November 13, 2020 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
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Category: Behind The Black
Most recent engine test on eighth Starship prototype had issues
Capitalism in space: The most recent engine test on November 12th of SpaceX’s eighth Starship prototype had a problem that will delay its planned 50,000 foot test hop.
The Starship SN8 vehicle performed its third brief “static fire” — a test in which engines are ignited while a rocket remains tethered to the ground — at SpaceX’s South Texas facility on Thursday, near the village of Boca Chica.
Shortly after the test, which several outside organizations webcast live, material could be seen apparently dripping from SN8’s base. This looked odd, and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk soon confirmed that something off-nominal had happened. “We lost vehicle pneumatics. Reason unknown at present. Liquid oxygen header tank pressure is rising. Hopefully triggers burst disk to relieve pressure, otherwise it’s going to pop the cork,” Musk said via Twitter on Thursday night. (Burst disks are single-use devices that, like valves, seal off different sections or systems of a vehicle. They relieve pressure when they open, as Musk noted.)
The cause of the problem is unknown at the moment, Musk said in another Thursday tweet: “Maybe melted an engine preburner or fuel hot gas manifold. Whatever it is caused pneumatics loss. We need to design out this problem.”
The decision to pin down the cause and redesign things so it won’t happen again makes perfect sense, but it also means that the hop will not occur in the next week or so, as hoped for by the company. Expect a delay. Based on the pace that SpaceX works, that delay however should not be longer than one or two months.
Arecibo’s status appears to be worsening
According to a new engineering report, the condition and status of the Arecibo Observatory’s main antenna, suspended by cables above its giant radio dish, appears very uncertain and to be worsening.
Preliminary analysis indicates the main cable, which failed on Nov. 6, should have easily handled the extra load based on design capacity. Engineers suspect it is likely that the second cable failed because it has degraded over time and has been carrying extra load since August. A final determination could not be made without retrieving and analyzing the second cable.
The engineering firms cannot verify the integrity of the other cables at this time supporting the 900-ton platform. Each of the structure’s remaining cables is now supporting more weight than before, increasing the likelihood of another cable failure, which would likely result in the collapse of the entire structure.
Other wire breaks on two of the remaining main cables have also been observed. [emphasis mine]
If the 900 ton antenna structure that the cables hold up should fall, it will do significant damage to the disk, and will also likely make the cost of repairing the radio telescope prohibitive.
Elon Musk gets contradictory COVID-19 test results
The uncertainty of science: Because SpaceX’s founder Elon Musk had had some minor cold-like symptoms, he decided to get tested for COVID-19, and discovered that after four tests, he still had no idea whether he had it or not.
The Tesla boss and fifth-richest man in the world had initially tweeted Thursday night that “Something extremely bogus is going on” regarding COVID-19 testing. “Two tests came back negative, two came back positive. Same machine, same test, same nurse.”
…Though Musk had initially tweeted that his symptoms were “nothing unusual” and those “of a typical cold,” he gave more detail Friday morning. “Mild sniffles & cough & slight fever past few days,” he told one Twitter user who asked how he was feeling. “Right now, no symptoms, although I did take NyQuil.”
First, the results tell us that the so-called surge going on in new coronavirus cases that is panicking our Democratic Party lords and masters might very well be bogus. At a minimum we should all be more skeptical of the numbers.
Second, assuming Musk does have COVID-19, his symptoms illustrate once again how relatively harmless the virus is to healthy people. In fact, no one seems to notice that of the numbers of people diagnosed with COVID-19 in the general populace, no one seems ever to die from it. Like the flu, they are sick for a week or so, and then recover.
Weather forces one day delay in launch of Resilience with four astronauts
Because of high winds and ocean weather interfering with the recovery of the first stage, NASA and SpaceX today decided to delay the launch of SpaceX’s second manned Dragon mission, the capsule Resilience carrying four astronauts, to Sunday, November 15.
NASA and SpaceX are now targeting 7:27 p.m. EST Sunday, Nov. 15, for liftoff of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission to fly astronauts from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the International Space Station.
Teams moved the launch by one day because of onshore winds and to enable recovery of the first stage booster, which is planned to be reused to launch the Crew-2 mission next year. The booster is expected to land on the recovery ship about nine minutes after launch.
They now plan to dock with ISS at 11 am (eastern) on November 16th.
Brandon Acker – Canario
An evening pause: The music was written in the early 1600s by G.G. Kapsberger. The instrument is called a theorbo. I posted a different performance featuring this medieval instrument in 2019, in which the instrument’s origins is described. In both cases the quality of sound is hauntingly wonderful..
Hat tip Jeff Poplin.
ULA successfully launches reconnaissance satellite with Atlas 5
Capitalism in space: ULA today successfully launched a military reconnaissance satellite using its Atlas 5 rocket.
