once again have embedded below the fold Mueller’s testimony in 2013 before Congress. Not only does he not know who is running his so-called IRS scandal investigation, he admits that not one victim of the IRS scandal had yet been contacted. In fact, none of these people were ever contacted, and that investigation never took place. Mueller stone-walled it for Obama, so that administration and president could get away with their use of the IRS as a weapon against their opponents. And of course, the Democratic mainstream media assisted them in this stone-wall by never pursuing the story. They let it fall, as they do today with the content of those hacked Clinton emails, into the memory hole.

And even if there were improprieties by Trump and his campaign, does anyone with even the slightest objectivity believe that Mueller’s investigation is going to non-partisan? I don’t. This is a witch-hunt, and it always has been.

And if you disagree with me I dare you to watch the video below. Mueller comes off clearly as a tool of the Democrats, something he still is today.
» Read more

Commercial space has won

Today the Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness, chaired by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), held the third of a series of hearings on the future regulatory framework required for American commercial space to prosper.

My previous reviews of the past two hearings can be found at these links:

In today’s hearing the witnesses in general once again called for a variety of reforms that would simplify the regulatory process for private enterprise. Dr. Moriba K. Jah, associate professor from University of Texas at Austin, suggested removing NOAA’s veto power on remote sensing, something that the proposed House bill I analyzed in my Federalist op-ed actually does). Jeffrey Manber of Nanoracks suggested giving the private sector a certain date when ISS will be decommissioned so that they can more easily obtain investment capital for building the privately-built space facilities that will replace it. Tim Ellis of Relativity, a company trying to build rocket engines manufactured entirely by 3D printing, called for more American spaceports, accessible by private companies, as well as a simplification of the FAA permitting process. Robert Cabana, Director at the Kennedy Space Center, talked about the need for government facilities to provide the infrastructure for private companies, as the center has done for the private launch sites and manufacturing facilities they have helped get established at Kennedy since the retirement of the shuttle.

Tim Hughes from SpaceX topped them all.
» Read more

Mars rover update: July 12, 2017

Summary: Curiosity looks at some big dune ripples, then creeps up hill. Opportunity tests its wheels.

Curiosity

For the overall context of Curiosity’s travels, see Pinpointing Curiosity’s location in Gale Crater.

The interior of a dune ripple

Since my last update on June 23,, Curiosity has worked its way around and, for a few days, even into the small sandy field at the base of Vera Rubin ridge. The scientists noticed that the sandy here had a series of large ripples, and they wanted to take a close look at at least one. The image on the right, cropped to show here, was taken shortly after they had the rover drive through one ripple in order to expose its interior. You can see the robot arm directly above the cut created by the rover’s wheels. On the cut’s wall several distinctly different toned layers are visible. A close look reveals that they are wavy, and probably indicate numerous and repeated overlays as the wind brushes a new layer of dust on top of old layers, time after time. The different tones indicate a change in the material’s composition, which could reveal something about some past events in either Mars’ weather or geology.

In order to decipher this information, however, they will need to be able to date the layers, and figure out when each tonal change happened. I am not sure Curiosity can do this, especially since they have not scooped up any of this dust for later analysis.

They are now approaching Vera Rubin Ridge, and should climb up onto in the coming weeks. At that point they will move off the Murray Formation, where they have been since March 2016, made up of dried and ancient crushed mud, and up onto a lighter, yellowish layer of rock, dubbed the Hematite Unit. This October 3, 2016 press release. gives a good outline of the geology of these regions.
» Read more

Pablum from Pence on space

If you want to waste about about 25 minutes of your life, you can listen to the speech that Vice President Mike Pence gave today at the Kennedy Space Center here, beginning at the 49:30 minute mark.

My advice is that you don’t do it. Pence said nothing. He handed out a lot of empty promises and cliches, without any specifics or details of any kind. He confirmed for me what I have suspected of Pence for several years, that despite the fact that he lives and breathes a conservative and honorable personal life, as a politician he is a hack.

