Category: Behind The Black

Today’s blacklisted American: Black DEI administrator fired by college for demanding accuracy and color-blind policies

1:18 pm

Tabia Lee
Tabia Lee

They’re coming for you next: Tabia Lee, the faculty director for the Office of Equity, Social Justice, and Education [OESE] at De Anza College in California, was denied tenure and fired from her job when she repeatedly demanded historical accuracy and color-blind policies from both her department and the rest of the college.

“Historical accuracy and color-blind policies” from a modern college run by leftists? It is to laugh.

Tabia Lee is a black woman who had been an adjunct professor at De Anza when she got the job to run part of the OESE department.

After years of working as a middle-school teacher and an adjunct professor, and founding a network to help minority teachers attain national board certification, Lee was excited get a tenure-track position at De Anza, where her job includes designing workshops to promote inclusion. “I researched them, and I thought we had similar values around diversity, equity and anti-racism,” she said. “I was selected, and I was like, wow, this is a dream come true.”

Instead, Lee found herself constantly harassed and slandered because she tried to bring to her work an even-handed philosophy that attempted to deal with the problems of racial conflict fairly. For example, when Jewish students and faculty members told her they had experienced anti-Semitism on campus, Lee tried to organize a campus event to discuss the problem.
» Read more

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Ingenuity completes 48th flight on Mars

11:33 am

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

On March 21, 2023 the Mars helicopter Ingenuity successfully completed its 48th flight on Mars, flying 1,305 feet for 149.9 seconds with a top altitude of 39 feet. As has now become routine on all the recent flights, the distance and time in the air exceeded slightly the planned amounts, probably because Ingenuity needed slightly more time to find a good landing spot.

The link provides a very short movie created from images looking down during the flight.

The map to the right provides the context. The green dot and line indicates Ingenuity’s new position and flight path respectively. The blue dot marks Perseverance’s present location, a spot the mission planners had previously targeted as a prime place for obtaining core samples. The red dotted line shows the rover’s planned route.

Since the science team is now using Ingenuity for scouting purposes, its turn towards the rim of Belva Crater suggests they are considering this detour for Perseverance as well.

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NASA engineers continue to struggle to save the Flashlight lunar probe

10:30 am

In an update today, NASA reports that engineers continue to troubeshoot the failure of the experimental thrusters on the Lunar Flashlight cubesat, in an effort to improvise a way to get the probe into lunar orbit.

Shortly after launch on Dec. 11, 2022, the operations team for NASA’s Lunar Flashlight determined that three of the four CubeSat’s thrusters were underperforming. This cast doubt on whether the mission could complete its stretch science goal of detecting surface ice at the Moon’s South Pole. After analyzing the situation, team members at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Georgia Tech arrived at a creative maneuvering technique that would use the one fully-functioning thruster to get into planned orbit. But when attempting the modified maneuvers in January, that thruster also experienced a rapid loss in performance and the team determined that Lunar Flashlight would likely be unable to reach its planned near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon.

After further troubleshooting, the operations team has been working on ways to restore partial operation of one or more thrusters to keep the spacecraft within the Earth-Moon system. They have had some success but continue to try new things to clear the suspected obstructions in the thruster fuel lines. They have until the end of April to generate the required thrust to preserve the opportunity to allow for monthly flybys of the lunar South Pole.

Though it increasingly appears Lunar Flashlight will not make lunar orbit, the mission is not a failure, since it was first and foremost an engineering mission testing a variety of new cubesat technologies, including the failed thrusters. Their failure and the efforts by engineers to recover them is important data for developing better cubesat thrusters on future such planetary probes.

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SpaceX might get investment capital from Saudi and UAE investors

10:23 am

According to several reports in the business press, SpaceX is presently negotiating with investment companies in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to possibly provide additional investment capital to the company.

Citing two individuals reportedly familiar with the matter, The Information noted that Saudi Arabia’s Water and Electricity Holding Company, Badeel, and the United Arab Emirates’ Alpha Dhabi are participating in the funding round. Morgan Stanley is reportedly organizing the investment effort.

