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Israel & UAE sign deal to work together on space projects

8:45 am

The new colonial movement: This week Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed an agreement calling for them to work together on a variety of space projects.

Israel and the United Arab Emirates signed a historic deal regarding space missions, Ynet reported on Tuesday, which will include collaborating on the Israeli rocket ship “Beresheet 2” space project bound for the Moon.

As part of the agreement, the two nations will work together on data-based development and research from the Israeli-French satellite Venus, while students from the UAE will work with Israeli students on a new satellite tracking the Moon.

The lack of general excitement over this agreement is truly astonishing. Remember, just a few years ago no Arab nation could dare reveal any partnership or even direct communication with Israel, out of fear of the violent reaction throughout the Islamic world. Now, the UAE can sign a deal where its citizens will work side-by-side with Israelis on several different projects, and the world barely notices.

More than anything, this disinterest signals the importance of the Abraham Accords engineered by the Trump administration. Those agreements, disavowed by the Biden administration, made this partnership possible.

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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, any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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

Senate committee: NASA must choose two companies to build manned lunar lander

5:09 pm

We’re here to help you! Despite offering NASA only $100 million more for the program, the Senate Appropriations committee has directed the agency to award a second manned lunar lander contract, in addition to the one it gave SpaceX in April.

On Tuesday (Oct. 18), the Senate Appropriations Committee — the largest U.S. Senate committee that oversees all discretionary spending legislation in the Senate — released a draft report of nine appropriations bills for the fiscal year 2022 which included funding for NASA, according to SpaceNews.

The appropriators, in the report, state that NASA’s HLS program is not underfunded, despite the agency’s previous claims to the contrary. As shown in the report, the bill includes $24.83 billion for NASA, which is just slightly more than the $24.8 billion that NASA requested, and a $100 million increase in funding for HLS.

“NASA’s rhetoric of blaming Congress and this Committee for the lack of resources needed to support two HLS teams rings hollow,” the report states. The committee added that “having at least two teams providing services using the Gateway should be the end goal of the current development program,” referencing NASA’s Gateway, a planned lunar space station.

It might be possible for the increase in funding to cover a second contract, if that contract was awarded to Blue Origin. Jeff Bezos has made it clear that he would be willing to waive as much as $2 billion of the price for the contract, using his own ample funds to make up the difference. Whether that is enough to build it, with the $100 million the Senate appropriated, is unclear.

This bill of course has to pass the Senate, be approved as written by the House, and then signed by the President. These directives and budget changes thus might not end up in the final appropriations bill.

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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.

Boeing to take Starliner apart, remove two valves

4:57 pm

Boeing has decided to take apart the Starliner capsule intended for its second unmanned demo flight to ISS to do a close inspection of two of the troublesome valves that caused the launch in August to be scrubbed.

The current guess at what caused the valve issue involves moisture that accumulated near some of the valves’ Teflon seal. But without any clear culprit, the company now plans to ship two of the valves to a NASA center in Huntsville, Ala., for a forensic CT scan, using machines similar the ones used on humans to detect diseases.

This action now means that the next launch attempt will likely be delayed until the middle of ’22.

The delay is costing Boeing money, not NASA, as the contract is fixed price and Boeing will not get paid additional money until it meets its next milestone, which is a successful demo flight to ISS.

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Today’s blacklisted American: The massacred Alamo defenders were a myth, because they were white!

12:19 pm

The Alamo, censored

Today’s blacklist story really begins with with 70-year-old Phil Collins from the rock band Genesis. Though born and raised in England, Collins has been for most of his life a passionate aficionado of all things related to the battle of the Alamo in Texas in 1836. That passion caused him to accumulate in his life a gigantic collection of Alamo memorabilia worth 10 million pounds, including the rifle that belonged to Davy Crockett and the sword that belonged to Mexican general Santa Anna.

In 2014 Collins, who is in poor health, donated that entire 430-piece collection to the state of Texas, on the condition the state build a museum at the Alamo to exhibit it. That museum is scheduled to open next summer, and is expected to attract millions to the site.

