Behind The Black – Robert Zimmerman

Starliner launch scrub: 13 of 24 of the capsule’s propulsion valves failed to work

August 10, 2021 9:23 am Robert Zimmerman

It now appears that the launch scrub last week of Boeing’s Starliner second unmanned demo flight to ISS occurred because thirteen valves in the capsule’s propulsion valves all failed to open during prelaunch testing.

Over the weekend, the team made “positive progress,” a spokesperson said Monday, allowing the company to continue to plan for a launch this month. The company has found “no signs of damage or external corrosion,” Boeing said in a statement Monday. “Test teams are now applying mechanical, electrical and thermal techniques to prompt the valves open.” As a result, more than half of the valves “are now operating as designed,” it said, and work would continue on the others “in the days ahead.”

In a blog post, NASA said that “if all valve functionality can be restored and root cause identified, NASA will work with Boeing to determine a path to flight for the important uncrewed mission to the space station.” The earliest opportunity would come in mid-August, it said.

But Boeing still does not know what caused the valves to remain closed when they needed to be in the open position, and it is unclear how long determining that would take. As a result, some in the aerospace industry are skeptical the company could launch this month.

They have managed to get seven of those thirteen valves working again.

That 13 of 24 failed to function correct strongly suggests the problem isn’t random but is instead a fundamental design problem that needs to be identified prior to launch.

That such a problem has only been discovered now, during the launch countdown, does not reflect well on Boeing or its capsule. That the problem was not noticed in the year and a half delay caused by the software problems during the first unmanned demo flight in December 2019 makes this problem even more disturbing.

In fact, it is downright shocking. It makes one wonder about Boeing’s entire operation, considering the disastrous problems the company has also had with its commercial and military airplane projects in recent years. Does the company have no quality control systems in place, at all?

I truly hope Boeing gets this fixed and Starliner flying, but right now they need to fly a number of times, including reusing a capsule a few times, before I’d recommend anyone buying a ticket.

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Marty Robbins – El Paso

August 9, 2021 6:01 pm Robert Zimmerman

An evening pause: Performed live on television in 1965.

Hat tip Tom Biggar.

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Evidence proves lockdowns bad; Democrats scream, “We must have more lockdowns!”

August 9, 2021 3:55 pm Robert Zimmerman

Modern science!
How Democratic Party policy makers interpret data!

Almost a year and a half since the Wuhan panic swept across the world, the evidence continues to show that the policy decisions by our so-called “intellectual” class of experts to impose mandates and lockdowns were almost all stupid, producing disaster after disaster while completely failing to achieve any of their goals.

First we have Sweden, which refused to impose any lockdowns and now has practically no COVID-19 deaths at all.

An Imperial College model suggested that 85,000 people would die without a lockdown, and an Uppsala University team projected that 40,000 people would die from COVID-19 by May 1, 2020 and nearly 100,000 by June.

But by May, Sweden reported roughly six deaths for every one million people, according to the Financial Times, with 48.9% of its initial coronavirus deaths taking place in nursing homes, according to an analysis by the Swedish Public Health Agency. More than a year later, Sweden recorded 1.1 million coronavirus cases with 1.07 million people having recovered from the virus, and 14,620 coronavirus-linked deaths, according to woldometers.info as of Aug. 8, 2021.

Of the currently 12,248 people who have tested positive for COVID-19, 12, 219 are experiencing mild symptoms (99.8%) and 29 (0.2%) are in serious or critical condition, according to woldometers.info.

In other words, the models were so ridiculously wrong they weren’t even in the same galaxy as the results in the real world. Sweden’s population very quickly reached herd immunity and is now relatively immune from the virus and its later variants.

Moreover, Sweden’s economy has suffered little during the epidemic, and is doing nicely. Not so much in the U.S., where power-hungry politicians with their lockdowns have caused the destruction of 40% of all small businesses.

Nor is Sweden the only data point. A new study of 43 countries as well as all 50 U.S. states has found that lockdowns were worthless.
» Read more

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Peeling thin layers on a Martian plateau

August 9, 2021 1:22 pm Robert Zimmerman

Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on May 14, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the science team labels as “light-toned layered deposits.”

