Category: Behind The Black

How park volunteers in Tucson illustrated the growing resentment to unjustified authority

11:23 am

Forest Service discovers it ain't our lord and master
Forest Service discovers it ain’t
our lord and master

Recently the National Forest Service suspended its agreement with a volunteer organization, the Santa Catalina Volunteer Patrol, which had unpaid volunteers wear a forest service uniform with a volunteer patch, rather than a badge, and patrol within Sabino Canyon and other Forest Service trails near Tucson, answering questions for the public.

The reasons why the volunteer patrol was suspended were not described initially, except for vague statements that the volunteers needed “retraining.”

This drastic action is needed because we have patrollers not following our Forest Service Agreement, and any additional violations will result in our charter being removed. All patrollers will be required to go through retraining.

This past weekend that suspension was lifted, with the announcement giving a better explanation as to the cause of the suspension.
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Vast to compete with Axiom for NASA’s limited slots for commercial manned missions to ISS

9:40 am

The private space station company Vast, the only one presently building its own space station without a NASA contract, has now announced that it intends to to compete with Axiom for the limited docking slots NASA has made available for commercial manned tourist missions to ISS.

During a panel discussion at the Federal Aviation Administration Commercial Space Transportation Conference Feb. 21, Max Haot, chief executive of Vast, said his company would bid on the fifth and sixth private astronaut missions, or PAMs, that NASA offers to companies seeking to flying commercial missions to the ISS. “From our point of view, it will make us a better space station builder, a better partner of NASA, and it will help us practice a lot of the disciplines we are building” for its future commercial stations, he said of Vast’s plan to bid on the missions.

Up until now, Axiom has had no competition for those limited docking opportunities, has flown two missions, with a third planned for this fall. All it needed to do is negotiate the rental fees with NASA for using ISS. Now NASA will need to open up bidding for those slots. Its job is not to play favorites, but to instead make its taxpayer-funded facilities available to as many private companies as possible. Whether it will do so is at present unclear.

Vast’s own space station, a single module to be launched on SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy, dubbed Haven-1, is scheduled for launch next year according to Vast officials. If so (assuming SpaceX’s rocket is operational by then), Vast will be the first private space station in orbit, beating Axiom and the two consortiums building Orbital Reef and Starlab. And it will have done it without taxpayer money.

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Webb: Infrared data sees neutron star remaining after 1987 supernova, the nearest in more than 4 centuries

9:29 am

Webb's infrared view of Supernova 1987a
Click for original image.

Using the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have obtained infrared data that confirms the existence of a neutron star at the location of Supernova 1987a, located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the nearest such supernova in more than four centuries and the only one visible to the naked eye since the invention of the telescope.

Indirect evidence for the presence of a neutron star at the center of the remnant has been found in the past few years, and observations of much older supernova remnants — such as the Crab Nebula — confirm that neutron stars are found in many supernova remnants. However, no direct evidence of a neutron star in the aftermath of SN 1987A (or any other such recent supernova explosion) had been observed, until now.

…Spectral analysis of the [Webb] results showed a strong signal due to ionized argon from the center of the ejected material that surrounds the original site of SN 1987A. Subsequent observations using Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) IFU at shorter wavelengths found even more heavily ionized chemical elements, particularly five times ionized argon (meaning argon atoms that have lost five of their 18 electrons). Such ions require highly energetic photons to form, and those photons have to come from somewhere.

That “somewhere” has to be a neutron star, based on present theories. The image above shows three different Webb views of Supernova 1987a, with the one on the lower right suggesting the existence of a point source at the center of the supernova remnant. In the left image the circular ring of bright spots is an older ring of dust and material that has been lit up by the crash of the explosive material (as indicated in blue at the center) flung out from the star when it went supernova and collapsed into a neutron star. That wave of explosive material took several decades to reach the ring and enflame it.

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SpaceX and China complete launches

9:11 am

Both SpaceX and China today successfully completed launches.

First, SpaceX launched 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage flew its 19th mission, landing successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific, and tying the record for the most flights for a Falcon 9 booster.

