Behind The Black – Robert Zimmerman

NASA fixes SLS issue, prepares for full hot fire engine test of core stage

November 19, 2020 11:32 am Robert Zimmerman

My heart be still! NASA engineers have successfully fixed a valve on the inside of the core stage of the agency’s SLS rocket, making it possible for the continuation of the ongoing test program leading up to its first and only full static fire test on December 21st of the rocket’s core stage, prior to the rocket’s first launch.

Over the weekend, engineers at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, successfully repaired a valve inside the core stage of the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The team designed an innovative tool to remove and replace the valve’s faulty clutch while the core stage remained in the B-2 test stand, and without removing the entire valve. Subsequent testing of the repaired valve confirmed that the system is operating as intended.

If that static fire test fails for any reason, it will likely delay the first Artemis launch by at least a year, if not longer. Right now there is a slim chance that SpaceX’s Starship will complete its first orbital launch before SLS (which NASA has been developing for only seventeen years). Further delays would almost guarantee it.

Such an event will make the entire SLS program appear kind of stupid, irrelevant, and an utter waste of money. But then, SLS is exactly that, a wasteful boondoggle designed not to get American astronauts into space but to spend money in Congressional districts and states. These corrupt legislators actually like the delay and failure, because it extends the contracts and funnels more money to their constituents over a longer period of time. Who cares if anything ever really gets accomplished, or the interests of the U.S. are advanced? What really matters is making sure Congressmen get photo ops, and their big space backers get contracts so they can continue to make campaign contributions.

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The SpaceX fleet of Dragons

November 19, 2020 11:10 am Robert Zimmerman

The first manned Dragon capsule, on the launchpad

Capitalism in space: During the post-launch press briefing after launch of its second manned Dragon mission on November 15, SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell revealed the company’s plans to build and fly a fleet of Dragon cargo and crew capsules, and reuse them repeatedly over the coming years..

Specifically, Shotwell revealed that SpaceX intends to build three reusable Cargo Dragon 2 capsules, one of which is already completed and in Florida preparing for its December 2nd CRS-21 launch debut. On the crew side of things, SpaceX will build “three more” Crew Dragon capsules on top of the flight-proven Demo-2 and currently orbital Crew-1 capsules. It’s unclear if this means that the new Crew Dragon capsule flown on SpaceX’s January 2020 In-Flight Abort (IFA) test will be refurbished for additional flights.

Excluding IFA Crew Dragon capsule C205, SpaceX thus intends to operate a fleet of at least three Cargo Dragon 2 and five Crew Dragon capsules, representing eight reusable spacecraft each capable of at least five orbital missions.

She also hinted that the company has plans to fly its own missions, using these spacecraft, in addition to its contracted flights for NASA and the private company Axiom.

This private capability, which far exceeds anything ever built by NASA or any government worldwide, is entirely because Elon Musk had the freedom and the will to push for his particular vision. He had a bold idea, and with courage he pursued it.
» Read more

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Russian astronauts complete spacewalk to prepare ISS for Nauka

November 19, 2020 10:37 am Robert Zimmerman

Two Russian astronauts yesterday successfully completed an almost seven-hour spacewalk removing and repositioning equipment to prepare ISS for the arrival of Nauka next year, Russia’s next module for ISS.

The Pirs module will be removed and junked next year to make room for the research lab Nauka — Russian for “science.” Several Russian-directed spacewalks will be required to deal with all this. The plan calls for attaching a cargo ship to Pirs in order to guide it to a fiery reentry.

The new 22-ton lab — stretching 43 feet (13 meters) long — is so big that it will be launched from Kazakhstan by a powerful Proton rocket. Once at the orbiting outpost, it will double as an air lock and docking port.

Earlier it had been announced that they would also do an inspection of the area on Zvezda where they had also discovered a small crack, the cause of the longstanding leak on the station. It appears they did not do this. probably because astronauts inside the station had placed a new permanent patch on the leak, and the work they were doing during the spacewalk carried a higher priority.

Expect that inspection to eventually occur, but for now the cause of that crack remains unknown.

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Arecibo Observatory to be shut down permanently

November 19, 2020 10:27 am Robert Zimmerman

The arriving dark age: Due to the extent of its recent cable failures and the risks they pose to works, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has decided to shuttered and dismantle it permanently.

Ralph Gaume, director of NSF’s astronomy division, said at the briefing the agency wants to preserve other instruments at the site, as well as the visitor and outreach center. But they are under threat if the telescope structure collapses. That would bring the 900-ton instrument platform, suspended 137 meters above the 305-meter wide dish, crashing down. Flailing cables could damage other buildings on the site, as could the three support towers if they fell, too. “There is a serious risk of an unexpected and uncontrolled collapse,” Gaume said. “A controlled decommissioning gives us the opportunity to preserve valuable assets that the observatory has.”

Over the next few weeks, engineering firms will develop a plan for a controlled dismantling. It may involve releasing the platform from its cables explosively and letting it fall.

