Lesley Gore – You Don’t Own Me
An evening paus: Performed live on television in 1964.
Hat tip Dan Steele.
Category: Behind The Black
From the rim to the floor of Valles Marineris
Click for full image.
For today’s cool Martian image, we begin from afar and zoom in. The overview map above shows the solar system’s largest canyon, Valles Marineris, 1,500 miles long, and 400 miles wide at its widest. The white dot on the north rim of the section of the canyon dubbed Melas marks the location of the photo to the right, rotated, cropped and reduced to post here and taken on January 28, 2011 by the wide angle context camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
I have added elevation numbers to this picture to give it some understandable scale. From the rim to the interior canyon floor — a distance of about ten miles — the canyon wall drops about 19,000 feet. Compare this with Bright Angel Trail in the Grand Canyon, which from the rim to the Colorado River drops about 4,400 feet in about the same distance. The wall of Valles Marineris is about four times steeper.
Even that doesn’t give you the full scale. Having hiked down to that interior canyon floor, you are still about 10,000 feet above Valles Marineris’s main canyon floor, with fifteen more miles of hiking to go to reach it.
The white rectangle marks the area covered by the MRO high resolution image below.
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Today’s blacklisted American: Thomas Jefferson and other important American historical figures banned by Cleveland school authorities
Thomas Jefferson, banned by Cleveland school officials
The modern dark age: Officials of Cleveland Metropolitan Schools have decided that its schools cannot be named after Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry because these great Americans — who trail-blazed the fight for individual freedom — had also owned slaves.
Guidelines implemented by the district last year with the urging of the Cleveland City Council require that schools not be named after people who have a documented history of enslaving other humans.
The district also prohibits naming schools for those who have actively participated in the institution of slavery, systemic racism, the oppression of people of color, women, or other minority groups, or who have been a member of a supremacist organization.
The two schools are now named after a black Democratic Party politician and a former school official. In our new dark age, these relatively minor individuals are now considered more important than two giants who made it possible to found the first country on Earth dedicated to freedom and individual liberty where the people were sovereign and the government was only their servant.
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CAPSTONE completes mid-course correction
Engineers at Advanced Space today successfully completed CAPSTONE’s first mid-course correction, following a quick investigation that determined why communications with the probe was lost for almost a full day.
The communications blackout was apparently due to software issues and human error.
During [in-flight] commissioning of NASA’s CAPSTONE (short for Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) spacecraft, the Deep Space Network team noted inconsistent ranging data. While investigating this, the spacecraft operations team attempted to access diagnostic data on the spacecraft’s radio and sent an improperly formatted command that made the radio inoperable. The spacecraft fault detection system should have immediately rebooted the radio but did not because of a fault in the spacecraft flight software.
CAPSTONE’s autonomous flight software system eventually cleared the fault and brought the spacecraft back into communication with the ground, allowing the team to implement recovery procedures and begin commanding the spacecraft again.
All looks good for a November 13, 2022 arrival in lunar orbit.
Scientists: Impacts on rubble-pile asteroid are different than on planets
Click for full image.
Using data collected by OSIRIS-REx at the asteriod Bennu, scientists have determined that the ejecta from impacts on a rubble-pile asteroid behaves in a very different manner than on planets with higher gravity.
Instead of flying away at about the same speed as the impactor and escaping into space, as expected in the weak gravity, the material is lifted up at a very slow speed, falls back down, and then rolls downhill like a landslide. The graphic to the right from the press release, reduced and enhanced to post here, illustrates what the scientists think happened when one of Bennu’s larger craters was created.
[M]ost of that material, called ejecta, returned to the surface and slid down the face of the asteroid, starting a wide avalanche that slowly rolled toward Bennu’s equator. Perry said the only way this could happen on a small object like Bennu, which is less than 500 meters (1,640 feet) in diameter and has low gravity, is if the dust had low or next to no cohesion.
“Because Bennu is so small, its escape velocity is less than a few tenths of a mile per hour, so any particle ejected faster than that would leave the surface,” he said. “These slow speeds are possible only if Bennu’s surface is weaker than we thought, even weaker than very loose, dry sand. This extremely low surface strength also means material on a slope is easily disturbed, and that’s what led to the landslide.”
In other words, the low cohesion prevents the impact’s energy from being transferred efficiently to the asteroid’s particles. They move, but only slowly, and thus end up sliding away more or less along the asteroid’s surface.
This discovery helps explain how these rubble-pile asteroids accumulate material, despite their low gravity.
U.S. missile test explodes 11 seconds after launch
A test flight of a Minotaur missile with an updated warhead delivery system exploded 11 seconds after liftoff from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on July 6th.
Despite a news release saying the Minotaur II+ test would take place Thursday morning from the northern section of the base, the launch occurred the night before, at 11:01 p.m.
More than an hour after liftoff, Vandenberg officials confirmed the booster had exploded approximately 11 seconds after launching from Test Pad 01. There were no injuries in the explosion and the debris was contained to the immediate vicinity of the launch pad, Vandenberg officials said in a statement released early Thursday.