Their focus, rightly from a geologist’s perspective, is the contrast in color between different layers, suggesting different composition and thus a different formation history for each layer.

To me, what made this feature appealing is the thinness and number of its layers. It reminded me of fillo pastry, “unleavened flour dough formed into very thin sheets or leaves.”

If you look at the full image you will see that cropped section only covers one edge of a tongue-shaped plateau, with similar layers revealed along its entire cliff wall. It is almost like those layers have been peeling off for eons to leave the plateau behind.

The location below gives some context.
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Today’s blacklisted American: For too many, it ain’t my problem

August 9, 2021 11:52 am Robert Zimmerman

Still asleep, and tragically, they refuse to wake up.

Last week I took a break from publishing my daily “Today’s blacklisted American” column. It is without doubt a depressing chore to detail day after day examples where power-hungry thugs smash their jackboots on the faces of innocent people, merely because those innocent people committed the horrible crime of disagreeing with thugs.

I found I needed that break. I also had sensed — from the overall decreasing interest by news aggregate sites in my column — that the news business, even the conservative news business, was becoming bored with these stories.

Worse, I sensed that many readers found these stories distasteful and wished to avoid them. Though I don’t give a rat’s ass that these ostriches (with their heads in the sand) were bothered, it was nonetheless depressing to sense such people existed, and nothing I did could ever penetrate their close-minded brains.

My post announcing this break sadly confirmed my worse fears.
» Read more

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Hawaiian TMT protesters found not guilty of obstructing the road they obstructed

August 9, 2021 9:05 am Robert Zimmerman

The law for thee but not for me: An Hawaiian judge has ruled that the protesters of the Thirty Meter Telesecope (TMT) who had obstructed the access road to the top of Mauna Kea are not guilty of obstructing that road.

[I]n announcing her verdict, the judge noted that during the trial, officials testified that the access road was closed and there were no permits issued for oversized vehicles. “Evidence that Mauna Kea access road was closed or restricted to the public, coupled with no permits, equals no obstruction,” Laubach said. “There would be no unreasonable inconvenience or hazard.”

The state failed to meet its burden beyond a reasonable doubt, she said.

This ruling is a joke. The reason the officials closed the road was because the protesters were there. The officials did not want anyone hurt by the oversized trucks that had legal permission to drive through carrying TMT construction equipment.

Such a ruling however is not a surprise. From top to bottom Hawaii’s government in controlled by the Democratic Party. The judge almost certainly was a Democrat. The Democrats favor the bigoted anti-white and anti-technology agenda of the protesters, and have gone out of their way to help them in their protests.

In general, protesters for Democratic Party causes can loot, burn, kill, obstruct traffic, and do all sorts of violent things — including physically attacking women and children in a park in Portland — and are either never arrested, quickly released on dropped charges, or found innocent.

Be a conservative and spend a dozen minutes inside the Capitol Building taking a few selfies, however, and you will find yourself imprisoned for months, with no charges brought and no sign they ever will be brought. You are guilty, and you will be punished. How dare you do anything that opposes the Democratic Party and its storm trooper thugs?

TMT is never going to be built in Hawaii. In fact, I am beginning to doubt it will ever be built anywhere. Considering the increasing difficulty that ground-based astronomy is going to have dealing with the many satellite constellations now being launched, it is very possible the support for the telescope will begin to dry up. And maybe this failure will be a signal to astronomers that they should finally begin spending their money on space-based optical telescopes.

Meanwhile, Hawaii has become a place hostile to science, to new knowledge, and even to tourism. The dark age there has come quite quickly.

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New data suggests Gale Crater was never filled with lake

August 7, 2021 12:28 pm Robert Zimmerman

The uncertainty of science: A new review of data from Curiosity now suggests that Gale Crater was not filled with a lake in the past — as generally believed — but instead simply had small ponds on its floor.