This launch was the first Atlas 5 using these particular Northrop Grumman solid rocket boosters.
Because this was a military launch, the live broadcast ended at the moment the fairings were released, exposing the satellite. Final announcement of the satellite’s successful deployment will come later, assuming all goes well.
The leaders in the 2020 launch race:
30 China
19 SpaceX
5 ULA
4 Russia
4 Europe (Arianespace)
4 Rocket Lab
The U.S. now leads China 31 to 30 in the national rankings, with two more launches scheduled for the next two day. SpaceX is first with its second manned Dragon mission tomorrow, followed by Rocket Lab’s next launch from New Zealand on November 15.
A majestic terraced butte on Mars
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on September 8, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows an outstanding terraced butte that would rival any of the similar buttes scattered throughout the Grand Canyon, and is reminiscent especially of Wotans Throne.
What makes this butte intriguing are its terraces, the obvious result of the repeated deposition of new layers across the surface over time, and now exposed by erosion. What caused them?
As always, location provides the clues. First, this butte is found at about 15 degrees north latitude in the vast Arabia Terra transition region between the Martian northern lowland plains and the southern cratered highlands. At that latitude, we are not looking at any recent glacial features. While there might have been ice here once, it hasn’t likely been present, either on the surface or underground, for a very long time.
This conclusion becomes important once we look at the wider photo below, taken by the high resolution camera on the European orbiter Mars Express. This image gives us the immediate context.
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Ukraine signs Artemis Accords
Ukraine has becomed the ninth nation to sign the Artemis Accords, designed to encourage private enterprise in space.
The article at the link provides little information, other than claiming that ” Ukraine has all the scientific and technical capabilities and experience that allow it to become one of NASA’s important partners in the implementation of the Artemis program.”
Russia and the Ukraine are on opposite sides of a war, with Russia attempting to steal territory, with some success. Russia has also boycotted all Ukrainian space technology, ending a half century of business dealings.
It seems that the Ukrainian government looked at this political landscape, and decided to align itself with the United States. By signing the accords, it now has the opportunity to sell its space technology to NASA, as well as participate in any American effort to get to the Moon and elsewhere. That it chose to pick an ally halfway around the world instead of its big and powerful neighbor, tells us a great deal about the Ukrainian’s opinion of Russia.
I expect there will be a NASA press release in the next day or so that will provide us additional information.
Russian spacewalk to inspect leak in Zvezda
The Russian spacewalk to inspect the outside location of the air leak in the Zvezda module on ISS has now been scheduled for November 18, 2020, and NASA will be providing a live stream.
Live coverage of the Russian spacewalk will begin at 8:30 a.m. EST on NASA Television and the agency’s website. The spacewalk is expected to begin about 9:30 a.m.
Ryzhikov, designated extravehicular crew member 1 (EV1), will wear a Russian Orlan spacesuit with red stripes, and Kud-Sverchkov will wear a spacesuit with blue stripes as extravehicular crew member 2 (EV2). This will be the 47th Russian spacewalk for assembly and maintenance of the station.
During the spacewalk, Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov will first conduct leak inspections outside the hatch, as this will be the first spacewalk using the Poisk module for its purpose as an airlock. Next, they will relocate an antenna from another module, the Pirs docking compartment, to Poisk, the first in a series of tasks over the course of several spacewalks that will prepare Pirs for decommissioning, undocking, and disposal. The Earth-facing Pirs will be replaced by the new Russian Multipurpose Laboratory Module, named “Nauka,” Russian for “science,” which is being prepared for launch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
What they find could have a significant impact on the future of the space station.
Samara Ginsberg – Inspector Gadget for 8 cellos
An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
The disputed elections must recounted properly, or the states should refuse to certify the results
The signing of the Constitution in 1787.
The amount of evidence that there was clear election fraud in the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and Wisconsin continues to build.
For example, in Pennsylvania a review of absentee ballots found that 100,000 had suspicious postmarks, with 23,000 apparently postmarked one day but then marked by the election authorities as having arrived the day before, an impossibility. Tens of thousands of other absentee ballots had similar problems.
In Michigan numerous residents and poll workers have signed affidavits describing blatant violations of election law and suspicious behavior. In addition, one contractor witnessed poll workers rescanning the same votes repeatedly, essentially double counting those votes.
In Wisconsin thousands of absentee votes were submitted in a manner that required no voter identification.
In Georgia there is evidence that the software used to count the ballots is corrupted, or was corrupted, ending up switching many votes from Trump to Biden in what they innocently claim was merely a “glitch.” Worse, this “glitch” in election software has now been found to be exist in other states as well.
The list above is only a small sampling of the numerous stories in the past week of suspicious and well documented incidents of voter fraud. The problems in these states appears widespread and systemic. The election results are thus suspect.
According to the Constitution, the real arbiters of the election are the state legislatures. » Read more