Third set of new results from Parker released

9:32 am

The scientists using the Parker Solar Probe on June 2nd released their third set of new results as part of a special issue of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The latest articles include data analysis, theory, and modeling. Among the major topics covered are magnetic switchbacks first discovered by Parker Solar Probe, the role of waves in heating solar plasma, solar angular momentum, the near-Sun dust environment, and the diversity of small energetic-particle events.

The most interesting paper I think is the one describing data that lends strong weight to the theory, proposed in 1929 by astronomer Henry Norris Russell, that a dust-free zone exists close to the Sun and all stars. From the abstract:

The observed brightness decrease in the axis of symmetry is interpreted as the signature of the existence of a dust density depletion zone between about 19 [solar radii] and 3 [solar radii] which at the inner limit of WISPR’s field of view of 7.65 [solar radii] has a dust density that is ~5% lower than the density at 19 [solar radii], instead of the expected density which is three times if no depletion zone exists.

In plain English, the data shows that from about 1.3 million to 8.2 million miles from the Sun Parker found far less dust than predicted by other models. As the probe continues to lower its orbit and get closer to the Sun with each fly-by these numbers will be better refined, and are likely to in the end prove Russell’s hypothesis.

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Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

Today’s blacklisted American: The American flag

12:44 pm

Banned by the NAACP
The American flag: Banned by the NAACP.

The local NAACP chapter at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) was badly triggered over Memorial Day weekend by the horrible sight of an American flag hanging from the end of a crane’s cable at a university construction site, and demanded the cable and flag be removed.

The NAACP claimed that what really upset them was the standard cable loop just below the flag at the end of the cable, which they immediately assumed was a noose!

Ronald Davis, president of the New Britain NAACP, told FOX 61 that “Regardless of what someone else says about that, what I see, as a black man? That’s a noose. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Take it down.”

But one intrepid College Fix reader noticed there are several steel cable loops hanging from the crane, and the only one that appears to bother another is the one with the American flag on the end of it. He cites one image of the crane in which viewers can see three or four cable loops.

“I guess they noticed only the one holding the flag, which means that it’s the flag that triggers them,” the reader said. [emphasis mine]

It is clear that because he and the NAACP specifically focused on the one loop where the American flag hung tells us what really offended them. They really wanted the American flag removed. And I am sure if they had their way it would be banned forever.
» Read more

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SpaceX successfully launches cargo Dragon to ISS

10:52 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched a cargo Dragon to ISS.

The first stage booster successfully landed on its drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

This Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule were entirely new, making their first flights. This was the first new Falcon 9 to fly since November 2020, with sixteen launches during that period using reused boosters exclusively.

In fact, since November 2020 SpaceX has completed a total of 21 launches, all done in less than seven months. Moreover, the company has scheduled 34 (!) more launches through the rest of the year. If they achieve this ambitious schedule, they will complete 51 launches in ’21, more than doubling their previous annual record of 25 set last year. With all other American companies added in, there will be a good chance the United States launch total could exceed 70, breaking the country’s own annual launch record set in 1966 at the height of the first space race.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

17 SpaceX
15 China
8 Russia
2 Rocket Lab
2 ULA

The U.S. now leads China 23 to 15 in the national rankings.

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Conscious Choice cover

Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!

 

From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.

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

 

“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.

 

All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.

FAA grants Rocket Lab permission to resume launches following launch failure

9:29 am

Capitalism in space: According to a press release from Rocket Lab yesterday, the FAA has granted it permission to resume launches following its May 15th launch failure when a problem with the rocket’s upper stage prevented it from reaching orbit.

Apparently the FAA is satisfied with the thoroughness of Rocket Lab’s investigation into the launch failure, and is thus willing to let launches resume, when the company itself decides it is ready. Rocket Lab’s investigation into the failure however is not complete. According to the press release:

The review team is working through an extensive fault tree analysis to exhaust all potential causes for the anomaly and the full review is expected to be complete in the coming weeks, following which Rocket Lab anticipates a swift return to flight.

Though that review continues, the company has not yet revealed what it thinks caused the upper stage to send the rocket and payload in the wrong direction upon ignition.

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United Airlines buys 15 Boom Supersonic airplanes

9:17 am

United Airlines today announced that it has signed a deal with Boom Supersonic to buy fifteen of its supersonic Overture airplanes.

