Category: Points of Information

Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.

SpaceX raises more than a billion in investment capital

10:28 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX announced this week that it has raised more than a billion dollars in investment capital.

The launch provider turned satellite operator raised $486.2 million in one round, and $535.7 million in another, the company said in May 24 filings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The filings show SpaceX sold all but $18.8 million of the shares available between the two rounds. The company raised $1.022 billion in total.

It appears the money will be used to finance the construction of both Super Heavy/Starship and their Starlink satellite constellation. The article also notes that SpaceX generated $2 billion in revenues last year. All told, the company seems to be in very healthy shape financially.

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Boeing completes Starliner thruster tests

10:23 am

Capitalism in space: Almost a year after the company experienced a fuel leak during thruster tests of its Starliner manned capsule, Boeing announced this week that those tests have now been completed successfully.

In a statement, Boeing said it completed hot-fire testing May 23 of the spacecraft’s entire propulsion system, including various thrusters, fuel tanks and related systems within a “flight-like” service module of the spacecraft. Those tests took place at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico.

A series of tests demonstrated thruster firings for in-space maneuvers, high-altitude aborts and low-altitude aborts. The company said the tests were all successful.

They now plan their launchpad abort test this summer.

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Trump give Barr authority to declassify documents related to campaign spying by Obama

1:44 am

President Trump yesterday gave Attorney General William Barr the authority to declassify any documents related to the campaign spying by the Obama administration that occurred during the 2016 presidential election.

Trump also ordered all intelligence agencies to cooperate completely with Barr’s investigation, an order that common sense says should be unnecessary, as Barr is their boss and they should therefore always cooperate with him. However, we live in interesting times, when federal employees now think they have the right to tell elected officials what to do, and to even act to overthrow those elected officials if they don’t like them.

Not surprisingly, the Democrats who repeatedly scream for transparency and the public release of all documents are protesting Trumps orders.

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SpaceX successfully launches 60 prototype Starlink satellites

12:34 am

Capitalsm in space: SpaceX this morning successfully launched 60 prototype Starlink satellites as the first part of their planned constellation of thousands of satellites designed to provide worldwide internet access.

The first stage, already used twice before, landing successfully on their drone ship. You can watch the launch here.

The leaders in the 2019 launch race:

7 China
6 SpaceX
4 Europe (Arianespace)
3 Russia
3 India

The U.S. now leads China 11 to 7 in the national rankiings.

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House ignores request for more NASA money for moon mission

3:20 pm

A House committee today approved a NASA budget that ignored the Trump administration’s request for $1.6 billion more money to support its attempt to land a manned mission on the Moon by 2024.

Instead, the committee shifted more money into earth science and Gateway.

Whether this budget is what ends up being enacted remains to be seen. It does appear however that Trump will have great trouble funding his Moon project. Sadly, that lack of funding does not mean the overall federal budget is coming under control. On the contrary, it appears the Democratic-controlled House simply wants to spend lots of money, but on different things.

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Justice charges man with falsifying inspection reports for rocket parts

3:12 pm

The Justice Department has charged an employee of a company now out of business for falsifying inspection reports of rocket parts intended for use on both the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rocket.

The complaint states that in January 2018, an internal audit by SQA Services, Inc. (SQA), at the direction of SpaceX, revealed multiple falsified source inspection reports and non-destructive testing (NDT) certifications from PMI Industries, LLC, for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy flight critical parts. SpaceX notified PMI of the anomalies. Source inspections and NDT are key tools used in the aerospace industry to ensure manufactured parts comply with quality and safety standards. Specifically, the signed source inspection report had a forged signature of the SQA inspector. SpaceX and SQA officials believed the signature of the inspector was photocopied and cut and pasted onto the source inspection report with a computer.

On February 16, 2018, the NASA Launch Services Program alerted the NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG), and Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Resident Agency, regarding the falsified source inspection reports and false NDT certifications created by PMI. Some of the false source inspection reports and false NDT certifications were related to space launch vehicle components that, at the time of discovery, were to be used for the upcoming Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission, which launched from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on April 18, 2018.

Based on this report, it appears that SpaceX identified the problem before launch and that none of the questionable parts ever flew.

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China has launch failure

3:00 pm

A Chinese launch of a military satellite using a Long March 4C rocket failed today.

It appears the failure occurred with the third stage. This rocket is one of China’s smaller rockets, and is mostly used for polar launches of smaller satellites. It is likely therefore that the failure will not impact their planetary and manned programs, both of which depend on different and larger rockets.

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SpaceX suing Air Force due to exclusion from development contracts

2:50 pm

SpaceX has initiated a lawsuit against the Air Force for excluding the company from the rocket development contracts totaling $2.3 billion that it issued last year to ULA, Blue Origin, and Northrop Grumman.

