Category: Points of Information

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

Oklahoma Supreme Court gives Trump permission to hold political rally

12:43 pm

O thank you my Lords! The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled Friday that it will allow Trump to hold a political rally in that state today.

[T]he state’s Supreme Court ruled against the request to force everyone attending to wear a mask and stay at least six feet apart from one another — a policy that would have complicated the massive event with thousands of people. The court ruled that the two local residents among those filing the suit couldn’t establish that they have a clear legal right to the relief they sought. In a concurring opinion, two justices wrote that the state’s reopening plan is “permissive, suggestive and discretionary.”

“Therefore, for lack of any mandatory language in the (plan), we are compelled to deny the relief requested,” that opinion said.

The legalities aside, can you imagine any time in our past history where a sitting president and presidential candidate had to get a court’s approval to hold a political rally? I can’t. The idea would have been inconceivable to past American generations. But the precedent is now clearly set. The courts apparently do have the power to allow or block political rallies. All Trump’s opponents need do to shut down future events is to go to court. Sooner or later a court will go along and forbid the event from occurring, and based on Trump’s behavior up to now, he will bow to that court’s will.

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DOJ attorney refuses to resign as announced by Attorney General Barr

9:37 pm

The swamp continues to win: Today attorney general William Barr announced that U.S. attorney Geoffrey Berman, who has overseen a number of investigations and witch hunts against Trump associates (including his lawyer Michael Cohen), was resigning.

This evening Berman denied he was resigning, stating that he had no intention of leaving his post until the Senate approves his successor.

I have no idea what is going on here, but if Barr is supposed to be in charge, it sure doesn’t look like it. Instead, it looks like this member of the anti-Trump swamp, recognizing Trump’s weakness during the Wuhan panic and the recent anti-American riots, has decided he can defy his superiors and get away with it. And even if Trump does fire him, he will benefit financially because he knows the leftist Democratic press will pour money into his pockets for being a Trump opponent.

UPDATE and more proof the swamp is winning: Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) has now blocked Trump’s nominee (which is for the NY office of the Justice Department), claiming that it must first be approved by New York’s senators.

The article also makes the incredible claim that Trump, the sitting president of the United States and with whom Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution clearly states holds that executive power, cannot fire Berman.

Can Trump fire Berman? Uh … probably. It would be strange and likely a violation of separation of powers if the head of the executive branch couldn’t fire an employee at the Department of Justice. (We went through this with Mueller, remember.) The fact that Berman was appointed by a federal court, not the president, adds a wrinkle, though. And federal law adds another wrinkle about how, exactly, a court-appointed U.S. Attorney is to be replaced:

“To recap: 1) Berman was appointed under 28 U.S.C. § 546(d). 2) That statute contemplates that he keeps his job until a permanent successor is confirmed by the Senate. 3) 28 U.S.C. § 541(c) says U.S. Attorneys are subject to removal by the President. So the statutes conflict,” — Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) June 20, 2020

This Vladeck then adds

Of course, the Trump DOJ may argue that § 546(d) is unconstitutional insofar as it prevents the President from removing Berman, but that’s complicated here by Berman being an *Acting* U,S. Attorney—over whose appointment and removal Congress can arguably exercise *more* control.

If we have reached the insane situation where a Republican President can no longer fire those under him, then our Constitutional government is truly dead.

UPDATE: Trump has now fired Berman. We shall see whether the courts and the swamp will let that action stand.

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A gravel pile floating in space that might hit the Earth

2:10 pm

flat rock near Osprey
Click for full image.

Come October the probe OSIRIS-REx will attempt a quick touchdown on the asteroid Bennu to grab some tiny particles, all smaller than 0.8 inches across.

Bennu is what scientists have described as a “rubble-pile” asteroid. They use that name because it is simply a conglomeration of a lot of rocks, pebbles, boulders, and stones, all jagged and of all sizes. The overall gravity has never been strong enough to squeeze them together, at least as far as we can see, and so they are piled up loosely across the asteroid’s surface wherever we look.

I think a better name for this asteroid would a floating gravel pile, since the material on it, as clearly shown in the image to the right (reduced and rotated to post here), more resembles the tailings one finds at a mine or quarry. This photo was taken by OSIRIS-REx on May 26, 2020 during its first dress rehearsal over its back-up touch-and-go sample grab site, Osprey. As the release caption notes,

The field of view is 12 ft (3.8 m). For reference, the bright rock [near] the tip of the boulder is 1 ft (0.3 m) across, which is about the size of a loaf of bread.