Under the terms of the agreement, United will purchase 15 of Boom’s ‘Overture’ airliners, once Overture meets United’s demanding safety, operating and sustainability requirements, with an option for an additional 35 aircraft. The companies will work together on meeting those requirements before delivery. Once operational, Overture is expected to be the first large commercial aircraft to be net-zero carbon from day one, optimized to run on 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). It is slated to roll out in 2025, fly in 2026 and expected to carry passengers by 2029.

Boom has been developing this supersonic passenger plane since 2016, though little progress has appeared to take place during most of the last five years. This contract appears to be the company’s first real sale. It also appears that it makes United a partner in the plane’s development.

Meanwhile, another company, Aerion, is developing its own supersonic passenger jet, in partnership with Boeing and scheduled for launch in 2023.

We shall have to wait to see which company wins the race to begin commercial flights.

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Leaving Earth cover

Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.

 

If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.

 

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

 
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke

Problem with Ariane 5 rocket causes Arianespace to delay Webb telescope launch

9:08 am

As first revealed in mid-May, Arianespace has been forced to delay the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope by at least one month because of a problem with the fairing on its Ariane 5 rocket, found during an August 2020 launch.

There have been no Ariane 5 launches since. According to yesterday’s press briefing, however:

“The origin of the problem has been found. Corrective actions have been taken,” Daniel de Chambure, acting head of Ariane 5 adaptations and future missions at ESA, said. “The qualification review has started, so we should be able to confirm all that within a few days or weeks.” He did not elaborate on the problem or those corrective actions, beyond stating that the problem took place during separation of the payload fairing. Industry sources said in May that, on the two launches, the separation system imparted vibrations on the payload above acceptable limits, but did not damage the payloads.

It appears this new delay to Webb’s launch is because two commercial payloads must lift off first before Webb, with the first now scheduled for July. According to Arianespace, it will take two months prep for the next commercial launch, followed by two months prep for the Webb launch. That puts the launch of Webb in November.

Overall this particular delay is slight, only a few weeks, and pales in comparison to the ten years of delays experienced by NASA during development and construction of Webb. It also will add very little to the telescope’s overall budget, which has grown from an original price of $500 million to now about $10 billion.

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China’s Long March 3B rocket launches new weather satellite

8:55 am

China early this morning successfully placed a weather satellite into orbit using its Long March 3B rocket.

No word on where the first stage crashed, though we know because the launch was from an interior launch site that it had to have crashed somewhere within China, hopefully not on any village anywhere.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

16 SpaceX
15 China
8 Russia
2 Rocket Lab
2 ULA

The U.S. still leads China 22 to 15 in the national rankings.

This list should change in only a few hours, as SpaceX has a Falcon 9 launch scheduled for 1:29 pm (Eastern), carrying a Dragon cargo freighter to ISS.

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NASA picks two missions to fly to Venus later this decade

2:14 pm

NASA today announced two new missions to go to Venus to study its atmosphere and surface, both scheduled to launch sometime between 2028 and 2030.

One, dubbed DAVINCI+, send a probe into Venus’s atmosphere, both to measure its gases as well as taken the first high resolution images of a unique Venusian geological called “tesserae.” On radar images tesserae regions appear to be high plateaus cross-cut with many sharp ridges.

The second, dubbed VERITAS, will be a radar-orbiter designed to map the planet’s surface at higher resolution than the earlier Pioneer and Magellan radar orbiters. It will also do this:

VERITAS also will map infrared emissions from Venus’ surface to map its rock type, which is largely unknown, and determine whether active volcanoes are releasing water vapor into the atmosphere.

That data will help tell us whether there are now active volcanoes on Venus. The data we presently have suggest it is a planet of many volcanoes, numbering in the millions. That data has also hinted at the possibility that some are active. VERITAS will attempt to find out.

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Inexplicable ridges north of China’s Mars rover

2:00 pm

Wrinkle ridges in Utopia Planitia?
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, shows some unusual geology about 450 miles north of the approximate area where China’s Zhurong rover landed in the northern lowlands of Mars. It was taken on April 14, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

These scattered ridges remind me of wrinkle ridges, formed when the surface of a place shrinks. With less surface area, the extra material needs somewhere to go, and so ridges are forced up at weak points to release the pressure.