The full SpaceX complaint alleges that the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center “wrongly awarded” the funds “to a portfolio of three unproven rockets based on unstated metrics.” Under the Launch Service Agreement (LSA) program, the Air Force awarded three SpaceX competitors funding to develop new launch systems. The LSA awards granted $500 million to Blue Origin for its New Glenn rocket, $792 million to Northrop Grumman for its OmegA rocket and $967 million to ULA for the Vulcan Centaur rocket.

“By any reasonable measure, SpaceX earned a place in the LSA portfolio,” the complaint said.

I had guessed last year that SpaceX had decided not to bid for this money because of the strings the Air Force would attach to the development of Super Heavy/Starship. According to this lawsuit, that guess was wrong. SpaceX wanted its own share in this government cash, and didn’t get it.

Considering how Air Force requirements appeared to immediately slow down the development for ULA and Blue Origin, I still think SpaceX is better off without the cash. They have had to raise money from the private sector, and so far appear to have been successful in doing so, without those strings attached.

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London and art

7:56 am

Trafalgar Square

Yesterday we took the train to London and settled into a really super modern hi-tech hotel dubbed “The Hub by Premier Inns.” It is also the crummiest hotel I have ever stayed at. I picked it because it was well recommended and was located less than a block from Trafalgar Square, shown on the right. And yes, it is new and fancy, with motion-controlled LED lights and fancy touch buttons and aps to control everything. It is also tiny, cramped, the controls are too limited and too difficult to decipher, even for a science journalist like myself. I suppose I shouldn’t complain, as it was reasonable in price considering the location. I still dislike the hi-tech nature of the room that only ended up limiting our convenience and comfort.

And the hotel didn’t even have an ice machine!

National Gallery in London

Today we wandered about the square, watching the street performers (buskers in British lingo) and admiring the statues and sights. Then we went into the National Gallery to enjoy some of humanity’s greatest art, as were a class of elementary school children as shown in the picture on the right.

The museum was packed with people from everywhere. I saw Japanese, Chinese, and Israeli tour groups. I saw people of all types clearly from London, including several school groups like the one to the right.

Interestingly, these crowds were all found in the permanent exhibits. One temporary exhibit we wandered through, art by an modern abstract artist by the name of Sean Scully, was practically empty.
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Trump walks out of infrastrucure negotiations

1:31 am

President Trump immediately walked out of a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) yesterday, saying he will hold no discussions on infrastructure as long as the Democrats continue their investigations into his administration.

Trump’s anger appears to have been sparked by comments Pelosi made earlier in the day when she said, “We believe the president of the United States is engaged in a cover-up” by blocking White House aides from giving testimony and responding to document requests from ongoing congressional investigations.

“I don’t do cover-ups,” Trump insisted Wednesday.

The article suggests that Trump planned this as a way to get out of the negotiations. Maybe, but I think his goal is to get the investigations stopped. He is quite willing to make a deal to spend trillions that we don’t have on “infrastructure,” as are the Democrats. By walking out he is putting pressure on the Democratic leadership to shut those investigations down in order to get him to work out a deal to spend the money they also want.

The result, for the moment, is that we have no infrastructure deal. I hope this stalemate lasts forever.

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India’s PSLV launches Earth observation radar satellite

8:13 am

India’s PSLV rocket today successfully put a radar satellite designed to do Earth observations into orbit.

The leaders in the 2019 launch race:

7 China
5 SpaceX
4 Europe (Arianespace)
3 Russia
3 India

That India at this stage ties Russia says as much about India’s growing presence as a space power as it does about Russia’s fading presence.

In the national rankings, the U.S. still leads China 10 to 7.

Note: This and the last few posts were written from our hotel in London, near Covent Garden.

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New Zimmerman op-ed at American Greatness

7:42 am

Link here. To my readers some of this will seem familiar. To those who listened to my last appearance on the Space Show, it will also seem familiar. I decided what I had written and said in both places needed a more detailed essay. Key quote:

Every single big space project since the founding of NASA has always been proposed and approved by elected officials. NASA officials might have lobbied for one version or another, but always, always, it was understood and accepted that the project did not exist without first getting an enthusiastic and very public authorization from elected officials.

What was understood without question was that the right to make these fundamental policy decisions belonged only to the lawmakers, elected as they were by the citizenry under the Constitution.

NASA’s new Lunar Gateway project, however, is something altogether different. It was conceived, designed, and proposed by the big aerospace companies Lockheed Martin and Boeing as a justification for the continuing construction of SLS and Orion. It was added as a budget line item by NASA bureaucrats who supported it, and it now exists as a growing major space project comparable to Apollo, the Space Shuttle, ISS, and SLS/Orion.