At present it is unknown how much would be invested. It is also unclear if this foreign investment in an American rocket company can pass muster with the U.S. State Department.

SpaceX has already raised about $10 billion in private investment capital as well as $4 billion from NASA for the development of Starship/Superheavy.

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Italy funds development by Avio of smallsat rocket and methane engine

10:13 am

In a move that might eventually separate Italy from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Arianespace commercial division, the Italian government on March 13, 2023 announced that it has committed $308 million to the Italian company Avio to develop both a methane-fueled engine and the smallsat rocket to go with it.

The money will be used by Avio on two projects, one to develop an upgraded version of its M10 methane-fueled engine that has already completed two dozen static fire tests, and the other to develop the smallsat rocket, with a targeted first launch in 2026.

While the investment is officially in partnership with the ESA, its wholly-Italian nature suggests in the end it will not be part of Arianespace, but function as an independent competing rocket operated and owned by Avio, which is also the company that developed Arianespace’s Vega family of rockets.

If Italy allows Avio to pull free of ESA and operate as a separate competing rocket company, it will do Europe a favor. Right now the monopolistic nature of ESA is preventing it from competing successfully in the new commercial launch market. Having separately owned and competing private companies will only energize this European industry, which has generally been moribund for years.

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First set of SpaceX’s second generation Starlink satellites experiencing issues

9:57 am

According to a tweet from Elon Musk yesterday, the first set of 21 larger second generation Starlink satellites, launched on February 27, 2023 by a Falcon 9 rocket, have experiencing “some issues.”

Some sats will be deorbited, others will be tested thoroughly before raising altitude above Space Station.

More information here.

Starting around March 15, their orbital altitude started to decrease at varying rates: most gradually, but at least two more steeply, descending to about 365 kilometers. All 21 remain in orbit, but that unusual behavior prompted speculation of problems with the satellites.

The second set of new Starlink satellites is scheduled for launch no earlier than March 30, 2023, but expect that launch to be delayed in order for SpaceX engineers to troubleshoot these issues and then apply what they have learned on the new satellites.

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Russia launches military satellite

9:50 am

Using its Soyuz-2 rocket, Russia today launched a classified military satellite into orbit, lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport in northern Russia.

The rocket flew north over the Arctic, with its first and second stages falling into the ocean.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

19 SpaceX
11 China
5 Russia
2 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads China in launches 21 to 11 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 21 to 18. SpaceX now trails the entire world combined, including American companies, 19 to 20.

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Second stage on Relativity’s first launch fails to fire

9:36 am

The first test launch of Relativity’s 3D rocket, Terran-1, achieved the mission’s minimum goals, with the first stage performing exactly as planned and the 3D-printed rocket successfully completing engine cut-off and stage separation.

At that point the second stage engine failed to fire, and the upper stage fell into the ocean.

I have embedded the live stream from last night below. The company had made it clear that their number one goal for this flight was getting that 3D-printed rocket through max-q, the time when the atmospheric pressures on the rocket are their greatest. In this area the launch was a success.

This was also the first American launch of a methane-fueled rocket, and it was fascinating seeing the difference in the rocket’s plumes from other fuel types. Terran-1’s engine plumes were a clear distinct blue, quite different from the white and smokey plumes produced by solid-fueled and kerosene-fueled rocket engines, and the almost invisible plume of space shuttle’s hydrogen-fueled engines.

As yet, no methane-fueled rocket has reached orbit, though two Chinese companies and Relativity have tried. SpaceX will try itself when it launches Superheavy/Starship.
» Read more

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Nena – 99 Luftballons

6:01 pm

An evening pause: This pretty 1983 German pop song so perfectly predicts the Biden administration’s silly overreaction to the Chinese spy balloons last month, and the really dangerous consequences that could have resulted.

