Maurice Jarre – Lawrence of Arabia
An evening pause: Performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra. I think this makes for a good way to start the weekend. If you have time, get the movie and watch it. One of the greatest ever made.
Hat tip Doug Johnson.
Enrollment drops force major cuts to academic but not DEI programs at UNC Greensboro
What the modern college education is becoming: “But
Brawndo’s got what plants crave. It’s got electrolytes!”
Because of an approximate 10% drop in enrollment since 2017, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro has now announced major cuts to many academic programs, while leaving untouched its many racially-based programs.
Five majors are being completely eliminated, according to a recent announcement from Chancellor Franklin Gilliam: anthropology, geography, physics, physical education and religious studies. Three language minors — Chinese, Russian, and Korean — are also on the chopping block. The university is also ending 12 graduate programs and is pausing admissions in its masters drama program.
These cuts were detailed in an announcement by the university’s chancellor, Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr. Interestingly, his announced cuts left entirely untouched the small Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) office is he runs from within his office. Nor did the cuts include the university’s Office of Intercultural Engagement, which appears entirely focused on favoring the queer agenda and students who advocate it. The cuts also left intact the college’s black studies and its women’s, gender, and sexuality departments, both of which might be popular but neither contribute much to providing students a real education.
» Read more
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, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The alien surface of Mars
Click for original image.
Click for interactive map.
Cool image time! The picture above, brightened slightly to post here, was taken on February 15, 2024 by the right navigation camera on the Mars rover Curiosity. It looks east at the looming cliff face of the mountain Kukenan that the rover has been traveling beside for the last six months. On the overview map to the right the yellow lines indicate roughly the area covered by this picture. The blue dot marks Curiosity’s present position, while the green dot marks its position on February 5, 2024. As you can see, the rover is making slow but steady progress uphill into Gediz Vallis.
This image illustrates the alien landscape of Mars quite beautifully. First, there is absolutely no life in this picture. On Earth you would be hard pressed to find any spot on the surface that doesn’t have at least some plant life.
Second, there is the rocky layered nature of this mountain. When the Curiosity science team first announced its future route plans (the red dotted line) to drive into this canyon back in 2019, the orbital images of these layers from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) had suggested the terrain here would be reminiscent of The Wave in northern Arizona, a smooth series of curved layers smoothed nicely over time by the wind.
As you can see, there is no smoothness here. Instead, every single layer here is infused with broken rock, suggesting that each layer is structurally weak. As erosion exposes each, the layer breaks up, crumbling into the chaos in this picture. The curved nature of the terrain at the bottom of the picture however does suggest that some sort of flow once percolated down this canyon, either liquid water or glacial ice, carving the layers into this curved floor.
Rocket Lab begins maneuvers to bring Varda’s capsule back to Earth
With the FAA finally giving its okay (six months late), Rocket Lab has now begun the orbital maneuvers required to bring Varda’s small manufacturing capsule back to Earth at the Utah test range.
For more than eight months in space, Rocket Lab’s 300kg-class spacecraft has successfully provided power, communications, ground control, and attitude control to allow Varda’s capsule to grow Ritonavir crystals, a drug commonly used as an antiviral medication for HIV and hepatitis C.
Due to the initial planned reentry date being adjusted from late 2023, Rocket Lab’s spacecraft has been required to operate for more than double its intended orbital lifespan, which it has done without issue.
If all goes as planned, the capsule will land on February 21, 2024. Whether those drugs are still viable and sellable remains unknown. The delay due to government red-tape might have made them useless.
Nonetheless, a success in recovering those samples, viable or not, would establish Varda’s business plan. With three more missions planned, all to be launched and controlled by Rocket Lab, it will be positioned well for the future, its capsule a method for manufacturing a number of products in weightlessness that are needed on Earth but can only be made in space.
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.
The Washington swamp suddenly discovers that Russia has anti-satellite capabilities
The fake kerfuffle in the past few days about a so-called new “serious national security threat” from Russia’s space capabilities is simply the Washington swamp suddenly discovering capabilities that Russia has had for decades and has been working to improve repeatedly, discovered suddenly and pushed in our state-run press (the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Guardian, NBC, the Associated Press, ) to help that swamp lobby for passage of the Senate foreign aid bill, that spends $90 billion for the military and for the Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel.
