May 10, 2023 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
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Category: Points of Information
Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
May 10, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Rocket Lab is selling the helicopter it had planned to use to catch Electron 1st stages
Their decision to reuse the stages after quickly pulling them from the water made the helicopter extraneous.
- China claims completion of an in-orbit experiment on liquid metal thermal management on its space station
I honestly don’t know what this means. Have they used some form of liquid metal to manage the station’s temperature? Or have they figured out a way to control and manage liquid metals in weightlessness?
- Several solar storms are expected to hit Earth in the next few days
I make two predictions: 1) Nothing of significance will happen, though we will have great auroras. 2) Some news outlets will write a story with some variation of this headline: “Were we lucky to dodge a solar disaster this time?”
A rash 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 January 30, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The science team labeled this a “Circular Outcrop of Bright Rock.
What I see is a Martian skin rash. Based on the ripple pattern below the ridge one might think we are looking at sand dunes, except that the rash above the cliff has no such pattern. Instead, the ground in this one particular area looks very roughened in a random sort of way.
The location at 27 degrees south latitude suggests there is little near surface ice at this location to cause this feature. The overview map below provides another but not very helpful possibility.
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SpaceX successfully launches another 51 Starlink satellites
SpaceX today successfully launched another 51 Starlink satellites, using its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The first stage successfully completed its third flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. Both fairings completed their second flight in space.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
30 SpaceX
17 China
6 Russia
4 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads China 34 to 17 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 34 to 29. SpaceX by itself trails the entire world, including other American companies, only 30 to 33 in launches this year.
SpaceX to launch Vast’s first space station module as well as two manned missions to it
Vast Haven-1 station inside Falcon-9 fairing
SpaceX and the private space station company Vast today revealed a deal whereby SpaceX will use its Falcon 9 rocket to launch VAST’s first space station module, dubbed Vast Haven-1, followed soon thereafter by two manned missions using SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and lasting up to 30 days.
The announcements claim that first launch will occur by August 2025, which will make it the first privately-owned manned space station to reach orbit, well ahead of the plans by the three space station companies that NASA has issued contracts (by teams led by Northrop Grumman, Sierra Space, and Nanoracks). The only other private station hoping to beat this date, Axiom, won’t be flying independent, but will be attaching its first module to ISS in 2024.
In addition, Vast says that this module will be the incorporated into its proposed larger spinning-wheel station.
Vast is owned and financed by billionaire Jed McCaleb, who doesn’t need NASA seed money for development. In fact, it appears he and SpaceX want to remain as independent of the government as possible, considering the high fees NASA is charging to dock and stay at ISS as well as the stringent research rules it is demanding from private astronauts. This approach also appears to be the same one that Jared Isaacman is taking with his series of private missions on Dragon and Starship.
Scientists: Real women are better to send to Mars than real men
Gee, I thought there was no difference: According to a study done for the European Space Agency (ESA), scientists have concluded that sending a four person all-female crew to Mars would have significant advantages over either a mixed sex crew or an all-male crew.
From the paper’s conclusion:
These estimated differences result from lower resting and exercising O2 requirements (based on available astronaut data) of theoretical female astronauts, who are lighter than theoretical male astronauts at equivalent statures and have lower relative VO2max values. These data, combined with the move towards smaller diameter space habitat modules, suggest that there may be a number of operational advantages to all-female crews during future human space exploration missions.
While there may be some minor operational advantages to only flying female astronauts on long missions, those advantages pale in comparison to the loss to humanity in the long run. You can’t settle a new world with one sex. Nor can you learn how to get there if you build your spacecraft capable of only meeting the minimum requirements.
If you go, everyone must go, or else the goal is not inclusive and diverse. Or as reader Milt noted to me when he sent me this story:
Of course, every research finding that is reported in this article flies in the face of the woke conventional wisdom that “there are no differences between men and women,” and — even better — male astronauts who wish to transition to being women must then be accepted as female in terms of mission planning, etc., lest NASA or the ESA be accused of transphobia.
In other words, this study and the entire “transgender” movement reveal the real leftist goal: Power and control. In the first case, the study says: “Give the job only to our favored oppressed sex!” In the second case the “transgender” movement says: “Obey our whims no matter what!”
Facts only matter when they help this leftist movement gain power and control. When the facts are inconvenient, the facts are tossed aside and it is the emotions that must rule.
UAE asteroid mission will rendezvous with seven asteroids and will include lander
Though the mission was first announced in 2021, the UAE only recently revealed at a science conference the mission’s specific targets and plan.
From the conference poster [pdf]:
The mission will launch in 2028 and visit 7 main belt asteroids, including 6 high-speed flyby encounters en route to a rendezvous with the asteroid 269 Justitia. The mission is enabled by solar electric propulsion and gravity assist flybys of Venus, Earth, and Mars, bringing the total number of mission encounters to 10. The trajectory design presented will include the overall timeline of the mission, launch targets, launch period, overall duration of the encounters, design of the encounters, and trajectory modeling. Mission design analyses include designing the Deep space maneuvers (DSMs) prior to the rendezvous with Justitia and design Justitia’s orbits and maneuvers to accomplish the lander deployment.
