August 23, 2016 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold. Lots of new vaporware stories, plus some heroic engineering in the planetary program.
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Category: Behind The Black
China unveils its 2020 Mars lander/rover
The competition heats up: China today released design concepts of its planned 2020 Mars lander and rover.
According to Ye Peijian, one of China’s leading aerospace experts and a consultant to the program, the 2020 mission will be launched on a Long March-5 carrier rocket from the Wenchang space launch center in south China’s Hainan province. The lander will separate from the orbiter at the end of a journey of around seven months and touch down in a low latitude area in the northern hemisphere of Mars where the rover will explore the surface.
If they succeed they will have definitely moved ahead of Russia in the ranks of space-faring nations.
Dooley Wilson – Knock on Wood
An evening pause: Just one of the continuous string of great scenes from the 1942 film, Casablanca, much of which is a silent interplay between the characters that only will make sense if you’ve seen the movie.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
The bigots in academia
Two stories today that only confirm what many other previous stories have shown: Modern academia is very bigoted, but instead of favoring white supremacy their focus is promoting black and minority rule.
The second story outlines efforts to create segregated housing and classrooms for the benefit of minorities at a number of different colleges.
It is important to remember that each one of these proposals is being put forth by leftwing academics, all of which I guarantee are partisan Democrats. All they can see is race, which is why they call anyone that disagrees with them a racist. Or to quote the Bible, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”
SpaceX tests parachutes for manned Dragon
The competition heats up: SpaceX last Friday successfully tested the parachute system for its manned Dragon capsule.
A video of the test can be seen here. They did not use an actual Dragon for the test.
Unknown new British company will fly space tourists in five years
Private vaporware: A new and previously completely unknown British rocket company, Starchaser, has claimed today that it will be flying tourists into space within three to five years.
How do I know this is vaporware and won’t happen? Besides the fact that I’ve never heard of this company before and that the story above includes a lot of fishy details (such as the head of the company has apparently most spent his time building large model rockets), there was this one quote:
The flight will only take an hour and will see the rocket reach around 330,000ft – ten times the average cruising altitude for an aeroplane flight.
An hour is too short for an orbital flight, and is much too long for a suborbital flight at 330,000 feet. In other words, something here is just not right. Regardless, I hope my cynicism here turns out to be wrong, and this company joins the new competition to lower costs into space.
Russia reveals its proposed new cargo spacecraft
Government vaporware: In an effort to save money Russian engineers have designed a new cargo spacecraft to replace the Progress freighter.
Faced with latest economic problems, and the need to reduce the number of Progress cargo launches, Russia’s space agency Roskosmos made plans to cut the permanent crew of ISS cosmonauts from three to two people. However the full international crew on the ISS is supposed to include six people with half of it reserved for Russia.
To resolve this supply problem, Roskosmos ordered RKK Energia, its key contractor responsible for human spaceflight, to prepare a preliminary design of a bigger cargo ship by the end of this month. Engineers quickly put together this proposal that would combine off-the-shelf hardware with new technology. … The most important new feature of the proposed cargo ship will be the six-tank cluster to carry more than 1.8 tons of propellant to the station. It will simultaneously serve as a tanker for the space station while also feeding the ship’s own propulsion system. As a result, the new design provides significant mass savings in comparison to the current Progress ships, which need two separate sets of tanks for refueling and maneuvering.
The main engine for the new cargo ship will be borrowed from an existing satellite. Meanwhile, 28 small thrusters for orbit correction and maneuvering will be copied practically unchanged from the Progress.
They hope to fly this new freighter by 2020. I’m willing to bet anyone that this won’t happen.
Lawsuit against Tucson and balloon company to proceed
A judge has ruled that 3 of 4 counts in a lawsuit against the deal between Tucson and the space balloon company World View can go forward.
The judge has also said that she will rule on the fourth count soon.
While the deal itself might be a great idea for Tucson, it does appear from the lawsuit that the city violated state laws in negotiating it. I suspect this suit to win eventually.
Pink Floyd – If
An evening pause: Animated in a very strange manner, with an unusual mix of artistic styles.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
By the way, I am as always looking for more evening pause suggestions. If you’ve suggested before, you know the routine. If not, place a comment here saying you’ve got something (but don’t include the link), and I’ll email you for it.
Contact re-established with dead solar satellite
Good news! After almost two years since contact was lost, NASA has re-established communications with Stereo-B, one of two solar research satellites designed to study the hemisphere of the Sun that does not face the Earth.
NASA re-established contact with a wayward sun-watching science satellite Sunday nearly two years after the spacecraft suddenly dropped off line during a test, the agency said in a statement Monday. NASA’s Deep Space Network, or DSN, “established a lock on the STEREO-B (spacecraft’s) downlink carrier at 6:27 p.m. EDT,” NASA said in a statement. “The downlink signal was monitored by the Mission Operations team over several hours to characterize the attitude of the spacecraft and then transmitter high voltage was powered down to save battery power. “The STEREO Missions Operations team plans further recovery processes to assess observatory health, re-establish attitude control and evaluate all subsystems and instruments.”