The military would not explain the change in launch time, nor provide much information about the explosion. According to the article, it is even possible that the contradiction between the announced launch time and when it actually occurred was because “military officials failed to account for the one-hour time difference between California and the home of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.”
Seems utterly absurd, but completely possible considering the general overall incompetence of our modern federal government.
Virgin Galactic is replacing its WhiteKnightTwo mother ship
Virgin Galactic yesterday announced that it has hired Aurora, a Boeing subsidiary, to build two new mother ships to to replace WhiteKnightTwo and launch its SpaceShipTwo suborbital space planes.
Virgin Galactic Chief Executive Officer Michael Colglazier said: “Our next generation motherships are integral to scaling our operations. They will be faster to produce, easier to maintain and will allow us to fly substantially more missions each year. Supported by the scale and strength of Boeing, Aurora is the ideal manufacturing partner for us as we build our fleet to support 400 flights per year at Spaceport America.” [emphasis mine]
The press release claims the first new mother ship will begin operations in 2025.
Forgive me if I am very very skeptical. The highlighted words tell us a lot about this company. First, we now have confirmation that the company has had problems maintaining WhiteKnightTwo. This fact was strongly implied when all planned flights in ’21 and ’22 were cancelled following that first passenger flight in July ’21 in order to do a full maintenance refit of WhiteKnightTwo. This press release tells us that the company’s management has recognized that WhiteKnightTwo cannot be maintained much longer.
Second, the company continues to overhype its future, even without Richard Branson. The chances of it flying 400 times per year, anytime in the near future, is so slim as to be non-existent.
Third, the need to hire an outside company to build these new mother ships also suggests that Virgin Galactic no longer has the capability of doing it itself.
Right now the company’s stock is selling for about $7 per share, well below its initial price of about $12. Expect it to fall again.
Russia launches GPS-type satellite
Russia today launched another GLONASS-K GPS-type satellite, using its Soyuz-2 rocket from its Plesetsk spaceport.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
28 SpaceX
21 China
9 Russia
4 Rocket Lab
4 ULA
The U.S. still leads China 40 to 21 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 40 to 36.
SpaceX launches another 53 Starlink satellites
Capitalism in space: Earlier this morning SpaceX successfully launched 53 Starlink satellites, using its Falcon 9 rocket.
The first stage was flying its thirteenth flight, and supposedly landed successfully, though the stage’s video cut off just before landing, the drone ship video did not show it on the pad, and the confirmation of that landing was very late. It is possible it landed on a spot that the camera did not show, or that the landing occurred in the ocean and the stage was lost. We shall have to wait and see.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
28 SpaceX
21 China
8 Russia
4 Rocket Lab
4 ULA
The U.S. now leads China 40 to 21 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 40 to 35.
Having regained communications with CAPSTONE, engineers prepare for first mid-course burn
Engineers are now preparing CAPSTONE for its first first mid-course engine burn, slightly late due to a loss of communications during the past two days.
The spacecraft is in good health and functioning properly.
The CAPSTONE team is still actively working to fully establish the root cause of the issue. Ground-based testing suggests the issue was triggered during commissioning activities of the communications system. The team will continue to evaluate the data leading up to the communications issue and monitor CAPSTONE’s status.
If all goes well, that engine burn will occur as early as 11:30 am (Eastern) on July 7th.
July 6, 2022 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, well worth your time, go here.
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Paweł Zadrożniak – The Floppotron 3.0
An evening pause: You need to watch this to believe it.
Hat tip Bill Heinz.
July 5, 2022 Zimmerman appearance on the Space Show
The podcast from my appearance last night on the Space Show is now available here.
Twas a fun show. The questions and comments from the audience were especially excellent this time.
How did sand dunes get to the top of a Martian mesa?
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on January 1, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and shows one of the peaks of a 5,000+ foot high mesa inside Juventai Chasma, one of Mars’ deep mostly-enclosed chasms north of Valles Marineris.
I grabbed this picture because its label, “Bedform Change Detection in Juventae Chasma”, suggested something had changed from past photos, probably related to the sand dunes that hug the upper slopes of this peak. Unfortunately, in comparing this image with the earliest high-res image taken by MRO back in February 2018, I could not spot any change, probably because the resolution of the pictures released is not as high as MRO’s raw images.
However, the caption written for that 2018 image tells us where that change has likely occurred:
This image reveals a unique situation where this small dune field occurs along the summit of the large 1-mile-tall [mesa] near the center of Juventae Chasma. The layered [mesa] slopes are far too steep for dunes to climb, and bedform sand is unlikely to come from purely airborne material. Instead, the mound’s summit displays several dark-toned, mantled deposits that are adjacent to the dunes and appear to be eroding into fans of sandy material.
