Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black., You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:


1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.


2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.


3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:


4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to:


Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652


You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.

Crew on China’s space station complete first spacewalk

9:17 am

The crew on China’s Tianhe space station have successfully completed their first spacewalk, with two astronauts spending 6.5 hours on the exterior of the station, testing their new spacesuits, the station’s robot arm, and the overall equipment used during such outside activities.

Zhai Zhigang was doing his second spacewalk, the first in thirteen years. Wang Yaping was doing her first, which made her the first Chinese woman to walk in space. This was her second space mission, the first in 2013 when she was the second Chinese woman fly in space.

The third crew member, Ye Guangfu, stayed on aboard the station to coordinate activities with the crew outside.

The crew is expected to do one to two more spacewalks during the rest of their six month mission. During that time two more large modules will be launched to the station.

Leave a comment

Endeavour undocking from ISS delayed one day; Endurance launch still set for November 10th

9:03 am

Because of high winds, the undocking of Endeavour from ISS was delayed from yesterday until today, with the landing now set for later this evening.

If conditions are favorable Monday, Crew-2 astronauts Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, Akihiko Hoshide and Thomas Pesquet will enter their Crew Dragon capsule currently attached to the International Space Station and depart at 2:05 p.m. ET. Splashdown in one of seven potential landing sites off the Florida coast is expected about eight hours later at 10:33 p.m. ET.

The 24-hour delay from Sunday to Monday, however, didn’t impact the timing for another crew waiting to swap positions. Crew-3 astronauts Kayla Barron, Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, and Matthias Maurer are prepping for their Falcon 9 launch currently scheduled for no earlier than 9:03 p.m. Wednesday. Kennedy Space Center’s pad 39A will host.

Both NASA and SpaceX want to get Endeavour back to Earth, as it has already exceeded the six month time it is designed (at present) to stay in space.

2 comments

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

Curiosity: Approaching the saddle

9:21 am

The saddle ahead
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, reduced to post here, was taken on November 5, 2021 by Curiosity’s high resolution camera, and looks forward at its planned route up onto the saddle ahead, where the rover will turn right and climb up into Maria Gordon Notch. (See this October post for a map outlining the rover’s future travels.) I think that cliff face is between 40 to 60 feet high, though this is a very wild guess.

As noted by Abigail Fraeman of JPL on the Curiosity blog on November 3, 2021,

The terrain is beginning to steepen as Curiosity gets close to the end of this region, so even though we’re only a few drives away from our last drill site … we’ve already climbed 25 m higher!

The route ahead looks equally steep, though the ground actually appears less rough, with fewer large jagged boulders that Curiosity must avoid to protect its wheels.

It will likely be at least one to three weeks however before Curiosity gets to that saddle. The science team has begun a drilling campaign at the present location, and this will take time, depending on how many holes they decide to drill.

One comment

Ingenuity completes 15th flight

9:04 am

Ingenuity landing on November 6th
Click for full image.

No details have been released, but based on the latest raw images downloaded from the Mars rover Perseverance today, the helicopter Ingenuity successfully completed its 15th flight in Jezero Crater yesterday.

The image to the right is the last of five released this morning, showing the helicopter’s shadow on the ground, just before Ingenuity touched down. Note how the shadow of Ingenuity’s four legs appear oriented level relative to the ground. While the first of the five images shows the shadow tilted, as if the helicopter is making a last turn, the last four photos all show the legs oriented properly.

We will have to wait now for official confirmation.

7 comments

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.

China begins in-orbit test of what it claims is a “space debris mitigation” satellite

9:43 am

The Space Force has now detected a second object flying next to a recently launched Chinese satellite that China claims will do an in-orbit test of a “space debris mitigation” system.

On Nov. 3 U.S. Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron (SPCS) catalogued a new object alongside Shijian-21 with the international designator 2021-094C. The object is noted as a rocket body and more precisely an apogee kick motor (AKM), used in some launches for a satellite to circularize and lower the inclination of its transfer orbit and enter geostationary orbit.

Apogee kick motors usually perform a final maneuver after satellite separation so as to not pose a threat to active satellites through risk of collision. However both Shijian-21 and the SJ-21 AKM are side by side in geostationary orbit.

The close proximity of the two objects strongly suggests Chinese engineers plan to use the satellite in some manner to capture the AKM in order to de-orbit it.