The lyrics of the original German version tell a story: 99 balloons are mistaken for UFOs, causing a military General Officer to send pilots to investigate. Finding nothing but balloons, the pilots put on a large show of fire power. The display of force worries the nations along the borders and the war ministers on each side encourage conflict to grab power for themselves. In the end, a cataclysmic war results from the otherwise harmless flight of balloons and causes devastation on all sides without a victor.

Hat tip Jay, who is still off in the tropics doing ham radio stuff.

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Confused glaciers in a Martian crater

5:59 pm

Confused glaciers in a Martian crater
Click for original image.

Cool image time. The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on February 2, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and shows a strangely blobby crater in the northern mid-latitudes where glacial features are frequently found inside craters.

In this case however the glacier seems very confused. As this is in the northern hemisphere, you would expect glacial material to survive on the north-facing southern interior slopes of the crater, where there is year-round less sunlight. The mottled eroded terrain in the south part of the crater floor suggests this. However, the crater also clearly has a terraced glacier on its south-facing northern interior slopes.

Why has the glacial material survived in both places, but not in the center of the crater?

In addition, there is that strange roughly circular feature attached to the south side of the crater. What formed it? Is it a glacier on the plains surrounding the crater? Or are we looking at volcanic material?

This crater is also unique. The crater just to its southwest (partly seen in the cropped image above), is a much more typical glacial-filled mid-latitude crater, its interior material more evenly distributed and its circular rim only slightly distorted.
» Read more

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Pushback: Doctors blacklisted by government for disagreeing on its COVID mandate policies now fighting back

2:04 pm

Written by many of the doctors of the Norfolk Group
Correct from the start despite government censorship,
and written by many of the same doctors of the Norfolk Group

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Eight high-ranking doctors, many who were censored and blacklisted by the government and big social media outlets for daring to disagree with the government’s lockdown, masking,, and COVID jab mandates, have now issued a detailed report, dubbed the Norfolk Group report, outlining the many errors of those policies, as well as offering what the scientists call “a blueprint” for moving forward. From their introduction:

In separate chapters we summarize key background information and propose specific questions about failures to protect older high-risk Americans, about school closures, collateral lockdown harms, lack of robust public health data collected and/or made available, misleading risk communication, downplaying infection-acquired immunity, masks, testing, vaccine efficacy and safety, therapeutics, and epidemiological modeling.

We chose not to discuss economic issues, although we recognize that negative effects on the economy have long-term negative effects on public health. We have also chosen not to engage in issues regarding media handling of the pandemic, nor questions of how, when and why the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated. Public health responses to a pandemic are devised and implemented independently of viral origin.

» Read more

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No ice inside permanently shadowed crater near Moon’s south pole?

12:44 pm

Marvin crater as seen by Shadowcam
Click for original image.

Overview map

Using a camera on South Korea’s lunar orbiter Danuri, dubbed Shadowcam and designed to look into the permanently shadowed craters at the Moon’s poles, scientists have taken an image that sees into the forever dark region of one such crater.

The picture to the right, released on March 13, 2023 by the Shadowcam science team, is of the crater Marvin, located about 16 miles to the east of the south pole. The pink outline indicates the area that is thought to be permanently shadowed.

The second image to the right provides a wider view of the south pole region, with the craters labeled and outlined by the green lines. The orange lines mark permanently shadowed areas. The white box indicates the approximate area covered by the Shadowcam picture. One of the candidate landing sites for Starship, as part of NASA’s Artemis program, is the eastern rim of Shackleton, essentially at the south pole itself.

Previous data suggests that ice should be found in those permanently shadowed areas, because other orbiters have detected evidence of hydrogen there. The Shadowcam picture above however shows nothing that strongly suggests the presence of ice, unless that darker flat area on the floor of the crater is ice-infused dust. If so however, it is quite ancient and solid, based on the presence of several craters within it.

The press release makes no mention of this question, probably because the scientists are still analyzing the data. This first look however suggests the ice is not there, or is in a form that is going to require a lot of processing to extract the water from it.

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Samples from Ryugu found to contain uracil, one of the four nucleobases in RNA

11:02 am

Japanese researchers analyzing the samples returned by Hayabusa-2 from the rubble-pile asteroid Ryugu have identified the molecule uracil, one of the four nucleobases that form the molecule RNA.