He made a big deal about the recreation of the National Space Council, which he now leads. However, as this article by Eric Berger properly noted the people who seem to be exerting the most influence on that council, on Trump, and on Pence are from the big space companies that have spent more than a decade and a half spending about $40 billion trying to build a big rocket (SLS) to fly a single unmanned test flight of the Orion capsule.

My pessimism here might be misplaced. We still do not know who will be on this space council. Furthermore, the Trump administration has been very good at doing a lot of public relations and soft stroking of its opponents in order to put them off guard prior to hitting them hard, where it hurts. This might be what Pence was doing here.

Nonetheless, the lack of any substance in Pence’s remarks makes me fear that he will be easily influenced by the big players who simply want the federal cash cow to continue sending them money, whether or not they ever build anything.

As predicted climate scientists begin adjusting satellite data to fit models

If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts! The scientists in charge of the climate satellite data produced by Remote Sensing Services (RSS) in California have decided to adjust their satellite data to increase the warming trend since 2000 and make that data more closely match the surface temperature data that NASA and NOAA have already altered to show that same warming trend.

Researchers from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS), based in California, have released a substantially revised version of their lower tropospheric temperature record. After correcting for problems caused by the decaying orbit of satellites, as well as other factors, they have produced a new record showing 36% faster warming since 1979 and nearly 140% faster (i.e. 2.4 times larger) warming since 1998. This is in comparison to the previous version 3 of the lower tropospheric temperature (TLT) data published in 2009.

How have they done this? They made several changes, the first two of which appear quite questionable. First, they addressed the “time of observation issue.” There is a belief among some climate scientists that the time temperature readings were taken can introduce an error in the long term trends.

To account for changes in observation times, the RSS group used a number of different approaches and models to try and estimate what the temperature would have been if the measurement time remained constant. This involves a combination of satellite observations (when different satellites captured temperatures in both morning and evening), the use of climate models to estimate how temperatures change in the atmosphere over the course of the day, and using reanalysis data that incorporates readings from surface observations, weather balloons and other instruments.

Depending on the time of the observation correction approach chosen, the resulting temperature trends between 1979 and 2016 ranged from as low as 0.13C per decade to as high as 0.22C per decade. The RSS group ultimately decided that the most reasonable set of parameters give a temperature trend of 0.17C. [emphasis mine]

I am puzzled by this, since satellites in orbit do not take readings at one particular time, but at a wide range of times. In fact, I would say that the number of readings, at all different times, would easily introduce enough randomness into the results that any error would be insignificant. Instead, these scientists have decided to adjust the raw data to add a warming trend of almost a tenth of a degree centigrade.

Next, they simply decided that the data coming from some satellites should be excluded.
» Read more

A river canyon on Mars

A river on Mars

Cool image time! The image on the right, reduced in resolution significantly to show here, was taken by the Themis camera on Mars Odyssey, and shows an unnamed canyon on Mars. Be sure to click on the image to see the full resolution version.

This canyon of course no longer has anything flowing in it. Moreover, it is not clear whether this was formed by water or lava. Unfortunately, the image is part of a series of “Art images” from Mars Odyssey, where they pick an image and suggest it looks like something else. In this case, they are claiming this looks like a “snake, slithering down the image.” Cute, but not very helpful. And unfortunately, they don’t add any further details at all about the image or its location. The context image suggests this canyon is next to a volcano.

After doing further research at the Themis image site, I was able to locate this image on Mars (using latitude 32.0515 and longitude 152.236 given at the link) and look at the images surrounding this one. Further research identified the volcano as Hecates Tholus in the Elyesium Plantia region to the west of Mars’s giant volcanoes.

Looking at all the nearby Mars Odyssey images, it appears that there are a lot of flows like this in this area, and all of them appear to be lava flows, with this one being the largest. A close look at the area just to the south of where the deep canyon opens out shows that the small surface flow draining into the canyon also appears to sit on much larger surface flows (at least two) that left the surface higher than the surrounding terrain.

Elyesium Plantia itself is a plateau, somewhat close to the border between Mars’s southern highlands and the northern plains where some scientists think an ocean might have once existed. Thus, it makes sense that the canyon drains north, as it is following the dip down to those northern low plains.

Mars rover update: June 23, 2017

Summary: Curiosity continues up hill. Opportunity has wheel problems.