While China is likely testing methods for capturing and removing space debris, using this AKM, it could also be testing military technologies, such the ability to snatch working satellites it does not own from orbit. The lack of transparency can only make everyone suspicious.

7 comments

Virgin Orbit signs deal with Japanese company to launch satellites in Japan

9:33 am

Capitalism in space: Virgin Orbit has signed a non-binding agreement with the Japanese airline company All Nippon Airways (ANA) to launch twenty times from a runway in Japan.

Under the terms of the memorandum of understanding that Virgin Orbit announced Nov. 4, ANA and several partners will fund the manufacturing of mobile ground support equipment for the LauncherOne system that will fly from a pre-existing runway. ANA would also “lead the effort to provide funds and support for [the 20 envisioned] orbital missions,” Virgin Orbit said.

Pending regulatory approvals in the United States and Japan, Oita could be ready for launch missions by the end of 2022, Virgin Orbit said.

This is the second airport in Asia that Virgin Orbit is planning to launch from, with the first in Guam.

One comment

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

Endeavour and crew to return to Earth tomorrow

9:28 am

UPDATE: The landing and launch have been delayed again because of weather, with the ISS crew now targeting a splashdown tomorrow, November 8th, and the new crew targeting a November 10th launch.

The four astronauts who were brought to ISS six months ago by the Dragon capsule Endeavour will now return to Earth early tomorrow, ahead of the next crew that is now scheduled to launch to ISS on November 10th on the Dragon capsule Endurance.

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission now is targeting a return to Earth no earlier than 7:14 a.m. EST Monday, Nov. 8, with a splashdown off the coast of Florida. The Crew Dragon spacecraft, named Endeavour, is scheduled to undock from the International Space Station at 1:05 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 7, to begin the journey home. NASA will preview the mission on Saturday, Nov. 6 and provide coverage Sunday of the mission on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.

The agency decided to flip the two events in order to make sure it could get Endeavour back to Earth before it exceeded its seventh-month life limit in space.

A reminder: Both the splashdown of Endeavour and the launch of Endurance will be run by a private company, SpaceX, with the government merely acting as customer. Every worker you see, except for the astronauts, will be employees of SpaceX, not NASA.

One comment

Ingenuity next flight will begin route retracing its path

9:20 am

Overview map

The Ingenuity engineering team has revealed that the helicopter’s 15th flight on Mars will have it begin retracing its steps, following approximately the same flight route as it heads back towards Perseverance’s landing site in Jezero Crater.

Flight #15 is the start of our journey back to Wright Brothers Field [the helicopter’s initial flight test area just north of the landing site]. Taking place no earlier than Saturday, Nov. 6 at 9:22 a.m. PT, or 12:03 LMST (local Mars time), the 254th sol (Martian day) of the Perseverance mission, Flight #15 will return Ingenuity back to the Raised Ridges region, imaged in Flight #10. In this flight the helicopter will traverse 1,332 feet (406 meters) during 130 seconds of flight, travelling at 11.1 mph (5 mps) groundspeed. We’ll capture color return-to-earth (RTE) high resolution (13MP) images, one post-takeoff pointed to the SW, and nine pointed toward the NW along the flight-path. Nominal altitude for the flight is expected to be 39.3 feet (12 meters) above ground level.

This will be the second flight of Ingenuity during Mars’ summer low air-density, requiring that the rotor blades are spun at 2,700 RPM to compensate. This flight will generate critical high-RPM motor performance, which the team will use to design and tailor upcoming low-density flights in the months ahead.

Perseverance is presently sitting in an area they have dubbed Seitah, a region the rover skirted around to get to this point. I had hoped both the helicopter and rover would return to the north cutting across Seitah and thus scout out new terrain. Instead, it appears that both the rover and helicopter will return as initially planned, traveling over the same ground both took to get where they are today.

In other words, the teams have decided to take the safest route, though it will provide them much less new science data. While this might seem prudent, it really appears overly cautious, based on the capabilities of Perseverance and the roughness of the terrain in Seitah. Curiosity is presently traveling across far more difficult terrain in the mountains at the foot of Mt Sharp, and it is doing so with wheels that are damaged and not as well designed as Perseverance’s. Not roving in uncharted terrain seems a waste of Perseverance’s capabilities.

