December 26, 2022 Quick space links

2:53 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

  • Russian relations with Kazakhstan souring

    • Kazakhstan has “renounced concessions for Russian logistics companies that transport goods for import to Russia,” even as a Russian official threatened Kazakhstan with invasion. For the Russian space program these tensions could be disastrous, as the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan is presently the only place it can launch humans.

 

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Cones, mounds, and layers of Martian ice?

2:20 pm

Cones, mounds, and layers of Martian ice?
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on September 10, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The location is at 38 degrees north latitude, in the Martian northern lowland plains. At this latitude in these plains the geological features seen in high resolution pictures almost always invoke near surface ice, including processes that disturb that underground ice layer.

This picture is no different. Not only does it appear that a glacier is flowing down from the top of east-west ridge, the middle mound includes a crater with its southeast rim gone and appears filled with material that suggests ice.

The greater geographic context of this location can be seen in the overview map below.
» Read more

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Genesis cover

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 you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"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

Today’s blacklisted American: Violence against churches and religious institutions skyrockets since 2018

11:44 am

The increase in violence against churches since 2018

The modern dark age: According to a recently published 84-page report [pdf] by the Family Research Council, vandalism, violence, and arson against churches and religious institutions has nearly tripled since 2018.

From the report:

Family Research Council identified a total of 420 documented acts of hostility that targeted 397
individual churches. These incidents occurred between January 2018 and September 2022 across 45 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. To conduct this research, we analyzed open-source documents, reports, and media outlets to assess the number of acts of hostility against churches over a five-year span.
» Read more

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A long-armed galaxy

8:51 am

Galaxy with long and faint tidal streams
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, enhanced, and reduced to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a survey of peculiar looking galaxies.

The peculiar spiral galaxy ESO 415-19, which lies around 450 million light-years away, stretches lazily across this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. While the centre of this object resembles a regular spiral galaxy, long streams of stars stretch out from the galactic core like bizarrely elongated spiral arms. These are tidal streams caused by some chance interaction in the galaxy’s past, and give ESO 415-19 a distinctly peculiar appearance.

ESO 415-19’s peculiarity made it a great target for Hubble. This observation comes from an ongoing campaign to explore the Arp Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, a menagerie of some of the weirdest and most wonderful galaxies that the Universe has to offer. These galaxies range from bizarre lonesome galaxies to spectacularly interacting galaxy pairs, triplets, and even quintets. These space oddities are spread throughout the night sky, which means that Hubble can spare a moment to observe them as it moves between other observational targets.

I have intentionally brightened the galaxy to make the two faint two tidal streams more obvious. That they are so faint compared to the galaxy itself is in itself a mystery.

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Conscious Choice cover

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.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“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.

Leaving Earth cover

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.

 

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

 
"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

Today’s blacklisted American: Professor fired by a North Carolina school for having opinions

2:46 pm

David Phillips
Dr. David Phillips

They’re coming for you next: Officials at the North Carolina Governor’s School (“a residential summer program for the state’s most talented rising high-school seniors.”) fired David Phillips, a professor there for eight summers, because they did not like the content of the optional three session seminar he held critiquing critical race theory.

In other words, they decided to blackball him simply because they did not agree with his opinions.

Phillips has now sued, with the Alliance Defending Freedom acting as his legal firm. The preamble of his lawsuit [pdf] describes what happened.

At the conclusion of each lecture, members of the audience — including staff members — reacted with open hostility to the ideas and viewpoints discussed. And they attacked whiteness, maleness, heterosexuality, and Christianity — none of which should have been relevant — in their comments and questions. Despite the hostility, Dr. Phillips stayed long after the published end time for each lecture to respond calmly to each question, and he even offered to meet with students and staff members later for further discussion.
» Read more

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Attack that injured Rogozin in the Ukraine also killed two

12:59 pm

Dmitry Rogozin playing soldier in the Ukraine
Dmitry Rogozin playing make-believe soldier
recently in the Ukraine

More details have now emerged about the explosion that injured former Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin, including the fact that the attack, in Ukrainian occupied territory in Donetsk, also killed two.

The former head of Russia’s space agency was wounded when an artillery shell exploded as he celebrated his birthday in a hotel near the front line in Ukraine. Dmitry Rogozin, a flamboyant Russian politician who was once a deputy prime minister, was reportedly hit in the buttocks, head and back by shrapnel.

Two people were killed in the attack and several others were wounded, authorities in Donetsk said on Thursday, and Mr Rogozin said he was due to be operated on. Russian state news channel Rossiya 24 TV said the former space chief was celebrating his 59th birthday at the Shesh-Besh hotel and restaurant with several other separatist officials.