Curiosity

For the overall context of Curiosity’s travels, see Pinpointing Curiosity’s location in Gale Crater.

The march up Mt Sharp continues. Since my last update on May 15, Curiosity has continued working its way up towards what the science team has named Vera Rubin Ridge, the beginning of a lighter, yellowish layer of rock, dubbed the Hematite Unit, that sits higher up the mountain’s slope. They have been traveling on the Murray Formation now for more than a year, since March, 2016, so entering this new layer of geology is eagerly anticipated by the science team. (This October 3, 2016 press release. gives an overall picture of the geology Curiosity is traversing.)

Reader Phil Veerkamp sent me a beautiful panorama he stitched together from recent Curiosity images of Vera Rubin Ridge, directly to the south of the rover and higher up hill. Below is a reduced resolution version. Be sure you click on it to explore the full resolution image. This is a new type of terrain, significantly different than anything Curiosity has seen up to now. It also appears that the rover will see far less dust, and might be traveling mostly over solid boulders. Below I have cropped out a very small section of the ridge line near the center of the full image, just to illustrate this.
» Read more

It’s the hate, not the violence

The last few days have probably been the ugliest I have ever seen in American culture. Not only was an attempt made to commit mass murder against a group of Republican elected officials, the response from too many mainstream Democrats has generally been tone deaf and even supportive of the violence. Worse, the violence appears to be on-going, with no sign of relief.

My list is hardly complete. The stories above are only a small sampling of the ugly stuff I have read since the shooting on June 14. The best I have seen from some Democrats is a hint that maybe they have let their rhetoric get out of hand, but even here they often backtrack to blame Republicans and only Republicans for the shooting.

Are Republicans innocent here? No. The coarseness of language and increasing anger I have seen from both sides in the past six months has been appalling. Rather than respond strongly but intelligently and with civility, too many Republicans have decided they can be as harsh and as coarse and as vicious as the Democrats.

Nonetheless, the bulk of the coarseness and viciousness and violence falls mainly to the Democratic and liberal side of the political spectrum. You need only scan this list of attacks against conservatives since in the past year, many of which I have noted here on Behind the Black. The left has been getting increasingly violent, with no protest by the left’s leaders in the Democratic Party. Even an attempted mass murder seems insufficient to cause much horror or shame in Democratic and leftwing circles.

The key to all this however is the single word I have highlighted in the fourth headline link above. That word is “hate.” What is motivating all of this violence and ugliness is hate, a blind irrational emotion that now prevents these people from looking at reality coolly. Trump is “evil.” He is a “nazi.” He is an “anti-Semite.” He is “racist.” He wants to “kill sick people.”

None of this is true. Trump is surely not the most ideal person to be our president at this moment of time, but he is also not any of the terrible things the left is accusing him of being.

Facts and rational thought however no longer matter to the left. They hate, and their hatred can now be used to justify almost any act, including an attempt at mass murder. This is beyond the pale, and it is turning the left into everything it has said it opposes for the past century: bigoted, hateful, violent, and oppressive. They had better cool their minds down a bit or else they will find themselves in the middle of hellstorm, targets themselves, with no way to control it.

One more thought. Right after the Tucson attack on Congresswoman Gabby Giffords in 2011, I noted the disgusting inflammatory language of the left. They demanded civility from conservatives, while simultaneous calling for their murder. I said then that they had better tone down their rhetoric or face a firestorm that they themselves might not survive.

This behavior must stop. Violent and angry rhetoric can and will cause violence. And it probably has, considering the fact that a large number of the random violent acts in recent years have actually been committed by deranged individuals with liberal, not conservative, leanings. This is not to say that I blame the left for this violence, but that the left has as much of a responsibility as the right to think carefully about what it says, before it says it. Otherwise, they might find that they have made their less rational followers more angry than they ever imagined, or can control.

Or as Michael York says to his Nazi friend at the end of this scene from the 1972 movie, Cabaret. “You still think you can control them?”

We are now six and a half years later, and instead of toning down their rhetoric, the left has escalated it to violence and murder. They have embraced their hate, and it is making them insane.

1 25 26 27 28 29 52