Previous analyses of data from Curiosity have relied heavily on a measure called the chemical index of alteration to determine how rocks were weathered over time. Joseph Michalski at the University of Hong Kong and his colleagues have suggested that because this measure was developed for use on Earth, it may not be valid in the extreme Martian climate.

Instead, they analysed the concentrations of various compounds that are expected to change based on different types of weathering over time. They found that some of the layers of rock Curiosity examined did interact with water at some point in their past, but more are likely to have formed outside of the water. “Over hundreds of metres of strata, it seems that the only layers that are demonstrably lacustrine [formed in a lake] are the lower few metres,” says Michalski. “Of the rocks visited by the rover… the fraction that is demonstrably lacustrine is something like 1 per cent.”

These rocks were mostly in the lowest few metres of sediments in the crater, suggesting the lake was not nearly as deep or extensive as we thought. “There was likely a small lake or more likely a series of small lakes in the floor of Gale crater, but these were shallow ponds,” says Michalski.

This conclusion also aligns with other recent work proposing that Gale Crater was always cold and never had running water.

None of this is proven, one way or the other, though this new conclusion would make it easier to explain Mars entire geological history. Trying to create models for Mars’ past climate that allowed large amounts of liquid water on its surface have so far been difficult at best, and have generally been unconvincing. Eliminating the need for liquid water will make explaining Mars’ geology much simpler.

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Rocket Lab shifts another launch from Virginia to New Zealand

August 7, 2021 12:15 pm Robert Zimmerman

Foot-dragging by NASA bureaucrats has apparently forced Rocket Lab to shift the launch of its CAPSTONE lunar orbit cubesat from its new launchpad in Wallops Island, Virgina, to its New Zealand launchpad.

CAPSTONE would be the second Rocket Lab mission in recent weeks that shifted from Virginia to New Zealand. The most recent Electron launch July 26 placed into orbit Monolith, a smallsat developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory. Monolith was originally going to launch on the first Electron mission from Virginia.

Rocket Lab said at the time that it shifted the launch of Monolith because of ongoing work by NASA to certify the software for the rocket’s autonomous flight termination system. A NASA spokesman said in July that the agency expected to complete certification of the unit by the end of the year.

Note too that Rocket Lab had originally hoped to launch from Wallops in 2020, but was forced to delay that launch to 2021 then because of NASA’s inability to approve this system. Now it looks like they won’t be able to launch in ’21 either.

This flight termination system is likely the same one that Rocket Lab has successfully used now for four years and more than twenty launches in New Zealand. Why it should take NASA literally years to approve it is shameful. As I wrote in November,

While I have no evidence of this, I cannot help being suspicious of these various government agencies. For years numerous people in the government put fake roadblocks up to slow or stop SpaceX’s first manned launch, merely because it threatened their turfs. This autonomous termination system will make the ground crews at Vandenberg and at Cape Canaveral irrelevant, and I would not be surprised if some of these issues were drummed up to delay or block this system because of that.

I know I am being cynical, but based on history it is not unreasonable to be so.

I think we are seeing evidence now that my cynicism was entirely justified.

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Scientists: Betelgeuse dimmed because of giant dark spot on surface

August 7, 2021 12:00 pm Robert Zimmerman

The uncertainty of science: A new study by scientists in China now proposes that the dimming of the red giant star Betelgeuse in 2019-2020 was because of a giant dark and cold spot on its surface.

When Betelgeuse was at its dimmest on Jan. 31, 2020, its effective temperature — meaning, the temperature calculated from its emitted radiation — was measured at 3,476 degrees Kelvin (about 5,800 degrees Fahrenheit or 3,200 degrees Celsius.)

But once the star was back to a normal luminosity, measurements indicated an almost 5% temperature rise to 3,646 Kelvin (roughly 6,100 F or 3,370 degrees C.)

…[T]he astronomers … concluded it is unlikely the entire surface cooled temporarily by that amount. Rather, it must have been a sunspot — or rather, a “star spot” — blocking some of Betelgeuse’s radiation from escaping, they said.

This new hypothesis aligns partly with others that say it was a combination of a dark spot and intevening dust that caused the dimming.

None of these hypotheses however “solve” the mystery. Too little concrete information exists at present to do that.