Yet no president has ever officially and publicly proposed the Lunar Gateway. No Congress ever reviewed or endorsed the program. All these elected officials have done is simply to accept the will of NASA bureaucrats and large aerospace contractors, and rubber-stamp that line item in NASA’s budget.

Thus, unlike all past big space projects, Gateway stands alone as the only one to be proposed and approved not by our elected officials, but by the vendors who will build it and by the unelected NASA bureaucrats who will manage it.

Worse, Gateway’s growing year-by-year funding and development is being controlled not by lawmakers or the president but by those very same bureaucrats.

Essentially, this is a coup by NASA’s bureaucracy and the big space contractors over the power of elected officials.

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Three exocomets found circling Beta Pictoris

7:31 am

The uncertainty of science: By analyzing data from the new space telescope TESS, astronomers think they have identified three exocomets orbiting the nearby star Beta Pictoris.

Why do I label this uncertain? Let the scientists themselves illustrate my doubt:

Sebastian Zieba, Master’s student in the team of Konstanze Zwintz at the Institute of Astro- and Particle Physics at the University of Innsbruck, discovered the signal of the exocomets when he investigated the TESS light curve of Beta Pictoris in March this year. “The data showed a significant decrease in the intensity of the light of the observed star. These variations due to darkening by an object in the star’s orbit can clearly be related to a comet,” Sebastian Zieba and Konstanze Zwintz explain the sensational discovery.

The press release provides no other information about why they think this darkening is because of comets rather than exoplanets or some other phenomenon. Based on this alone, I find this report very doubtful and highly speculative.

In related news, astronomers now claim they have detected eighteen more Earth-sized exoplanets in the data produced by Kepler, and they have done so by applying new algorithms to the data.

Large planets tend to produce deep and clear brightness variations of their host stars so that the subtle center-to-limb brightness variation on the star hardly plays a role in their discovery. Small planets, however, present scientists with immense challenges. Their effect on the stellar brightness is so small that it is extremely hard to distinguish from the natural brightness fluctuations of the star and from the noise that necessarily comes with any kind of observation. René Heller’s team has now been able to show that the sensitivity of the transit method can be significantly improved, if a more realistic light curve is assumed in the search algorithm. “Our new algorithm helps to draw a more realistic picture of the exoplanet population in space,” summarizes Michael Hippke of Sonneberg Observatory. “This method constitutes a significant step forward, especially in the search for Earth-like planets.”

This makes sense, but it must be understood that these are only candidate exoplanets, unconfirmed as yet. I would not be surprised if a majority are found to be false positives.

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Nevada approves bill that requires electoral votes to go to winner of popular vote

1:33 am

Nevada’s state senate has approved a bill that will require its electoral votes in a presidential election to go to winner of popular vote.

The governor needs to sign the bill, but that is expected.

Assembly Bill 186, which passed the Senate on a 12-8 vote, would bring Nevada into the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement between participating states to cast their electoral votes for the winner of the popular vote.

If signed as expected by Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, Nevada would become the 16th jurisdiction to join the compact, along with 14 states and the District of Columbia. The compact would take effect after states totaling 270 electoral votes, and with Nevada, the total would reach 195.

It appears to me that this Democratic effort to nullify the electoral college is going to eventually take effect. Once that happens, there will never be another Republican president, as the heavily Democratic and high population states of New York and California are going to always put the popular vote in the hands of Democrats. Essentially, they will have rigged the elections to guarantee their victory, much as they have done in California by eliminating parties in the voting.

Posted on the train from Barmouth to London.

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Wales Day 7

1:48 pm

Cregennan

The home of 18th century composer John Williams

The tree

In our final day of our Wales journey, we spent the day strolling across the beautiful countryside of Cregennan, one of several parks along the flanks of the Cadair Idris range, which runs north-south to the coast. This park is closest to the ocean, so at our highest point we were overlooking the Irish Sea and the town of Barmouth.

The three pictures on the right are only a small selection of the beauty of this region. There were several magnificent lakes nestled amid the mountains and fields. There were pastures with numerous sheep, some eating, some resting like white blobs on the green grass, and some “baa’ing” at each other. It was especially entertaining when a lamb started calling out for its mother, the mother responding, and then the two searching and finding each other.

And of course there were the standing stones and ancient ruins scattered about on several hilltops.

The abandoned house in the second picture is of special interest because it had been the home of an obscure 18th century Welsh composer by the name of John Williams. Williams was actually quite successful in his time, but only recently have some locals rediscovered unpublished manuscripts of his work. They plan a performance this fall.

Apparently his father was a hat-maker of some note, able to accumulate enough wealth to build this large country house in such a setting. Though I don’t know this, I suspect his success came from providing high quality hats to the upper classes, and this in turn gave his son the contacts necessary to become even more successful as a composer.

