Category: Behind The Black

Today’s blacklisted American: Seattle school board to hold segregated meetings to pick new school superintendent

12:21 pm

Jim Crow celebrated in Seattle!
The return of Jim Crow, this time celebrated in the north, in Seattle!

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” Issaquah School District, located in the Seattle suburbs, has decided to hold segregated-by-race meetings to pick its new school superintendent.

Issaquah School District Superintendent Ron Thiele is retiring, and the school board is looking for his replacement. The board is holding three separate meetings this month to hear from parents and guardians. But the first meeting makes it very clear who should attend.

The district bulletin lists the meeting in the following way: “Meeting for Parents/Guardians of Color and Parents/Guardians with Students of Color to Give Input About Superintendent Search, 6 p.m., Zoom.”

The other two meetings are listed this way: “Meetings for Parents/Guardians to Give Input About Superintendent Search, 9 a.m., 2 p.m., 6 p.m., Zoom.”

When challenged about this illegal policy, the board defended it as follows:
» Read more

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Curiosity’s coming travels across the rocky Greenheugh Pediment

10:31 am

Curiosity's view west on February 21, 2022 (Sol 3393)
Click for full resolution panorama. Original images can be found here, here, and here.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Curiosity, having successfully climbed up and out of Gordon Notch, was able to aim its navigation cameras forward yesterday and get its first views from this position across the very rocky Greenheugh Pediment to its next major goal, Gediz Vallis Ridge. The panorama above, taken by the rover’s right navigation camera, shows this view. The ridge is about 1,500 feet away, at its closest point. The rim of Gale Crater, barely visible in the haze, is about 20-30 miles away.

The overview map to the right indicates the area covered in this panorama by the yellow lines. The red dotted line indicates Curiosity’s planned future route.

Curiosity’s first view of the pediment was made in March 2020, from a point on its northern border, just beyond the top edge of the map. The panorama taken then showed what appeared to be a very treacherous and rough surface, possibly too rough for Curiosity to traverse.

According to the science team’s most recent update from before the holiday weekend, the plan had been to spend February 19-20 studying the ground, then drive a short distance yesterday to get a better view ahead.

This will give us a good vantage point to look into the valley ahead and try to scope out our future route. … We chose to drive about 10m total, in order to get the rover oriented at a good heading and parked in a good spot. We expect a similarly beautiful view from our post-drive imaging.

That view is the panorama above. Though still very rough, the ground ahead appears far more traversable than the surface seen in 2020.

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Have astronomers found an exoplanet with raining metal and gems?

9:33 am

The uncertainty of science: Using data from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers think they have detected on a hot Jupiter exoplanet 880 light years away the formation of clouds and rain made up metals and gems.

The exoplanet is tidally locked so that one side always faces its star, which also means the temperature difference between the two hemispheres is gigantic, 5,400 degrees Fahrenheit on the dayside and about 2,600 degrees on the nightside.

Previous Hubble data showed signs of metals including iron, magnesium, chromium and vanadium existing as gasses on the planet’s dayside. But in this study, the researchers have found that on the planet’s nightside, it gets cold enough for these metals to condense into clouds.

And, just as the strong winds pull water vapor and atoms around the planet to break apart and recombine, metal clouds will blow to the planet’s dayside and evaporate, condense back on the nightside and so on.

But metal clouds aren’t the only strange phenomenon these researchers spotted on this hot Jupiter. They also found evidence of possible rain in the form of liquid gems.

While tantalizing and alien, these results have many uncertainties. What the data suggests might not be the reality. To find out more, the astronomers hope to use the James Webb Space Telescope to do more infrared observations, once it becomes operational.

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China denies the rocket stage about to hit the Moon comes from its rocket

9:23 am

A Chinese official yesterday claimed that the abandoned rocket stage that will hit the Moon on or about March 4th does not come from its 2014 Long March 3C rocket that tested technology for the later launched Chang’e-5 lunar sample return mission, as suggested by amateur astronomers and an engineer at JPL.

“According to China’s monitoring, the upper stage of the rocket related to the Chang’e-5 mission entered into Earth’s atmosphere and completely burned up,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Feb. 21.

Space tracking data from the Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron suggests that 2014-065B—the international designator for the rocket stage in question—reentered the atmosphere in October 2015, a year after launch, apparently backing China’s claim.

We are thus left with a mystery. If that abandoned upper stage did not come from either a SpaceX or Chinese launch, what launch did it come from? Or is it a rocket stage at all? Could it be a previously unidentified asteroid?