So, who is being blacklisted? Well, it appears it is the Alamo itself, or at least the true history of that battle, where a Mexican army of 6,000 overwhelmed a small outpost manned by only 200 Texan volunteers. No prisoners were taken, all were killed. That butchery became the rallying cry for Texas independence from Mexico.

It appears that this story must no longer be told, even though true, because it celebrates the unwavering courage of the settlers from the United States who created Texas, while illustrating the cruel dictatorship of Mexico at that time.
» Read more

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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

Did China test a hypersonic weapon in August?

10:14 am

Long March 2C rocket
China’s Long March 2C rocket

On October 17th The Financial Times published a story claiming, based on anonymous sources, that one of China’s five launches in August tested a hypersonic weapon, which supposedly circled the globe to impact the Earth only 24 miles from its target.

The Financial Times story is behind a paywall, but not surprisingly it was picked up by much of the mainstream press, with the conservative press — as illustrated by this Daily Wire story — accepting the weapon as fact, while the leftist press — as illustrated by this CNN story — giving China the opportunity to deny the claim.

Did it actually happen? I have no idea. I would add however that I would not trust any story dependent wholly on anonymous sources, considering the unreliability of today’s press and the repeated evidence that numerous federal agencies in the military and intelligence communities routinely feed it disinformation for their own political purposes. These agencies, including the Space Force, want to encourage Congress to fund them, and creating a bogey man threat that the press can tout has for decades been the standard way to do it.

To get a better idea whether this hypersonic flight happened, let’s review the actual Chinese launches in August to see if any might be a likely candidate. For a launch to fit the description, there would have to be almost no information about its payload, and that payload would have to have not reached orbit, since the hypersonic test circled the globe once and then impacted the Earth.
» Read more

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Scientists resume communications with U.S. Martian rovers

9:11 am

Example of first rover images downloaded following communications break
Click for full image.

Both U.S. Mars rovers Curiosity and Perseverance have resumed communications with Earth, each downloading a bunch of images that they had been programmed to take during the two week communications hiatus from October 3 to October 17, caused by the Sun being between the Earth and Mars.

Most of the images are a variation of the one to the right, reduced to post here, taken by Curiosity’s left hazard avoidance camera. As neither rover moved during the communications break, the scientists limited most photography to only a handful of cameras, with the photographs mostly confirming day to day that the rover and its instruments were functioning.

You can see all of Curiosity’s new images here. Perseverance’s new images can be viewed here. (To see the new Perseverance images click on “latest images.”)

A Curiosity team update today notes the work they plan to do in the coming days as they gear up for future travels. The Perseverance update today focused more on the paper published during the break that confirmed, using data from the rover, that Jezero Crater once contained a lake.

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First FAA hearing on Starship environmental assessment dominated by supporters

8:48 am

Capitalism in space: The FAA yesterday conducted its first of two virtual public hearings to allow public comment on its proposed environmental assessment that would allow SpaceX to launch orbital Starship missions from Boca Chica, Texas>

According to the story at the link, the comments were dominated by supporters, interspersed with the typical small number of anti-development environmental activists.

Over the course of more than three hours on Monday, members of the public who had registered in advance were given three minutes each to deliver their oral public comments on Starship and the draft. Most were in favor of SpaceX, though many positive comments appeared to originate from outside of Texas. A smaller number of people also voiced concerns about impacts on local ecosystems and species near Boca Chica.

The second hearing is scheduled for tomorrow.

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Parker probe completes fifth Venus flyby

8:40 am

The Parker Solar Probe on October 16th successfully completed its fifth flyby of Venus, designed to lower its solar orbit around the Sun.

At just after 5:30 a.m. EDT, moving about 15 miles (24 kilometers) per second, the spacecraft swooped 2,370 miles (3,814 kilometers) above Venus’ surface. Such gravity assists are essential to the mission to bring Parker Solar Probe progressively closer to the Sun; the spacecraft counts on the planet to reduce its orbital energy, which in turn allows it to travel closer to the Sun and measure the properties of the solar wind near its source.

