June 26, 2020 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
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Category: Points of Information
Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
NASA tests SLS backup tank to failure
In preparation for the only planned full scale static fire engine test of the core first stage of the SLS rocket, NASA engineers have successfully completed a tank test to failure on a back-up oxygen tank.
The tank was filled with water to simulate the oxygen, and cracked as expected at the predicted pressure and at the predicted weld. A short 11-second video of the moment of failure test is embedded below the fold.
This test illustrates the methods by which NASA works. Unlike SpaceX, which is doing similar tests at the very beginning of its Starship design stage to best improve their design, NASA does this testing at the very end of construction, to prove that what they have built will work. The former method in the long run is less risky and faster, as SpaceX quickly finds out what works and doesn’t and builds accordingly.
The latter method is more risky because it depends on complex computer models, which can always be wrong. It also is more expensive in that it requires NASA to build its rockets with large margins of error, just in case those models are wrong. Finally, it appears to take longer to build, because of those required large margins of error. Your rocket or spaceship needs almost to be “gold-plated” to make sure it will work, when completed, since you really can’t test it in the design phase and build it more efficiently based on those tests.
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Sierra Nevada starts installing thermal tiles on Tenacity
Capitalism in space: Sierra Nevada has received and started to install the thermal protection tiles for its first Dream Chaser reusable mini-shuttle, dubbed Tenacity.
The Thermal Protection System (TPS) tiles are one of the major hardware components used on Dream Chaser and cover nearly the entire craft to protect it from the heat of the sun and the plasma regime during atmospheric reentry. The tiles can withstand the scorching heat of 1,650°C (3,000°F) and prevent the vehicle from being destroyed during reentry.
Dream Chaser has approximately 2,000 TPS tile compared to the 24,000 tiles used on the Space Shuttle. Dream Chaser is about 1/4 the size of a Shuttle Orbiter. The tiles on Dream Chaser utilize a room temperature vulcanizing (RTV) silicone to keep the tiles bonded to the vehicle at all times. The silicone can withstand high temperatures, making it ideal for use. Each of the tiles is tested by a mechanism that pulls on each one, helping avoid issues of the tiles falling off, which happened early in the Space Shuttle Program.
The company notes that the vehicle remains on schedule for a 2021 launch on a ULA Vulcan rocket.
Some quick and easy evidence proving masks are unhealthy
The video below illustrates very simply and quickly the reasons masks are generally a bad idea, especially for anyone with any chronic respiratory disease that causes reduced lung function. What it shows that within your mask the levels of oxygen are routinely below OSHA’s recommendations. While a healthy person will not suffer significantly, wearing a mask for a long period of time will certainly lead to headaches and diminished function. For a person with asthma or chronic pulmonary disease the low levels of oxygen, combined with the higher levels of CO2 (which you are rebreathing) will eventually cause serious harm.
The video comes from this link, which includes similar demonstrations.
Wearing a mask is simply not supported by the science. There is no clear evidence it stops or even slows the spread of the Wuhan virus, and it carries with it negative medical consequences.
The negative social consequences need not be discussed. They are beyond counting.
California Democrats vote to allow all forms of discrimination
Fascist California; The Democrats controlling all levels of the government in California this week voted to repeal their constitutional statutes that forbid discrimination based on race, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.
This quote makes clear the goal of the bigoted Democrats:
Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, the San Diego Democrat who is carrying ACA5 [the bill’s official designation], said mass uprisings in recent weeks against police brutality and systemic racism have shown that new solutions are needed to address the discrimination that remains in many communities.
“As we look around the world, we see there is an urgent cry — an urgent cry for change,” Weber said on the Assembly floor. “After 25 years of quantitative and qualitative data, we see that race-neutral solutions cannot fix problems steeped in race.” [emphasis mine]
So if race neutral polices won’t work, it appears she is suggesting they put into law race-biased policies, kind of like the Nazis did. In this case they will aim to specifically favor the Democrats’ rainbow coalition of minorities — specifically blacks, homosexuals, and illegal immigrants — to the detriment and oppression of everyone else.