Hayabusa 2 collected 5.4 grams from two spots on Ryugu and delivered them to Earth on December 6, 2020. Early studies showed the samples contained many organic compounds. That led Oba’s group to analyze two 10-milligram samples using the same sensitive technique they had used earlier on meteorites. The technique can detect nucleic acid bases at levels down to parts per trillion in small samples.

Now, they report in Nature Communications that uracil is present at a level of parts per billion in both Ryugu samples. While this concentration is different than they’d previously found in meteorites, Oba says that might be because the parent bodies of the meteorites and of Ryugu underwent different levels of aqueous alteration and other processes. They also detected niacin (vitamin B3) as well as other organic molecules, but they didn’t find any other nucleobases.

RNA is formed from four nucleobases, uracil, adenine, cytosine, and guanine. To form DNA, the fundamental building block of life, uracil is replaced by thymine.

This data reinforces other data that suggests the formation of these essential molecules for life is relatively common and easy, at least in our solar system.

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Dimorphus is dry, based on data obtained before and after DART hit it

10:52 am

Data collected by the ground-based Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile before and after the impact by the DART probe in September 2022 has revealed that the rubble-pile asteroid Dimorphos is very dry, with little or no water.

[The astronomers] observed the Didymos–Dimorphos system on 11 occasions, from just before the impact to about a month afterwards. MUSE [one of VLT’s instruments] is able to split the light from the double-asteroid into a spectrum, or rainbow, of colors, to look for emission at specific wavelengths that corresponds to specific molecules. In particular, Opitom’s team searched the ejecta for water molecules and for oxygen that could have come from the break-up of water molecules by the impact. However, no evidence of water was detected. Dimorphos, at least, seems to be a dry asteroid.

You can read the paper here.

Some theories prior to DART’s impact suggested that there could be ice within some inner solar system asteroids. Finding none instead suggests that inner solar system asteroids are very distinct and different from the icy comets and asteroids either coming from or orbiting in the outer solar system.

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Webb detects “hot sand clouds” in atmosphere of exoplanet

10:40 am

Using the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have detected “hot sand clouds” in atmosphere of exoplanet 40 light years away, along with evidence of water, methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sodium, and potassium.

You can read the paper here [pdf]. The exoplanet itself appears to have some features that resemble that of a brown dwarf, or failed star, instead of an exoplanet.

Although VHS 1256 b is more on the heavier side of the known exoplanets, its gravity is relatively low compared to more massive brown dwarfs. Such very low-mass stars can only burn deuterium for a relatively short duration. Consequently, the planet’s silicate clouds can appear and remain higher in its atmosphere, where the JWST can detect them. Another reason its skies are so turbulent is the planet’s age. In astronomical terms, it is pretty young. Only 150 million years have passed since it formed. The planet’s heat stems from the recent formation process – and it will continue to change and cool over billions of years.

The sand clouds are hot, in the range of 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

These results were obtained as part of an early-release program from Webb, and illustrate the potential of the infrared space telescope for learning many specific details about brown dwarfs and exoplanets.

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Russia’s Luna-25 unmanned lunar lander to be delivered to Vostochny in early June

10:23 am


Click for interactive map.

According to Russia’s state-run press, its Luna-25 unmanned lunar lander will finally be delivered to its launchsite in Vostochny in the first ten days of June 2023, after many years of delays.

The press announcement made no mention of a launch date after delivery, though according to an earlier report Roscosmos is aiming for a July 13, 2023 launch date.

The landing site on the Moon is Boguslawsky crater, as indicated by the green dot on the map to the right. If it occurs as planned, it will join three other landers now targeting 2023 lunar landings, Ispace’s Hakuto-R1, Intuitive Machines Nova-C, and India’s Chandrayaan-3, with three of four landing in the Moon’s south pole regions. The white cross marks the location of the south pole itself, on the rim of Shackleton Crater.