This was the fifth of seven planned Venus gravity assists. The flyby reduced Parker Solar Probe’s orbital speed by about 6,040 miles per hour (9,720 kilometers per hour), and set it up for its 10th close pass (or perihelion) by the Sun, on Nov. 21.

Parker Solar Probe will break its own distance and speed records on that closest approach, when it comes approximately 5.3 million miles (8.5 million kilometers) from the Sun’s surface — some 1.2 million miles (1.9 million kilometers) closer than the previous perihelion on Aug. 13 – while reaching 101 miles (163 kilometers) per second, or 364,621 miles per hour. Assisted by two more Venus flybys, in August 2023 and November 2024, Parker Solar Probe will eventually come within 4 million miles (6.2 million kilometers) of the solar surface in December 2024.

That speed record, 364,621 miles per hour, is the fastest any human built object as ever traveled.

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Update on Lucy: panels generating more than 90% of expected power

9:38 pm

According the Lucy science team, the spacecraft’s solar panels are generating more than 90% of the expected power at this stage of the mission, despite the fact that one panel did not deploy completely and has not latched in final position.

“We’re very happy to report that we are getting most of the power we expected at this point in the mission,” said Joan Salute, associate director for flight programs at NASA’s planetary science division. “It’s not 100%, but it is fairly close. So that is great news.’

In an interview with Spaceflight Now, Salute said the power output from the solar arrays appears to be “most likely above 90%” of the expected level of 18,000 watts. “We don’t know if it’s a latch problem, or that it is only partially deployed,” Salute said.

If correct, there is an excellent chance the mission will not be seriously hindered, even if they cannot get the panel fully deployed or latched. At the same time, there are worries about firing Lucy’s main engine for major course corrections with the panel unlatched. The first major course correction is scheduled for mid-November.

The engineers are presently reviewing their data. One option might be to order the spacecraft to re-attempt a full deployment, in the hope that the process will complete during that second attempt.

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The icy Phlegra Mountains on Mars

1:37 pm

Overview map

Cool image time! The Phlegra Mountains on Mars are probably the iciest mountains on the red planet, something I noted previously in an April 2020 essay, highlighting a half dozen images from the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) that showed that iciness. As I stated:

Here practically every photograph taken by any orbiter appears to show immense glacial flows of some kind, with some glaciers coming down canyons and hollows [#1], some filling craters [#2], some forming wide aprons [#3] at the base of mountains and even at the mountains’ highest peaks [#4], and some filling the flats [#5] beyond the mountain foothills.

And then there are the images that show almost all these types of glaciers, plus others [#6].

The overview map above not only shows the locations of these six images in black, it also shows in red two of SpaceX’s four prime candidate landing sites for its Starship spacecraft. Note that #3 above is one of those sites.

The white rectangle in the Phlegra Mountains marks the location of today’s cool image below, taken on June 11, 2021 by MRO’S high resolution camera.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Doctor banned from seeing patients because he has natural immunity

11:49 am

UC's ban of Kheriaty
The University of California’s action against Kheriaty.
Click for full image.

The modern dark age: The University of California has placed Dr. Aaron Kheriaty on administrative leave, preventing him from seeing any patients, because Kheriaty has sued the college for its vaccine mandate that refuses to recognize the documented stronger and safer effects of natural immunity over the COVID vaccines.

I was being placed on “Investigatory Leave” for my failure to comply with the vaccine mandate. I was given no opportunity to contact my patients, students, residents, or colleagues and let them know I would disappear for a month. Rather than waiting for the court to make a ruling on my case, the University has taken action.

…[H]alf of my income from the University comes from clinical revenues generated from seeing my patients, supervising resident clinics, and engaging in weekend and holiday on-call duties. So while on leave my salary is significantly cut. Furthermore, my contract stipulates that I am not able to conduct any patient care outside the University: to see my current patients, or to recoup my losses by moonlighting as a physician elsewhere, would violate the terms of my contract.