The last photo was taken as we walked downhill toward the ocean in a forested area beside a flowing stream, passing numerous waterfalls. This area is where our tour leader, Hywel “Taff” Roberts, was born and grew up, so he could give us some extra historical details about everything we saw. For example, the giant tree in that last picture was something that he remembered since childhood, home for birds and animals galore. It is old now, which is why several large branches have broken off.

Tomorrow the tour ends, and Diane and I will be taking the train to London, where we will spend two days before flying back to the states.

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Wisconsin HS students win U.S. rocketry competition

11:08 am

A team of high school students from Wisconsin have won U.S. rocketry competition and will now represent this country in the international competition to be held at the Paris International Air Show in June..

The team’s victory follows months of preparation designing, building, and testing a rocket capable of meeting rigorous mission parameters set by the contest’s sponsors – the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), National Association of Rocketry, and more than 20 industry sponsors. This year’s rules celebrated the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 by requiring each rocket to carry three eggs in a separate capsule to symbolize the three astronauts that made the journey to the Moon and back.

The Top 101 teams, hailing from 25 states from Hawaii to New York, competed for a total of $100,000 in prize money and scholarships at the national finals – an all-day event held at Great Meadow in The Plains, Va., outside of Washington, D.C. The $100,000 prize pool will be split among the Top 10 teams, with Madison West taking home the top prize of $20,000 as U.S. champions. In addition, the top twenty-five finishers receive an invitation to participate in NASA’s Student Launch initiative to continue their exploration of rocketry with high-powered rockets and challenging mission parameters.

The growth of this competition is clearly tied directly to the boom in commercial rocketry going on worldwide.

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Wales Day 6

10:59 am

Sheep on the flanks of Cader Idrisc

Stone walls on the flanks of Cader Idris

Approaching the halfway point in the hike up Cader Idrisc

After yesterday’s long hike on Mount Snowdon, today was planned as an easier day. First we changed locations, driving south to the village of Dolgellau.

In the morning we heard two short presentations, first about the first discovery of Wales by tourists in the 1700s, and second a more scholarly look at the place names of Wales that appear connected to Arthur. In this case the speaker, Scott Lloyd of the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, was focused more on what is really known, and was thus less sure about Arthur’s links to Wales than our previous expert, Gareth Roberts. Lloyd has documented the many place names (see his book, The Arthurian Place Names of Wales), but he has also documented the important detail that most started appearing after the first writings about Arthur started to appear, with most appearing several centuries after Arthur supposedly lived. This suggests that the names were chosen because of the legend, not because the man had been there.

In the afternoon some of us did a short hike halfway up the nearby mountain Cader Idris. The first picture shows the mountain at the top right, with sheep in the center, and a hawthorn tree in bloom to the left. The second picture shows the trail going uphill parallel to one of the many typical stone walls found everywhere in Wales. The land is very rocky, and to make it better for grazing farmers would clear the stones from the fields, putting them in piles to the side. Then, when the enclosure laws were passed in the early 1800s they used those stones to build the walls to define their property lines.

The third picture shows Taff and Barbara ahead of me, with Cader Idris in the distance. Shortly thereafter we stopped to lie on the soft heather to chat and admire the countryside and the grey rocky slope going up to the peak ahead of us. We then headed back down for dinner and an evening in town.

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Wales Day 5

12:38 pm

Lower part of Rhyd Ddu trail

Walking through West Snowdon Quarry

Taff Roberts on the stair climb up Clogwyn Du

Our crew with the summit in view

The goal today was to hike up to the top of Mount Snowdon, the highest point in Wales, as well as the island of England. Diane and I didn’t make it, but not for want of trying.

The route we took started at the trailhead of the Rhyd Ddu trail, one of the more popular routes up the mountain. The top photo to the right shows the view from the lower elevations of this trail, and gives a good sense of the beauty, barrenness, and dampness of the day. Though it never really rained on us, the sky was almost always overcast and the cloud cover sometimes came down to engulf us.

Rather than take Rhyd Ddu straight north to the top, however, our route has us head right (east) up the Clogwyn Du trail through the now inactive West Snowdon slate quarry, and then turn left (north) up the nose of a very steep ridgeline to meet up with Rhyd Ddu close to the summit. The second image on the left shows Diane standing on the trail surrounded by slate tailings from that quarry.

The next picture shows Hywel “Taff” Roberts, our leader and the owner of Wild Wales Tours, with the distant mountain floor below us. We have begun the climb up the nose of that ridgeline, with the initial section up a very steep stone staircase cut into the ground. I could not help but think of the stairs of Cirith Ungol from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

The last photo was taken by Taff showing our entire crew, with the peak of Mount Snowdon hidden by clouds at the top center of the image. From left to right we have Pat, Dennis, the sisters Penny and Barbara, our second guide Haf, and then Diane and myself. The peak at the top-left is actually the start of the knife-edge ridgeline that leads to the peak. Where that ridgeline begins Clogwyn Du meets up again with Rhyd Ddu, which follows that very narrow knife-edge ridge to the summit, with 1000 foot drop-offs on either side.