The radio telescope was built in the early 1960s, and for many years was the world’s largest single dish radio telescope. It has struggled however in recent years with both financial and infrastructure problems, the latter initially caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017.

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ESA completes new parachute test for its 2022 Mars rover

November 18, 2020 9:58 pm Robert Zimmerman

On November 9, 2020 the European Space Agency finally conducted the high altitude parachute test of the landing system for its 2022 Mars rover Rosalind Franklin that had been planned for March but had been delayed due to the Wuhan flu panic.

The timeline of the latest test, including extraction and deceleration, went exactly to plan. However, four tears in the canopy of the first main parachute and one in the second main parachute were found after recovery. The damage seemed to happen at the onset of the inflation, with the descent otherwise occurring nominally.

The team are now analysing the test data to determine further improvements for the next tests. Planning is underway for future tests in the first half of next year, to ‘qualify’ the complete parachute system ready for launch in September 2022.

Overall they consider the test a success, though the damage issues must be solved before the ’22 launch. Based on this test it also appears that the ESA made a very wise choice delaying the mission from launch this year, as its parachute system was clearly not ready.

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Amin Toufani – Gratitude

November 18, 2020 6:03 pm Robert Zimmerman

An evening pause: From a time in the distant past when people could socialize and entertain each other as normal human beings. And according to the youtube website, the fire was real.

Hat tip lazarus long.

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Study: Children are so immune to COVID-19 that even after extensive exposure they test negative

November 18, 2020 1:35 pm Robert Zimmerman

A new study has now confirmed what the very early research had suggested, finding that even when children are repeatedly exposed to the COVID-19 virus, they not only develop no symptoms, they also test negative to the virus.

The research, led by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and published in Nature Communications, showed that despite close contact with symptomatic infected parents, including one child sharing the parents’ bed, the children repeatedly tested negative for COVID-19 and displayed no or minor symptoms.

MCRI’s Dr Shidan Tosif said compared to adults, children with COVID-19 usually have very mild or asymptomatic infection, but the underlying differences between children’s and adults’ immune responses to the virus remained unclear.

In other words, children are completely immune from COVID-19. Moreover, they don’t even get infected, which means they can’t even give anyone else the disease. There is absolutely no reason not to reopen all schools immediately, allowing children to return to normal activity, without masks.

Granted this study only observed a single family, but its data must not be ignored. Note too that both parents also completely recovered, which is not surprising as this virus doesn’t appear to kill anyone unless they also have other very serious chronic illnesses. Just like the flu.

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Sierra Nevada delays first Dream Chaser launch to ’22

November 18, 2020 1:22 pm Robert Zimmerman

Sierra Nevada officials revealed yesterday that they are delaying the first test flight of their Dream Chaser reusable cargo mini-shuttle from late 2021 to some unspecified time in 2022.

‘’COVID has definitely played a role” in that delay, said Steve Lindsey, senior vice president for strategy at SNC Space Systems. One example he gave involved structural testing of the spacecraft’s cargo module at a contractor’s facility in San Diego. COVID-related restrictions prevented SNC engineers from being on site at that facility to oversee the tests. SNC developed a workaround by using a mission control center it developed for Dream Chaser in Colorado so those engineers could remotely oversee those tests. “That worked great. Unfortunately, it took probably three or four times as long as it should have,” he said.

A related problem, he said, involves suppliers who have had to suspend operations because of COVID-19 outbreaks at their facilities. There have also been technical challenges with Dream Chaser, although he did not go into details about specific issues. [emphasis mine]

I underline the unspecified technical issues, because I suspect they might be the real issue. SpaceX has not been slowed in any significant way due to the Wuhan panic, even though it deals with NASA also. I would therefore not be surprised if they are using COVID-19 as a cover for other issues.

It is a new craft, and problems are expected. I’d just rather they didn’t hide it. It contributes to doubts about the company, which by the way has been much slower in its development than one should expect. NASA awarded this contract in January of 2016, with the first launch then planned for as early as October 2019. It is now 2020, and the launch is still now two years away.

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Study: Cloth masks provide “statistically insignificant” protection

November 18, 2020 12:23 pm Robert Zimmerman

The certainty of the COVID-19 panic: A large Danish study involving about 6,000 people has found that cloth masks provide “statistically insignificant” protection from infection.

From the paper’s conclusion:

The recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate among wearers by more than 50% in a community with modest infection rates, some degree of social distancing, and uncommon general mask use. The data were compatible with lesser degrees of self-protection. [emphasis mine]

I highlight the last sentence to nip in the bud the claims I expect from the Chicken Little crowd that will point to that “50%” number as proof that masks work. The last sentence points out that a 50% reduction in infection rate is what you also get by washing your hands and avoiding already infected individuals. The masks themselves make no difference.

The study found that 42 people in the in the mask group got infected, compared to 53 in the non-mask group. Since both groups contained 3,000 people, the percentage infected for both groups was about 2%, with the mask group having slightly less infections.

