Behind The Black – Robert Zimmerman

Curiosity marches on into the mountains

October 27, 2021 1:09 pm Robert Zimmerman

Click for full image.

Click for interactive map

With the end of the solar conjunction in the first half of October, blocking communications with Mars because the Sun was in the way, Curiosity has resumed its travels. It has moved past the spectacular outcrop I have highlighted previously, an outcrop the science team has labeled Siccar Point.

They are now moving south at the base of the cliff to the west, the top of which is a plateau they call the Greenheugh Pediment, heading for a gap where the rover will be able to turn right and head up onto that pediment. The red dotted line on the overview map to the right shows this route, which corresponds to the red dotted line on the photo above.

I estimate the cliffs on both sides of Maria Gordon Notch are about 100 feet high. The notch itself I estimate is about 750 feet away. At the pace Curiosity has been traveling across this rough ground, it could probably reach it in about two to three weeks. However, I expect the science team will stop at least once along the way to do more detailed science work, so that journey might take a month or slightly more.

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Today’s blacklisted American: American Geophysical Union rejects candidates for awards because they are white

October 27, 2021 12:09 pm Robert Zimmerman

Discriminated against in Seattle
Eagerly discriminated against by the
American Geophysical Union

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” An awards committee of the American Geophysical Union, assigned to give fellowships to scientists of note, decided to reject all the candidates this year because they happened to be white.

Five of the nation’s top ice scientists found themselves in a conundrum. They’d been tasked with a formidable job: reviewing candidates for the American Geophysical Union’s fellows program, the most prestigious award given by the world’s largest earth and space science society. But when the group looked at its list of candidates, all nominated by peers, it spotted a problem.
Every nominee on the list was a white man.
….“That was kind of a bit of a showstopper for me,” said Helen Fricker, a glaciologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and one of the five committee members. Fricker and her colleagues — Jeff Dozier, Sinead Farrell, Bob Hawley, Don Perovich and Michele Koppes — represented the AGU’s cryosphere section, comprising scientists focused on the Earth’s snow and ice. The group was just one of about two dozen different committees, all reviewing their own lists of candidates.
The homogeneous pool of nominees didn’t sit right. … So the committee members made an uncomfortable decision. They declined to recommend any nominees at all.

Let me make this very clear: They bluntly rejected the nominees for only one reason: their race. If this isn’t outright bigotry and racism I do not know what is. And if you don’t believe me, you should read the public letter these committee members wrote explaining their decision. In it they say:
» Read more

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Water and carbon monoxide detected in exoplanet’s atmosphere

October 27, 2021 9:54 am Robert Zimmerman

Astronomers, using both the Hubble Space Telescope and the ground-based Gemini Telescope, have detected water and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of an exoplanet 320 light years away.

Previously hydrogen, helium, hydrogen cyanide, iron, and magnesium have been detected in the atmospheres of a variety of exoplanets. In other cases scientists found exoplanets that were devoid of water.

This detection of water and carbon monoxide is a first for these two materials, and is somewhat significant as it is the first detection that suggests an exoplanet atmosphere that might have similarities to Earth.

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Poland becomes thirteenth nation to sign Artemis Accords

October 27, 2021 9:37 am Robert Zimmerman

The new colonial movement: Poland yesterday announced that it has signed the U.S.-led Artemis Accords.

In brief comments at the ceremony, [Polish Space Agency (POLSA) President Grzegorz Wrochna] said he saw the Artemis Accords as a first step toward greater cooperation with the United States. He noted that while Poland is a member of the European Space Agency, Polish space companies are looking to expand their business outside Europe. “They want to reach for new markets, especially the U.S. market,” he said. “They want to participate in missions of other agencies, especially NASA. We would like to open the door for them, and I believe this is the first step.”

The full list of signatories at this moment: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Poland, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, and the United States.

While the accords — introduced by the Trump administration — are cleverly written to appear to endorse the mandates of the Outer Space Treaty, they are also written to bluntly minimize that treaty’s hostility to private property. With each new signatory, the ability to overturn that treaty’s limitations preventing legal protection to private property in space grows, as it binds a growing number of nations in an alliance to do so.