One comment

China’s Long March 2D rocket launches three earth observation satellites

9:02 am

China today used its Long March 2D rocket to launch three more earth observation satellites, which could be for civilian or military use.

No word also on whether the first stage carried any grid fins or parachutes to control its return to Earth, or whether it crashed near habitable areas.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

41 China
23 SpaceX
18 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman
4 ULA
4 Europe (Arianespace)

China now leads the U.S. 41 to 36 in the national rankings.

2 comments

Mentour Pilot – SAS flight 751-the Gottröra Miracle

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Hat tip Björn Larsson a.k.a. LocalFluff. who adds,

This stuff is more complicated than I thought. You could pick your favourite(!) airplane crash. The fantastic Hudson river landing for example. My favourite is this one, with a happy ending, because it crashed near to where I lived as a kid back then. The crash site, a potato field, was then locally called The Gottröra International Airport. Someone even put up a sign with that name at the bus stop nearby.

5 comments

China launches Landsat-type satellite using Long March 6

2:04 pm

China today successfully placed a Landsat-type satellite into a sun-synchronous orbit, using its Long March 6 rocket. From the link:

The Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center sits at an altitude of approximately 1,500 meters (4,920 feet) above sea level, its dry climate making it an ideal launch site for the Chinese space program. Unlike the Kennedy Space Center or the Guyana Space Centre, however, Taiyuan is located inland rather than on China’s eastern coast. This means spent rocket stages can crash-land near populated regions depending on the rocket’s flight trajectory.

Some recent flights of [Long March] rockets have featured parachutes and even grid fins mounted on the first stage boosters, presumably in an attempt to mitigate any collateral damage caused by falling debris. Friday’s launch did not see this type of hardware in place.

No word yet on where the first stage booster landed, or if it landed near habitable areas.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

40 China
23 SpaceX
18 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman
4 ULA
4 Europe (Arianespace)

China now leads the U.S. 40 to 36 in the national rankings. Its forty successful launches so far this year is the most by a single nation since Russia completed 49 in 1994.

This was also the 100th successful launch this year. Based on the number of planned launches presently scheduled,, that number could easily rise to more than 125, the most since the early 1980s.

One comment

The strange surface of Mars’ north pole icecap

1:02 pm

Mars' north pole icecap
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and annotated to post here, was taken on September 17, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows us a very small section of Mars’ north pole icecap.

What are we looking at? The picture was taken in summer, so by this point the thin mantle of dry ice that falls as snow in the winter and covers the north pole down to about 60 degrees latitude has sublimated away. This surface thus is water ice interspersed with Martian dust.

Yet, unlike the Antarctic icecap on Earth, the ice surface is not smooth and flat. Instead, this Martian ice has a surface that is a complex arrangement of hollows and ridges, all about the same size. Why?

And what are the two larger white spots? What caused them and why are they the only differently-sized objects in the picture?

The full resolution close-up, found at the image website, provides some answers to these questions.
» Read more

Leave a comment

Today’s blacklisted American: Rutgers bars student from remote classes because he had not gotten COVID shots

11:57 am

Clowns in charge at Rutgers
Clowns in charge at Rutgers

They’re coming for you next: Logan Hollar, a student at Rutgers University, was blocked by the college from his university email account as well as attending remote classes because he refuses to get any of the COVID-19 shots that the school is now requiring.

Logan Hollar, 22, told NJ.com he largely ignored the school’s coronavirus mandate “because all my classes were remote” from his Sandyston home, a distance of some 70 miles from the university’s principle campus in New Brunswick.

But he was locked out of his Rutgers email and related accounts when he went to pay his tuition at the end of last month — and was told he needed to be vaccinated even though he has no plans to attend in person, according to the report. “I’ll probably have to transfer to a different university,” Hollar told NJ.com, revealing at least one other student to his knowledge is in the same position.

“I find it concerning for the vaccine to be pushed by the university rather than my doctor,” he told the outlet. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted sentence is the bottom line. » Read more

6 comments

NASA runs out of money for building second SLS mobile launcher

9:37 am

SLS's two mobile launchers, costing $1 billion
NASA’s bloated SLS mobile launchers

NASA has had to halt construction of the second mobile launcher platform for its SLS rocket because the agency has run out of money.

Overall, NASA spent almost a billion dollars on the first launcher (to be used only three times), and now has budgeted almost a half billion dollars for the second.