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Perseverance’s first sample grab fails

August 7, 2021 11:49 am Robert Zimmerman

Click for full image.

The first attempt by the Mars rover Perseverance to obtain a core sample has apparently failed.

The failure does not appear to be technical. All the hardware appears to have worked. When they inspected the interior of the hollow core drill however no sample was seen inside.

“The sampling process is autonomous from beginning to end,” said Jessica Samuels, the surface mission manager for Perseverance at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “One of the steps that occurs after placing a probe into the collection tube is to measure the volume of the sample. The probe did not encounter the expected resistance that would be there if a sample were inside the tube.”

…”The initial thinking is that the empty tube is more likely a result of the rock target not reacting the way we expected during coring, and less likely a hardware issue with the Sampling and Caching System,” said Jennifer Trosper, project manager for Perseverance at JPL. “Over the next few days, the team will be spending more time analyzing the data we have, and also acquiring some additional diagnostic data to support understanding the root cause for the empty tube.” [emphasis mine]

Do the highlighted words remind you of anything? They do for me. The first thing I thought of when I read this was the drilling mole for InSight’s heat sensor. It failed in its effort to drill into the Martian surface because the nature of the Martian soil was different than expected. It was too structurally weak, and would break up into soft dust rather than hold together to hold the mole in place.

In the case of Perseverance, it appears right now (though this is not confirmed) that the drill successfully drilled into the ground, with its core filling with material, but when the core was retracted, that material simply fell out, as if it was too structurally weak to maintain itself inside the core.

The photo above of the drill hole and its thick pile of dust appears to support this hypothesis. Even though they drilled into what looked like bedrock the act of drilling fragmented that bedrock apart.

I am speculating based on limited information, so I am likely wrong. For example, the drill certainly has sensors to detect the density and structural strength of the rock it is drilling into. The engineers will check those numbers during drilling. If the rock doesn’t appear dense enough or structurally strong enough for a core sample, I would expect them to pick a different spot.

If true however it means that obtaining core samples at many locations in Jezero Crater will simply not be possible. This does not mean no samples will be obtained, because there are definitely places on Mars where the ground’s structure is solid enough for this method to work. Curiosity definitely found this to be true, when if found several places on Vera Rubin Ridge where its drill didn’t have the strength to penetrate the rock.

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August 6, 2021 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast

August 6, 2021 8:28 pm Robert Zimmerman

Embedded below the fold.
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Rodney Dangerfield on the Tonight Show

August 6, 2021 6:01 pm Robert Zimmerman

An evening pause: From 1974. His humor is funny because it is entirely silly. If for one second you try to take anything he says with any seriousness at all, you will have no fun.

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Having an off day

August 6, 2021 1:50 pm Robert Zimmerman

To my readers: This is one of those days where I just cannot get up the oomph to write. First, I am becoming bored by my daily “Today’s blacklisted American” column. It is not that the number of people being ruined and harmed by the oppressive thugs of the left has dropped, it is that I am finding that people are becoming desensitized to the oppression. I get the impression that my posts are being skimmed or ignored, because they are merely repeating the same story over and over again.

“Oh, yeah, big deal, another person lost their job because they dared to express an opinion. Call me when something new happens.”

Such a situation I find so depressing words can’t express it. Makes it very hard to work.

Second, I have a bunch of new cool images to post, but I am either waiting for answers from scientists before posting, or I don’t have the mental energy today to work up a post. Sorry. I think I simply need a real day off.

Unless I get energerized later today, you all will simply have to wait until I return in full force on Monday (though if something exciting pops up on the weekend it might get my writing juices flowing sooner).

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The trials and tribulations of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine

August 6, 2021 12:09 pm Robert Zimmerman

Link here. The article tries to provide some explanations for the delays at Blue Origin that have put the BE-4 engine years behind schedule.

The first and most important fact gleaned from the article is that flightworthy versions of this engine will not be ready this summer as promised, and will likely not get delivered to ULA for its Vulcan rocket before the end of the year, causing its inaugural launch to be delayed to the second half of ’22. This also means that Blue Origin’s own orbital rocket, New Glenn, will likely not launch until late next year, at the earliest.