Not surprisingly, Russia and China have said they oppose the Artemis Accords. Both of these nations do not want legal protections in space to private citizens or companies. Instead, they wish that power to reside with them, or with the United Nations.

Whether the strategy behind the Artemis Accords will work however remains unclear. That strategy requires the U.S. to maintain its strong support for private property in space. Any wavering of that support will weaken the ability of this new Artemis alliance to overturn the Outer Space Treaty’s provisions that make private ownership of territory in space impossible.

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China’s Kuaizhou-1A solid rocket successfully launches a remote sensing satellite

October 27, 2021 9:15 am Robert Zimmerman

China’s Kuaizhou-1A smallsat solid rocket today successfully launched a commercial remote sensing satellite.

This launch, the 38th successful launch this year by China, ties its previous high in 2018. The country had two additional launches this year, but those were failures.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

38 China
23 SpaceX
17 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman
4 ULA
4 Arianespace (Europe)

China now leads the U.S. 38 to 36 in the national rankings.

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Russian engineers to dock next Progress to Zvezda to test it

October 27, 2021 8:25 am Robert Zimmerman

Russian engineers have decided that they will dock the next Progress freighter flying to ISS and scheduled to launch tomorrow to the Zvezda module in order to find out if the stress of that docking will cause more cracks in the module’s aft section.

Scheduled for launch in early hours of October 28, 2021, the Progress MS-18 cargo ship will be on a two-day trip to the International Space Station, aiming to dock at the aft port of the Zvezda Service Module, ISS. That particular docking mechanism was unoccupied for half a year, because it is connected to the rest of the outpost via the PrK transfer compartment, which had been leaking air despite all efforts to seal tiny cracks in its walls. Progress MS-18 should confirm that the PrK chamber could be used safely.

This is not crazy, it actually makes a great deal of sense. The engineers need to know if a docking results in more cracks. If so, it will confirm the cause and also provide them the data they need to prevent such things on future manned space vessels.

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Ingenuity completes 14th flight on Mars

October 26, 2021 11:31 pm Robert Zimmerman

Ingenuity’s shadow below it during 14th flight.
Click for full image.

On October 24th, Ingenuity successfully completed its 14th flight on Mars, a short test hop up and down to see if the helicopter could function properly as the air pressure in the Martian atmosphere drops due to seasonal variations.

As planned, the helicopter executed its first 2,700 rpm flight, proving that Ingenuity is capable of flying in the weeks and months ahead on Mars, during which seasonal changes on the surface will result in decreases in air density. The short 23-second flight included a peak altitude of 16 feet (5 meters) above ground level, with a small sideways translation of 7 feet (2 meters) to avoid a nearby sand ripple.

I predict the next flight will head north, leap-frogging past Perseverance to get a better view of the South Seitah area so that the rover team can decide whether they can continue north through that terrain or retreat backwards.

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Elli Siitonen – Popcorn

October 26, 2021 6:01 pm Robert Zimmerman

A evening pause: Song by Gershon Kingsley, played on a kantele, a traditional Finnish string instrument, with looper added.

Hat tip Dan Morris.

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How deadly is COVID-19, really?

October 26, 2021 2:40 pm Robert Zimmerman

It is now almost twenty months since COVID-19 crossed the ocean from China and arrived in the United States. When it arrived there was great fear as its true deadliness at that time was unknown. Though the sparse data from China, South Korea, and the Diamond Princess cruise ship suggested it was merely a variation of the annual flu and not something to fear, the computer models put forth by a variety of scientific institutions at that time instead predicted millions were about die from it.

No one really knew for certain. Some legitimately argued that the lockdowns, mask mandates, and oppressive restrictions on normal activities were necessary to limit its harm.

Almost two years have now passed, and we can now assess realistically which of those scenarios was accurate. To best understand these things I strongly believe is always best to look at the big picture, the larger and bigger the better. In this case, let’s look at the entire U.S. and measure COVID-19’s impact by noting the total number of people in the United States who have become infected by COVID since its arrival and comparing that with the total number who have died. These actual numbers will tells us truly how deadly COVID has been, and whether our continued fear of it is justified.