Then, China launched a classified military satellite using its biggest rocket, the Long March 5, lifting off from its coastal spaceport in Wenchang. It remains unclear if China now has the ability to restart the engines on that rocket’s core stage, which reaches orbit, is large enough to survive re-entry, and has previously crashed uncontrolled, with one return barely missing the New York metropolitan area. If not, then this core stage carries a threat, as will the four or so other launches of the Long March 5 that China plans later this year.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

17 SpaceX
9 China
2 Iran
2 India
2 Rocket Lab
2 Japan
2 Russia

American private enterprise presently leads the entire world combined 20 to 17 in successful launches, while SpaceX by itself is tied 17-17 with the rest of the world (excluding other American companies).

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Dire Straits – Sultans Of Swing

6:01 pm

An evening pause: It has been six years since I posted Dire Straits performing this song, and that version is now gone on Youtube. Time to post it again, especially because this official music video focuses so nicely on the performance itself.

Hat tip Cotour.

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Odysseus appears to have landed successfully

4:57 pm

The privately built Odysseus lunar lander appears to have landed successfully near the south pole of the Moon, though ground controllers have not yet gotten full confirmation that all systems are functioning.

As stated by the mission director, after noting that they were getting a faint signal from the lander’s high gain antenna:

All stations, this is mission director on IM-1. We are evaluating how we can refine that signal and dial in the pointing for our dishes. What we can confirm without a doubt is that our equipment is on the surface of the Moon and we are transmitting. So congratulations IM team. We’ll see how much more we can get from that.

Shortly thereafter the company and NASA ended the live stream.

At this time they do not yet know exactly where the lander touched down, or whether it did so without damage. The signal from the high gain antenna suggests the communications system is intact as well as the antenna, but the lack of further confirmation suggests damage to other instruments, though it is also possible that the signal is not yet firm enough to obtain data from other instruments.

More updates to follow, without doubt.

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Today is George Washington’s birthday; He is the man we should always honor, not “presidents”

3:01 pm

Washington at the Constitional Convention
Washington at the Constitional Convention

Monday was not “Presidents Day”, celebrating all our past presidents, both good and bad. In fact, it never was.

Originally we celebrated the birthday of George Washington, the Father of our country, on February 22nd, his birthday. Then in 1968 our lovely Congress decided to devalue Washington’s memory by shifting the holiday to the third Monday of the month. The idea was it would give people a three-day weekend, and encourage commerce. What it really did was eliminate the memory of Washington entirely from the holiday.

And yet we mustn’t. Washington not only won the Revolutionary War against Great Britain, acting as general, but he took the lead in writing and establishing the Constitution when the original Articles of Confederation failed to work. Along the way he repeatedly and in no uncertain terms rejected calls for him to take over as king. He then put a final period on his life’s work by serving as the nation’s first president, and most important, refusing to serve more than two terms. He stepped down, and demanded the nation elect a new leader, forcing through what was then a truly unprecedented thing — the peaceful transition of power from one leader to another.

His final public act of importance was his farewell speech upon leaving the office of the presidency, where he made two points for the future that sadly we appear to have decided to forget.
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Pushback: Stalinist St. Philip’s College in Texas loses 2nd lawsuit, reinstates teacher fired for daring to teach basic biology

12:43 pm

St. Philip's College, home to blacklisting and censorship
St. Philip’s College, the poster child of academic
blacklisting and censorship

Bring a gun to a knife fight: For the second time in less than two months, Stalinist St. Philip’s College in Texas has lost a lawsuit for violating the rights of a teacher.

First, in late December it agreed to pay fired professor Will Moravits a $185K settlement for forceably ejecting him from the campus and firing him, simply because he allowed open debate in his classroom about the queer agenda. Moravits did not want his job back, as he readily admitted he was now very happy teaching at nearby Texas State University where “his peers treat him with respect.”

Now it has been forced to settle a second lawsuit with another professor, Johnson Varkey, who it fired in January 2023 for simply teaching basic biology in his biology class. Varkey had had the nerve during a November 2022 human anatomy and physiology class to state that human sex is determined by the X and Y chromosomes, a basic fact of biology. Four students walked out of the class in outrage, and then filed slanderous and false complaints to the administration, which then fired Varkey without due process.

According to Varkey’s legal firm, the non-profit First Liberty Institute, the college has reinstated Varkey.
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Frozen lava rapids on Mars

11:38 am

Frozen lava rapids on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 6, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and shows a spot on Mars where lava was squeezed between and around some small peaks as it flowed quickly south, flooding all the low areas in this landscape.