I have rotated the image 90 degrees so that east is up, because the full mosaic of the entire Osprey landing site, shown below, is oriented that way, and by rotating it to match it is easier to locate this image within it.
» Read more

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A bunch of new contracts for smallsat rocket companies

9:12 am

Capitalism in space: Two news stories outlined today a bunch of new launch contracts for a number of smallsat rocket companies, with Rocket Lab getting the biggest share.

In the first award, the six companies were Rocket Lab, Aevum, Astra, X-Bow, Space Vector and VOX Space, of which only Rocket Lab is presently operational. The deal calls for the launch within the next 24 months of two cubesats from each company The money was authorized under the March Wuhan flu stimulus bill, and is apparently meant as reimbursement for each company’s losses because of the lock downs. No contract amount however was provided,

The second award to Rocket Lab came from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and is likely a reward for the company’s successful launch of three NRO satellites on June 12th. It also might involve two almost simultaneous launches on two different launchpads.

In a demonstration of its responsive launch capabilities, Rocket Lab said in a statement announcing the contract that the two launches will take place “within weeks” of each other. However, in an interview, Rocket Lab Chief Executive Peter Beck said he hopes the time between the two launches is much less than that. “We’re looking forward to having two vehicles sitting on two pads simultaneously, and we’ll see how close together we can actually get them to launch,” he said. “We’re planning internally to see how close we can get those two together.

The company is also hoping in the fall to attempt their first recovery of a first stage.

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Three Dog Night – Mama told me not to come

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Performed live in 1970. Nice piece of music and performance, but it epitomizes well the sixties generation and its carefree decadence. Freedom is a wonderful thing, but it also requires responsibility or everything will fall apart. In the end, unfortunately, the sixties generation did not put much stock in responsibility. We are now reaping the harvest they sowed. (And I speak as a member of that generation.)

Hat tip Roland.

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New Florida company to offer stratospheric tourist balloon flights

3:20 pm

Capitalism in space: A new Florida company dubbed Spac Perspective plans to offer six-hour-long tourist balloon flights to altitudes of 100,000 feet for $125,000 per ticket.

“Spaceship Neptune,” operated by a company called Space Perspective from leased facilities at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, will carry eight passengers at a time on six-hour flights. The passenger cabin, lifted by a huge hydrogen-filled balloon, will climb at a sedate 12 mph to an altitude of about 30 miles high. That will be followed by a slow descent to splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean where a recovery ship will be standing by to secure the cabin and crew.

Test flights carrying scientific research payloads are expected to begin in 2021. The first flights carrying passengers are expected within the next three-and-a-half years or so, with piloted test flights before that.

While the company initially will operate out of the Florida spaceport, the system could be launched from multiple sites around the world, with Hawaii and Alaska near-term possibilities.

The co-CEO of this company, Jane Poynter, had been the head of WorldView here in Tucson when that company was first planning to do tourist flights like this. She got pushed out a little over a year ago as the company shifted away from tourist flights to military surveillance, only to reappear now in Florida with a new company proposing the same thing.

All power to her. I hope this new company succeeds. It is offering a product at half the price of Virgin Galactic that is actually far superior (30 miles altitude for six hours vs 50 miles for five minutes).

NOTE: 100,000 feet elevation equals 30 kilometers, not 30 miles. I think the “30 mile” number in the quote is probably a mistake.

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Two new multi-wavelength Hubble images of planetary nebulae

11:05 am

Hubble images of the Butterfly and Jewel Bug planetary nebulae
Click for full image.

Cool images from Hubble! Astronomers have used the Hubble Space Telescope’s entire suite of instruments to produce spectacular new multi-wavelength images of two planetary nebulae, stars that for some reasons not yet entirely understood are surrounded by breath-taking jets and cloud-formations of all shapes and sizes.

The two images are to the right, cropped and reduced to post here.

Planetary nebulas, whose stars shed their layers over thousands of years, can turn into crazy whirligigs while puffing off shells and jets of hot gas. New images from the Hubble Space Telescope have helped researchers identify rapid changes in material blasting off stars at the centers of two nebulas — causing them to reconsider what is happening at their cores.

In the case of NGC 6302, dubbed the Butterfly Nebula, two S-shaped streams indicate its most recent ejections and may be the result of two stars interacting at the nebula’s core. In NGC 7027, a new cloverleaf pattern — with bullets of material shooting out in specific directions — may also point to the interactions of two central stars. Both nebulas are splitting themselves apart on extremely short timescales, allowing researchers to measure changes in their structures over only a few decades.

