Category: Behind The Black

EPA to NASA: We intend to regulate how you dispose ISS, and that’s only the start

12:47 pm

The FAA to SpaceX
The EPA and its supporters to the American space industry:
“Nice industry you got here. Sure would be a shame if
something happened to it.”

It appears the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a number of activist groups are now lobbying for the right to regulate whether anything in orbit can be de-orbited into the oceans, beginning with how NASA plans to dispose of the International Space Station (ISS) when the station is de-orbited into the ocean sometime before 2030.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is evaluating how the disposal of the International Space Station into the ocean will need to be regulated but has not shared the details of any specific concerns or aspects of regulation. “EPA’s Office of Water is coordinating with the Office of General Counsel on this complex issue. The agency does not have a timeline for this evaluation,” EPA spokeswoman Dominique Joseph told SpaceNews.

“Sixty-six years of space activities has resulted in tens of thousands of tons of space debris crashing into the oceans,” said Ewan Wright, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of British Columbia and a junior fellow of the Outer Space Institute, an interdisciplinary group of experts working on emerging space sustainability issues.

While Wright is later quoted as saying that disposal in the ocean is “the least worst option,” the article at the link includes quotes from several other academics, all claiming that such an option must be stopped at all costs, because it threatens to “cause great damage” to the ocean. These “experts” make this claim by comparing ISS’s de-orbit with the dumping of old ammunition from World War I as well as plastic forks now.
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China launches what it claims is “high-orbit internet services satellite”

12:17 pm

China today successfully launched what its state-run press claimed was “high-orbit internet services satellite,” its Long March 3B rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages and strap-on boosters crashed inside China. All use toxic hypergolic fuels.

As for the payload, this tweet from a independent reporter on China’s space program questions the claim that it is a communications satellite. Since China has told us nothing, we really know nothing. However, if it was really what its state-run press says it is, China would normally release a bit more information.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

96 SpaceX
45 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 113 to 68, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 96 to 85.

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Vast unveils its first preliminary design for the interior of its Haven-1 space station

12:08 pm

Artist's rendering of Haven-1 interior
Artist’s rendering of Haven-1 interior.
Click for original.

Vast today revealed its first preliminary design for the interior of its Haven-1 space station that it hopes to launch in the second half of 2026 and immediately occupy with four astronauts for a 30-day mission.

After docking with a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, Haven-1 crew members open the Haven-1 exterior hatch and are greeted by a sleek, functional layout upon entry. A real-time display shows the station status with temperature and lighting controls, and optimized cargo compartments ensure essential supplies are stored efficiently. Notably, Haven-1’s interior surfaces are soft and padded to provide an added safety component for crew and visitors as they float throughout.

Above and below the corridor, the station’s four private crew quarters offer astronauts a space to rest and recharge. Slightly larger than the crew quarters aboard the ISS, these expanded personal rooms are uniquely designed to allow for changing, entertainment, online communication with loved ones back on Earth (enabled by SpaceX Starlink connectivity), and, most importantly, a good night’s rest. Experience has shown that sleeping in space can be a restless endeavor. Maximizing sleep efficiency and comfort remains critical to the overall experience aboard the Vast station. Historically, zero gravity sleep has been uncomfortable for astronauts due to a lack of standardized and consistent restraint systems during weightless sleep and a deficit in the distributed gravity forces humans are accustomed to on Earth. Vast’s patent-pending signature sleep system is roughly the size of a queen bed, provides a customized amount of equal pressure throughout the night, and accommodates side and back sleepers alike.

Additionally, each room features a built-in storage compartment, vanity, and a custom amenities kit

Beyond the corridor with the crew quarters is a common area which also includes a laboratory rack system on one wall, where experiments can be installed, monitored, and performed.

Overall the interior of this single module station in many ways harks back to the early Soviet Salyut stations, as the amount of interior space is somewhat comparable. One feature of Vast’s design however that is truly original is the use of “genuine safety-tested, fire-resistant maple wood veneer slats” on the interior’s walls.

Though definitely designed with that 30-day mission in mind, this first release clearly looks preliminary, with the graphics appearing far simpler than things will look in reality.

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Judge rules for 9-year-old Kansas City Chiefs fan, allowing his lawsuit against Deadspin to go forward

11:31 am

Holden Armenta on his way to the Superbowl
Holden Armenta in face-paint and headdress,
on his way to the Superbowl in February. Click for video.

In a ruling earlier this week, a Delaware judge rejected the motion of the news organization Deadspin to dismiss the lawsuit by 9-year-old Holden Armenta that accuses the news organization of falsely slandering the boy as a racist and bigot.

This story is just another example of the legacy of hate that came out of the Obama era, whereby leftists decided they had the right to slander and defame anyone they wanted, simply for political gain. In this case Deadspin writer Carron Phillips had in an article unjustly accused this child of being a racist because he attended a game wearing facepaint.

Phillips wrote the child was wearing blackface, and Deadspin helped Phillips push this lie by printing a picture that only showed the black side of Armenta’s face. A head-on shot showed his facepaint had nothing to do with blackface, but was a typical example of what many football fans do, paint their faces with the colors of their team. The right side of the boy’s face was painted black, the left side red.

What made the slander even more egregious is that Holden is an American Indian, with his grandfather, Raul Armenta, on the board of the Chumash Tribe in Santa Ynez, California. Deadspin and Phillips further worsened the situation by refusing to take down the story. Phillips even went so far as to further accuse the boy of bigotry against American Indians by the use of the red face paint!