But Mr Rogozin insisted the incident took place during a “work meeting”.

Russian investigators think the shell came from a French-made Caesar self-propelled howitzer.

The criticism of Rogozin concerning this story has been quite ugly.

“A party 10 kilometres away from the front line with the Ceasar’s range of 40 kilometres? I would reprimand him for being childish,” [wrote Yuri Podolyaka, a prominent pro-Kremlin blogger.] “Two people have died in that restaurant, which, I think, is on his conscience.”

Rogozin’s path has been steadily downward since he was deputy prime minister of Russia’s defense department from 2011 to 2018. First he was demoted to head of Roscosmos, where he ended up losing Russia more than a half billion in income by his cancellation of the launch contract with OneWeb. Worse, that cancellation, and Rogozin’s confiscation of 36 OneWeb satellites, ended any chance of Russia getting any international business for years to come.

These actions caused him to be fired from Roscosmos in July, and shipped to the Ukraine (the modern equivalent of Siberia) to act as an envoy in the Russian-occupied territories. Once there, he did nothing to enhance his reputation. By holding this very public birthday party, at a public place so close to the front lines, was almost guaranteeing he and his party would be attacked.

I wish he quickly recovers from his injuries, but I also think Putin would be foolish to give this guy any further positions of authority.

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Crater at the edge of the Martian south pole ice cap

11:20 am

Oblique view of south pole crater
Click for full image.

Overview map

Cool image time! The oblique panorama above, reduced and sharpened to post here, was created from an image taken on May 19, 2022 by the European orbiter Mars Express. Its location on edge of the layered deposits of ice and dust that form most of the Martian southern ice cap is indicated by the white rectangle on the overview map to the right. From the press release:

While it may look like a winter wonderland, it was southern hemisphere spring at the time and ice was starting to retreat. Dark dunes are peeking through the frost and elevated terrain appears ice-free.

Two large impact craters draw the eye, their interiors striped with alternating layers of water-ice and fine sediments. These ‘polar layered deposits’ are also exposed in exquisite detail in the rusty red ridge that connects the two craters.

The scattered white patches are either water frost, or the winter mantle of dry ice, both now sublimating away with the coming of spring.

The black line on the overview map indicates the extent of the layered deposits, and suggest that the ridgeline is not considered part of that ice cap layer, in contradiction to the press release language above.

Which is it? I would guess the answer is simply the uncertainty of science. Some scientists took a look here and decided the ridge was actually a base layer sticking up through the layered deposits. The European scientists who took this picture have instead concluded, based on the image, that the ridge is part of the layer deposits.

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Newly passed Senate bill requires consultation between industry and government on space junk

9:50 am

Though the bill still needs to be passed by the House, a just passed Senate bill requires consultation between industry and government on space junk, short circuiting recent attempts at the FCC as well as in the House to impose arbitrary government regulations.

You can read the Senate bill here [pdf].

The final result will still be government regulation on the lifespan and final deposition of any object placed in orbit, from nanosats to large manned space stations, but unlike the earlier FCC proposal and House bill, NASA and other government agencies will have to obtain feedback from the commercial space industry before such regulations are imposed.

Sounds great, eh? In truth, this bill in the end still gives full power to the federal government to control the launching of future spacecraft of all sizes. It also leaves the details entirely up to the bureaucracy. If passed Congress would cede its regulatory power to unelected bureaucrats in the executive branch.

The requirement that industry consultation occur simply means that the initial regulations will likely make some sense. Beyond that however the power it bequeaths to the federal bureaucracy in NASA, FAA, FCC, and other agencies will in the long run be still abused.

The need for the establishment of an independent space-faring society, free from odious Earthbound regulation, continues to grow.

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Soyuz hole not caused by a Geminid meteor

9:29 am

According to an analysis by both NASA and Russian engineers, the 0.8 mm hole in the coolant system on the Soyuz docked to ISS was not caused by an object from the Geminid meteor shower that had occurred about the time the leak appeared.

The Soyuz vehicle, known as MS-22, sprayed its coolant into space on Dec. 14, the same day that the annual Geminid meteor shower peaked. But there’s no causal connection, NASA and Russian space officials said. “We did look at the meteor showers that were occurring,” Joel Montalbano, NASA’s International Space Station program manager, said during a press briefing on Thursday (Dec. 22). “Both the trajectory team in Houston and the trajectory team in Moscow confirmed it was not from the meteor showers; it was in the wrong direction.”

