Player – Baby Come Back
An evening pause: Hat tip Cotour.
Category: Behind The Black
Donations and applications to Harvard drop significantly
Harvard: where you can spend a lot of money
and still get a shoddy education
According to Harvard, donations to the university in 2024 dropped more than $151 million from donations the previous year, with other indications that overall donors and students are fleeing the university due to its anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas, racist DEI, pro-plagiarism, and anti-free speech policies.
Total donations were down by $151 million, or 14%, in fiscal 2024 from the prior year. Within that total, donations to Harvard’s endowment fell by nearly $193 million from a year ago, while donations for current use gifts increased by $42 million in that time frame.
The drop in donations won’t leave Harvard bankrupt, as it still has more than $53 billion in its endowment, giving it a strong foundation for survival, in the near term, if donations dry up entirely.
And they might.
Bill Ackman, a billionaire Harvard alum, said in December that Gay’s “failures have led to billions of dollars of canceled, paused and withdrawn donations to the university. … I am personally aware of more than a billion dollars of terminated donations from a small group of Harvard’s most generous Jewish and non-Jewish alumni,” Ackman said.
More significant however was the 17% decline in student applications as of December 2023. Though the numbers still exceeded application numbers from before the COVID epidemic, the drop now suggests students have reviewed the reality of this college versus its fantasy, and are now beginning to reject it.
Eventually Harvard will have to fix its bankrupt DEI policies as well as diversify its faculity so that not every teacher and staff member is a pro-Hamas anti-Semite who considers America the devil incarnate and all western civilization nothing more than an expression of “white supremacy.” (I know I am exaggerating but I also know sadly not by much.) If it doesn’t it will certainly fade from view, as students find more viable colleges, knowing that a degree from this bankrupt university will no longer get them the high level jobs they want.
October 21, 2024 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
- Amazon requests temporary authority from FCC to operate one of its two Kuiper test satellites in a lower orbit for six month [pdf]
The original plan was to lower the orbits of both satellites just prior to de-orbiting. Amazon now wants to do additional orbital communications testing with one satellite at this lower orbit for six months.
- Stoke Space touts its new vertical engine static fire test stand
The company is doing final tests of the stand before actual engine tests.
- Russia touts mock-ups of its Oryol manned capsule intended to replace Soyuz
Note that these are “mock-ups”, not the real thing. Oryol was first proposed in 2009 and isn’t supposed to launch until 2028. In other words, Russia is taking about as long as it took NASA to create a new manned capsule. And both are demonstrating their incompetence as they do so.
Intelsat satellite breaks up in geosynchronous orbit
An Intelsat communications satellite launched in 2016 has broken up in its high geosynchronous orbit, scattering into as many as 57 pieces of debris.
“U.S. Space Forces-Space (S4S) has confirmed the breakup of Intelsat 33E (#41748, 2016-053B) in GEO on October 19, 2024, at approximately 0430 UTC,” states an alert posted on SpaceTrack, the U.S. Department of Defense’s space-tracking platform. “Currently tracking around 20 associated pieces – analysis ongoing. S4S has observed no immediate threats and is continuing to conduct routine conjunction assessments to support the safety and sustainability of the space domain.”
Douglas Hendrix, CEO of ExoAnalytic Solutions, said the U.S.-based space-tracking company identified 57 pieces of debris Oct. 21 associated with the breakup. “We are warning operators of any spacecraft that we think are at risk of collision,” Hendrix said via email.
This satellite, which served Europe, Africa, and parts of Asia, has had thruster issues since launch, suggesting the breakup might have been caused by similar issues.
At the moment is is unclear whether the debris will threaten other satellites in geosynchronous orbit.
The break-up once again highlights the profit potential for companies capable of removing such space junk. Communications companies like Intelsat as well as others in close orbits would certainly be willing to pay someone to clean things up, for many reasons.
Perseverance’s future increasingly rocky road
Click for original image.
Though nothing in any image so far from the Mars rover Perseverance matches the rocky terrain that the rover Curiosity has been traversing for the past two years as it climbs Mount Sharp in Gale Crater, as Perseverance has been climbing up the rim of Jezero Crater in the past few weeks it is beginning to get a hint of a future rougher road.