There is also the possibility that it is a piece from that Chinese launch, considering how the orbital data matches so well. The stage could have split or broken apart, with one part falling in the ocean as monitored by the Space Force, and the other section now heading for the Moon. If so, China is likely denying this fact for propaganda reasons.

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Northrop Grumman to launch new satellite serving mission in ’24 on Falcon 9

9:12 am

Capitalism in space: Northrop Grumman yesterday announced that it has awarded the contract for the first launch of its Mission Robotic Vehicle (MRV) — designed as a robot capable of installing multiple mission extension pods (MEP) on satellites — to SpaceX for a launch scheduled in 2024.

Once in orbit each MEP [Mission Extension Pod] is captured by the MRV and stowed for transport to the client satellite. The MRV rendezvous and docks with the client to install the MEP, which operates like an auxiliary propulsion device and uses its own thrusters to maneuver the client vehicle. Then the MRV detaches itself and moves on to grab another MEP for the next customer. The MRV is designed to stay in orbit for 10 years.

Anderson said the company expects to install as many as 30 propulsion pods over the life of the MRV.

“Our manifest for the MRV is full through mid 2026,” he said. Besides Optus, five other customers have signed term sheets to purchase mission extension pods.

Essentially, Northrop Grumman upgraded its Mission Extension Vehicle design to separate the repair section from the robot that installs it so that it is cheaper to launch everything. It can now launch multiple lighter and smaller repair pods as needed, with the robot already in orbit ready to go.

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Deformed Martian craters

2:04 pm

Deformed Martian craters
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on September 3, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The focus of the image for the MRO science team were the wedding cake layers inside the largest crater. These layers suggest glacial ice, with the layers suggesting multiple cycles of glacial ebb and flow. Since the crater is at 43 degrees north latitude, and sits in the chaos region dubbed Protonilus Mensae, smack dab in the center of what I call Mars’ glacier country, this conclusion makes perfect sense.

To my eye, however, the most interesting feature of this photo are the many distorted craters. The overview map below shows the picture’s location, as well as several nearby very large impact craters which might have caused many secondary impacts, including the many craters at this location.
» Read more

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Pushback: Why are ANY parents sending their kids back to Loudoun County schools?

11:53 am

And clowns should not be running the schools
And the clowns must be fired, now!

In the past week the conservative press heralded two big legal victories against the administrative thugs running the schools in Loudoun County in Virginia who, despite no evidence that masks did anything but harm children, insisted the little kids under their supervision be muzzled eight hours a day.

First, despite an executive order by the new Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, outlawing mask mandates in the schools, Loudoun County administrators refused to go along, even threatening to arrest children for trespass should they show up without masks. A local judge however on February 16th issued an injunction against the county’s mask mandate, preventing it from going into effect.

Second, the state’s legislature, controlled by the Republicans but with additional votes from Democrats, had quickly passed a law banning further school mask mandates, which Youngkin signed into law on February 18th.

Hallellujah! the conservative press declared. A victory against tyrants.

I say bah! » Read more

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Northrop Grumman launches Cygnus freighter to ISS

8:29 am

Capitalism in space: Northrop Grummann yesterday used its Antares rocket to successfully launch its Cygnus freighter to ISS.

This fact about this Cygnus is important:

This is the first Cygnus mission featuring enhanced capabilities to perform a re-boost to the space station’s orbit as a standard service for NASA; one re-boost is planned while Cygnus is connected to the orbiting laboratory.

In other words, Cygnus has been enabled to replace the boost capability that the Russians and Japanese provided.

The 2022 launch race:

6 SpaceX
2 China
2 Russia
1 Virgin Orbit
1 ULA
1 India
1 Europe (Arianespace)
1 Northrop Grumman

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Virgin Galactic chairman resigns

8:54 am

Getting out while the getting is good: Chamath Palihapitiya, who has been chairman of Virgin Galactic’s board since it went public in 2019, suddenly announced today that he has resigned from the company.

Palihapitiya’s SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company, took Virgin Galactic public in October 2019. The company’s stock has faced volatile trading since then — climbing above $60 a share in the months ahead of Sir Richard Branson’s test spaceflight, but it recently fell below its public debut price on news of a further delay in the start of commercial service.

The now-former chairman sold his personal Virgin Galactic stake in early 2021 that was worth over $200 million at the time. But he indirectly owns about 15.8 million shares through Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings.

Like Richard Branson, Palihapitiya sold the majority of his stock when the price was high, about the time the company flew its first and only passenger flight in July, with Richard Branson on board. His exit now suggests he wants out before the company’s dismal future prospects become obvious.

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