CDC COVID estimates as of May 2021
CDC’s COVID-19 estimates as of May 2021

According to CDC estimates, as of May 2021, 120.2 million Americans had been infected by COVID, of which 101.8 million experienced actual symptoms. The CDC in these same estimates in May calculated that 767,000 people had died from COVID.

These CDC estimates were further supported by a Nature peer review study published in August 2021, which estimated that by the end of 2020 100 million Americans had been infected with COVID.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Los Angeles government bans the unvaccinated from society

October 26, 2021 12:05 pm Robert Zimmerman

Coming to your town in America soon!
Death camps are coming for the unclean unvaccinated.

Persecution is now cool! On Octover 6th the Los Angeles city council joined a number of other cities in California as well as New York and voted to restrict access to most of society for anyone who has not gotten vaccinated against COVID.

Under the new law, businesses must require proof of vaccination when customers enter indoor facilities, including coffee shops, gyms, museums, bowling alleys, spas and a range of other venues.
…The L.A. rules allow customers to submit written exemptions for religious or medical reasons, but businesses must require those customers to use outdoor facilities, or to show evidence of a recent negative coronavirus test to come inside if no outdoor facilities are available. Customers who have no proof of vaccination or exemption can still enter briefly to use the restroom or pick up a takeout order, according to the ordinance.
Businesses that violate the rules can face escalating penalties under the ordinance, starting with a warning for a first violation, then a $1,000 fine for a second violation, eventually reaching a $5,000 penalty for a fourth or subsequent violation. The fines would begin to be enforced starting Nov. 29, according to the ordinance.

The rules apparently allow the unclean to enter supermarkets to buy groceries, but I would not expect that exemption to last much longer. Fear is what is driving these rules, not rational thought or actual data.

Moreover, the illogical of the rules is mind-boggling. » Read more

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China resumes communications with Zhurong Mars rover

October 26, 2021 10:13 am Robert Zimmerman

Click for full image.

The new colonial movement: China yesterday announced that it has regained communications with its Zhurong rover, located in the Martian northern lowland plains of Utopia Planitia.

The image to the right, cropped and annotated by me to post here, is a digital terrain map created from two high resolution photos taken by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The black line shows the route Zhurong has traveled since landing in May.

According to [Chen Baichao, the chief designer of Zhurong], the rover has traveled more than 1,000 meters since it landed on Mars at the southern part of Utopia Planitia in May 2021. After the solar conjunction, it will head south to find mud volcanoes, which scientists are interested in, located about 10 km away.

American scientists had hoped Zhurong would head north to a much larger mud cone that was much closer. Their decision to head south to the smaller cones farther away tells us that they have given themselves a much more challenging mission. It also suggests they decided it will be easier to get Zhurong closer to a smaller cone.

Based on that 10 kilometer distance, it seems the Chinese are aiming for the cones near the bottom of the map. It took Zhurong three months to travel the distance shown. At that pace, to get to those small southern mud cones will likely take, at a minimum, about fifteen months. Though the ground is quite flat, the rover will either have to negotiate one small rise of about 15 feet, or detour to the east somewhat to find a less steep route.

It is also possible that they will instead head to the mud cone south of the large impact crater. It is also a small cone, is much nearer, and will not require them to get past that rise.

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Firefly approves design of its unmanned lunar lander

October 26, 2021 9:08 am Robert Zimmerman

Capitalism in space: Firefly has completed and approved the design of its unmanned lunar lander, and will now begin construction with a launch date targeting 2023.

Firefly said Monday that it has completed the “critical design review” phase of its program to develop a lunar lander. This means the company can now proceed to build and order components for the “Blue Ghost” spacecraft and begin its assembly. Firefly aims to launch the spacecraft as the primary payload on a Falcon 9 rocket in the fall of 2023.
NASA is sponsoring the mission as part of its Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program, through which it pays private companies to deliver scientific experiments to the Moon. NASA is paying $93.3 million for this Blue Ghost mission, which will carry 10 payloads down to the Mare Crisium lunar basin in September 2023.