The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here and taken on October 20, 2024 by one of the rover’s high resolution cameras, is a good example. It looks uphill in the direction that the rover will travel. Note how as you go higher the ground appears to be more strewn with rocks and boulders. Another image, taken the same day by the rover’s high resolution camera, shows a close-up of an even more boulder-covered landscape.
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A galaxy squashed as it plows its way through the intergalactic medium
Click for original image.
Time for another cool image on this relatively slow day in the space news business. The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released today by the European Space Agency’s press department. From the caption:
Appearances can be deceiving with objects so far from Earth — IC 3225 itself [the galaxy to the right] is about 100 million light-years away — but the galaxy’s location suggests some causes for this active scene, because IC 3225 is one of over 1300 members of the Virgo galaxy cluster. The density of galaxies in the Virgo cluster creates a rich field of hot gas between them, the so-called ‘intracluster medium’, while the cluster’s extreme mass has its galaxies careening around its centre in some very fast orbits. Ramming through the thick intracluster medium, especially close to the cluster’s centre, places an enormous ‘ram pressure’ on the moving galaxies that strips gas out of them as they go.
IC 3225 is not so close to the cluster core right now, but astronomers have deduced that it has undergone this ram pressure stripping in the past. The galaxy looks as though it’s been impacted by this: it is compressed on one side and there has been noticeably more star formation on this leading edge, while the opposite end is stretched out of shape. Being in such a crowded field, a close call with another galaxy could also have tugged on IC 3225 and created this shape. The sight of this distorted galaxy is a reminder of the incredible forces at work on astronomical scales, which can move and reshape even entire galaxies!
What makes the impact on this galaxy of that intercluster medium so astonishing is that medium is so relatively empty of material. The space between galaxies in the Virgo cluster is in all intents and purposes a vacuum far more empty than any that we can create in a chamber on Earth. And yet it was enough to distort this galaxy and cause star formation on the galaxy’s leading edge.
Young lava on the Moon?
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on November 27, 2023 by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and was today featured by the science team. From their caption:
One of the early findings from the LRO mission was the discovery of volcanic features known as Irregular Mare Patches (IMPs) scattered across the nearside. These landforms are generally considered volcanic. However, their ages are hotly debated. They may be as young as 50 million years or as old as 3.5 billion years. The Aristarchus IMP (25.045°N, 313.233°E) is one of the smallest and most enigmatic IMP. The fact that this IMP is found within the Aristarchus crater ejecta suggests it formed after the crater, which is dated at 200 million years.
Alternatively, this IMP may have formed as part of ejecta emplacement from the Aristarchus crater forming impact. However, no other crater ejecta on the Moon exhibits a similar landform.
Astronomers for decades before and since Sputnick have reported what appears to be some activity in the Aristachus region, though none of those reports have ever been confirmed. In LRO’s long mission orbiting the Moon it has not yet detected any obvious changes there, suggesting that there is little or no present activity. These patches however appear to indicate activity in the relatively recent past.
The patches however also indicate activity that seems alien. Why would the lava form in this manner, as rough patch of knobs, sometimes aligned, sometimes not?
Oman: 1st launch from Duqm spaceport by the end of the year
According to an announcement yesterday Oman plans to complete its first launch before the end of 2024 from its proposed new spaceport near the city of Duqm on the Indian coast.
The map to the right indicates its location. Oman has dubbed the spaceport Etlaq, and it is being run by what Oman claims is a private company, the National Aerospace Services Company (NASCOM), but based on what little I can find out, it appears either to be Oman’s space agency, or a variation of the pseudo-companies in China, privately run but very tightly controlled and owned by government officials.
The announcement provided no information about the rocket or launch, which I suspect will be nothing more than a relatively simple suborbital mission, designed to demonstrate they are serious about this spaceport. The news story at the link shows a picture of a very sophisticated rocket resembling India’s GSLV rocket. I think it is a AI image having nothing to do with reality.
This project was first announced in 2023, with more information released in January 2024. It hopes to attract American rocket companies by claiming it is being built to FAA standards.