The engineers claim the hole could still have been caused by an impact, just not from these meteors.

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NASA requesting proposals for raising Hubble’s orbit

9:23 am

NASA has published a request for proposals from the private commercial space industry for a possible future mission to raise Hubble’s orbit.

NASA published a request for information (RFI) Dec. 22 asking industry how they would demonstrate commercial satellite servicing capabilities by raising the orbit of Hubble. The agency said it is looking for technical information about how a company would carry out the mission, the risks involved and the likelihood of success.

NASA emphasized in the RFI that it had no plans to procure a mission to reboost Hubble. “Partner(s) would be expected to participate and undertake this mission on a no-exchange-of-funds basis,” the document stated, with companies responsible for the cost for the mission.

Apparently, this RFI was issued as a direct result of the agreement between NASA and SpaceX to study a Dragon mission to do exactly this, which in turn was prompted by Jared Isaacman, as part of his private Polaris program of manned Dragon/Starship space flights. I suspect that NASA officials realized that not only were their engineering advantages to getting more proposals, there were probably legal and political reasons for opening the discussion up to the entire commercial space community.

Ideally, a Hubble reboost mission should occur by 2025, though the telescope’s orbit will remain stable into the mid-2030s.

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Juno experienced data download issue during most recent Jupiter close flyby

9:07 am

Right after Juno made its 47th close fly-by of Jupiter on December 14, 2022, the download of the obtained data was suddenly disrupted, forcing engineers to put Juno into safe mode.

The issue – an inability to directly access the spacecraft memory storing the science data collected during the flyby – was most likely caused by a radiation spike as Juno flew through a radiation-intensive portion of Jupiter’s magnetosphere. Mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and its mission partners successfully rebooted the computer and, on Dec. 17, put the spacecraft into safe mode, a precautionary status in which only essential systems operate.

As of Dec. 22, steps to recover the flyby data yielded positive results, and the team is now downlinking the science data. There is no indication that the science data through the time of closest approach to Jupiter, or from the spacecraft’s flyby of Jupiter’s moon Io, was adversely affected. The remainder of the science data collected during the flyby is expected to be sent down to Earth over the next week, and the health of the data will be verified at that time. The spacecraft is expected to exit safe mode in about a week’s time. Juno’s next flyby of Jupiter will be on Jan. 22, 2023.

That such disruptions have actually not occurred very often on Juno is somewhat remarkable, considering the hostile nature of the environment around Jupiter.

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Perseverance experiment generates new record of breathable oxygen on Mars

8:59 am

MOXIE, an experiment on the rover Perseverance to see if breathable oxygen could be generated from the carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere, has set a new production record.

The atmosphere around Jezero Crater, the present location of Perseverance, reached peak density for the year mid (Earth) summer. This presented the perfect opportunity for the MOXIE science team to step on the accelerator and test how fast we could safely produce oxygen. This test occurred on Sol 534 (Aug. 22, 2022) and produced a peak of 10.44 grams per hour of oxygen. This represented a new record for Martian oxygen production! The team was thrilled to surpass our design goal of 6 grams per hour by over 4.4 grams. The peak rate was held for 1 minute of the 70 minutes oxygen was produced during the run.

MOXIE’s next opportunity to operate came recently. Despite the decreasing density of the Mars atmosphere, on Sol 630 (Nov. 28, 2022) MOXIE managed to break the record again and produce nearly 10.56 grams per hour at peak. Oxygen production was sustained for a 9.79 grams per hour for nearly 40 minutes.

These numbers may seem small, but MOXIE production runs are limited by available rover power. In addition, MOXIE technology was miniaturized to accommodate the limited space available on the rover. A MOXIE for a human Mars mission would produce oxygen nearly 200 times faster and work continuously for well over a year.

Ten grams per hour is about half what one person needs to breathe, and is a little less than a large tree produces. Moreover, MOXIE had earlier conducted seven other runs, producing about six grams of oxygen per hour during each.

Based on these tests, MOXIE has unequivocally proven that future human explorers will not need to bring much oxygen with them, and will in fact have essentially an unlimited supply, on hand from the red planet itself. More important, MOXIE has also proven that the technology to obtain this oxygen already exists.

All we need to do is plant enough MOXIE trees on Mars.

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December 22, 2022 Quick space links

3:46 pm

Courtesy of Jay, BtB’s stringer.

  • It appears China is beginning to stretch out its long term space goals

    • The tweet notes new delayed target dates for China’s Mars sample return mission, asteroid mission, and exoplanet telescope, to name just three. I see this as typical of a government-run program. In the end the focus of such government programs always shifts from their stated goals to simply providing government jobs on Earth. Thus, delays become a feature, not a bug.