In the next three years a plethora of commercial unmanned lunar landers have scheduled flights, all bringing both NASA science as well commercial payloads to the lunar surface. All are being designed and built by private companies. Expect some to fail. Some however will succeed, and will thus establish themselves as the go-to companies if you want to put a payload on the Moon.

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Russians certify Dragon for flying its astronauts

October 26, 2021 9:02 am Robert Zimmerman

Capitalism in space: The head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, said yesterday that they have finally approved the use of SpaceX’s Dragon capsules to launch their astronauts to ISS.

Crew Dragon spaceships of Elon Musk’s SpaceX company have gained substantial experience for Russian cosmonauts to travel aboard them as part of cross flights, Head of Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin said on Monday. “From our viewpoint, SpaceX has gained sufficient experience for representatives of our crews to make flights aboard its spacecraft,” the Roscosmos chief told reporters at the 72nd international astronautical congress.

Russia will now begin barter negotiations for the future flights, whereby for each Russian that flies on Dragon an American will get a free flight on Soyuz.

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Smallsat rocket startup ABL raises $200 million in anticipation of 1st launch

October 26, 2021 8:58 am Robert Zimmerman

Capitalism in space: With its first test launch of its rocket scheduled for mid-December, the smallsat rocket startup ABL has raised $200 million in investment capital, in addition to the $170 million it had raised in March.

Dan Piemont, president and co-founder of ABL, told SpaceNews that the company still has most of the $170 million it raised in March, describing the new round as “somewhat opportunistic and driven by insider interest.” Much of the additional funding, though, will go to scale up production of its RS1 vehicle that is nearing its first launch. “We have received large orders for RS1 and will need to scale faster than we previously planned to meet the demand,” he said, with more than 75 launches under contract. “Our investors have seen the incredible demand for RS1 and want to make sure we have all the resources we need to serve it. We updated our operating plan accordingly, and you’ll see that in the form of more launch sites, more facilities, more machines and larger production crews next year.”

ABL is one of seven rocket companies — the others are Virgin Orbit, Astra, Firefly, Relativity, Aevum, and Blue Origin — that had planned a first test launch in ’21. Of those, Virgin Orbit has had two successful orbital launches, while Astra and Firefly have attempted orbital launches but failed. Blue Origin’s first launch of its New Glenn rocket has been delayed to next year, but it is questionable it will occur then. The launch dates for Relativity and Aevum remain unannounced.

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Japan launches GPS-type satellite

October 25, 2021 8:20 pm Robert Zimmerman

Japan successfully launched a government GPS-type satellite, using the H-2A rocket that is built by Mitsubishi.

This was Japan’s first launch in 2021. It appears this year it will not match last year’s launch total of four.

The leaders in 2021 launch race remains unchanged:

37 China
23 SpaceX
17 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman
4 ULA
4 Arianespace (Europe)

China still leads the U.S. 37 to 36 in the national rankings.

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Boy Meets Girl – Waiting for a Star to Fall

October 25, 2021 6:01 pm Robert Zimmerman

An evening pause: Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.

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Layered glaciers in Mars’ glacier country

October 25, 2021 3:48 pm Robert Zimmerman

Click for full image.

Cool image time. The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on August 30, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows two different impact craters in a glacial region dubbed Nilosyrtis Mensae, located in the northern mid-latitudes in the 2,000 mile long strip chaos terrain that I have labeled glacier country because practically every image finds them there.

The splash apron surrounding the larger crater is typical of craters in Martian regions where ice is thought to be near the surface.

What makes this picture interesting is that the glaciers appear layered. You can see evidence of this in the mounds inside both craters. Those mounds appear to represent earlier periods when there was more ice here. Since then the mounds have partly sublimated away.

You can also see evidence of layers in the material surrounding the nearby larger mounds.

The map below shows us where this image is, relative to all of glacier country as well as the rover Perseverance in Jezero Crater.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Doctor fired for refusing vaccine

October 25, 2021 11:42 am Robert Zimmerman

The modern dark age: Mollie James, an ICU doctor working jobs in hospitals in both St. Louis and New York, was forced to leave her hospital practices because she refused to get vaccinated against COVID because she already had natural immunity.