Assuming this hand-waving explanation is true, the next question would be: What causes the shrinking? The overview map below might help provide an answer.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Right-of-center books banned by Amazon

1:17 pm

The Bill of Rights cancelled at Amazon
No first amendment on Amazon.

Blacklists are back and Amazon’s got ’em: Yesterday my blacklist column noted how Amazon has blackballed the live stream of a film biography of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

That however is not the only example of Amazon’s anti-free speech agenda and its desire to silence conservative thought. In recent months book authors and publishers have repeatedly discovered that Amazon has been either banning outright their books, or shadow-banning them from searches so that potential customers cannot find them.

The link gives about a number of examples, but a quick internet search finds numerous others (see for example here, here, and here).

Only rarely will Amazon admit to this censorship, and when it does, it does so by claiming vague rules about preventing “hate speech,” even though this giant online store has done nothing to remove books and products promoting Islamic terrorism, Nazi paraphernalia, and Antifa-supporting materials.
» Read more

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From masks to the origins of COVID, Anthony Fauci is a liar and a fraud

12:36 pm

Fauci: Washington's top liar
Anthony Fauci: Washington’s liar-in-chief

In the past few days a slew of 2020 emails by Dr. Anthony Fauci have revealed his dishonest, incompetent, corrupt, and political agenda during the entire COVID-19 epidemic.

The emails have revealed he lied about his connections with the Chinese Wuhan lab. They reveal that he knew all along that the virus was almost certainly leaked from that lab. They also reveal that he immediately worked to prevent these facts from being revealed publicly, lying if necessary to do it and successfully forcing publications to withdraw news stories based on his lies.

Of all these revelations, however, the one email that best illustrates Fauci’s dishonesty and venality was the one in February 2020 — before the epidemic had taken hold and before any shutdowns had been imposed — where he bluntly admitted what has been known for more than a century, that the general widespread use of masks by people who are not sick is pointless and will accomplish nothing.

In his words:

Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection. The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you. I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a vey low risk location. Your instincts are correct, money is best spent on medical countermeasures such as diagnostics and vaccines. [emphasis mine]

Less than two months later, Fauci had completely changed his tune, claiming that Americans needed to wear masks all the time. » Read more

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Sunspot update: Activity in May continued to exceed predictions

11:07 am

Time for our monthly sunspot update. On June 1st NOAA updated its monthly graph showing the Sun’s sunspot activity through the end of May 2021. Below is that updated graph, annotated as always to show the previous solar cycle predictions.

As has happened now for almost every month since the Sun’s sunspot cycle began to increase following the long and deep minimum in 2019, the activity in June exceeded the numbers predicted by the computer models of NOAA’s panel of solar scientists. While the activity dipped slightly from April, it still was more active than predicted.

» Read more

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Axiom strikes tourist deal with SpaceX for three more flights

9:48 am

Capitalism in space: Axiom today announced that it had signed a deal with SpaceX to use its Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket to launch three more manned tourist missions following the first now scheduled for January.

Ax-1, Axiom’s historic first private ISS mission, has already been approved by NASA and targeted for launch to the ISS no earlier than Jan. 2022, also aboard Dragon as a result of a deal the companies signed in March 2020. Axiom last week revealed legendary astronaut Peggy Whitson and champion GT racer John Shoffner would serve as commander and pilot on its proposed Ax-2 mission – now confirmed to be a Dragon flight.

So, too, are Ax-3 and Ax-4.

Other than Whitson and Shoffner, the company has not revealed who will fly on those three additional flights. That it made this deal however strongly suggests that it has ample demand for seats and will fill those capsules with no problem.

The press release also reiterates the company’s space station plans. They will begin attaching their own modules to ISS in ’24, with the goal of detaching from the station in ’28 and operating as an independent entirely private station thereafter.

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New Zealand government blasts Rocket Lab for employment violations, even as it waives its own strict COVID border rules for the company

9:41 am

Two stories today from New Zealand, both related to the American company Rocket Lab, help illustrate the often absurd and irrational nature of modern government rule-making.

First, New Zealand’s Employment Relations Authority attacked the company after ruling against it in a single employee grievance case. The case involved a fired employee who filed and won his grievance when he refused to sign the company’s offered settlement. Based on this single case, authority officials quickly and publicly blasted Rocket Lab as if it had committed numerous blasphemies:

Authority member Rachel Larmer found that the dismissal was “extremely unfair” and that the company “failed to comply with even the most basic and widely understood principles of procedural fairness”.