This is the first time both nebulas have been studied from near-ultraviolet to near-infrared light, a complex, multi-wavelength view only possible with Hubble.

The press release suggests that the most likely and popular explanation for the formation of planetary nebula is the interaction of two closely orbiting stars. While this might be true, it remains only one theory among many, all of which explain some of what we see and none of which explain everything. As I noted in my November 2014 cover story about planetary nebulae for Sky & Telescope:
» Read more

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Three Starship prototypes in line for testing

9:14 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX’s assembly line for building Starship prototypes is heating up, with three such ships completed or under construction in Boca Chica, Texas.

Initially numbered 5 through 7, the goal of the first two will be to do the first full scale vertical hops, flying as high as 7.5 miles.. #7 however has a different purpose:

While stouter than an actual Starship-class methane or oxygen tank, this particular test tank is maybe only 25% shorter than the methane tanks installed on Starship prototypes. According to Musk and effectively confirmed by writing all over the prototype, this particular test tank – formerly Starship SN7 – was built to determine if a different kind of steel could be preferable for future ships.

Shortly after the June 15th test began to wind down, Musk announced that the new material (304L stainless steel) had performed quite well, reaching 7.6 bar (110 psi) before it sprung a leak. The fact alone that it sprung a leak instead of violently depressurizing is already a major sign that 304L is preferable to 301L, as it means that Starships built out of it could fail much more gracefully in the event of a leak instead of collapsing or violently exploding. A step further, SpaceX has already managed to repair the leak on SN7 and will likely test the tank again in the next few days.

SpaceX is once again demonstrating how to properly do this kind of cutting edge development. You test, you fix or, you change, based on what your tests tell you. You don’t lock down design in the early stages, because at that point you really don’t know enough to do so.

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Astra schedules next launch attempt

9:01 am

Capitalism in space: The smallsat rocket company Astra has scheduled its next launch attempt for July 20.

The company tried twice to launch in March, with the second attempt destroying the rocket and launchpad. They have now rebuilt, though they also admit that this first launch might also fail, and that it is part of a three launch program. By the third launch they expect to reach orbit for sure.

If Astra succeeds, they will leap ahead of Virgin Orbit as the second smallsat rocket company, following Rocket Lab, to become operational.

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Enigmatic layering and chasms on Mars

2:27 pm

Enigmatic layering and chasms
Click for full image.

Overview map

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on April 28, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. (MRO). The science team entitled it “Enigmatic Uplifts in Echus Montes,” indicating a sense of bafflement on their part about this geology.

The features here are certainly somewhat puzzling. At first glance the terrain is reminiscent of Martian chaos terrain, mesas cut by canyons in an almost random pattern. As I explained at the link,

Chaos terrain is typically a collection of mesas separated by straight-lined canyons. It is found in many places on Mars, most often in the transition zone between the southern highlands and the northern lowlands where an intermittent ocean might once have existed. It is believed to form by erosion, possibly caused by either flowing water or ice, moving along fault lines. As the erosion widened the faults, they turned into canyons separating closely packed mesas. With time, the canyons widened and the mesas turned into a collection of hills.

What makes this particular image puzzling however is that there seem to be multiple layers of mesas and canyons. Look at the top of the rectangular mesa in the upper middle of the image. It appears to have its own miniature chaos terrain on its plateau. Somehow that first layer of chaos was abandoned when the more prominent larger canyons started to form around it.

The location of this feature is indicated by the black cross on the overview map to the right. It is in the middle of the large and wide northward trending part of the giant valley dubbed Kasei Valles. And as usual, knowing the location helps explain what we are seeing.
» Read more

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A fast radio burst that beats every sixteen days

11:59 am

Astronomers have now added to the mystery of fast radio bursts (FRBs), of which about a hundred are known, by discovering one in a nearby galaxy that has a regular outburst every 16.35 days.

Earlier this year CHIME worked with astronomers in Europe to pinpoint the origin of a particular FRB emission — called FRB 180916.J0158+65 — to a galaxy located 500 million light years from Earth.

Now CHIME has determined that FRB 180916 pulses at predictable intervals more than two weeks apart. “It tells us that the origin of at least some FRBs is astrophysically regular in nature, but on long enough time scales that they may be tied to something different than a rotating, compact object — perhaps something like an orbiting system,” said Newburgh, whose lab builds instrumentation for collecting data about the history of the cosmos

Or to put it another way, they really haven’t any idea yet what exactly causes these bursts. The new data however will help formulate better theories, that I guarantee will be contradicted by subsequent new data. At the moment there is so little known about FRBs that any theory must be looked at with great skepticism.

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