 

 

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Today’s blacklisted American: The FBI’s purge of conservatives forces one agent to sue

12:48 pm

Chris Wray, head of the FBI, the Democratic Party's Gestapo

They’re coming for you next: The effort of the FBI’s management, led by FBI director Christopher Wray, to purge all conservative agents from the agency by using false charges of treason in connection to the January 6, 2021 protests has forced one agent to sue.

Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a lawsuit on behalf of FBI analyst Marcus Allen in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina against FBI Director Christopher Wray for violating Allen’s constitutional rights by falsely accusing him of holding “conspiratorial views,” stripping his security clearance, and suspending him from duty without pay. The FBI revoked his security clearance because apparently the FBI believes that any views contrary to its own regarding what occurred on January 6 constitutes disloyalty to the United States.

You can read the full lawsuit complaint here [pdf].

The FBI suspended Allen in January 2022, claiming in a one page letter [pdf] that:
» Read more

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Bursting lava bubbles on Mars

10:58 am

Burst lava bubbles on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 4, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

I really have no idea what caused these distorted cones. My intuition (a dangerous thing to rely on when it comes to science) suggests these are volcanic in nature. Imagine hot lava with gas bubbling up from below. Periodically a gas bubble will burst on the surface releasing the gas. Depending on temperature, that bursting bubble could harden in place.

The overview map below provides some support for my intuition, but it also suggests this first hypothesis could be completely wrong, something that does not surprise me in the least.
» Read more

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Australian rocket startup Gilmour preps for first test launch

9:23 am

Gilmour Space Technologies, a new Australian rocket startup, is now targeting April for the first test launch of its three-stage Eris rocket from a launchpad on the northeast coast of Australia.

Standing 25 m (82 ft) high, [Eris] has a first-stage diameter of 2 m (6.6 ft), and a second-stage diameter of 1.5 m (4.9 ft), and it’s designed to take a payload mass up to 305 kg (672 lb) up as high as 500 km (311 miles) for delivery to sun-synchronous or equatorial orbits. The Eris will be powered by five of Gilmour’s own Sirius rocket engines. This is a hybrid engine, meaning it uses a liquid oxidizer but a solid fuel. In a final bench test to destruction, it generated 115 kilonewtons (25,850 lbf) and burned for more than 90 seconds before exploding.

More information here.

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Update on upcoming first launch of Relativity’s Terran-1 rocket

9:13 am

Link here. Relativity has been doing longer and longer static fire tests on the launchpad, building to what could be the first every full duration static fire test of a rocket, on the launchpad.

A pair of spin-start tests on Terran 1’s first stage was completed on July 18 and 21 of this year. This was followed by hot fire tests, which not only started the nine Aeon 1 engines but allowed them to reach full thrust before shutdown. The first of these hot fire tests occurred on July 27 and lasted six seconds.

Once complete engine ignition was achieved, the next goal was to work toward firing the first stage for the full duration that will be needed during the flight from liftoff to stage separation. This type of “mission duty cycle” test is usually done on dedicated test stands rather than on the launch pad, but the test stand being used in place of the launch mount at SLC-16 enabled Relativity to streamline operations and complete long-duration firings on the launch pad. “To our knowledge, no other company has ever actually done a full flight duration test on the actual launch mount, or launch pad, at Cape Canaveral,” said Relativity CEO Tim Ellis, in an August interview with NASASpaceflight.

.

Once this test is completed, the rocket will be rolled back to its assembly building for check-outs, and if all is well will then be returned to the launchpad for its actual launch. No date has been set for that launch, but if it occurs before SpaceX’s Starship orbital launch, it will be the first methane-fueled rocket to reach orbit.

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India buying land for new spaceport on India’s southern tip

9:06 am

Kulasekarapattinam

The Indian government has now acquired about 80% of the land it needs for new spaceport on that country’s southern tip.

The new spaceport will be built in Tamil Nadu’s southern region. The new spaceport at Kulasekarapattinam will have some advantages over India’s current and only spaceport at Sriharikota.

Rockets launching into polar orbit from Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, must perform a turn manoeuvre to avoid flying over Sri Lanka. This necessitates the use of fuel and reduces the mass that can be carried into orbit. While this has little effect on large rockets, it has a negative impact on the capacity of small rockets such as the SSLV (Small Satellite Launch Vehicle) and those built by Indian start-ups.