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Virgin Orbit resumes limited operations

10:12 am

In anticipation of a possibly deal to save the company, Virgin Orbit officials have resumed limited operations, bringing back a small number of employees to work on crucial issues required for its next launch.

“Our first step will begin Thursday of this week, when we plan to return a subset of our team to focus on critical areas for our next mission,” Virgin Orbit said in a statement. “We are looking forward to getting back to our mission and returning to orbit.”

…Reuters reported that Virgin Orbit is working on a $200 million infusion from Texas-based venture capital investor Matthew Brown via a private share placement, citing a term sheet. Following a meeting by Virgin Orbit’s board on Tuesday, the two sides plan to close the deal on Friday, according to the non-binding term sheet, Reuters said.

Should the company resume full operations and launch again, I am certain it will not launch from the United Kingdom, at least not until the UK has fixed its launch licensing bureau, the Civil Aviation Authority, which took so long to approve Virgin Orbit’s launch from Cornwall it practically bankrupted the company.

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Hakuto-R1 enters lunar orbit

10:05 am

Lunar map showing Hakuto-R1's landing spot
Hakuto-R1’s planned landing site is in Atlas Crater.

The lunar lander Hakuto-R1, privately-built by the Japanese company Ispace, has now successfully entered lunar orbit in anticipation of its landing sometime next month.

Tokyo-based ispace said that its HAKUTO-R Mission 1 lander entered orbit at 9:24 p.m. Eastern March 20 after a burn by its main engine lasting several minutes. The company did not disclose the parameters of the orbit but said that the maneuver was a success.

…Entering orbit is the seventh of 10 milestones ispace set for the mission that started with launch preparations. The final three milestones are completing “orbital control maneuvers,” the landing itself and going into a steady state of activities after landing.

The spacecraft carries several payloads, the most significant of which is the United Arab Emirates Rashid rover.

If Hakuto-R1 completes its 10 milestones successfully, it will lay the groundwork for Ispace’s second Hakuto-R mission to the Moon in 2024, and an even larger lander on a third mission to follow, this time built in partnership with the American company Draper and carrying NASA payloads.

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Betsy Palmer, Robert Goulet, & Bess Myerson – “I’ve got a secret”

6:01 pm

An evening pause: A slightly different pause tonight from a 1964 episode of the quiz show “I’ve got a secret.” Can you guess where the dialogue comes from that they perform at the opening of this segment, before they tell you? Also keep watching for a more accurate rendition, all done in a bit of silly good-natured fun.

Hat tip Diane Zimmerman, who recognized it instantly.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Vermont’s organization of principals bans Christian school for being Christian

1:16 pm

Mid Vermont Christian School: banned for supporting Christianity

They’re coming for you next: One month after administrators of Mid Vermont Christian School decided to default a game against a public high school girls team that had a boy in woman’s clothing as a player, citing safety and religious concerns, the Vermont Principals’ Association moved to ban that Christian school from all sports and sponsored activities.

Jay Nichols, the executive director of the Vermont Principals’ Association, said the organization’s 15-member executive board was unanimous in its decision. “If you don’t want to follow VPA rules, that’s fine,” Nichols said. “But then you’re just not a VPA member. It’s fairly simple. That’s really all we’re gonna really say about it.” [emphasis mine]

In its letter to Mid Vermont Christian, the VPA stated “…the school’s actions do not meet the expectations of the VPA’s 1st and 2nd policy, Commitment to Racial, Gender-Fair, and Disability Awareness and Policy of Gender Identity, respectively.”

If you want to know in detail what VPA’s 1st and 2nd policies are, you can read them here. The key quote is this:
» Read more

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A half-mile high Martian cliff on the verge of collapse

11:27 am

A half-mile Martian cliff on the verge of collapse
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on December 24, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows erosion gullies coming down off a mountain side, just north of a massive cliff that I estimate to be around 2,000 to 3,000 feet high.

Note the north-south-trending cracks. These suggest that this entire half-mile-high cliff face is slumping downward, cracking as it does so. The cracks at the start of the high flat-topped thumb-shaped mesa near the image bottom are especially intriguing. They suggest that this entire mesa might eventually separate and give way.