Of course, these benefits will not apply to any blacks or homosexuals or immigrants who happen to be conservative. In that case their minority status is now null and void, as it can do nothing to help Democrats maintain power.
None of this should surprise us. After fifty years the Democratic Party is finally returning to its roots as the party of segregation, discrimination, and race hatred. They are simply rephrasing it slightly to fool people.
The law will have to still be approved by the voters in November, but since these Democrats are also forcing through California mail-only voting, they will have no problem fixing the results to their satisfaction.
Biden would use presidential power to force everyone to wear masks
They’re coming for you next: Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden said today that he would would use his power as president to require everyone to wear masks.
“I would go back to making sure that everybody had masks,” Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, told KDKA. “The one thing we do know is that these masks make a gigantic difference. I would insist that everybody in public be wearing that mask. … I would do everything possible to make it required that people had to wear masks in public,” he added later. [emphasis mine]
Put aside the fact that the benefits of mask use remain highly uncertain, and also include some very likely negative medical consequences. Also put aside Biden’s incorrect assumption that somehow there once had been a national mandate to wear masks.
What I find horrifying is the assumption that a president has the right to require such a thing. Not only does Biden assume he can issue such an edict, it appears that everyone now assumes they must obey it.
Nowhere under law is such a draconian dictate by a president allowed. Nowhere. In fact, if anything, the Bill of Rights expressly forbids it.
And yet, we have come to a place where a presidential candidate thinks he will have that right, and I guarantee he will be supported in that belief by his entire party.
Make no mistake. They’re coming for you next.
Extensive fraud found in New Jersey mailed ballots
The end of valid elections: Officials in New Jersey have discovered extensive fraud in a local election involving one out of every five mail-in ballots, putting into question the election results and resulting in the indictment of four men, including one candidate.
In the City Council election, 16,747 vote-by-mail ballots were received, but only 13,557 votes were counted. More than 3,190 votes, 19% of the total ballots cast, were disqualified by the board of elections. Due to the pandemic, Paterson’s election was done through vote-by-mail. Community organizations, such as the city’s NAACP chapter, are calling for the entire election to be invalidated.
The article is a horror-show, showing starkly how going to mail-in ballots will guarantee that all future elections will be rigged. This quote especially illustrates this fact:
[D]ozens of lawsuits have been filed across the country contesting state requirements used to certify mail-in ballots. “Among the main targets are witness and signature requirements for absentee ballots — such as signing the envelope, or getting a witness or notary to sign it, or making sure the voter’s signature is legible,” notes an NPR report earlier this month.
Those lawsuits seeking to expand vote-by-mail include one brought in Nevada earlier year, which aims to do away with signature verification on mail-in ballots altogether – even though ballot signatures not matching voter records was the reason Paterson disqualified over 2,300 ballots.
Since voting is controlled by local authorities, and since very few Republicans at the local level seem willing or able to fight these measures, I honestly do not expect the November election to reflect an accurate count. Instead, I think it will be heavily rigged in favor of the Democrats.
The only hope for overcoming this rigging will be that the many voters who have never voted before come out in huge numbers and vote against their incumbent governments. Unfortunately, I see little sign that this will happen.
UK to bid for purchase of bankrupt OneWeb
Capitalism in space? The United Kingdom appears about to bid $500 million to purchase the bankrupt satellite communications company OneWeb, apparently in an effort to use its satellites as a quick form of GPS-type satellites.
Among the uses being claimed for OneWeb’s technology is that it could be an alternative Galileo, the GPS satellite constellation built by the EU. Britain was kicked out of the project as a result of Brexit. Some have speculated OneWeb might be used as a cheaper alternative.
However, while acquiring such a satellite network would be a coup, industry sources are divided on whether the satellites could be easily retrofitted to perform a role as GPS. GPS technology is also owned by the US, and Washington has been against its allies building rival systems. “The system was built as a communications network,” says one source, questioning how easily it could be changed to GPS.
The article also notes that three Chinese companies are also considering bidding. All these foreign bids (especially the Chinese ones) however face U.S. government review, which will I expect almost certainly reject the Chinese bids.
The deadline for bids is tonight, so we shall find out soon.