Deadspin, which shortly after its slanderous behavior was sold to a foreign company which then fired its entire staff, had attempted to get the Armenta lawsuit dismissed, claiming that Phillips’ article was simply an “opinion,” not a statement of a false fact that was libelous. Superior Court Judge Sean Lugg bluntly rejected that argument, allowing the lawsuit to now go forward.
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Viewing Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS when it enters the evening sky

9:20 am

Link here. For those living in the northern hemisphere, Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS will be bright and visible to the naked eye just after sunset beginning tomorrow.

“As soon as October 11th, ambitious comet spotters may pick up the comet during twilight just above the western horizon,” says Sky & Telescope Contributing Editor Bob King. “Binoculars will help you see the comet throughout its appearance.”

About 40 minutes after sunset on Friday, find a spot with a good view down to the western horizon. The first thing that will catch your eye will be the bright planet Venus, the Evening Star — that’s your starting point. Hold your fist out at arm’s length; the comet is about 2½ fists to Venus’s right. The comet will still look tiny in Friday’s twilight — like a hazy star with a small tail — and will set while twilight is still in progress.

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (pronounced choo-cheen-SHAHN) will remain visible for the next ten days, with the best viewing likely from October 13th to October 16th.

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Jupiter’s Great Red Spot appears to jiggle like Jello on a 90-day cycle

9:07 am

Jupiter as seen by Hubble over time
Click for original image.

Using the Hubble Space Telescope to photograph Jupiter’s Great Red Spot repeatedly over a four month period from December 2023 to March 2024 scientists have detected a 90-day cycle in which the spot oscillated in shape, shaking like Jello.

“While we knew its motion varies slightly in its longitude, we didn’t expect to see the size oscillate. As far as we know, it’s not been identified before,” said Amy Simon of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, lead author of the science paper published in The Planetary Science Journal. “This is really the first time we’ve had the proper imaging cadence of the GRS. With Hubble’s high resolution we can say that the GRS is definitively squeezing in and out at the same time as it moves faster and slower. That was very unexpected, and at present there are no hydrodynamic explanations.”

The four images to the right are some of those observations. For a full movie showing the changes over ninety days, go here.

The scientists also predict that though the spot has been shrinking for decades, they expect that shrinkage to stop once the spot size no longer extends beyond the jet stream band within which it sits. At that point the different jet streams in the upper and lower bands will hold the spot in place and its size will stabilize.

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The bad consequences to the bad COVID policies in 2020 continue to pile up

2:27 pm

Lysenko with Stalin
Trofim Lysenko (on the left), preaching to Stalin as he destroyed
Soviet plant research by persecuting anyone who disagreed with him,
thus causing famines that killed millions. He is now the role model for
today’s entire government health community.

Three stories this week illustrate once again that not only did none of the governmental actions imposed by our “betters” during the COVID panic in 2020 work, they are now resulting in long term harm across large populations.

First there was a study of 1.7 million children that found a marked increase in serious heart problems in children who got the jab.

Their research confirmed a large body of evidence showing links between the COVID-19 shots and myocarditis and pericarditis, particularly in adolescents. The research also confirmed that even in 2021, when the vaccine was first authorized for children and teens, that age group did not face a high risk for COVID-19-related serious outcomes, including death or the need for emergency care, hospitalization or critical care.

You can read the paper here [pdf]. Fortunately, the study also found no deaths in either group from these heart conditions, and that new heart ailments among the jabbed children were rare. Nonetheless, the study found solid evidence that the jab caused some harm while doing little to prevent COVID. As noted in the first link:
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Monitoring a changing spot on Mars

1:12 pm

Monitoring a changing landscape on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on July 18, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Based on its label, “Dark Filamentary Streak Year-Round Monitor Site in Promethei Terra,” it was apparently taken as part of a long-term project to monitor the changes that occur at this particular spot on Mars.

This monitoring began in 2008, not long after MRO began science operations. In that first image, taken in the Martian autumn, almost the entire terrain was covered with dust devil tracks, all running more-or-less parallel to each other in a northwest-to-southeast direction.

That unusual tiger-striped landscape prompted later monitoring. However, a follow-up photo in 2010, also in autumn, showed practically no dust tracks here at all. Another image, taken in 2011 during the Martian summer, showed new dust devil tracks, but instead of being aligned as in 2008, the tracks went in all directions, with only a hint of alignment to the southeast.
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Astronomers find another galaxy that shouldn’t be there in the early universe

9:44 am

REBELS-25
Click for original image.

The uncertainty of science: Using ground-based telescopes, astronomers have identified a galaxy only 700 million years after the Big Bang that is far more organized and coherent in shape and structure than thought possibly that soon after the theorized creation of the universe.

The galaxy in question is dubbed REBELS-25. It is at a red shift of z=7.31, which means that it is from a time when the universe was only 700 million years old. The earliest galaxies ever seen are only a few hundred million years older.

REBELS by name rebel by nature. This odd galaxy has stumped astronomers because it shows evidence of an ordered structure and rotation. It may even have a central elongated bar and spiral arms, though further observation is needed to confirm these structures.

This is in contrast to the small, messy, lumpy and chaotic norm for galaxies of a similar age. “According to our understanding of galaxy formation, we expect most early galaxies to be small and messy looking,” says co-author Jacqueline Hodge, an astronomer at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

You can read the published paper here [pdf]. The picture to the right shows this galaxy as seen by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile.

The consensus view of the early universe said there would not have been enough time for such a structured galaxy to form. And yet as astronomers use the improved astronomical instrumentation of our time to look deeper and deeper at that early universe, they keep finding things — like this galaxy — that defy that consensus view.

The answer to this mystery remains unknown, and is likely not yet answerable with the data we presently have. The data we do have however is beginning to suggest that scientists might have to begin looking at fundamentally different theories as to the inital formation of the universe. The Big Bang might still work, but if so it might require a major rewrite.

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