Moreover, the engines that Blue Origin will deliver to ULA will not be fully tested, and might require replacement if tests on other engines reveal more problems.

The article’s most important revelation about the delays however is this:

One of the most persistent problems, sources said, is that the BE-4 engine testing and development program has been relatively “hardware poor” in recent years. Effectively, this means that the factory in Washington has not had enough components to build development engines, and this has led to extended periods during which no testing has occurred on the stands in Texas.

It was surprising to hear this because back in the spring of 2017 Blue Origin stated publicly that its development program was hardware rich. After arriving as CEO in late 2017, however, [Bob] Smith appears to have focused more on a substantial reorganization of Blue Origin’s leadership rather than hardware development. Other programs were prioritized, too, so the BE-4 team did not get all the resources and freedom it needed to proceed at full throttle. [emphasis mine]

To put it more bluntly, Smith decided it was more important to rearrange the deck chairs rather than launch lifeboats into the water. As a result, Blue Origin has essentially wasted the last four-plus years.

There are signs that the company has changed course away from Smith’s focus, but we shall have to wait and see. The childish press release issued by Blue Origin yesterday, claiming its manned lunar lander was far better than SpaceX’s Starship and should have been chosen by NASA, suggests that the course change has not been as thorough as one would hope. The amount of intellectual dishonesty contained in that release is somewhat disturbing, especially coming from a rocket company:

Blue Origin appears to be, at minimum, cherry picking its comparisons. The graphic notes that the Starship-Super Heavy system hasn’t launched yet. Starship has launched six miles into the air on several occasions, but not with its Super Heavy booster. It also points out that SpaceX’s Starship facilities in Boca Chica, Texas have never accommodated an orbital launch. Blue Origin, though has never launched any rocket to orbit from anywhere.

The graphic doesn’t, however, note the cost of the Starship lunar lander. SpaceX’s proposal estimates that it will cost NASA $2.9 billion, while Blue Origin’s gave a price of $5.9 billion. [emphasis mine]

For the management of a rocket company to not recognize the fundamental facts indicated by the highlighted words above, or to make believe they are unimportant, does not bode well for that rocket company. Rather than focusing on getting its rocket finally off the ground, the management appears instead unwilling to face some hard facts, and fix them.

Meanwhile, SpaceX keeps barrelling along, focused not on petty managment issues or whiny complaints, but on actually building rockets that fly.

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Zhurong travels another 700 feet on Mars

August 6, 2021 11:46 am Robert Zimmerman

Zhurong's location

According to a new update from China’s state-run press today, since the last update of its Zhurong Mars rover on July 31st, the rover has traveled just over 700 feet, for a total travel distance of about 2,624 feet, just under a half mile.

As of August 6, 2021, the rover has worked on the surface of Mars for 82 Martian days and the orbiter has been in orbit for 379 days. The two are in good condition and functioning properly.

The report provides no other real information.. I have indicated on the map to the right the range in which this travel distance could have taken Zhurong. Hopefully they will release more information soon.

The nominal mission was originally planned for 90 days. Right now it looks like the rover will easily exceed that.

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SpaceX stacks Starship on top of Superheavy

August 6, 2021 11:19 am Robert Zimmerman

Click for original image.

Capitalism in space: Only three days after the company had rolled Superheavy prototype #4 to the launchpad, SpaceX today stacked Starship prototype #20 on top, uniting for the first time the entire rocket.

All told, the rocket is 395 feet high, about 32 feet taller than the Saturn-5.

The photo to the right, reduced slightly to post here, was posted by Elon Musk earlier today. It also makes obvious several things that will be different for this Starship flight compared to the previous suborbital hops. Starship’s dark exterior is because it is covered with thermal tiles designed to protect it as it returns to Earth flying through the atmosphere at orbital speeds.

Note also the grid fins on Superheavy. Apparently they will be open during the entire flight, instead of unfurling shortly after stage separation as is done with Falcon 9.