From the Nebraska AG report
The Nebraska AG’s doubts about remdesirvir.

In addition, James was also forced out because she researched the use of ivermectin, tried it on her patients, and found it beneficial. Her desire to prescribe it to her sick patients however was blocked by her hospitals, who insisted instead that she prescribe remdesivir, an anti-viral drug that the government pays a premium for hospitals to use, but has been shown to be of doubtful benefit [see screen capture to the right].
» Read more

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Sierra Space teams up with Blue Origin to build its Life space station

October 25, 2021 10:45 am Robert Zimmerman

Proposed Orbital Reef space station

Capitalism in space: Sierra Space and Blue Origin today announced [pdf] that they are forming a consortium of space companies to build a space station they dub Orbital Reef. From the press release:

The Orbital Reef team of experts brings proven capabilities and new visions to provide key elements and services, including unique experience from building and operating the International Space Station:

Blue Origin – Utility systems, large-diameter core modules, and reusable heavy-lift New Glenn launch system.

Sierra Space – Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE) module, node module, and runway-landing Dream Chaser spaceplane for crew and cargo transportation, capable of landing on runways worldwide.

Boeing – Science module, station operations, maintenance engineering, and Starliner crew spacecraft.

Redwire Space – Microgravity research, development, and manufacturing; payload operations and deployable structures.

Genesis Engineering Solutions – Single Person Spacecraft for routine operations and tourist excursions.

Arizona State University – Leads a global consortium of universities providing research advisory services and public outreach.

I suspect that this deal is actually telling us that Jeff Bezos is spreading some of his Blue Origin money to help finance Sierra Space’s work. The deal also appears to be an effort to generate work for Blue Origin’s not-yet-launched New Glenn rocket and Boeing’s not-yet launched Starliner capsule.

The release says nothing about target dates, but the overview [pdf] on the Orbital Reef website says they are aiming for the second half of this decade.

While the success of such a project can only increase the competition and lower the cost to orbit, thus making the settlement of space more likely, this announcement reeks of the same kind of high-minded promises that came with Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar lander: Big plans by the best and most established space companies, with little firm commitment by these companies to actually build anything.

Compared to the Blue Moon lunar lander project, however, this project has one very significant difference that could make it real. Orbital Reef is not being touted in order to win a government contract. It is being touted as a commercial station for private customers. Such a project will require these companies to either invest their own money, or obtain outside investment capital, to build it. To make money they can’t sit and wait for their customers to pay for it, since customers never do that (except the government). They need to first build it.

Meanwhile, the BE-4 engine is not yet flight worthy, so that Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket remains no closer to launch, even though it is now approaching two years behind schedule.

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On the radio…

October 25, 2021 9:19 am Robert Zimmerman

Tonight I will be spending two hours chatting with David Livingston on the Space Show, starting at 7 pm (Pacific).

As always, I encourage my readers to call in to ask questions.

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First exoplanet detected in another galaxy?

October 25, 2021 8:32 am Robert Zimmerman

The uncertainty of science: Using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers think they may have detected the first exoplanet ever found in another galaxy, the Whirlpool Galaxy, 28 million light years away.

This new result is based on transits, events in which the passage of a planet in front of a star blocks some of the star’s light and produces a characteristic dip. Astronomers using both ground-based and space-based telescopes — like those on NASA’s Kepler and TESS missions — have searched for dips in optical light, electromagnetic radiation humans can see, enabling the discovery of thousands of planets.
Di Stefano and colleagues have instead searched for dips in the brightness of X-rays received from X-ray bright binaries. These luminous systems typically contain a neutron star or black hole pulling in gas from a closely orbiting companion star. The material near the neutron star or black hole becomes superheated and glows in X-rays.
Because the region producing bright X-rays is small, a planet passing in front of it could block most or all of the X-rays, making the transit easier to spot because the X-rays can completely disappear. This could allow exoplanets to be detected at much greater distances than current optical light transit studies, which must be able to detect tiny decreases in light because the planet only blocks a tiny fraction of the star.
The team used this method to detect the exoplanet candidate in a binary system called M51-ULS-1, located in M51. This binary system contains a black hole or neutron star orbiting a companion star with a mass about 20 times that of the Sun. The X-ray transit they found using Chandra data lasted about three hours, during which the X-ray emission decreased to zero. Based on this and other information, the researchers estimate the exoplanet candidate in M51-ULS-1 would be roughly the size of Saturn, and orbit the neutron star or black hole at about twice the distance of Saturn from the Sun.
While this is a tantalizing study, more data would be needed to verify the interpretation as an extragalactic exoplanet. One challenge is that the planet candidate’s large orbit means it would not cross in front of its binary partner again for about 70 years, thwarting any attempts for a confirming observation for decades. [emphasis mine]