When we got to Rhyd Ddu on that ridgeline Diane and I decided to head back down on Rhyd Ddu. We were now in the clouds, so going on to the peak seemed silly as we likely wouldn’t be able to see anything. Moreover, it was colder than either of us are used to or like. While Taff came down with us, everyone else continued to the peak. As I write this they have not yet returned, though I have no doubt they had a spectacular time crossing that ridge to the summit. UPDATE: The rest of the crew made the peak, but could see nothing for that entire section of hike, because of the clouds.

Not making the summit does not bother me much. I like to get to the top, but also know that we could it do another time should we decide to try. Diane and I have been doing this for a lot of years. We know our capabilities. We don’t need to prove them to others or ourselves.

Besides, the views up until then had been breath-taking, and they continued to be as good on the hike down. This was why we came, and it paid us amply in beauty every step of the way.

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China launches GPS-type satellite

9:23 am

China yesterday launched another one of its Beidou GPS-type satellites using its Long March 3C rocket.

This is their fourth backup BeiDou placed in orbit, and the 45th total that has been launched.

The leaders in the 2019 launch race:

7 China
5 SpaceX
4 Europe (Arianespace)
3 Russia

The U.S. still leads China 10 to 7 in the national rankings.

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Wales Day 4

9:12 am

Sygun Fawr

Today's hike

Merlin's Pool

Foundation at top of hill

Today’s adventure in Wales was a pleasant seven mile hike up onto a small hill, Dinas Emrys, nestled in the pass in Snowdonia National Park that crosses from north to south Wales past Mount Snowdon. Our hotel, Sygun Fawr, can be seen in the lower left corner in the first picture on the right, which I took from the top of this hill. If you look close, you can see the window of our second floor room, looking out at the mountains.

The hike was through some of the lushest green woods I’ve ever seen, as illustrated by the second picture on the right. The trail itself was clearly very old, with stone steps and even a simple bridge made of flat stones and laid across a stream with a single larger rock in the center for support.

The hill itself is associated with Merlin in a number of ways. For example, the pool at the base of the waterfall in the third picture has been called Merlin’s Pool for centuries. Furthermore, Merlin supposedly hid a treasure in a cave somewhere on the hill, which will only be discovered by someone with golden hair and blue eyes and who will be guided to the cave by a bell ringing.

Legend also tells this tale:

Fleeing Anglo-Saxon invaders Vortigen came to Wales and chose the hillfort as his retreat. However all efforts at building on the site failed, with workers returning daily to find collapsed masonry. Vortigern was counselled to seek the help of a young boy born of a virgin mother; a suitable boy was found named Myrddin Emrys (Merlin Ambrosius). Vortigern’s plan to kill Myrddin to appease the supernatural powers preventing him from building his fortress was scorned by Myrddin who instead explained that the fort could not stand due to a hidden pool containing two dragons. The White Dragon – he explained – of the Saxons would in time be defeated by the British Red Dragon.

The fourth pictures shows Gareth Roberts, our guide who as mentioned yesterday has been researching Welsh Arthurian place names, standing on the foundation of the ruin at Dinas Emrys’ top. To his left and slightly lower down on the hill in a gully was a second foundation and a pool from a natural spring. This spring was another reason this hilltop was a favored site for a stronghold, as it not only gave clear views both up and down the valley, was very defensible, but also had a ready supply of water. A fortress here would withstand attack for a considerable time.

Tomorrow we climb Mount Snowdon itself, The hike’s length will likely be about nine miles, and will gain 2,900 feet in elevation, somewhat comparable to many hikes in southern Arizona. The weather looks excellent, with spring temperatures at the mountain’s base.

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New LRO pictures showing Beresheet impact site

3:18 pm

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) science team yesterday released an image showing the impact site where the privately-built Israeli lunar lander Beresheet crashed onto the surface of the Moon on April 11, 2019.

“The cameras captured a dark smudge, about 10 meters wide, that indicates the point of impact,” said NASA. “The dark tone suggests a surface roughened by the hard landing, which is less reflective than a clean, smooth surface.”

The image released does not see the spacecraft but the surface evidence that an impact took place. Higher resolution images will be required to spot any surface wreckage.

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Hayabusa-2 aborts close-in drop of visual marker on Ryugu

3:09 pm

Japan’s asteroid probe Hayabusa-2 automatically aborted a planned drop of a visual markee on the asteroid Ryugu at the site where the probe created a crater in April.