I am not sure what the vertical attachments near the bottom of Superheavy are for. The plan is for the stage to land in the Gulf of Mexico, so it does not need landing legs. Could these be attachment points for holding the rocket to the launchpad?

I have been predicting a late September/early October date for this rocket’s first orbital launch test. SpaceX is sure working hard to beat that timeline. They still need to do tank tests and static fire tests of the whole assembly, but based on past schedules, they might get this done in only a few weeks. If so, it means they might be able to launch before the end of August.

My god, if only other American rocket companies worked in this manner. Imagine what wonders they all could accomplish.

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Astra to attempt orbital launch later in August

August 6, 2021 10:08 am Robert Zimmerman

Capitalism in space: The smallsat rocket company Astra has announced that it will attempt to complete its first successful orbital launch before the end of this month, launching a Space Force satellite.

The U.S. Space Force has booked two missions with Astra, the Bay Area company announced today (Aug. 5). The first flight will launch a test payload for the Department of Defense’s Space Test Program from the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Kodiak, Alaska, during a window that runs from Aug. 27 through Sept. 11.

Astra has two previous test launches that attempted to reach orbit and failed. The second barely missed, because of a fuel mixture issue that had it run out of fuel prematurely.

If successful, this will make Astra the third operational American smallsat rocket company, following Rocket Lab and Virgin Orbit. Four others have promised launches in 2021. By next year the competition in this smallsat launch industry should be quite fierce.

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Virgin Galactic reopens suborbital ticket sale, raises price, delays next flight

August 6, 2021 10:01 am Robert Zimmerman

Capitalism in space: Virgin Galactic announced yesterday that it is resuming ticket sales for flights on its reusable SpaceShipTwo spacecraft, raising the price from the old price of $250,000 to a new price of $450,000.

Virgin Galactic is offering customers three options: purchase a single seat, buy several together or book an entire flight on the eight-passenger Unity (or other space planes that come into operation, such as the recently built VSS Imagine). The company also sells seats for microgravity research and professional astronaut training. Those are in a different tier, going for $600,000 apiece, Colglazier said during a call with investors on Thursday afternoon.

The announcement also revealed that they are delaying their next flight until September. That flight has been scheduled for the summer for months. The company is also delaying the start of regular commercial flights until late in ’22, in order to make some upgrades to their spacecraft.

By that time, regular orbital tourist flights will have become almost routine. Moreover, one has the option to experience weightlessness for far less buying a ticket on one of the various companies that fly “vomit comet” airplanes.

One wonders if the demand for these flights will be sustainable. We shall see.

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China launches military communications satellite

August 6, 2021 9:48 am Robert Zimmerman

China’s Long March 3B rocket yesterday successfully launched a military communications satellite.

This was China’s eighth government launch since the beginning of July, in a span of only five weeks.

The launch was from an interior spaceport, so the rocket’s strap-on boosters and first stage core landed within China. No word if any landed near or on habitable areas, or if the Chinese were using parachutes or grid fins to control their landing.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

26 China
20 SpaceX
12 Russia
3 Northrop Grumman
3 Rocket Lab

The U.S. still leads China 30 to 26 in the national rankings.

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Michael Martin Murphey & the Rio Grande Band – Wildfire

August 5, 2021 6:01 pm Robert Zimmerman

An evening pause: The piano and guitar solos are marvelous.

Hat tip Tom Biggar.

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Ingenuity successfully completes 11th flight

August 5, 2021 1:14 pm Robert Zimmerman

Click for full image.

Ingenuity has successfully completed its 11th flight, safely touching down at approximately its planned landing spot. From the science team’s tweet:

[Ingenuity] has safely flown to a new location! Ingenuity flew for 130.9 seconds and traveled about 380 meters before landing.

The image to the right, reduced to post here, was taken mere seconds before landing, and shows the helicopter’s shadow directly below it on the ground.

This particular flight was the first that did not push Ingenuity’s abilities, merely flying in a straight line to put it in a good position for later flights and to keep it ahead of Perseverance.

So far they have only released five images from the flight. Expect the rest to be downloaded from Perseverance in the next few days.