A launch from Kulasekarapattinam will allow for a direct flight path to the polar regions (without having to fly over and around Sri Lanka), saving fuel and payload capacity.

Sriharikota’s location is much farther north, beyond the top of the map to the right. It appears this new spaceport is aimed at attracting new private smallsat rocket companies.

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Perseverance deposits first core sample for pickup later

8:57 am

Perseverance's location December 21, 2022
Click for interactive map.

The Mars Perseverance rover has now deposited its first core sample on the floor of Jezero Crater for pickup later by a future Mars helicopter for eventual return to Earth.

A titanium tube containing a rock sample is resting on the Red Planet’s surface after being placed there on Dec. 21 by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. Over the next two months, the rover will deposit a total of 10 tubes at the location, called “Three Forks,” building humanity’s first sample depot on another planet. The depot marks a historic early step in the Mars Sample Return campaign.

The blue dot on the map to the right shows this location. The green dot shows Ingenuity’s present position. The red dotted line the rover’s future travel route.

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December 21, 2022 Quick space links

3:17 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

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InSight mission ended

3:01 pm

Location of InSight's largest quakes
The white patches mark the locations on Mars of the largest quakes
detected by InSight

NASA today announced that it has officially ended the mission of the InSight lander on Mars.

Mission controllers at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California were unable to contact the lander after two consecutive attempts, leading them to conclude the spacecraft’s solar-powered batteries have run out of energy – a state engineers refer to as “dead bus.”

NASA had previously decided to declare the mission over if the lander missed two communication attempts. The agency will continue to listen for a signal from the lander, just in case, but hearing from it at this point is considered unlikely. The last time InSight communicated with Earth was Dec. 15.

Other than the success of InSight’s seismometer, this project was mostly a failure. Its launch was delayed two years, from 2016 to 2018, because of problems with the original French seismometer, forcing JPL to take over. Then its German-made mole digger failed to drill into the Martian surface, causing the failure of the lander’s second instrument, a heat sensor designed to measure the interior temperature of Mars.

Fortunately the seismometer worked, or otherwise it would have been a total loss. That data has told us much about Mars and its interior.

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Webb in safe mode intermittently during the past two weeks

2:49 pm

According to a short update today from the science team, the Webb Space Telescope went into safe mode on December 7, 2022 and was in that state “intermittently” through December 20, 2022 because of a software issue.

The James Webb Space Telescope resumed science operations Dec. 20, after Webb’s instruments intermittently went into safe mode beginning Dec. 7 due to a software fault triggered in the attitude control system, which controls the pointing of the observatory. During a safe mode, the observatory’s nonessential systems are automatically turned off, placing it in a protected state until the problem can be fixed. This event resulted in several pauses to science operations totaling a few days over that time period. Science proceeded otherwise during that time. The Webb team adjusted the commanding system, and science has now fully resumed.

It would be nice to have a more detailed description of that “software fault”, and how it affected the attitude control system. Such things can be very trivial, or they can be disastrous. NASA has a responsibility to tell the public which.

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The Wuhan panic underlines how scientists have abandoned the search for truth

1:50 pm

Modern science
Modern science

For almost three years I have been documenting endlessly the utter failure of almost every policy imposed by politicians and government health officials in response to the COVID epidemic. From masks to social distancing to lockdowns to COVID shot mandates, none of their draconian rules have done anything to stop the spread of the Wuhan flu, which was always impossible anyway.

Even worse than these bad policies however has been the behavior of the scientific community the past three years. This community has increasingly put politics and narrative above the search for truth, a focus that signals a terrible cultural change that is so horrible its consequences can barely be measured.

To understand this tragedy we must first go back to what science and government once believed about epidemics. The traditional infectious disease policies that doctors and governments had successfully used for more than a century, based on real research and an honest appraisal of the facts by scientists, always recognized that it was impossible to “stop the spread” of a respiratory illness. What worked best was to protect the aged and sick, whom such diseases could kill, while allowing the virus to quickly spread through the rest of the healthy population in order to quickly create a herd immunity that would choke off the virus’s early most virulent strains. The disease would then mutate to milder forms — essentially a cold — that the aged and weak could fight off.

The virus of COVID-19 has done exactly this, but along the way it killed many more older and sick people then necessary, because today’s modern petty tyrants — encouraged by many scientists — decided instead to toss that past knowledge out. Herd immunity was delayed by the lockdown policies, and most governments did little to protect the aged and sick, with some governments even acting to introduce the virus to these threatened populations.

To underline the failure of these policies, here are just a small recent sampling of the growing research outlining the failures of masks, social distancing, and lockdowns:
» Read more

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