The science team describes the features in the full image as “streamlined”, a description that is literally accurate. As this “stream” of lava rushed past, it “lined” the higher terrain, carving it into tear-dropped shapes.

In the color strip, note the blueish spots at the northern base of the 400-foot-high hill. According to the science team’s explanation [pdf] of the colors in MRO images, “Frost and ice are also relatively blue, but bright, and often concentrated at the poles or on pole-facing slopes.” The picture was taken in summer, so if these bright spots are frost or ice, it suggests they are well shaded from sunlight in those north-facing alcoves. This location is only 9 degrees north of the equator, so finding any near surface ice here is highly unlikely. That frost might exist however is intriguing, to say the least.
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Ariane-6 arrives in French Guiana

9:33 am

Europe’s new rocket, Ariane-6, has arrived by specially-designed ship at the dock in French Guiana and is ready for off loading in advance of its presently scheduled inaugural launch this summer.

On this trip, Canopée brings the central core for Ariane 6’s first flight. Having collected the upper stage from Bremen, Germany, Canopée moved on to Le Havre, France, to load the main stage of Ariane 6. … Canopée’s structure is tailored to carry large, fragile loads as well as navigate the shallow Kourou river to Pariacabo harbour. From here the various Ariane 6 components are offloaded and transported by road to the new Ariane 6 launch vehicle assembly building just a few kilometres away.

Built for Arianespace, the commercial arm of the European Space Agency (ESA). the rocket’s launch is four years behind schedule. It is also not reuseable, which has limited its marketability and explains why ESA as well as its member nations have shifted to encouraging new private rocket companies with competing and cheaper rockets. It has decided it is a mistake to rely solely on a government-owned rocket company.

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Varda’s space capsule lands successfully in Utah

9:21 am

Varda's space capsule, on the ground in Utah

Varda yesterday successfully returned its orbiting space capsule back to Earth after a six month delay caused by government red tape.

Varda Space Industries’ in-space manufacturing capsule, called Winnebago-1, landed in the Utah desert at around 4:40 p.m. EST. Inside the capsule are crystals of the drug ritonavir, which is used to treat HIV/AIDS. It marks a successful conclusion of Varda’s first experimental mission to grow pharmaceuticals on orbit, as well as the first time a commercial company has landed a spacecraft on U.S. soil, ever.

The capsule will now be sent back to Varda’s facilities in Los Angeles for analysis, and the vials of ritonavir will be shipped to a research company called Improved Pharma for post-flight characterization, Varda said in a statement. The company will also be sharing all the data collected through the mission with the Air Force and NASA, per existing agreements with those agencies.

The image to the right, released by Varda, shows the capsule on the ground after landing. With this success the company’s capsule is now available for commercial use, with three more launches already purchased through Rocket Lab. There is a very viable market for example for certain drugs that cannot be manufactured well on Earth, but in weightlessness can be produced very purely.

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Live stream of landing of Odysseus on Moon

8:59 am

South Pole of Moon with landing sites

UPDATE: The engineering team has decided to delay the landing attempt by one lunar orbit, pushing it back to 6:24 pm (Eastern). The live stream begins well before then, so that NASA can get in a lot of blather and propaganda, so feel safe waiting to tune in until 6 pm (Eastern).
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Capitalism in space: I have embedded below the NASA live stream for the presently scheduled 5:30 pm (Eastern) landing on the Moon of Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander dubbed Odysseus.

The green dot on the map to the right marks the planned landing site, about 190 miles from the Moon’s south pole. This will be the closest attempted landing so far to that pole, and if successful it will land on the rim of a crater, Malapart A, that is believed to have a permanently shadowed interior.

Odysseus however has no instruments capable of seeing into that interior. Its main mission is engineering, to test the landing technology of Intuitive Machines’ spacecraft. As part of this effort, it will release a small camera probe, dubbed EagleCam, when it is about 100 feet above the surface, which will to take images of that landing. [Update: That probe is unprecedented for another reason: It will be first student-built probe to land on another world, as it was designed and built by a team of students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida.]

If the landing is successful, Odysseus is designed to last until sunset on the Moon, about another two weeks. It carries a variety of NASA and commercial payloads, including a private small optical telescope. More important, it will allow the company to follow through with its manifest of future missions, including a second lunar landing later this year.
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