Kheriaty, who has had the Wuhan flu (along with his entire family) and now had natural immunity, opposes mandating a vaccine for such individuals because the costs far outweigh the benefits. As he writes:
» Read more

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Rocket Lab reschedules next launches

9:41 am

Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab has now announced that it has delayed its next two launches from mid-October to mid-November.

A two-week window is planned for the first launch — from Nov. 11 to Nov. 24 —when its Electron rocket will deploy two satellites into low-Earth orbit. The company aims to deploy two more satellites in the second launch for the mission after Nov. 27.

Both launches are scheduled to take place at the Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Māhia Peninsula.

The announcement does not provide an explanation for this delay. However, Rocket Lab had originally scheduled these launches for August/September, but lockdown restrictions in New Zealand due to its panic over COVID-19 had forced it to trim its launches there by half for the rest of the year. Rather than do five as planned, the company is only going to do two, and it appears those two are the launches now set for November.

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Early solar system had gap separating its inner and outer regions

9:29 am

New research looking at the make-up of asteroids now suggests that the early solar system had a gap that separated the formation of planets between its inner and outer regions.

Earlier data had suggested that asteroids come in two fundamentally different groups. This new research, looking the magnetic field strength of these two groups, has confirmed this distinction, and provided additional information about the formation process of each.

Surprisingly, they found that their field strength was stronger than that of the closer-in noncarbonaceous meteorites they previously measured. As young planetary systems are taking shape, scientists expect that the strength of the magnetic field should decay with distance from the sun.

In contrast, Borlina and his colleagues found the far-out chondrules had a stronger magnetic field, of about 100 microteslas, compared to a field of 50 microteslas in the closer chondrules. For reference, the Earth’s magnetic field today is around 50 microteslas.

A planetary system’s magnetic field is a measure of its accretion rate, or the amount of gas and dust it can draw into its center over time. Based on the carbonaceous chondrules’ magnetic field, the solar system’s outer region must have been accreting much more mass than the inner region.

In other words, the accretion of planets in the outer region was faster and producing larger objects, while the inner region was slower and producing smaller objects. The data also suggests that gap existed about 4.5 billion years ago, at about the location of the asteroid belt. All in all, this scenario matches the solar system we see today.

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China gets failed satellite to proper orbit

9:19 am

A Chinese satellite launched in late September that failed to reach its designated orbit after deployment has now reached that correct orbit.

During the launch of the Chinasat 9A mission in June 2017, the Reaction Control System (RCS) of the rocket stopped working during the coast phase, which resulted in a sub-planned payload release. The satellite, however, used its onboard propulsion to reach the desired orbit even with the rocket underperforming.

In September the limited information released by China suggested the launch had been a success but the satellite failed after deployment. Based on this new information, the launch in September only became a success now, as the failure was in the rocket’s upper stage.

China has not revealed the purpose of this satellite, though it is part of a program known to launch satellites for testing cutting edge technology.

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NASA document: Starship orbital flight in March ’22

9:11 am

Starship orbital flight date?
Click for full image.

According to a NASA proposal to observe and measure the temperatures on Starship’s thermal protection during its return to Earth from orbit, that flight is now tentatively scheduled for March ’22.

The graphic to the right highlights the pertinent language in the poster presentation.

It must be noted that the poster might not be telling us when Starship will first launch, but when the designers of the camera system will be ready to film. The two are different. Still, the slowdown in flight testing at Boca Chica by SpaceX since July suggests there may be some truth to this date. That date also seems more reasonable now in connection with the FAA’s regulatory pace, which still needs to provide the final approval of SpaceX’s environmental reassessment of its Boca Chica launch site.

It also seems to me that the March ’22 date would be very convenient for NASA, as it almost certainly guarantees that Starship will reach orbit after SLS, thus avoiding for the agency a very big public relations embarrassment. I would not be surprised at all if the Biden administration and NASA’s top administrators, led by Bill Nelson, are purposely pressuring the FAA to make sure that Starship orbital flight is delayed until after the first SLS test flight, now expected in the January/February time frame.