Thursday’s mission was to observe the targeted area in detail and drop a marker from an altitude of 10 meters. But officials say the probe automatically suspended the operation after it descended to about 50 meters above the surface. It then headed toward its standby position of 20 kilometers above Ryugu. Hayabusa2 is designed to automatically abort its landing if it detected any irregularity. The agency is looking into the cause of the arrested descent.

Once the marker is eventually in place, they will use it for guidance during a a second touchdown to grab further samples, this time hopefully of material churned up by the explosion that created the crater.

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Wales Day 3

2:44 pm

Bryn Celli Ddu

Arthur's Table

John Jo splitting slate

Our travels today in Wales took us to three sites, all completely different.

First we visited Bryn Celli Ddu, a neolithic burial chamber, built about 5,000 years ago and shown in the top right photo. After following a well-defined path along the edge of two fields, we all entered this mound and stood in the chamber inside. The entrance shown in the image was aligned with the summer solstice so that the sun at sunrise would beam directly into the inner chamber.

Next, we drove to the northeast corner of the island of Anglesey to climb a flat-topped hill called Arthur’s Table. Our guide, Gareth Roberts, has been doing extensive research on the place names in Wales that appear to link directly to the legend of King Arthur. It is his contention (supported by those place names as well as research by others) that Arthur was actually a Welsh military leader, born of Roman parents (who had integrated into Welsh society) and who united the tribes to fight the Saxon invaders in the sixth century, after the Romans had abandoned the British Isles. He has found more than a hundred place names in this part of Wales named in honor of Arthur. He has also found in the written record much evidence linking Arthur to Wales and the war to resist the Saxons.

This particular hilltop has been identified by archeology as the location of a significant Welsh village from the time the Romans were conquering Great Britain. The middle right photo, taken from the top, looks east across the Menai Strait that separates Anglesey from the mainland, with the mountains of Snowdonia beyond. This strait is where the Romans crossed in their first attempt to conquer Anglesey and Wales.

Roberts’ thinks that the Round Table from the King Arthur legends was a misinterpretation by later French and British storytellers of this important Welsh hilltop village. Instead of being a table where Arthur ruled with his knights, the table was this hilltop, where that Roman invasion was first spotted during their initial invasion. Five hundred years later, when the Saxons invaded and Arthur led the resistance to them, Roberts’ believes the name was given because in some way Arthur was connected to it.

The third image shows slate cutter John Jo as he demonstrates how to split slate into the thin slate tiles that are used to cover rooftops. We watched this demonstration as part of a full tour of the National Slate Museum, nestled within the mountains on the way to Snowdonia, where for more than hundred years one of the world’s biggest slate mines mined, processed, and sold slate. Closed since 1969, the mine facility now serves as a museum. The most spectacular feature of this mine facility was the still functioning giant water wheel, more than fifty feet in diameter, that was turned by a stream of gravity-fed water at its base and was used to run all the belts that powered all the belt-driven machinery in the facility. The video of the wheel, embedded below the fold, shows the wheel as we saw it today. Unfortunately it does not include any people in it for scale, though one of the last shots shows a ladder for accessing the wheel’s top. Trust me, a person seems dwarfed by this wheel.

We then drove up over the mountain pass in Snowdonia National Park to our hotel, nestled at the base of Mount Snowdon. We shall be spending the rest of our trip hiking these mountains. The hike tomorrow will once again be led by Gareth Roberts and will show us further links between Arthur and Wales. On Sunday we will attempt to hike to the top of Mount Snowdon.
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Wales Day 2

2:25 pm

South Stack

Din Lligwy

Ynys Llanddwyn

Our journey through Wales continues. Today, as with yesterday, we explored the island Anglesey, which forms the northwest corner of Wales.

The day began going to Anglesey’s northwest coast to hike north to the South Stack lighthouse, as shown in the top right image. At this resolution you cannot see them, but the greyish-green rock faces rising one third to halfway up these cliff faces are covered with thousands and thousands of birds, including the guillemots, razorbills, chough, and puffins. Among them also stalks the herring gull, which is hoping to pick off an easy meal by grabbing the young offspring of the other birds.

We walked about two miles along these high dramatic cliffs to the lighthouse, which unfortunately was closed today because it had been reserved for an elementary school class trip.

We then drove to the little visited ruins of Din Lligwy (don’t ask me to explain how to pronounce it), shown in the second image to the right. These ruins are hidden behind trees on a high hill overlooking the part of the Irish Sea north of Wales and are what is left of a Welsh/Roman village. The ruins include the circular stone structures used as foundations for Welsh homes as well as the square stone wall/foundations used by the Romans. It is thus thought that after the Romans conquered Wales and before their abandonment of the British Isles the Romans intermarried with the Welsh and added their architectural designs to that used by the Welsh. The image shows the largest square foundation, with the two standing stones delineating the building’s entrance. To the left, out of frame, is a Welsh circular structure that to my eye looked exactly like a kiva that one sees in all the American Indian ruins of the southwest.

