My second 35-minute podcast from last week with Robert Pratt is now available here. Unlike the previous podcast, which focused on the modern blacklisting and censorship efforts of the Democratic Party and its Marxist allies, this new podcast was wholly focused on space and science.
Click for full image.
On March 21st the Perseverance engineering team released the debris shield that had been attached to the bottom of the rover to protect the Ingenuity helicopter during its journey to Mars, and thus began the deployment process for releasing the helicopter itself.
The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, shows that debris shield on the ground. The rover will next drive away from this spot and find the flat area where the helicopter will be placed on the ground for its April flight.
The new colonial movement: China’s lunar rover Yutu-2 and its lander Chang’e-4 have successfully completed their 28th lunar day on the far side of the Moon, and have been placed in hibernation for the long lunar night.
According to this article from China’s state-run press, Yutu-2 has now traveled 683 meters (2,241 feet) since its landing. In the past two lunar days the rover has traveled about 180 feet, continuing its journey to the northwest away from Chang’e-5. Their pace continues to be about 80 to 100 feet per lunar day.
Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab today successfully launched six smallsats today from New Zealand using its Electron rocket.
The leaders in the 2021 launch race:
8 SpaceX
6 China
4 Russia
2 Rocket Lab
Including all its other launches, the U.S. leads China 12 to 6 in the national rankings.
An evening pause: Performed live prior to the album’s release in 2007.
Nice way to start the week, with some energy.
Hat Chris McLaughlin.
For those who wish to listen to me and even call in to ask a question or comment or disagree with something I have said, I will be on The Space Show with David Livingston. tomorrow night for probably two hours, beginning at 7 pm (Pacific).
As always, your calls will be welcome. I don’t bite, though as John Batchelor says, I can get grumpy.
In addition, I will be on WCCO-AM in Minnesota to talk space stuff on the next night, March 31st, for forty minutes, beginning at 10:00 pm (Central).
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The Cydonia region on Mars, located at around 30-40 degrees north latitude in the northern lowland plains just beyond the transition zone up to the southern cratered highlands, is well known to many on Earth because it was here that the Viking-1 orbiter took a picture of a mesa that, because of the sun angle, made its shadows resemble a face. Thus was born the “Face on Mars” that consumed the shallow-minded among us — and thus the culture, media, and Hollywood — absurdly for decades, until Mars Global Surveyor took the first high resolution image and proved without doubt what was really obvious from the beginning, that it was nothing more than a mesa.
Cydonia however remains a very intriguing region of Mars, mostly because it is home to a lot of strange geology, as shown by the photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here. Taken on January 16, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), it shows some of that strange and inexplicable geology.
While Cydonia is inside that 30-60 degree latitude band where MRO has imaged numerous glacial-type features, I do not know if many such features have been found there. Except for the pits and depressions in the photo’s lower right — which suggest decay in an ice sheet — little else at first glance in the picture clearly invokes any of the obvious glacial features one comes to expect. There appear to be what might be lobate flows in the image’s center going from the west to the east, but if they are glacial, they are so decayed to as leave much doubt.
The overview image below shows where Cydonia is on Mars, and helps explain partly what is found here.
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A typical slide from a critical race theory class.
They’re coming for you next: Forced to attend a bigoted critical race education class at Boise State University where a white student was apparently treated like scum, it appears other students there taped the session and forwarded it to the Idaho state legislature.
The results were somewhat gratifying.
[A]dministrators have abruptly suspended all of the school’s general education classes called “University Foundations 200: Foundations of Ethics and Diversity.”
“We have been made aware of a series of concerns, culminating in allegations that a student or students have been humiliated and degraded in class on our campus for their beliefs and values,” states a March 16 memo from President Marlene Tromp to the campus community. “This is never acceptable; it is not what Boise State stands for; and we will not tolerate this behavior,” Tromp stated. “…Given the weight of cumulative concerns, we have determined that, effective immediately, we must suspend UF 200.” She goes on to note that academic leadership will determine next steps “to ensure that everyone is still able to complete the course.”
Tromp’s decision came around the same time as Idaho lawmakers passed a state education budget that takes away about $409,000 from Boise State University because of its social justice curriculum, Idaho Ed News reports. [emphasis mine]
The highlighted words provide us the real reason Boise administrators suspended these race lectures. » Read more
Link here. If the static fire goes well, the test flight for Starship prototype #11 should occur in the next few days, possibly as soon as tomorrow.
The article at the link also reviews the possible testing schedule for future prototypes. The next Starship prototype being prepared for flight, #15, will likely not fly next. Instead, it appears that SpaceX is gearing up to first begin tanking tests on its first Super Heavy prototype.
All could change of course depending on tests and flights and construction.
A Russian Soyuz rocket tonight successfully launched 38 commercial satellites, most of which were smallsats.
The 2021 launch race:
8 SpaceX
6 China
4 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Virgin Orbit
1 Northrop Grumman
1 India
The U.S. still leads China 11 to 6 in the national rankings.
Robert Pratt invited me to do a 30 minute podcast with him yesterday, discussing the eager effort by Democrats and leftists to blacklist any American who disagrees with them. You can listen to it here.
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
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