SpaceX has released a high speed version of the camera view taken from the camera mounted on the Falcon 9 first stage that successfully landed on a barge on Friday.
I have embedded that video below the fold. Quite entertaining, though it emphasizes how much the flight resembles a high speed roller coaster ride.
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According to one press report tonight, Russia has successfully tested a new anti-satellite missile designed to destroy orbiting satellites.
There are a lot of unknowns here, including the fact that the report provides little information, including any data to explain how they know that it is an anti-satellite missile.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The competition heats up: As part of its XS-1 spaceplane development program DARPA this week put out a request for proposals for companies to build an experimental space plane capable of launching 10 times in 10 days for a cost of no more than $5 million.
NASA will try again on Saturday to expand the privately built BEAM module on ISS.
They think the reason the module didn’t inflate as planned the first time is because it has been packed ready for launch for more than fifteen months, ten months longer than originally planned.
That extra time in a tight squeeze might explain why the first inflation attempt didn’t go as planned. BEAM’s Kevlar-like fabric “layers have a memory to them,” Lisa Kauke, BEAM deputy program manager at Bigelow Aerospace, said during today’s teleconference. “The longer they’re packed, the more they’re compressed, and then it takes a little while for the shape to return.” This interpretation is bolstered by the fact that BEAM continued to expand overnight Thursday into Friday morning, even though no more air was being pumped in, Crusan said.
Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!
From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.
“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.
All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.
The competition heats up: Rocket Lab has successfully tested the second stage engine of its Electron rocket.
They are aiming for their first commercial launch in 2017.
An evening pause: This kind of music video I really like: A live performance, filmed expressly for the video. No audience, no special effects, no fake cute story expressing the angst of adolescence. Just the musicians, their instruments, the words of the song, and the cameraman.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke
Virgin Atlantic’s first-ever Boeing 747 jumbo jet has been listed for sale on eBay with a starting bid of more than a quarter million dollars and a ‘buy it now’ price of $900,000 (£615,000). The retired double-decker plane, called Lady Penelope, was taken out of service last year and is gathering dust at an aircraft boneyard, but it could see new life as a hotel or restaurant, depending on the buyer’s intentions.
Here is the ebay listing.
Sadly, it can no longer fly as its engines have been removed. You will have to take it apart and ship it yourself.
SpaceX is beginning to make the landings of its Falcon 9 first stage routine. They just successfully landed another first stage on their drone ship, even though this was once again a difficult geosynchronous satellite launch with high speeds and limited available fuel.
It also appears that they will also successfully place the commercial satellite in orbit.
Rosetta’s scientists have detected the amino acid glycine as well as other organic molecules in the atmosphere of Comet 67P/C-G.
Glycine is very hard to detect due to its non-reactive nature: it sublimates at slightly below 150°C, meaning that little is released as gas from the comet’s surface or subsurface due to its cold temperatures. “We see a strong correlation of glycine to dust, suggesting that it is probably released from the grains’ icy mantles once they have warmed up in the coma, perhaps together with other volatiles,” says Altwegg. At the same time, the researchers also detected the organic molecules methylamine and ethylamine, which are precursors to forming glycine. Unlike other amino acids, glycine is the only one that has been shown to be able to form without liquid water. “The simultaneous presence of methylamine and ethylamine, and the correlation between dust and glycine, also hints at how the glycine was formed”, says Altwegg.
The New Horizons science team has released the highest resolution image across Pluto’s face, taken by the spacecraft during its flyby last year.
This mosaic strip, extending across the hemisphere that faced the New Horizons spacecraft as it flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015, now includes all of the highest-resolution images taken by the NASA probe. With a resolution of about 260 feet (80 meters) per pixel, the mosaic affords New Horizons scientists and the public the best opportunity to examine the fine details of the various types of terrain the mosaic covers, and determine the processes that formed and shaped them.
The view extends from the “limb” of Pluto at the top of the strip, almost to the “terminator” (or day/night line) in the southeast of the encounter hemisphere, seen at the bottom of the strip. The width of the strip ranges from more than 55 miles (90 kilometers) at its northern end to about 45 miles (75 kilometers) at its southern end. The perspective changes greatly along the strip: at its northern end, the view looks out horizontally across the surface, while at its southern end, the view looks straight down onto the surface.
Go to the full image, go to its top, center your browser on the image, and then pan down slowly to see it in all its glory. The image above is cropped from about two-thirds of the way down, about when the terrain is transitioning from what they call cellular nitrogen ice plains to pitted non-cellular nitrogen ice plains. It includes what looks like a cluster of cave pits on the left.
They have also provided a video which does the same as panning down yourself, but adds a scale and labeling.
After a five year journey the Jupiter science probe Juno today entered the gas giant’s gravity well.
It will fire its engines on July 4 to enter orbit.
The competition heats up: Blue Origin has completed construction of one of two new test cells for the development of its BE-4 rocket engine, only seven months after the company made the decision to build them.
Microsoft and Facebook have announced plans to lay a trans-Atlantic communications cable from Virginia to Spain.
Running from Virginia Beach, Virgina to Bilbao, Spain, MAREA (which is Spanish for “tide”), it will be the first cable to connect the US to southern Europe, over a distance of 6,600 km (4,100 miles). From Blibao, it will connect to network hubs in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, with the goal of improving speed and reliability. For Microsoft this means improvements for users of its cloud services, such as Bing, Office 365, Skype, Xbox Live, and Microsoft Azure, while for Facebook it means improvements for users of its eponymous social network.
I find this story very puzzling. The whole reason communication satellites exist is because they have historically been far cheaper to build and launch with far greater capacity than ocean cables. Thus, the decision of these companies to go with an undersea cable instead of satellites suggests that something has changed in that equation, though I can’t see what. Have undersea cables improved so much that they have a bigger capacity than satellites, so much bigger that it compensates for the higher cost of installation and maintenance?
Embedded below the fold. This segment I spent a lot of time talking about the state of ground-based astronomy, spurred by the problems at TMT and the beginnings of the construction of E-ELT.
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Link here. Read it and weep, as this essay describes to a T a steadily increasing number of citizens, from all political persuasions.
The competition heats up: The next Chinese lunar probe will be an unmanned sample return mission
They hope to fly it in the second half of 2017.
The competition heats up: The next New Shepard test flight will try to land the capsule with only two of three parachutes.
No date for the flight was announced.
Finding out what’s in it: Because of Obamacare, health insurance companies across the nation are requesting rate increases next year ranging from 8 to 65%, with the average increase running about 24%.
Too bad no one predicted this, except for every conservative think tank, every Republican politician, and the entire Tea Party movement. Luckily, President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party had our backs, and ignored those predictions. Otherwise, where would we be?
An evening pause: Hat tip Danae.
During my caving trip to Belize last week, we reserved one day off to do some sightseeing. The goal that day was to visit the Mayan ruins of Tikal, across the border in Guatemala about three hours from our resort in Belize.
Arranging this trip was not straightforward. We couldn’t simply get in our rental car and drive off. Locals have found it a bad idea to drive Belizean vehicles in Guatemala, as they are more likely to be attacked. So, the resort arranged for a Belizean driver to take us to the border, where it also arranged for us to be met by a Guatemalan tour guide with her own car.
On the way, we drove through several small towns of both Guatemala and Belize, as shown by the two photos below, with Santa Elena, Belize on top.
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