That’s about $1.4 billion, and apparently it is not enough.

The second Mobile Launcher (ML-2) has a cost estimate of $450 million. However, like ML-1, that cost is likely to rise over time based on the challenges involving ML-1, which ranged from being overweight to suffering from a slight lean. Both of these issues have since been resolved via engineering solutions. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words illustrate more NASA incompetence. The first platform was designed and built badly, being too heavy for its purposes while also improperly tilting sideways The agency had to spend a lot of money and time fixing these problems.

Meanwhile, SpaceX moves its Starship spaceship and Superheavy booster about in Boca Chica using simple truck movers that probably cost the company no more than a million dollars each, if that. And they became operational quickly, and are now in use.

30 comments

SpaceX begins filling tanks at Starship orbital launchpad

9:03 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has begun the process of filling the many tanks at its Starship orbital launchpad in Boca Chica, requiring more than a hundred truck deliveries of nitrogen (for cleaning the interior of the tanks as well as cooling the propellants) and oxygen.

In mid-September, SpaceX began delivering cryogenic fluids to Starbase’s orbital tank farm for the first time ever. Instead of propellant, dozens of tanker trucks delivered liquid nitrogen to one or two of the farm’s tanks between mid-September and mid-October. Altogether, around 40-60 truckloads was delivered – only enough to partially fill one tank. That liquid nitrogen also appeared to be piped into two of the farm’s three liquid oxygen tanks, meaning that it may have only been used to clean and proof test them.

Combined, the farm’s seven main tanks should be able to store roughly 2400 tons (5.3M lb) of liquid methane (LCH4), 5400 tons (12M lb) of liquid oxygen (LOx), and 2600 tons (5.7M lb) of liquid nitrogen (LN2). LCH4 and LOx are Starship’s propellant, while LN2 is needed to ‘subcool’ that propellant below its boiling point, significantly increasing its density and the mass of propellant Starships can store.

It appears that while SpaceX has begun storing oxygen, it has not yet begun loading its methane tanks. When that fuel begins arriving we will know that an orbital launch of Starship is imminent.

8 comments

History Unplugged – The Age of Discovery 2.0: Episode 2

10:23 pm

Part two of the six part series, The Age of Discovery 2.0, from the podcast, History Unplugged, is now available here.

This episode is centered on an interview with law professor Glenn Reynolds, the creator of the aggregate news website Instapundit. As the series host and creator, Scott Rank, describes:

With private space companies launching rockets, satellites, and people at a record pace, and with the US and other governments committing to a future in space, Glenn Harlan Reynolds looks at how we got here, where we’re going, and why it matters for all of humanity.

Episode 3 (November 9) will feature Robert Zubrin, describing how building a space-faring society will invigorate the civilization on Earth. Episode 4 (November 11) will feature yours truly, discussing my new book, Conscious Choice, and how the history of the British colonies in North American can guide us in building just and prosperous colonies in space. Episode 5 (November 16) will feature Rand Simberg, describing how we must accept risk and failure if we wish to do great things in space.

The final episode (November 18) will look at the future of warfare in space, something that ideologues think they can outlaw even though that dream is utterly impossible.

Leave a comment

Astra proposes its own 13,000 satellite internet constellation

9:17 pm

Capitalism in space: Astra, the startup smallsat rocket company that has yet to successfully complete an orbital launch, has filed with the FCC a proposal to launch a 13,000 satellite constellation for providing internet services globally.

Astra said its satellites would be built in-house, and would be launched on Astra’s own rockets. The satellites would be sent into orbital altitudes ranging from 236 to 435 miles (380 to 700 kilometers), and would be equipped with propulsion systems to aid in collision avoidance and post-operational deorbiting.

Potential applications for Astra’s high-bandwidth connectivity would include communications services, environmental and natural resource applications and national security missions.

Though Astra could certainly launch many of these satellites itself, it is unlikely it launch them all with its small rocket. Thus, more launch business for other rocket companies!

5 comments

Weather forces another delay for Endurance launch to ISS

9:05 pm

Because of poor weather expected on November 7 evening NASA and SpaceX have once again delayed the launch of the manned Dragon capsule Endurance carrying four astronauts to ISS.

The U.S. space agency and SpaceX have pushed the launch of the Crew-3 mission, which will send four astronauts to the International Space Station, from Saturday (Nov. 6) to Monday (Nov. 8) at the earliest, because of anticipated bad weather over the coming days.