After visiting a number of other ruins, we then headed to the island’s southernmost point, to the peninsula of Ynys Llanddwyn, also called Dwynwen’s Island. It is no longer an island, because in the 1400s a giant storm, followed by several more, dumped a gigantic amount of sand along the shore, thus extending that shoreline several miles seaward and connecting the island to the mainland.

The bottom picture shows the peninsula’s distance lighthouse, and the ruins of a church (the arch) built to honor Dwynwen, who had been a Welsh princess. According to legend, she had been betrothed but fell in love with another man, who when he found out about the betrothal attacked her. This broke her heart, and she ended up running away to live unmarried on this island for the rest of her life, dedicated to helping unhappy lovers. For this she was made the patron saint for lovers by the Catholic Church.

To visit all these sites required us to cross Anglesey practically from the top to the bottom, generally traveling secondary roads. The land was a gentle rolling terrain, covered with numerous small farms whose amazingly lush and well-kept fields were devoted almost entirely to grazing sheep and cattle. The villages were all small, whose packed trim homes were either built during the 1800s or built to fit that style. Overall I got the impression that though this part of Wales might not be wealthy, its people had a strong sense of civic pride.

Tomorrow we head to Mount Snowden and the mountains. The scenery should get a bit more dramatic.

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In Wales

11:40 pm

747

The view from the Village of Rhosneigr

This will be a short post, as we are about to leave on our second day’s adventures.

To the right is the plane that finally got us out of the U.S. to London, where we had to transfer again to get to Dublin. Twas nice to fly on a 747, rapidly disappearing from the fleets of American airline companies. British Airways however appears to still be flying a lot of them. A super smooth flight on this magnificent plane.

Transferring planes in Heathrow was horrible, as it seems all international travel is becoming. Even though we were never leaving the terminal they still forced us to go through customs.

The second picture shows the view from the coastal village of Rhosneigr at the end of the day. We had met up with our group and had just completed a 4 mile hike along the beach. It seems there are a lot of bird watchers among us. It also seems in a way like we were back at Cannon Beach, without any crowds at all.

Time to go! More later.

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Fascist scientists propose excluding 85% of solar system from human use

2:20 am

The tyrannical Earth moves to oppress future spacefarers: Scientists have now proposed a new fascist plan designed to exclude any human development in 85% of the entire solar system.

Great swathes of the solar system should be preserved as official “space wilderness” to protect planets, moons and other heavenly bodies from rampant mining and other forms of industrial exploitation, scientists say.

The proposal calls for more than 85% of the solar system to be placed off-limits to human development, leaving little more than an eighth for space firms to mine for precious metals, minerals and other valuable materials.

While the limit would protect pristine worlds from the worst excesses of human activity, its primary goal is to ensure that humanity avoids a catastrophic future in which all of the resources within its reach are permanently used up. [emphasis mine]

These fascists really only want power. They really have no interest in preserving anything. If their proposal was ever made law it would put control over that 85% in the hands of bureaucrats on Earth, not the people who will be living and working in space and who would also know best how to handle the situation. Also, their justification for the proposal, to prevent humans from using up all the available resources, is beyond ludicrous. We haven’t yet come close to using up Earth’s resources, even though doomsayers have been predicting that to happen repeatedly for the past century.

This story more than anything provides a window into the future political conflicts that will occur once humans finally establish space colonies. Much as the American colonies had to revolt from Great Britain’s overbearing power, colonists in space will have to do the same to get away from the same overbearing power coming from Earth.

Posted on a ferry taking us from Dublin, Ireland, to Holyhead, Wales.

18 comments

America’s 10 largest cities drowning in debt

1:59 am

The coming dark age: According to a new report [pdf] from an independent government watchdog, the United States’ ten largest cities are all deep in debt, with taxpayer burdens for that debt ranging from $119K to $13K per taxpayer.

Almost all the cities on this list are and have been run by Democrats for decades, with Democratic strongholds Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia holding the four top spots. Nor have the Republicans been innocent or responsible. In cities where they had some control, such as New York when Rudy Giuliani was mayor, little was done to rein in spending. Still, Democrats have held the bulk of political control in big American cities for the last century, so much of this debt comes from their policies.

The watchdog group that issued the report, Truth in Accounting, also focused on the dishonest accounting practices used by all these cities to hide their debt.

“The largest cities in the U.S. issue so-called ‘Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports,’ but most of them aren’t so comprehensive,” Bill Bergman, Truth in Accounting’s director of research, told Fox News via email.

The report questioned if cities’ annual financial reports “comprehensively track municipal accounts such as school districts, transit agencies, utility systems, etc.” Annual financial reports “for a city doesn’t present the full picture of their fiscal position, and is deceptive to the public,” the report said.