There is also the possibility that SpaceX’s targeted launch dates were unrealistically optimistic. The company had a lot of work it needed to do prior to launch on its orbital launch facility at Boca Chica, and that work could not go forward while test flights and static fire tests were taking place. Pausing those tests has allowed the launch facility work to move forward aggressively.

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A Lucy solar panel on Lucy fails to latch properly after deployment

8:40 am

Partly deployed panel

Engineers at Lockheed Martin (the prime contractor) and Northrop Grumann (which built the panels) are now troubleshooting an issue with one of the solar panels on the asteroid probe Lucy, which failed to latch properly after deployment.

The NASA graphic to the right illustrates this issue, though the graphic might not accurately portray the exact circumstance at Lucy. To get more solar power, Lucy’s panels are larger, and thus were designed to unfurl like a fan rather than the more commonly used accordion design. One panel has not completed that unfurling.

NASA’s announcement tries to minimize the issue but this quote from the link makes it clear that this could be a very big problem.

It’s not yet clear whether the array in question is, in fact, fully deployed but not latched in place or whether it did not reach full deployment and is not generating the same amount of power as its counterpart. It’s also not yet clear whether Lucy can safely fire its maneuvering thrusters with an unlatched array.

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Monaco’s government establishes “Bureau of Space Affairs”

9:27 am

Capitalism in space: Monaco’s government announced this week that it has created a Bureau of Space Affairs, aimed at encouraging commercial space operations within the country.

By setting up a ‘one-stop-shop’ for aerospace-related matters, and reporting to the Digital Platforms and Resources Department (under the authority of the Minister of State), the Principality is taking its first steps towards supporting the growth and development of these companies by streamlining administrative procedures, and will also act as the welcome office for any prospective aerospace-related businesses looking to set up in Monaco.

At the international level, the Office of Space Affairs will represent the Princely Government in the relevant international organizations, in co-operation with the Department of External Relations and Cooperation. The Office of Space Affairs will interact with its counterparts in other countries for knowledge sharing, to foster economic cooperation, and to benefit Monegasque companies in aerospace and related fields.

Such government agencies are popping up in third world countries worldwide, with almost all having goals focused on helping and encouraging the booming private commercial marketplace and attracting it to their countries. This is great news.

That these countries are also competing worldwide for this business is also great news. It will discourage them from trying to take control, as government agencies are wont to do and as NASA did in the U.S. in the 1970s. Instead, the competition will force them all to keep their bureaucracies as streamlined as possible, so as to attract as many businesses as possible.

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Russian filmmakers safely return to Earth

11:59 pm

Capitalism in space: A Russian Soyuz capsule safely returned three Russian astronauts to Earth today, including the two filmmakers that spent the last twelve days filming scenes on ISS for a movie.

Russian actress Yulia Peresild and producer Klim Shipenko landed with cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy of the Russian federal space corporation Roscosmos on Sunday (Oct. 17). The three descended aboard the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft to a touchdown at 12:35 a.m. EDT (0435 GMT or 10:35 a.m. local time) on the steppe of Kazakhstan.

The landing concluded 191 days in space for Novitskiy, who wrapped up his stay on the station by playing a bit part in the movie Peresild and Shipenko were there to film. A joint production of Roscosmos, the Russian television station Channel One and the studio Yellow, Black and White, “Вызов” (“Challenge” in English) follows the story of a surgeon (Peresild) who is launched to the station to perform emergency surgery on a cosmonaut (Novitskiy).

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ULA’a Atlas-5 successfully launches the Lucy asteroid probe

6:08 pm

ULA’a Atlas-5 rocket early this morning successfully launched the Lucy asteroid probe on a 12 year mission to study eight Trojan asteroids over a period from 2025 to 2031. One tidbit about the mission is especially creative:

Scientists named the Lucy mission after the fossilized remains of a human ancestor, called Lucy by the scientists who discovered her in Ethiopia in 1974.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

36 China
23 SpaceX
17 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman
4 ULA

The U.S. and China are once again tied in the national rankings, at 36 each.