As with the UAE’s Al-Amal Mars Orbiter, the country is relying on an American university, the University of Colorado, as well as the commercial company, Advanced Space, to design, build, and operate the spacecraft. In this sense the UAE is paying these American entities to fly the mission while requiring them to train its own engineers and scientists.
Meteorite crashes through roof of NJ home
On May 8, 2023 a family in New Jersey returned home to discover a 4×6 inch meteorite on the floor of one bedroom, having crashed through the roof of their home.
Suzy Kop, a resident of the home, told CBS Philadelphia that meteorite landed in her father’s bedroom, but no one was home. “I thank God that my father was not here, no one was here, we weren’t hurt or anything,” Kop told the station.
She found the object, she said, amid debris in the room after it came through the ceiling. At first, she said she believed it had been thrown. “I did touch the thing, because I thought it was a random rock, I don’t know, and it was warm,” she told CBS Philadelphia.
Though not unprecedented, there are only a few recorded examples of meteorites landing in populated areas like this.
UK regulators give okay on Viasat’s purchase of Inmarsat
After months of delay, the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) regulators has finally admitted that Viasat’s purchase of Inmarsat would not reduce competition in the communication satellite industry, and has approved the purchase unconditionally.
The evidence analysed by the panel shows that, while Viasat and Inmarsat compete closely– specifically in the supply of satellite connectivity for wifi on flights – the deal does not substantially reduce competition for services provided on flights used by UK customers.
The evidence also shows that the satellite sector is expanding rapidly – a trend that is set to continue for the foreseeable future. This is due to increased demand for satellite connectivity, driven largely by the ever-growing use of the internet by business and consumers.
The CMA press release is a classic of bureaucracy blather. Essentially, it tries to make it sound like this agency did lots of difficult hard work to discover what is patently obvious, that without this merger these two companies will almost certainly not be able to compete with the emerging new satellite communications companies coming on line.
The best thing that the UK could do to encourage competition and new industries in the UK would be to defund this agency, now. Its existence accomplishes nothing other than to stand in the way.
China launches cargo freighter to its Tiangong-3 space station
Using its Long March 7 rocket launching from its coastal Wenchang spaceport, China today successfully placed into orbit a Tianzhou cargo freighter to resupply the Tiangong-3 space station.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
29 SpaceX (with a launch scheduled for later today)
17 China
6 Russia
4 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise still leads China 33 to 17 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 33 to 29.
May 9, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- An review of Blue Origin activities at its launch site at Cape Canaveral
The article claims the company is picking up the pace of its operations, but neither Jay or I noticed that much of great significance. More is happening, but not to the extent that should make anyone hold their breath.
- Virgin Orbit receives more than thirty indications of interest under bankruptcy procedures
What is important is that several of these offers want to keep the company intact and operating as is. If they win, then Virgin Orbit as a launch company survives.
- Water park built behind Wenchang launch pads:
It is unclear what this “park” is exactly. It appears to be some sort of water control system surrounded by landscaping.
- Short video showing the present global satellite coverage of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation
There are now about 4,000 satellites in orbit.
- Graph showing 1st quarter orbital launches vs payload mass
Not surprisingly, SpaceX has put 10x more mass into orbit than its nearest two competitors, China and Russia.
Pushback: School board forced to restore contract it tried to cancel because it hates Christians
School board member Tamillia Valenzuela’s official
picture, with cat ears, nose ring, and green-dyed hair.
They’re coming for you next: When the school board for the Washington Elementary School District School in the Phoenix area unilaterally canceled a legal contract with Arizona Christian University in March, the university sued [pdf], claiming that the cancellation was solely for religious reasons and was discriminatory and a clear violation of its contract.
The school board has now settled that lawsuit, agreeing to restore the contract while also accepting liability for all legal costs in connection with the suit.
It is important to understand the exact reasons the board voted unanimously to cancel the contract. Under that agreement, which had existed for more than a decade, students from Arizona Christian University would act as free teaching assistants for the district’s elementary schools while getting real world experience in teaching. Their work was determined by the school, and during that time there was never a complaint about them attempting to indoctrinate children into Christianity (even as the queer community now pushes its queer agenda to children in schools continuously).
When the board canceled the contract, it did so by declaring unequivocally the university’s religious affiliation was the problem, not because it had failed in any of its contract obligations. More specifically, at least two members of the school board — proud members of the queer community — expressed strong intolerance with the university’s Christian beliefs, and wanted the contract cancelled for this sole reason. As board member Tamillia Valenzuela said at the February board meeting where the cancellation vote was taken:
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