SpaceX successfully launches twenty OneWeb satellites
SpaceX tonight successfully launched twenty OneWeb satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its seventh flight, landing back at Vandenberg. The fairing halves completed their eleventh and thirteenth flights respectively.
SpaceX has done several launches for OneWeb, the chief competitor to its own Starlink constellation. It won the contract when Russian invaded the Ukraine and — in response to new sanctions imposed by Europe — refused to launch a planned OneWeb launch while confiscating the satellites. OneWeb responded by cancelling its last six Soyuz launches, worth as much as a billion dollars, and signed SpaceX and India’s space agency ISRO instead.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
102 SpaceX
46 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 119 to 69, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 102 to 86.
Good news: The European Union’s space law is delayed
According to comments by one official of the European Union (EU) at a conference in Italy this week, its proposed space law has been delayed and will not be ready for publication in 2024, as previously promised.
It appears the delay is mostly because of what appear to be complex objections to this law from many of the EU’s many member nations.
Ten of the European Union’s 27 member states “have a full-fledged national space law addressing private-sector operation,” Von der Dunk said. The national laws cover authorization and supervision of commercial activities under Article VI of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.
The EU’s authority to promote scientific progress and the industrial competitiveness of member states comes from the 2007 Lisbon Treaty. That authority is limited, though. “The commission has to make an argument why [space law] should be treated at the EU level, as opposed to the national level,” Von der Dunk said. [emphasis mine]
As I noted in April 2024 when the release of the EU’s space law was pushed back until the summer of 2024 (which by the way did not happen), those member nations do not wish to give the EU that authority, as the EU’s track record in these kinds of matters is heavy regulation and a lot or red tape, all designed to give it power and squelch private enterprise.
It appears those member nations are acting to block this law, and appear to be succeeding. My guess is that Germany, France, Spain, and Italy are the main opponents, all of which have their own space laws in place and are now developing viable private commercial rocket and spacecraft companies. They don’t want the EU’s busy hands anywhere close to these businesses, because they expect it to squash them if it gets the chance.
Space Force awards SpaceX big launch contract
Space Force yesterday awarded SpaceX a $733 million contract for what appears to be a total of eight future launches of military and national security payloads.
Few details were released about the payloads, including the launch timeline. The deal was issued as part of the military launch contracting system, which in June named SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin as its launch providers for the next five years.
However, one official’s comment appeared to suggest this contract award was the military’s expression of disgust at the delays at ULA and Blue Origin in getting their rockets launchworthy.
“In this era of Great Power Competition, it is imperative to not leave capability on the ground,” Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, program executive officer for Assured Access to Space, said in an emailed statement on Friday. “The Phase 3 Lane 1 construct allows us to execute launch services more quickly for the more risk-tolerant payloads, putting more capabilities on orbit faster in order to support national security,” Panzenhagen added. [emphasis mine]
In other words, the Space Force wanted to split this contract between the three companies, but it decided to give it all to SpaceX because it expected any launches given to ULA and Blue Origin would not launch on time, and it didn’t want “to leave [that] capability on the ground.”
In the case of ULA, its Vulcan rocket finally made its first two launches this year, four years late, but on the second launch had a failure on one of its solid-fueled strap-on boosters (the nozzle fell off). Though the rocket successfully placed its dummy payload into the correct orbit, the military has either decided that it can’t yet certify Vulcan for military launches, or sees further delays while the investigation and fixes are installed.
As for Blue Origin, its New Glenn rocket is also four years behind schedule, and likely won’t launch until next year. To get it certified will also probably require two launches, and since that company never seems to be in a hurry to do anything (NASA removed its payload from New Glenn’s first launch because the company had failed to meet the required interplanetary launch window), the Pentagon probably decided it can’t give it any contracts at this time.
And so, more launches and profits for SpaceX. While it is great for that company, with revenue that will likely aid in developing Starship/Superheavy, this is not a healthy situation for the American space industry. As a nation we need more than one launch provider. We need these other companies to stop dithering around and get the job done. That’s the true American way. Have they forgotten how to do it?
October 18, 2024 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
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