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As thousands of teachers endorse critical race theory, home schooling surges

August 5, 2021 12:45 pm Robert Zimmerman

What apparently Critical Race Theory sees as education for
elementary school kids.

In the past few months state legislatures across the country have passed resolutions that ban schools from teaching the Marxist and bigoted program dubbed Critical Race Theory (CRT).

Not surprisingly, the leftists who dominate our school systems have fought back. The very leftist Zinn Education Project immediately created a petition calling for teachers to defy such laws and to continue to teach CRT, which teaches children to hate whites and to give minorities privileged status.

In the two months this petition has been on line almost 6,000 teachers have signed it, with many adding comments of defiance. This one is typical:
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Curiosity: Nine years since landing on Mars and the way forward

August 5, 2021 9:55 am Robert Zimmerman

Click for full image.

In today’s Curiosity update written by planetary geologist Abigail Fraeman, she noted this significant fact:

Project scientist Ashwin Vasavada pointed out a great fact at the beginning of planning today: At around 4 o’clock in the afternoon on Sol 3199 (the first sol in the plan we are creating today), Curiosity will begin its 10th Earth year on Mars. In the last nine years, the rover has traveled 26.3 km [16.3 miles], climbed over 460 m [1,509 feet] in elevation, and collected 32 drilled samples of rock.

Her update includes the first image taken by Curiosity upon landing, a view of Mount Sharp using the rover’s front hazard camera. In that picture, the mountain is far away, as the rover was sitting on the flat floor of Gale Crater.

The photo above, cropped and enhanced to post here, was taken yesterday by one of Curiosity’s navigation cameras, and looks out across the rocky mountainous terrain the rover is soon to travel. As Fraeman also notes,
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China’s Long March 6 launches two military technology test satellites

August 5, 2021 8:47 am Robert Zimmerman

Using its Long March 6 rocket, China yesterday successfully placed two military technology test satellites into orbit, designed to test “new interference suppression technology for Ka-band mobile communications satellites.”

The launch occurred at one of China’s interior spaceports. No word on whether the rocket’s first stage crashed near habitable area.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

25 China
20 SpaceX
12 Russia
3 Northrop Grumman
3 Rocket Lab

The U.S. still leads China 30 to 25 in the national rankings.

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Details on the Russian movie to be shot on ISS in October

August 4, 2021 9:13 pm Robert Zimmerman

Link here. The article provides a lot of details about who will fly, who will do what, and who is slated as back-ups if the primary crew of actress and director fail their training. However, I found the description of the movie to be the most interesting thing:

Shipenko revealed the script is still being fine-tuned, but the plot involves a cosmonaut who suffers a cardiac arrest during a spacewalk and, although he survives, he will require surgery to ensure he can handle the Soyuz return to Earth. A female cardiac surgeon, named Zhenya, has to be sent to the ISS to perform the procedure with only a few weeks to prepare for the trip.

Unlike the American space films like Gravity, this story is incredibly well grounded in reality. The Russians have actually experienced examples of station astronauts getting so sick in space that their missions had to be aborted early. In one case it was a prostate infection. In another it was the mental illness of the entire crew.

This story is also comparable to situations that have occurred in Antarctica, a very similar environment to the station. In the early 2000s the doctor in Antarctica had to perform surgery on herself because she had developed cancer. Then in 2016 Buzz Aldrin had to be evacuated due health issues.

If done right, this could not only make a damn good movie, it will also do so by revealing the true dangers of going to space.

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August 4, 2021 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast

August 4, 2021 8:33 pm Robert Zimmerman

Embedded below the fold in two parts.
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Seven Brides for Seven Brothers – Lonesome Polecat

August 4, 2021 6:01 pm Robert Zimmerman

An evening pause: This song, from the 1954 MGM classic musical, was one of the first evening pauses I posted back in 2010. As Diane and I recently rewatched the musical, I think it time to repost it. As I said then,

This haunting song from the movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is notable not only because of the beauty of the music and dancing, but because the entire number is shot as one take, no cuts. Everyone, from the actors with their axes to the crew moving the camera on its dolly and crane, had to be right on cue for everything to work.