As the article noted, it “is unusual for the authority to be so overtly critical of an employer.” Yet, attack Rocket Lab it did, very bluntly and very publicly.

Yet, at the same time, this same New Zealand government has apparently been giving this evil employer routine waivers of its draconian border restrictions imposed to prevent the arrival of COVID.

More than 150 aerospace specialists have arrived on short term visas to work in New Zealand for the satellite launch service provider Rocket Lab since the country’s border closed. Immigration New Zealand said 156 foreigners were granted border exemptions as part of a government-approved programme for the company.

Rocket Lab spokesperson Morgan Bailey said the company had focused on bringing in essential workers for its launches, who would usually stay for two weeks after completing managed isolation.

Normally visitors to New Zealand need to quarantine for two weeks. Apparently, the government is allowing foreign workers for Rocket Lab to bypass that rule and make alternative arrangements.

So which is it? Is Rocket Lab a horrible slave-driver who must be watched like a hawk so that it does not abuse its workers, or is it a generous provider of work and business for New Zealand that is so valuable gives it a privileged position where some laws don’t apply to it?

In truth, New Zealand’s laws themselves are now simply being enforced somewhat randomly, based merely on whether a specific government official personally likes or dislikes the company. That is my impression at least.

But then, that is the impression given and now common throughout the western world. We no longer treat the law as sacrosanct, but instead use it for political purposes, which require its plain meaning to shift and change like Jello, depending on the personal and political motives of the individuals involved. And all for the sake of power.

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Pentagon getting serious of hauling cargo with Starship

9:13 am

Capitalism in space: In the budget proposal submitted by the Biden administration the Pentagon included a request for $47.9 million to help develop the infrastructure it will need to use SpaceX’s Starship rocket as a method for transporting cargo point-to-point on Earth.

“The Department of the Air Force seeks to leverage the current multi-billion dollar commercial investment to develop the largest rockets ever, and with full reusability to develop and test the capability to leverage a commercial rocket to deliver AF cargo anywhere on the Earth in less than one hour, with a 100-ton capacity,” the document states.

Although this does not refer to Starship by name, this is the only vehicle under development in the world with this kind of capability. The Air Force does not intend to invest directly into the vehicle’s development, the document says. However, it proposes to fund science and technology needed to interface with the Starship vehicle so that the Air Force might leverage its capabilities.

Clearly, some Air Force officials are intrigued by the possibility of launching 100 tons of cargo from the United States and having the ability to land it anywhere in the world about an hour later.

The proposal is calling for a fourfold increase in funding for this work, as the Air Force is already spending slightly less than $10 million this year on this work.

The bottom line is that it appears SpaceX already has at least one real customer for its giant rocket. And if the military is that interested now, it likely means many more private customers are beginning to line up.

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Tiny object hits robot arm on ISS

9:05 am

According to the Canadian Space Agency, a very small piece of space debris hit that country’s robot arm on ISS at some point in the recent past, producing a hole about 5mm wide, or about 1/5th of an inch in diameter.

During a routine inspection on May 12 robotic operators observed the hole in the boom section of the Canadarm2. After working with NASA to take detailed images of the impact, the agencies concluded the hole is about 5mm in diameter.

The damage is limited to a small section of the arm boom and thermal blanket. CSA says despite the impact, the arm’s performance is unaffected.

While space junk is a concern, this story is not about that, even if the authorities at CSA are hyping it, and as usual the mainstream press (as indicated by the article at the link) is buying into the propaganda. Space stations like ISS and Mir are routinely hit by micrometeorites. Though most impacts are much much smaller than the object that produced this hole and do no significant harm, hits like this one have happened in the past.

However, almost all such impacts are from natural objects from space. In fact, as far as I know, tiny holes this size are always caused by natural objects (with the one exception of the hole someone in Russia accidently drilled into the hull of one Soyuz spacecraft). Yet, the officials at Canada’s space agency immediately used the discovery to lobby for action against human-made space junk, even though they also admit they have no evidence this hole was produced by space junk, and past evidence strongly suggests it was not junk.