In other words, somewhere in the full resolution image scientists have spotted a change in the bedform sands that make-up these high mountain dunes that hug the peak. Since the data so far has suggested that the source for the sand of these high elevation dunes likely comes from the mesa itself — not from any distant source — any change found will help confirm or disprove that hypothesis.
The white box indicates the area covered by the close-up higher resolution picture below. Also below is an overview map, showing both the location of this mountain in Juventai Chasma as well as Juventai’s location relative to Valles Marineris.
» Read more
Today’s blacklisted American: Google blacklists Republican Party fund-raising emails
Blacklists are back and Democrats at Google have got ’em: According to evidence presented by the Republican National Committee last week, Google is tactically blocking all fund-raising emails from the committee at the end of the month, when such emails are routinely sent.
To quote the twitter thread from Ronna McDaniel, GOP chairwoman:
Every single month – for 7 months in a row – Google has systematically attacked the RNC’s email fundraising during important donation days at the end of the month. Our emails go from strong inbox delivery (90-100%) down to 0%.
These are emails that go to our most engaged, opt-in supporters without any increase in user complaints, changes to the content, email frequency or target audiences that could account for the suppression.
Yet month after month – like clockwork – right ahead of a CRITICAL period when voters are most engaged, Google blocks our emails. They even block GOTV emails.
Google has failed to explain why this is happening. It’s unacceptable. We have filed a complaint with the FEC over this practice of censoring Republican emails and it just keeps happening.
The graphic below, including in McDaniel’s tweets, shows how the GOP’s emails are suddenly considered spam by Google at the end of every month, conveniently at the very moment the party sends out its fund-raising pleas.
» Read more
Contact with CAPSTONE re-established
Though no further details have been released, according to a NASA update, engineers at Advanced Space have successfully re-established communications with the cubesat lunar orbiter CAPSTONE.
China begins construction of commercial spaceport
The new colonial movement: China’s state-run press today announced the ground-breaking of a spaceport on the southern island of Hainan that will be dedicated to launches by that country’s pseudo-commercial companies.
The location is in Wenchang City, the same location of the country’s Wenchang spaceport used to launch government’s newest Long March rockets. While it isn’t clear from the Chinese news report, this new facility is likely at the same location.
Though China touts this as a commercial facility for private commercial launch companies, everything in China is still controlled and owned by the government. Nothing will happen at this new site that China’s military does not approve.
Rocket Lab to launch twice in 10 days for NRO
Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab announced yesterday that its next two launches, scheduled for July 12th and July 22nd, will demonstrate the ability of the company to quickly launch reconnaissance satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).
The NROL-162 and NROL-199 missions will carry national security payloads designed, built, and operated by the National Reconnaissance Office in partnership with the Australian Department of Defence as part of a broad range of cooperative satellite activities with Australia. The satellites will support the NRO to provide critical information to government agencies and decision makers monitoring international issues.
These twin missions will be a demonstration of responsive launch under NRO’s Rapid Acquisition of a Small Rocket (RASR) contract for launching small satellite through a streamlined, commercial approach, and are the third and fourth missions contracted to Rocket Lab by the NRO under the contract.
Several federal military agencies have been testing this capability with almost all the new rocket companies, from the large, such as SpaceX, to the small, such as Rocket Lab and Astra.
Engineers propose flying gliders on Mars
Proposed sailplane flights in Valles Marineris. Click for full image.
Engineers at the University of Arizona are developing a prototype sailplane that they think could fly for long distances on Mars at higher altitudes than a helicopter and not be reliant on solar batteries.
Using dynamic soaring, the sailplane utilises increases in horizontal wind speed with gaining altitude to continue flying long distances. It’s the same process albatrosses use to fly long distances without flapping their wings and expending crucial energy.
After lifting themselves up into fast, high-altitude air, albatrosses then turn their bodies to descend rapidly into regions of slower, low-altitude air. With the force of gravity providing downward acceleration, the albatross uses this momentum to slingshot itself back to higher altitudes. Continuously repeating this process enables albatross and other seabird species to cover thousands of kilometres of ocean, flap-free.
It’s the inspiration for the sailplane’s own propulsion system, enabling it to cover the canyons and volcanoes dotted across the red planet currently inaccessible to Mars rovers.
The graphic above, figure 1 from the engineers’ research paper, shows one possible sailplane mission, deploying two gliders, one to observe the canyon wall and a second to survey the canyon floor. Both would become a weather station upon landing. While the paper doesn’t state a Mars location for this concept, the graphic strikes a strong resemblance to the section of Valles Marineris where scientists have recently taken “Mars Helicopter” high resolution images using Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). This paper and those images might be related, or they could be illustrating the general interest by many scientists for this Mars’ location.
Regardless, the engineers are now planning test flights at 15,000 feet elevation, an elevation that will most closely simulate the atmosphere of Mars, on Earth.
On the radio
I forgot to post this earlier, but I am doing the Space Show tonight, beginning at 7 pm (Pacific). The info is in the right column or on the bottom of the page, depending on the device you use to read this.