Dragon capsule on ISS doing better than expected
Capitalism in space: The first manned Dragon capsule, presently docked to ISS, is doing better than expected according to NASA officials, who have also now set August 2nd as their target date for the return to Earth.
Tests of the solar panels and the capsule’s power systems have so far been “better than expected.” Besides these tests, they still have one other major in-orbit test.
On July 4, the space station crew will perform a habitability test with the craft, with four astronauts climbing into the capsule and practicing everyday activities like sleeping, hygiene tasks, as well as emergency procedures to see what it will be like for future crewed missions. On Demo-2, only two astronauts were on board for the trip but regular flights will carry at least four people, so this test will help inform astronauts on those future trips.
Privately-built Japanese smallsat successfully tests new technology
Capitalism in space: A privately-built Japanese smallsat has successfully tested seven new technologies on a six-month long mission that was launched in January on Japan’s newest low-cost Epsilon rocket.
For the first time, the Japanese space agency turned over development of one of its satellites to a startup. Axelspace Co. developed RAPIS-1 for the agency is a short time period, going from design to launch in only about two years, the agency said. The satellite bus features a standardized interface that made attaching instruments and equipment easier. The mission equipment and bus were independently designed to prevent failures of the former from affecting the latter, JAXA said.
The article at the link provides details about the technologies tested, all of which increase significantly the capabilities of smallsats to replace standard larger and heavier satellites.
Russia signs deal to for first space tourist spacewalk
Capitalism in space: Russia and Space Adventures have inked a deal to fly two tourists to ISS in 2023, with one doing the first space tourist spacewalk.
At the moment they do not have any signed customers, but this agreement is essentially an okay from Russia to do the spacewalk, and is probably an effort by them to offer something better than SpaceX for its tourist flights. For SpaceX or Boeing to offer spacewalks will require cooperation from NASA, since neither company has spacesuits capable of doing such a thing. They need NASA’s suits, but NASA will likely not give its approval, at least in the near future. Unlike the Russian Orlan suits, the NASA spacesuits are very complex and difficult to use. Letting a tourist use one for a spacewalk is probably too risky.
Thus, don’t be surprised if SpaceX soon begins designing its own EVA spacesuit.
Either way, the next few years in space are getting more exciting by the day. SpaceX already has two contracts for tourist flights, and Russia is upping the competition by offering spacewalks. On top of that Axiom is beginning construction on its own space station habitat on ISS where tourists can live.
Expect lots of private commercial manned flights in the coming years.
COVID-19 hospitalizations dropping across the board
Click for full resolution image.
The graph to the right, produced weekly by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and presently up-to-date through June 13th, bluntly shows why the panic over COVID-19 has been absurd and unjustified. (Hat tip Doug Ross @ Journal for noting it first.)
It shows the trends in Wuhan flu hospitalizations week to week, separated by age group. The only age groups seriously impacted by the disease have been those over 50. The cohorts under seventeen do not even register on the graph. Moreover, these are numbers per 100,000. Even at its worse, the disease only put about 30 people (over 65) out of every 100,000 into the hospital. Though maybe a bit higher it is hardly different than what we see normally during any normal flu season. It is also, like what we see during flu season, hardly something to panic over.
The graph also shows that the disease’s impact is clearly fading, across the board, even as the number of identified cases is rising. Even in the 18-49 cohort, which is right now experiencing the greatest rise in new cases, the hospitalizations are dropping, to about 2 or 3 people out of every 100,000.
This is not something to fear. It certainly does not justify the nullification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Nor does it justify the requirement that everyone go about their lives wearing a mask, which not only does nothing to stop the disease but probably increases everyone’s chances of getting sick.
Doug Ross in his post on this graph I think summarizes the situation best:
You gots it, Sparky. The key metrics indicate that overall, the U.S. is crushing the China scourge. Of course, the media — whose singular goal is the destruction of the Constitution — wants to shriek about the growth of “positive test results”, not hospitalizations or mortality. But that’s what the media do. They aren’t about objective facts, or news, they’re about promoting fascism. Ain’t that right, Acosta?