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Thrusters on Soyuz docked to ISS fire improperly

10:00 pm

The thrusters on the Soyuz capsule to be used to return the two filmmakers and one Russian astronaut back to Earth on October 17th would not stop firing when they were supposed to during routine testing in preparation for undocking.

From the NASA announcement, which by the way buried this event in the announcement’s eighth paragraph:

At 5:02 a.m. EDT today, Russian flight controllers conducted a scheduled thruster firing test on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft that is scheduled to return to Earth Saturday night with three crew members aboard. The thruster firing unexpectedly continued after the end of the test window, resulting in a loss of attitude control for the International Space Station at 5:13 a.m. Within 30 minutes, flight controllers regained attitude control of the space station, which is now in a stable configuration. The crew was awake at the time of the event and was not in any danger.

Flight controllers are continuing to evaluate data on the station’s brief attitude change due to the thruster firing. NASA and Roscosmos are collaborating to understand the root cause.

According to the first link, the thrusters tilted the entire station 57 degrees from its correct orientation.

Not only do they not know why the thrusters did not shut down when commanded, they do not know why they eventually stopped firing. They suspect it was because the thrusters ran out of fuel, but this is not yet confirmed.

The Russians still plan to use this Soyuz to return the film crew in two days. The story does not say whether these thrusters are needed in any way to deorbit the capsule.

That’s the second uncontrolled thruster firing from a Russian spacecraft docked to ISS in less than three months. Yet, no such thing had occurred for many decades prior to this. In fact, the last such events that I can remember occurred in the 1960s.

Why such events are suddenly occurring now with such frequency is very concerning, to put it mildly. It brings to my mind the drilled hole in an earlier Soyuz capsule, a hole that was clearly drilled in Russia when the capsule was on the ground and then covered up so it was not detected until the capsule was docked to ISS. The Russians investigated, said they solved the mystery, but have never told anyone what that solution was.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, something is very rotten in Roscosmos.

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California environment overregulation sole cause of shipping backup

3:32 pm

California environment regulations that ban the use of any truck more than three years old, essentially banning half of all fleet trucks and practically all small private truck companies, is the real cause of the shipping backlog that is piling up outside the ports of Los Angles and Long Beach.

This banning was established by a deal the EPA made with California in October 2020, when Trump was still president.

In effect, what this 2020 determination and settlement created was an inability of half the nation’s truckers from picking up anything from the Port of LA or Port of Long Beach. Virtually all private owner operator trucks and half of the fleet trucks that are used for moving containers across the nation were shut out.

In an effort to offset the problem, transportation companies started using compliant trucks (low emission) to take the products to the California state line, where they could be transferred to non-compliant trucks who cannot enter California. However, the scale of the problem creates an immediate bottleneck that builds over time. It doesn’t matter if the ports start working 24/7, they are only going to end up with even more containers waiting on a limited amount of available trucks.

Essentially, California is now holding the entire nation hostage. The backlog is only going to get worse. Moreover, the deal as designed favored big operations, such as Amazon, Walmart, UPS, FedEx, Samsung, The Home Depot and Target, because they can afford the extra costs of shipping to alternative ports. The small companies are essentially shut out.

So much for protecting the little guy, Mr. Trump. This highlights again Trump’s primary failure. He did not clean house when in office, and thus allowed the bureaucracy — clearly operating as agents of the Democratic Party — to double cross and stymie him at every opportunity.

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Dry Martian chaos

1:52 pm

Dry chaos on Mars
Click for full image.

On Mars, one of the most common kinds of landscape is called chaos terrain. Made up of mesas, buttes, and cross-cutting random canyons, this geology is not seen on Earth, and when first identified by scientists in early orbital pictures in the 1970s, it baffled them. While it is clear that some form of erosion process caused it, the scientists did not have enough data then to figure out what that process was.