As the press release says, this data is tantalizing, but it is really insufficient to prove that an exoplanet has been found. What is known is that for some reason the X-ray emissions from the X-ray binary system disappeared for about three hours. An exoplanet could be one explanation. So could many other things.

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Space Adventures fails to find customer for Dragon orbital flight

October 24, 2021 10:35 pm Robert Zimmerman

Capitalism in space: A high orbital tourist flight on SpaceX’s Dragon capsule has been cancelled because the company organizing it, Space Adventures, apparently failed to find enough customers.

Company spokesperson Stacey Tearne confirmed to SpaceNews that the company had dropped plans for the mission. “The mission was marketed to a large number of our prospective customers, but ultimately the mix of price, timing and experience wasn’t right at that particular time and our contract with SpaceX expired,” she said. “We hope to revisit the offering in the future.”

This revises the list of scheduled of orbital tourist flight that began with SpaceX’s Inspiration4 flight in September.

September 15, 2021: SpaceX’s Dragon capsule flew four private citizens on a three day orbital flight
October 5-17, 2021: Two Russians fly to ISS for 12 days to shoot a movie
December 2021: The Russians will fly billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant to ISS for 12 days
January/February 2022: Axiom, using a Dragon capsule, will fly four tourists to ISS
2022-2024: Three more Axiom tourist flights on Dragon to ISS
2024: Axiom begins launching its own modules to ISS, starting construction of its own private space station
c2024: SpaceX’s Starship takes Yusaku Maezawa and several others on a journey around the Moon.

Why Space Adventures could not get enough customers for their Dragon flight is unclear. It could be for many reasons outside of not enough demand. For example, SpaceX might have determined that the prospective customers were not physically capable for the flight. Maybe Space Adventures sold two or three tickets, but couldn’t fill the manifest before their SpaceX contract expired.

The cancellation however does suggest that the price per ticket might have to come down to garner business for orbital tourist space flights. Or those flights need to arrive at a space station where the passengers can spend more than two or three days.

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Arianespace and Chinese launches this weekend

October 24, 2021 10:25 pm Robert Zimmerman

Two launches occurred this weekend.

First Arianespace used its Ariane 5 rocket to place two communications satellites in orbit, one for the French military and the second for the commercial company SES. The total payload weight set a record for the rocket.

With this success the path is now clear for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope on the next Ariane 5 launch in December.

Next the Chinese used its Long March 3B rocket to launch a technology test satellite aimed at testing “space debris mitigation technologies.” No other information was released.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

37 China
23 SpaceX
17 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman
4 ULA
4 Arianespace (Europe)

China now leads the U.S. 37 to 36 in the national rankings.

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October 22, 2021 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast

October 24, 2021 3:07 pm Robert Zimmerman

Embedded below the fold in two parts.

To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, well worth your time, go here.
» Read more

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Alison Krauss, Shawn Colvin, Jerry Douglas – The Boxer

October 22, 2021 6:01 pm Robert Zimmerman

An evening pause: “But the fighter still remains.”

Hat tip Daniel Morris. I posted this in 2013, and it was time to post it again.

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Musk: Starship orbital flight could happen as soon as next month

October 22, 2021 2:57 pm Robert Zimmerman

Capitalism in space: Elon Musk today announced that SpaceX will be ready to launch the first orbital flight of Starship as soon as one month from now.