None of this is news. Politicians of all strips at every level of government have been faking their accounting for decades to allow them to spend more money than they have. The result is debt across the board, at every level of American government, with the worst debt held by our out-of-control federal government.

Are the politicians to blame? Yes, but the source of their corruption really falls on the voters, who have favored such politicians because they have been giving money away to those taxpayers. Rather than be responsible citizens, Americans for the past half century have been greedy and selfish, using their governments to get as many free handouts as possible. Or they have been willing to countenance big payouts to unions and others, sometimes for naive idealism, and sometimes because of pure laziness to pay attention to such matters.

Can the U.S. clean up this mess before the whole house of cards collapses? That remains unknown. Trump’s election hints that the voters might be willing to try, but then, Trump is no budget-cutting hawk. He believes in lots of government spending as well, from NASA to infrastructure. It remains to be seen whether the American public has begun to recognize this unsustainable situation. My sense is that they have become aware, but are still unwilling to make the hard sacrifices necessary to fix the problem. For example, the worst political offenders here remain the Democrats, and there is absolutely no indication of them losing power in the big urban cities named in this report. The debt grows, but the voters continue to support them.

Until we see a full house-cleaning in the Democratic Party, the situation is simply not going to improve.

7 comments

Trump seeks $1.6 billion more for NASA, cuts money to Gateway

7:40 pm

The Trump administration, in order to support its desire to accomplish a lunar landing by 2024, is requesting a $1.6 billion increase in NASA’s budget for fiscal year 2020. The key detail however is this:

NASA shortly thereafter published a summary of its budget amendment, which calls for nearly $1.9 billion in new funding for developing lunar landers and accelerating work on the Space Launch System and Orion. It would also go towards exploration technology development and additional science missions to the moon. That increase would be offset by cutting funding for the lunar Gateway by $321 million, reflecting the agency’s plan for only a “minimal” Gateway needed to support a 2024 landing.

In other words, in total Trump wants $1.6 billion more. The good news: He is de-emphasizing Gateway in his future plans. This might even lead to its cancellation as a project.

The bad news? He is pumping more money into SLS/Orion. However, this might not be that bad, when one considers how our bankrupt Washington government functions. Trump doesn’t have the political backing to cut SLS/Orion outright. Instead this proposal is that project’s Hail Mary pass for a touchdown. While private efforts continue to mature to develop cheaper rockets and manned capsules, SLS/Orion will have this one last chance to finally prove itself. If it finds it can’t get it done, and those private options show that they can, then Trump might finally be able to harness the political will in our dumb Congress to dump SLS/Orion.

And if SLS/Orion does succeed? The victory will likely still be a Pyrrhic one. SLS/Orion will still be too expensive and too slow to do much else but a single lunar landing, a stunt much like Apollo, with far less long term possibilities. Meanwhile, those private efforts will continue to develop. By 2024 a switch by NASA to private enterprise and competition will still make sense anyway, even if SLS/Orion gives the nation a spectacular lunar landing.

This action indicates that the Trump administration is paying attention to these matters. They are creating a situation that will put them in a strong negotiating position to get what they want, for the nation. One way or the other, we will be heading back to the Moon.

One minor detail: NASA has chosen “Artemis” as the name for its project to land on the Moon by 2020.

Bridenstine also … announce[d] that this 2024 lunar landing mission will be named Artemis, after the sister of Apollo and the Greek goddess of the moon. “I think it is very beautiful that, 50 years after Apollo, the Artemis program will carry the next man and the first woman to the moon.”

No one should be fooled by this. Apollo was a full program, with a well-thought slate of missions designed to get us to the Moon quickly. This SLS/Orion project is still an off the cuff mishmash, with only two or three flights at most, and without much of a plan behind those flights. It has been and continues to be an improvised mess.

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Are Boeing and SpaceX having parachute issues with their manned capsules?

5:09 am

There appears to be a significant conflict between what NASA has been saying about the parachute development tests for both SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and Boeing’s Starliner capsule and what the companies have reported.

The head of NASA’s manned program, Bill Gerstenmaier, has said that both programs have had “anomalies” during their tests. Both companies have said otherwise, with both companies claiming that all their parachutes have been successful. The article looks into this, and what it finds tends to support the companies over Gerstenmaier. There have been issues, but not as terrible as implied by Gerstenmaier.

So what is going on? I suspect that Gerstenmaier is overstating these issues as part NASA’s game to slow-walk the private capsules in order to make SLS not look so bad. He would of course deny this, but that denial won’t change my suspicions, in the slightest. I’ve seen NASA’s bureaucracy play too many games in connection with getting these capsules approved for flight to be generous to Gertenmaier or NASA. I don’t trust them. I’ve seen them make dishonest accusations against SpaceX and Boeing too many times already.

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