Today scientists have a rough theory, based on what they now know about Mars’ overall geology and its climate and orbital history. The canyons of chaos terrain were originally fault lines where either water or ice could seep through and widen. See this January 2020 post for a more detailed explanation.

Most of the cool images I have posted of chaos terrain have been in places in the mid-latitudes that are covered with glaciers. See for example this December 2019 post of one particular mesa in glacier country, with numerous glaciers flowing down its slopes on all sides. That mesa is quite typical of all such mesas in the mid-latitudes.

Today’s cool image above, cropped to post here, takes us instead to the Martian very dry equatorial regions. The photo was taken on May 17, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and like mid-latitude chaos, it shows a collection of random mesas with canyons cut almost randomly between.

Unlike the mid-latitudes, however, there is no evidence of glaciers here. Instead, the canyons and mesa slopes are covered with dust, shaped into wind-blown dunes.

As always, the overview map below gives us some context.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Fired from a school for having a “Keep America Great” bumper sticker

12:22 pm

Cancelled Bill of Rights
Doesn’t exist at the University of San Diego.

The new dark age of silencing: Nicholas Ratekin, a masters student at the University of San Diego (USD), was fired from a teaching position, and then booted from the school’s masters program, because he apparently had a “Keep America Great” bumper sticker on his car.

Ratekin is now suing the university for kicking him out without cause. More information here.

As part of the requirements for Ratekin to earn his masters at USD, he needed to also do some student teaching. To do so he got a job a local high school, Canyon Crest Academy. He also worked there as the head coach of the high school’s water polo team, leading the team to back-to-back championships in his first two years of coaching.

Apparently, Ratekin made it a point to avoid discussing politics, both at USD and at the high school. However, because of his bumper stick, his colleagues at both assumed he was a Republican and Trump supporter and began harassing him. They could not tolerate having anyone from a different political party working with them. It was be a Democrat or be nothing.
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China successfully launches three astronauts to its space station

9:36 am

Launch of Shenzhou

The new colonial movement: China today successfully used its Long March 2F rocket to place three astronauts into orbit to begin a six month mission to that country’s new space station.

The image to the right is a screen capture from the live stream, mere seconds after launch.

It appeared to me that the rocket’s first stage might have had grid fins to control its reentry, but I am not certain. Either way both it and the four strap-on boosters will crash in China.

The Shenzhou capsule will dock with the station in a few hours.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

36 China
23 SpaceX
17 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

China has now moved ahead of the U.S. in the national rankings, 36 to 35.

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FAA announces details for SpaceX Boca Chica environmental public hearings

9:20 am

Capitalism in space: The FAA today announced the details for attending its public hearings about the new environmental assessment it wishes to issue for SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy operations in Boca Chica, Texas.

The hearings will be on Monday, October 18, 2021, 5:00 p.m. (Central Time) and Wednesday, October 20, 2021, 5:00 p.m. (Central Time). Both will be virtual. If you want to participate you need to register first and follow these instructions:

VIRTUAL PUBLIC HEARING REGISTRATION: Please register to attend a virtual public hearing and indicate if you would like to provide an oral comment:

http://spacexbocachicapublichearings.eventbrite.com/?s=144095269

VIRTUAL PUBLIC HEARING INSTRUCTIONS: Connect using the Zoom link below. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88394232774 Password: FAA2021 Please only use the telephone number provided below if you are not going to connect using the Zoom Link. 1-833-548-0276 Meeting ID: 883 9423 2774 Meeting Password: 4300505

ONLINE MEETING TIPS: Prior to the meeting, please access the Zoom link above and download any needed software. This may take a few minutes, so it is best to download software in advance of the meeting. When logging-on to the meeting, please indicate your organization name in parentheses after your last name, if you represent one. If you registered to speak, this is how you will be identified during the meeting. Please also provide your email address. All lines will be muted during the meeting. To hear audio when connecting through the Zoom link, please make sure the volume on your computer speakers is on and that you do not have any programs with audio features (e.g., Skype, Spotify, YouTube) open that may interfere with the online meeting audio.

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