“If all goes well, Starship will be ready for its first orbital launch attempt next month, pending regulatory approval,” Musk tweeted today [emphasis mine]

Musk’s tweet came one day after the FAA completed its public hearings on its environment reassessment of SpaceX’s operations in Boca Chica. Before the agency can approve that reassessment it has to digest the comments, then to hold an “industry workshop” on this reassessment.

Thus, while SpaceX is ready to go, our lumbering, oppressive government is not. As I’ve written before, I fully expect there to be pressure from the Biden administration and NASA to slow walk that government approval so that Starship does not launch before February 2022, when SLS is now scheduled for its first launch. Having SpaceX get its heavy lift rocket into orbit before NASA would be very embarrassing, considering that SpaceX has spent about a third the time and about a tenth the money getting it done.

I hope I am wrong, but this is what I expect from the corrupt federal government we now have.

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NASA sets target launch date for SLS in February ’22

October 22, 2021 2:51 pm Robert Zimmerman

As expected, the first unmanned demo launch of NASA’s SLS rocket has now been scheduled for a February launch window.

The first launch window for NASA’s Artemis I mission opens on February 12 at 5:56 p.m. EDT – yes, we have dates and times for this long-awaited mission. The February window lasts two weeks, with the first half of that window allowing a six-week mission and a four-week mission on the back half.

If for some reason NASA cannot launch in that firs window, they have back up windows in March and April. These windows exist because the plan is to send the Orion capsule to orbit the Moon from four to six weeks, and then return to Earth.

The announcement came the day after NASA had finally stacked the Orion capsule on top of the SLS rocket, essentially completing the rocket’s assembly.

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Next Ariane 5 launch postponed

October 22, 2021 11:39 am Robert Zimmerman

Arianespace today announced that it has postponed its next Ariane 5 launch of two communications satellites, scheduled for October 22nd, because of issues with ground equipment.

Though there appear to be no issues with the rocket, this delay could effect the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope in December on another Ariane 5 rocket. Arianespace has said that it wants to complete this launch first, to make sure the fixes it completed on the rocket’s fairing are truly working.

It was those problems that shut down all Ariane 5 launches for almost a full year.

No new launch date has been set. Normally, ground equipment issues cause short delays, so we should be hopeful all will be fixed quickly and this launch will be quickly rescheduled and take off without problems.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Teacher suspended for criticizing students for being offended over nothing

October 22, 2021 11:20 am Robert Zimmerman

Mao’s 1966 cultural revolution comes to Coastal Carolina University

The modern dark age: Today’s blacklist story might illustrate better than any I have posted the oppressive, mindless, and emotional madness that is sweeping our country. Let me first sum the story up in a simple way.

–A teacher invites a guest speaker to a class to help the students find friends with like interests.

–The guest writes some student names on the blackboard with this intent.

–The students enter the class, and some immediately assume that because some of those names are minorities, the list has a bigoted intent.

–These students leave the class and immediately begin organizing a protest and a boycott of the teacher.

–Even after it is shown, without doubt, that these protesting students are 100% wrong, that the goal was to help all the students, including the minorities, the school apologizes to the protesters, not to the teacher or the guest speaker. The guest speaker also apologized, even though that speaker did nothing wrong.

–The teacher however does not apologize. He defends his guest, and notes that people should not let their feelings get hurt so easily.

–The student protesters, most of whom it appears did not attend the class and did not even know the teacher, immediately renew their call for a boycott of his classes.

–The administration of Coastal Carolina University agrees, suspending the teacher and accusing him of being “racially insensitive.”

Do you see the madness? The wrong-doers are in charge and it is the innocent who are punished.

Now for the punchline:
» Read more

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Pop-up clouds on Jupiter

October 22, 2021 9:12 am Robert Zimmerman

Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo above was cropped and enhanced by citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt from a raw Juno image taken during that spacecraft’s 37th orbit. I have reduced it slightly to post here.

The photo shows what he calls “pop-up” clouds floating above a much larger cloud eddy. Unfortunately, Eichstädt provides no scale, but I suspect this image would easily cover the Earth, with those white clouds probably far larger than the biggest hurricane on Earth.

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