The real story here is whether the hulls on ISS’s various modules are sufficiently robust to withstand such somewhat expected and not-so-unusual natural impacts. And based on the station’s survival without any issue now for almost a quarter century, it appears that its shielding is sufficient, and will likely work for any long term mission to Mars or beyond. In fact, that the impact did no significant harm to the robot arm, which has been operating without stop, is further proof of that good design.

This is not to say that natural objects aren’t a threat. The data just shows that the threat from really dangerous objects large enough to do real harm is very very rare, to the point that, from a cost-benefit perspective, it makes little sense to protect against them. Future interplanetary space stations can rely on the hull shielding designs now used with some confidence.

As for space junk, that certainly is a problem that must be addressed. It just isn’t what this story is really about.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas

12:10 pm

Clarence Thomas: Banned at amazon
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas:
Blackballed by Amazon Prime.

Blacklists are back and Amazon’s got ’em: During Black History month in February, Amazon decided it would no longer live stream on Amazon Prime the documentary on the life of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words.

In the midst of Black History Month, Amazon pulled a critically acclaimed and popular documentary on conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, the only black justice currently serving on the Supreme Court, from its streaming platform. The documentary, “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words,” is “currently unavailable to watch in your location,” the website reads when the title is clicked. The outage appears to be nationwide, as reported by Breitbart.

Amazon appeared to drop the PBS documentary, while still promoting a wide range of films including “All In: The Fight for Democracy” with Stacey Abrams and two movies on widely discredited activist Anita Hill.

That was in February, a time period when Americans of all stripes are supposed to celebrate the achievements of all blacks, no matter their politics. Amazon however for reasons that remain unexplained removed the Thomas documentary at that very moment, and has not reinstated it to this day. You can buy the dvd at Amazon, but you cannot watch it on Amazon’s live streaming service, even though the film’s maker, Michael Pack, was never offered an explanation for its removal.
» Read more

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SpaceX barrelling like a juggernaut toward first Starship/Superheavy orbital flight this year

9:36 am

Starship #15 about to land
Starship prototype #15 about to land, May 5, 2021

A series of articles at Teslarati in the past two days suggest strongly that the next Starship flight will be on top of a Superheavy first stage, and will likely be the first near orbital flight from Texas around the globe to splashdown softly in the Pacific Ocean northeast of Hawaii.

And it will likely happen this year!

First there was the report from locals in the McGregor, Texas, area indicating that SpaceX has completed a full duration launch burn of a Raptor engine.

A local resident and unofficial SpaceX observer has reported hearing a test of one of Starship’s Raptor engines that lasted more than five minutes at the company’s McGregor, Texas development facilities.

If accurate, it could be the longest static fire of a Starship engine that SpaceX has ever completed in the two years since full-scale Raptor testing first began. Whether it was successful or not, a five or six-minute static fire would also confirm that SpaceX is well into the process of qualifying Raptor for Starship’s first orbital launch attempts.

This burn is somewhat longer than the engine burns during the Starship test hops, and approaches the burn time required for Superheavy during a launch.

Next there was the report describing the newest known engine configurations SpaceX is planning for Superheavy itself, with the first version possibly having 29 engines and a future more powerful version sporting 32.
» Read more

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New Zealand signs Artemis Accords

8:47 am

On May 31st New Zealand became the 11th country to sign the Artemis Accords, designed to bypass the Outer Space Treaty’s limitations on property rights in space.

The full list, according to the NASA press release, now includes Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, and the United States.

China and Russia have both said they oppose the accords. That such European nations as Germany and France have not joined in suggests their governments have not yet decided what direction they wish to go. Since U.S. policy now requires partners in the Artemis program to sign the accords, one would think that Germany and France and the European Space Agency (ESA) would certainly sign.

They have not, however. Instead, ESA has been in negotiations with China on the subject of space cooperation. If it signs a deal with China it could then become very difficult for it to partner with the U.S.

We might therefore be seeing here the first signs of a true and permanent political split in the alliance between mainland Europe and the United States.

Note too that these political winds signal bad news for Orion. The spacecraft relies on the ESA’s service module for its in-space journeys. If Europe does not sign the accords and instead partners with China, the U.S. will then be faced with either abandoning Orion or finding someone else to build its service module. I suspect that with the coming of cheap, affordable, and efficient private spacecraft, Orion will then die.