NASA and SpaceX are also now considering whether to bring the four astronauts of the previous mission, Crew-2, back down to Earth before sending Crew-3 skyward.

The reason they might bring the crew home first is because the capsule they will be using, Endeavour, is only rated to stay in space for seven months, and the end of that time period is approaching. If they wait much longer, the mediocre November weather could prevent a return before that end date is reached.

One comment

November 4, 2021 Zimmerman/Pratt podcast on blacklists

4:16 pm

The forty-plus minute interview I did with Robert Pratt on his Pratt on Texas podcast is now available here. Pratt’s show summary is as follows:

The cases are more frequent, insidious, and perversely absurd.

In this update we discuss a surgeon and another doctor seemingly fired for simply speaking up about mask mandates and WuFlu treatments. We look at two teachers harmed and a formerly prestigious science body that denied giving awards because all nominees were white males and that’s not all.

One comment

Today’s blacklisted American: Ivy league professor to fail two students for not wearing masks

10:55 am

Monger email asking students to snitch on others
Click for original screen capture.

Persecution is now cool! Bruce Monger, the director of undergraduate studies for Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University, has told his students in an email that he is failing two of them, not for bad classwork or poor test grades, but because they did not wear their masks properly in class.

His email was a request to all his students to help him identify these two students, or to put it more honestly, to snitch on them.

To the right is a screen capture of that email, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here.

Interestingly, Monger’s threat does not follow university policy, and is likely one that in a just world would get him in trouble, not the students.
» Read more

13 comments

Astronomers release fantasy proposals for government telescopes in the 2020s

8:54 am

The astronomical community today released its newest decadal survey, a outline of what major new telescope projects that community recommends the federal government should fund for the next ten years.

More details here.

This is I think the seventh such decadal survey since the first in the early 1960s. In the past these surveys prompted the construction of numerous space telescopes, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, and many others. Until 2000 these survey were enormously influential, which is why space-based astronomy boomed in the 1980s and 1990s.

Now I call it a fantasy because I think it unlikely that most of its proposals — especially the space-based projects — will see fruition, based on the recent history in this century. For example, the 2001 survey recommended the James Webb Space Telescope among many other recommendations. The cost overruns of that project however eventually caused almost all the other space-based proposals to be cancelled, not only in the 2000s but in the 2010s as well. Furthermore, the 2010 survey called for the building of WFIRST, another Webb-like big space telescope that is now called the Roman Telescope, and that project’s high cost and complexity has further forced the elimination of almost all other new space telescopes. Nor has Roman been built and launched in the 2010s as proposed. It is still under development, with the same kinds of cost orverruns and delayed seen with Webb, which means in the 2020s most of the new proposals in this latest decadal survey will have to take a back seat to it, and will likely never get built.

Prove of my analysis is in the report’s press release:

The first mission to enter this program should be an infrared/optical/ultraviolet (IR/O/UV) telescope — significantly larger than the Hubble Space Telescope — that can observe planets 10 billion times fainter than their star, and provide spectroscopic data on exoplanets, among other capabilities. The report says this large strategic mission is of an ambitious scale that only NASA can undertake and for which the U.S. is uniquely situated to lead. At an estimated cost of $11 billion, implementation of this IR/O/UV telescope could begin by the end of the decade, after the mission and technologies are matured, and a review considers it ready for implementation. If successful, this would lead to a launch in the first half of the 2040 decade. [emphasis mine]

Proposing something that won’t be built for two decades is absurd. And the cost is even more absurd, as it is ten times what Hubble cost and seems more designed as a long term jobs program where nothing will get built but money will continue to pour in endlessly to the contractors and astronomers hired. That is what Webb and Roman essentially became.

25 comments

Skimming over the cloud tops of Jupiter

8:29 am

Skimming over the cloud tops of Jupiter
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The computer visualization above is based on a orbital image of Jupiter taken by Juno, but processed by citizen scientist Ryan Cornell to give, as he puts it, a view “as if we had a low orbit above the clouds.”

I estimate the scale of these clouds is quite large, with the Earth easily fitting inside the orange band on the right. The sharp horizon edge is a not accurate, however, as the clouds would have a decidedly fuzzy boundary, possibly many thousand miles in extent.