Having spent almost twenty years in the movie business, I can promise you that this is not easy.

The 2010 evening pause uses the original voice of red-haired Matt Mattox, which was dubbed for the movie.

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White blobs on Mars

August 4, 2021 1:50 pm Robert Zimmerman

Click for full image.

Time for another “What the heck?” image. The photo to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on May 18, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what appears to be a series of white circular features aligned with a ridge line.

Are these eroded craters? Maybe, but their alignment with those ridges suggests otherwise. If you look at the full image, you will see further parallel ridges to the north and south, also with similar circular blobs lined along them. Furthermore, the flat surrounding terrain, part of the northern lowland plains north of the resurgences from Valles Marineris, has a scattering of very normal looking craters, with distinct rims and even some glacial material within. As this is at 44 degrees north latitude, the presence of glacial material inside craters is not surprising.

Thus, the white blobs are likely not craters, but some form of eruptive material from below, coming up along those ridges which are probably faultlines. The whiteness suggests that material is water ice, but this of course is unconfirmed.

The question is of course, why? What would cause water ice to erupt along these faultlines? And why are such features not seen elsewhere? Faults and underground ice are common on Mars. Yet, I don’t remember seeing features such as this in any other Martian images.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Cybersecurity experts want people fired for expressing unpopular opinions on line

August 4, 2021 1:09 pm Robert Zimmerman

Mao’s cultural revolution in 1966, what the leftists
at Respect in Security want for America and the world.

Persecution is now cool! A new project being developed by leftist cybersecurity experts calls for corporations to use their software to identify and fire individuals that their software identifies as having expressed what they define as “offensive” speech online.

Cancel Culture and Big Tech are a match made in hell, as cybersecurity experts call to target the livelihood of internet users who get too edgy online. “The initiative, called Respect in Security, was launched on Tuesday by two cybersecurity experts. According to the founders, several companies have already signed up,” Reclaim The Net reported. “For a lot of people, it’s a no man’s land,” founder Lisa Forte and Red Goat Cyber Security employee told the BBC. “It can feel like the platforms do nothing, the police don’t do a lot, lawyers are expensive and the publicity legal action generates can be negative.”

The BBC reported that co-founder and Trend Micro Vice President Rik Ferguson said “many companies had anti-bullying policies but they tended to focus on internal behaviour.” In what may be a reference to his Respect in Security program, he wrote a few weeks ago: “Inside my ‘Projects’ email folder resides a subfolder called ‘Kill Trolls’ and it is now only a couple of weeks away from becoming a real thing (sadly not with that name).”

Free speech advocates concerned about Ferguson and Forte’s work may have good reason to be. Forte explained her clear fix for people saying offensive statements via the internet: “The best solution we have, if the culprit is identifiable, is to approach their employer.” [emphasis mine]

It is bad enough that the big social media companies — Google, Facebook, Twitter — are routinely banning conservatives for expressing opinions or even facts they don’t like. Now the storm troopers above want to extend the blacklisting to get those same people fired for daring to speak their mind publicly. From another story:
» Read more

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Ingenuity’s 11th flight scheduled for tonight

August 4, 2021 10:24 am Robert Zimmerman

Click for interactive map.

The next flight of Ingenuity on Mars is now scheduled for this evening, and will be a much simpler flight than the helicopter’s previous trip.

The map to the right shows the route in blue. The flight is mainly a transfer flight, intended to keep the copter ahead of the rover as they leapfrog from point to point in Jezero Crater. It will actually be the first flight by Ingenuity that does not push its engineering in any major way.

This map, the most up-to-date available, is at this moment about five sols out of date. Perseverance is likely slightly south and to the west of the location shown.

The present plan is for Perseverance to travel to the northwest along the dark ridgeline that Ingenuity will land next to. The rover will then retreat, returning more or less to its landing area and then north to circle around the largest crater on the map and then to head west to the base of the delta to the area labeled “Three Forks”, which is their entrance to the delta’s geology.

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