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Make Mine Freedom

6:01 pm

An evening pause: A 1948 cartoon, made at the start of the Cold War. It uncannily predicts quite accurately what is happening now, in America, because the Boomer generation and those who followed poo-pooed its lessons. They knew better!

I post it on Memorial Day because I wish to remember what once was.

Hat tip Lazarus Long.

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A visit to a crater near the non-face on Mars

1:03 pm

Glacial erosion features inside crater
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on March 12, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It looks down at small six-mile-wide Apt crater in the northern lowland plains of Mars located at about 40 degrees north latitude. The image’s focus were the layers on the crater interior rim as well as the eroded glacial features on the crater’s floor. The color strip suggests [pdf] that the bluish material on the north-facing south interior rim and floor are likely icy, while the tan-colored material seen in the crater’s north half are likely dusty.

While the suggestion of glacial material on the crater’s interior is very typical for many craters in the mid-latitudes, what makes this crater of interest is its location, only a short few miles south of that mesa on Mars that for decades the shallow-minded insisted was a face and proof of an alien Martian civilization.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: High school group canceled by Democratic Party for criticizing Chinese government

10:11 am

Blacklists are back and the Dem’s got ’em: A conservative club at an Illinois high school was forced to disband after two local Democratic Party politicians demanded the school silence the club for putting up a poster that criticized the Chinese government.

The political attack, by state senator Lauren Fine and state representative Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, caused the club’s sponsor to back out, forcing the club to disband.

“Upon learning of the context of the poster that Glenbrook South’s chapter of Turning Point USA submitted it was taken down, recognizing that it wasn’t in compliance with our policies and guidelines,” District 225 administrators told The College Fix via email through a media representative when asked about the Glenbrook South High School situation. “During the course of that investigation, the sponsor elected to discontinue his sponsorship and the District’s policies require there be a sponsor for all active clubs,” the school officials said.

When asked specifically what policies or guidelines were broken, the district said it took down the poster while there was an investigation and then the sponsor quit, meaning the group had to be disbanded.

The poster, at the link, is incredibly mild, but that’s not acceptable because these bigoted Democrats, Fine and Gong-Gershowitz, see everything through a racial lens. The population of China is almost all Chinese, and if you dare criticize them you must be a bigot, according to the modern Democratic Party.

And if they, on their sainted opinion, think you are a bigot they have the right to get you blacklisted, blackballed, cancelled, fired, and silenced.

Do you vote for such people? Then you believe in blacklisting and oppression and tyranny. Congratulations! You have proved to all that you are not an American.

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China successfully launches 1st cargo freighter to its space station

9:31 am

On May 29th China successfully launched the first Tianzhou cargo freighter to bring cargo the now-orbiting first module, Tianhe, of its under construction space station, docking there one day later.

They plan to launch the first crew of three to the station in June.
The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

16 SpaceX
14 China
8 Russia
2 Rocket Lab
2 ULA

The U.S still leads China 22 to 14 in the national rankings.

Sorry for the late posting, but I have been off on a cave expedition in a very remote area in Nevada. Needed a break from the news and work. Presently on the long drive home. Posting will resume at full speed later tonight.

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A lopsided spiral galaxy

12:54 pm

Losided spiral galaxy
Click for full image.

For a change, today’s cool image is not from Mars, but instead goes deep into space. The photo to the right, reduced to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of the relatively nearby spiral galaxy NGC 2276, located about 120 million light years away. As the caption explains:

The magnificent spiral galaxy NGC 2276 looks a bit lopsided in this Hubble Space Telescope snapshot. A bright hub of older yellowish stars normally lies directly in the center of most spiral galaxies. But the bulge in NGC 2276 looks offset to the upper left.

In reality, a neighboring galaxy to the right of NGC 2276 (NGC 2300, not seen here) is gravitationally tugging on its disk of blue stars, pulling the stars on one side of the galaxy outward to distort the galaxy’s normal fried-egg appearance. This sort of “tug-of-war” between galaxies that pass close enough to feel each other’s gravitational pull is not uncommon in the universe. But, like snowflakes, no two close encounters look exactly alike.

The scientists also note that the bright edge along the galaxy’s north and west perimeter mark regions of intense star-formation. In those same regions astronomers six years ago identified the first medium-sized black hole ever found.

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