Nonetheless, it is a fun image that begins to give us a sense of Jupiter’s upper atmosphere.

Leave a comment

Landing site chosen for Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander

11:57 pm

NASA scientists have now chosen the landing site for the privately built Nova-C lunar lander, built and designed by Intuitive Machines, that late next year will carry three science instruments to a ridge close to Shackleton Crater near the Moon’s south pole.

NASA data from spacecraft orbiting the Moon indicate this location, referred to as the “Shackleton connecting ridge,” could have ice below the surface. The area receives sufficient sunlight to power a lander for roughly a 10-day mission, while also providing a clear line of sight to Earth for constant communications. It also is close to a small crater, which is ideal for a robotic excursion.

These conditions offer the best chance of success for the three technology demonstrations aboard. This includes the NASA-funded Polar Resources Ice-Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) – which consists of a drill paired with a mass spectrometer – a 4G/LTE communications network developed by Nokia of America Corporation, and Micro-Nova, a deployable hopper robot developed by Intuitive Machines.

One of the goals of the mission is to drill down three feet to see if ice can be detected. Another is to simply test this engineering to better refine it for the many other unmanned lunar missions that will follow in the next few years.

2 comments

Boeing wins FCC approval for its own satellite internet constellation

11:45 pm

Capitalism in space: After four years of review, the FCC has finally approved a license for Boeing to launch its own internet constellation of 147 satellites.

The license requires Boeing to launch half the constellation by ’27, with the rest in orbit by ’30.

The real significance of this constellation, combined with those being launched by SpaceX, OneWeb, Amazon, and even the Chinese, is that they are creating a gigantic demand for launch services. A lot of rockets of all kinds from many companies are going to be needed to put in orbit the tens of thousands of satellites now proposed.

Such demand, should it continue, guarantees that launch costs will drop, because there will be a lot of business and competition to force the costs down.

Leave a comment

Today’s blacklisted American: Parents threatened by Child Protective Services for protecting their kids from COVID

12:24 pm

Owned by government

Today’s blacklist story illustrates that no one is safe from the oppressive thumb of government, not even those who are clearly liberal and generally support Democrats. In this case we have the parents of two children, Eli and Kavitha Kasargod-Staub, who decided to keep the kids from their Washington, D.C., school because of their continuing concerns about COVID. As a result they were threatened with losing custody of those children by child protective services.

Kavitha Kasargod-Staub was looking forward to sending her two kids back to elementary school this fall. After a year of remote learning in Washington, D.C., her kids spent the summer attending day camp. “I’m certainly not in the group of people who avoid all Covid risk,” she said, adding that camp activities were outdoors and there was testing for children if someone was exposed to the virus.

But by August, Kasargod-Staub and her husband were watching Delta variant cases rise across the region. When her husband went to the school to review its safety protocols, he left alarmed, having learned that the HVAC system was broken and there was no plan for outdoor eating. Kasaragod-Staub, who had served as PTA president the year before, called up the principal to discuss. “The policies were vague, everyone was scrambling, so we decided to keep [our kids] home for the first week of school in the hopes that [D.C. Public Schools] would realize they made a mistake and catch up with things like testing and outdoor eating,” she told The Intercept. “It feels a little dumb now, but I genuinely thought things would change and they’d figure safety stuff out.”

Things didn’t change, and the children stayed home. Pretty soon, Kasargod-Staub was notified that her family was being referred to D.C.’s Child and Family Services Agency due to her kids’ unexcused absences. “I have a lot of privilege, I know the system, and it was still terrifying,” she said. “My mind immediately goes to, ‘Where will this lead? Are they going to take away my kids?’”

Kasargod-Staub was soon contacted by a government social worker for an intake call. “The person I spoke to said, ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen, we don’t have any sense of where this will go,’” she recalled. About a week and a half later, things escalated, and child protective services called to schedule a home visit. [emphasis mine]

Though the parents began teaching the kids using a variety of home-school programs, they had not officially removed their kids from the school, which would allow them to claim they were home-schooling them. Nor had they qualified for remote learning, because “D.C. Public Schools … requires a doctor to certify that virtual school is necessary.” Thus, the arrival of child protective services, which became increasingly threatening, step-by-step, first by asking the questions that were more and more invasive and inappropriate. Then,
» Read more

7 comments
1 … 273 274 275 276 277 … 1,103