There is a specific reason this cliff face is slumping, as shown in the overview map below.
» Read more

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South Korean private rocket startup completes first suborbital rocket test

9:12 am

Innospace, a South Korean private rocket startup, on March 19, 2023 successfully completed the first test flight of a suborbital prototype, launching from Brazil’s Alcantara Launch Center.

The rocket flew for 4 minutes and 33 seconds before falling into the designated safety zone. The engine lasted for 106 seconds, which fell short of the previously planned 118 seconds, yet its performance was stable, according to Innospace. Hanbit-TLV, the test vehicle, is a 16.3-meter (53.5-foot) single-stage rocket designed to verify the performance of a 15-ton-thrust rocket engine developed by Innospace.

The company will now develop its full-scale orbital rocket, dubbed Hanbit-Nano, “capable of carrying 50-kilogram (110-pound) payload into space, equipped with a 15-ton-thrust hybrid engine powered by solid fuel and liquid oxidizer.” A 2024 launch is the goal, possibly from a new commercial spaceport in Norway.

More information here. The rocket also carried a payload for the Brazilian military, which is why by contract Innospace officials could not release the exact altitude reached by the rocket.

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A verde valley on Mars

12:59 pm

A verde valley on Mars
Click for original image.

In the southwest where I live, a valley dubbed “verde” (which means “green” in Spanish) is generally a place with a somewhat persistent river with lots of lush plant life. The Verde Valley in Arizona is the perfect example, with “close to 80% of the valley’s land … national forest.”

On Mars there is also a verde valley, but the name is not descriptive in the least. The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on January 22, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and shows one section of the Martian Verde Vallis, draining south to north.

The dark rippled patches inside this shallow canyon are sand dunes. In fact, though MRO has not taken many high resolution images of Verde Vallis, every one shows the valley with further patches of ripple dunes. See for example this image of a section of the valley just a bit farther north.
» Read more

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Pushback? University of North Carolina pretends to ban ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ requirements in hiring

11:51 am

Failure Theater!

They’re coming for you next: On February 23, 2023 the board of governors of the University of North Carolina voted to ban all requirements that applicants in hiring and admissions make statements advocating the racist political agenda of “diversity, equity and inclusion” [DEI].

The board stated the university “shall neither solicit nor require an employee or applicant for academic admission or employment to affirmatively ascribe to or opine about beliefs, affiliations, ideals, or principles regarding matters of contemporary political debate or social action as a condition to admission, employment, or professional advancement,” according to the resolution. An employee or applicant also can’t “be solicited or required to describe his or her actions in support of, or in opposition to, such beliefs, affiliations, ideals, or principles.”

According to the now-banned policy [pdf], anyone who wanted to either go to UNC as a student, or be hired or promoted there as a teacher, had to prove they had made a “positive contribution to DEI efforts.”
» Read more

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Blobs and jellyfish in space

10:00 am

Blobs and Jellyfish
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released today.

The galaxy JW100 features prominently in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, with streams of star-forming gas dripping from the disc of the galaxy like streaks of fresh paint. These tendrils of bright gas are formed by a process called ram pressure stripping, and their resemblance to dangling tentacles has led astronomers to refer to JW100 as a ‘jellyfish’ galaxy. It is located in the constellation Pegasus, over 800 million light-years away.

Ram pressure stripping occurs when galaxies encounter the diffuse gas that pervades galaxy clusters. As galaxies plough through this tenuous gas it acts like a headwind, stripping gas and dust from the galaxy and creating the trailing streamers that prominently adorn JW100. The bright elliptical patches in the image are other galaxies in the cluster that hosts JW100.

The image was part of a research project studying star formation in the tendrils of jellyfish galaxies.

The blob near the top of the image is another galaxy in this same galaxy cluster. It is an elliptical galaxy that also happens to have two central nuclei, caused when two smaller galaxies merged. The central regions of each have not yet merged into one.

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