This is a big deal. Not only is it a testament to the spacecraft’s good design, it demonstrates the skill of the engineers at NASA who have regained contact.
Mars’ wet streaks might not be wet
The uncertainty of science: An analysis of five years of data from Mars Odyssey suggests that the dark streaks flowing down Martian slopes might contain very little and possibly no water at all.
This year, planetary scientists Christopher Edwards and Sylvain Piqueux took a closer look at the feature using a thermal imaging instrument on board Mars Odyssey, another orbiter. They found no temperature differences between the dark RSL streaks and surrounding terrain — which suggests that the streaks aren’t really patches of wet sand streaming down a slope. At best, they say, the RSLs could contain no more than 3 percent liquid water — making them more like mildly damp, slightly salty dirt. And that’s an optimistic interpretation, Edwards said; it’s possible the RSLs contain no water at all. “Why this process is happening in this area, or what is causing this darkening, I don’t think is exactly obvious at this point,” he continued. “But to say it’s flowing liquid water, I don’t think it’s the whole story. It’s not necessarily even the right story.”
This data once again illustrates why we must be very careful with our conclusions when looking at features on an alien world that seem to resemble things we are familiar with here on Earth. Just because they might look alike is not evidence that they are the same. Mars has a very different gravitational field (one-third of Earth’s) and a significantly different make-up. We might be witnessing processes we’ve never seen before that produce features that mimic Earthlike forms.
Beyond Murray Buttes
Time for a Curiosity update. Above is a panorama I’ve created from raw images released today from the rover’s left navigation camera of the mesa filled terrain within which Curiosity now sits. Since my last update they have traveled about 200 feet south, moving away from the mesa with the balanced rock
Below the fold is a Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image with Curiosity’s path indicated. I have marked the balanced rock with an X, and have indicated with the yellow lines the area covered by the panorama above.
They appear to be aiming due south for the narrow gap between the long ridge-like mesas. This will bring Curiosity out into the open and sloping terrain that can be seen in the distance in the last image of my last update. I suspect they want to get a closer look at those parallel grooves, even if it means the journey will be a little rougher.
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By 2017 one-third of U.S will have no Obamacare insurance choices
Finding out what’s in it: Due to the collapse of the Obamacare exchanges, by 2017 one-third of U.S will have no health insurance choices.
Seven entire states are projected to have just one carrier in 2017: Alaska, Alabama, Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wyoming, according to research by the Avalere consultancy. And more than half of the country, 55 percent, may end up having two or fewer insurers to choose from on those government-run exchanges, Avalere said. “And there may be some sub-region counties where no plans are available,” a report by Avalere on its analysis found.
I must remind people once again that Obamacare was a law written and pushed through entirely by the Democratic Party and President Obama. The Republican Party, even its generally pro-government leadership, refused to have anything to do with it, noting repeatedly that the law, as written, made no sense and was guaranteed to cause the collapse of the health insurance industry. We are now seeing that happen.
Of course, this means we must all vote Democratic, because their desire to fix the problem by turning the health industry into a nationalized government-run operation, not dissimilar to the Motor Vehicle Department of your state, is obviously the only solution. And you are obviously a racist for disagreeing!
Dione’s global geology
Cool image time! The picture of Saturn’s moon Dione, taken by Cassini in April 2015 and reduced in size to show here, shows a range of global tectonic geological features. The impact craters we of course understand, but the white linear features are more puzzling. They are probably related to a heating and cooling process, but the full nature of that process is at present not fully understood. Tidal effects and the planet’s cooling over time both contributed, but to what extent is not yet known. Add on top of that the violent effect of impact and the process gets even more complicated. Moreover, do the linear features suggest present geological activity, or are they evidence of past events? Your guess is as good as mine.
Russia announces it is building “a super-heavy-class rocket”
Government vaporware: Roscomos announced today that it has started design work on “a super-heavy-class rocket” that it plans to launch in 5 to 7 years.
And if you really believe this rocket will launch by 2023 I have this great bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.
The world’s longest and highest glass-bottomed bridge
Link here. Lots of great pictures of this new pedestrian bridge in China, including one of a reporter trying (and failing) to use a sledge hammer to break the glass.
China’s economy might have a lot of holes and might face collapse, as many experts have been telling me for years, but at the same time they seem to be successfully harnessing the success they’ve had in the past few decades to get very creative. That creativity suggests to me the collapse is not guaranteed, and will not be as severe as predicted.
SpaceX’s first recovered first stage placed on display
The competion on display: SpaceX has installed its first recovered first stage on permanent display outside the company’s offices in California.
The link includes a lot of pictures showing the installation process, where they used a crane to place the stage upright.
August 19, 2016 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold. Batchelor’s title sums it up: “NASA Asteroid Vaporware. Roscosmos Lunar Vaporware.”
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Astronauts attach new U.S. docking port to ISS
During a spacewalk today American astronauts installed a new docking port on ISS to serve as one of the ports for the manned capsules being built by SpaceX and Boeing.
A second port will be installed in 2018, allowing both capsules to dock at the station simultaneously.
Küzdők
An evening pause: A short, simple and thoughtful 1977 Czechoslovakian animated film by Jankovics Marcell.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.