It is important to note the real scale of the virus as demonstrated by this study. Out of 6,000 participants, all older than 18 with no current or prior symptoms, very few people got infected. No one apparently died.

The study notes that it did not look at the effectiveness of masks worn by sick people. It is possible that in that circumstance the mask could prevent the infected person from transmitting the virus to others, but that requires more study. However, having people wear masks in the presence of a sick person had been the practice where masks were used for decades. And it certainly makes more sense than making millions of totally healthy people mask themselves wherever they go, twenty-four hours a day.

Either way, this study illustrates again that the mask mandates being imposed by edict by political leaders have no basis in science. The mandates do not require proper use, and even if they did it is unrealistic to expect that proper use. And even if the use was proper globally, this study shows that the mask would accomplish nothing.

But hey, it is important to make feel-good gestures, even if those feel-good gestures are pointless and cause our focus to shift away from more important tasks, such as immunizing children from measles. So what children will die unnecessarily from the measles and rubella! We will feel safe.

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New model suggests ringed nebula caused by star merger

November 18, 2020 10:29 am Robert Zimmerman

Click for full image.

Based on a new theoretical model, astronomers now believe that the Blue Ring Nebula, a planetary nebula discovered in 2004 by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), was the result of the merger of two stars that only occurred a few thousand years earlier.

The image to the right, cropped, reduced, and annotated to post here, shows the original GALEX image on top, with a model to illustrate the geometry. The nebula is shaped like an hour-glass, with the rings the wide parts at the top and bottom. We just happen to be looking at it along its axis.

A new study published online on Nov. 18 in the journal Nature may have cracked the case. By applying cutting-edge theoretical models to the slew of data that has been collected on this object, the authors posit the nebula – a cloud of gas in space – is likely composed of debris from two stars that collided and merged into a single star.

While merged star systems are thought to be fairly common, they are nearly impossible to study immediately after they form because they’re obscured by debris the collision kicks up. Once the debris has cleared – at least hundreds of thousands of years later – they’re challenging to identify because they resemble non-merged stars. The Blue Ring Nebula appears to be the missing link: Astronomers are seeing the star system only a few thousand years after the merger, when evidence of the union is still plentiful. It appears to be the first known example of a merged star system at this stage.

When the merger happened it caused the bi-polar jets that formed the hourglass shape.

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Venus results suggesting life downgraded

November 18, 2020 9:57 am Robert Zimmerman

Surprise! Surprise! Further research and review of the recent results that said phosphine existed in Venus’s atmosphere — which for some immediately suggested the presence of life — has found that the phosphine probably doesn’t exist.

[A]lmost immediately, other astronomers began to criticize the results, with four independent studies pointing out questionable methods or failing to reproduce the results.

Now, after reanalyzing their data, the original proponents are downgrading their claims. Even the most favorable interpretation of their data now suggests phosphine levels are at least seven times lower than first reported, making it a much more tentative finding, the authors reported in a preprint posted on 17 November to arXiv.

Also, observations in other wavelengths detected no phosphine, even though it should have been there if the first study was correct. Furthermore, other scientists have noted that the spectrum features detected might not be caused by phosphine. The sulphur dioxide in Venus’s atmosphere could instead be their source.

Even if phosphine is eventually confirmed, that is not the discovery of life on Venus, as so many in the mainstream press claimed. As I noted when this result was first announced, phosphine isn’t life, it is merely a specific inanimate molecule. That on Earth it only exists in connection with life-processes means nothing. Venus is a very alien place, and there could be any number of inanimate chemical processes that we have no experience with or knowledge of that could produce it there. To claim its discovery suggests the existence of life, or even the possibility of life, is simply junk science.

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Scientists: Major measles outbreaks likely because of COVID-19 lockdowns

November 17, 2020 10:38 pm Robert Zimmerman

According to a paper published in the peer review journal Lancet, there is a very high likelihood of major measles outbreaks among children worldwide in 2021 — resulting in many unnecessary deaths — due to the shut downs imposed because of the panic over COVID-19.

Lead author Professor Kim Mulholland, from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and Chair of the World Health Organization’s SAGE Working Group on measles and rubella vaccines, said that many children have missed out on measles vaccination this year, making future measles outbreaks inevitable. …”The coming months are likely to see increasing numbers of unimmunised children who are susceptible to measles. Many live in poor, remote communities where health systems are less resilient, and malnutrition and vitamin A deficiency are already increasing.”

Professor Mulholland said the COVID-19 pandemic had also had a profound effect on the control of vaccine preventable diseases, with vaccination campaigns paused in the early months of 2020 and routine immunisation services greatly disrupted in many countries.

The WHO estimates that by the end of October, 2020, delayed vaccination campaigns in 26 countries have led to 94 million children missing scheduled measles vaccine doses. [emphasis mine]

Think about it. Because we and our governments panicked and shut down society to protect children from a virus that is not only not contagious among children, it also is practically harmless to them, many children will now die from diseases we know are highly contagious and we know can kill them.

And people accuse me of being heartless because I say the lock downs are senseless, irrational, and a bad idea.

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Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.