The key facts are highlighted below in this quote from the Washington Post propaganda piece about this story:
Exactly what the new Russia weapon is remains unclear, but the system is a “serious national security threat,” in the words of U.S. Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. “I am requesting that President Biden declassify all information relating to this threat so that Congress, the Administration, and our allies can openly discuss the actions necessary to respond to this threat,” Turner wrote in a statement Wednesday.
In his briefing to reporters Thursday, [White House spokesman John] Kirby would say only that the system is “an antisatellite capability that Russia is developing.” [emphasis mine]
My heart be still. Lordy, the Russians are developing an anti-sat capability! Will wonders never cease.
This is not news. There is nothing here that we haven’t known about the Russian anti-satellite efforts now for decades. Turner and the White House are simply pushing this story now to create a crisis and panic to force the House to approve the Senate bill, even though there is great opposition to it. That opposition sees the bill has spending billions to protect other countries, while doing nothing to protect our own.
Sadly, we are ill-served by our modern press in this manner, which is all-in on this propaganda.
India deorbits a defunct satellite early, in a controlled manner
India’s space agency ISRO yesterday successfully deorbited its defunct Cartosat-2 satellite, using the satellite’s leftover fuel to bring it down in a controlled manner, about three decades sooner than its orbit would have decayed naturally.
The satellite was launched in 2007 to provide detailed ground images of India, and completed its mission in 2019. As noted in ISRO’S press release:
ISRO opted to lower its perigee using leftover fuel to comply with international guidelines on space debris mitigation. This involved reducing collision risks and ensuring safe end-of-life disposal, following recommendations from organizations like the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN-COPOUS) and the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC).
While such actions are a good thing, that governments in India and Europe are suddenly making a big deal about it now — after almost 3/4s of a century of inaction — is not for those reasons, but to lay the political groundwork for allowing the international community, led by the UN, to impose new regulations on all space efforts, both government and private.
Be warned. They are the government, and they are here to help you.
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
China targets May 2024 for launch of its Chang’e-6 lunar sample return mission
The Moon’s far side. Click for interactive map.
China is now working to a May 2024 launch of its Chang’e-6 lunar sample return mission to bring back about four pounds of material from the far side of the Moon.
The map to the right, created from a global mosaic of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) imagery, shows the planned location of Chang’e-6’s landing site, in Apollo Basin. The landing site of China’s previous mission to the Moon’s far side, Chang’e-4 and its rover Yutu, is also shown. Both are still operating there, since landing five years ago on January 2, 2019.
Chang’e-6’s mission will be similar to China’s previous lunar sample mission, Chang’e-5, which included a lander, ascender, orbiter, and returner. It launched in November 23, 2020, landed a week later, and within two days grabbed its samples and its ascender lifted off. The samples were back on Earth by December 16, 2020.
There are indications however that Chang’e-6 might spend more time on the surface before its ascender lifts off with samples.
Uruguay signs Artemis Accords
Uruguay yesterday became the 36th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, originally conceived during the Trump administration as a political maneuver to get around the legal restrictions against private ownership imposed by the Outer Space Treaty.
It is unclear where Uruguay stands with these goals. The last two signatories, Belguim and Greece, hinted in their public statements that their goals were far different, aimed more at imposing the modern leftist globalist agenda instead (“You will own nothing and be happy.”)
At present these are the nations who have signed on: Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.
The competing alliance of communist nations, led by China, includes only Russia, Venezuala, Pakistan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, and South Africa. Former deep Soviet bloc nations like Bulgaria and Romania, as well as previously very Marxist Angola, joined the American alliance, suggesting that these two space alliances are not a return of the Cold War of the 20th century. Instead, it appears that both alliances are untrustworthy when it comes to individual rights, freedom, and limited government. Both have tensions within each, with many leaders in both groups working both against and for these ideals, with a large plurality likely focused on power and control, not human freedom.
The U.S. can do much good here, if its leadership stands firmly for freedom (to paraphrase John Kennedy). Sadly, its leadership today does not do this, and it is very unclear whether future leaders will do so either.
Gene Pitney – 24 Hours From Tulsa
An evening pause: Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
The shoreline of a Martian lava sea
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on October 2, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The science team labeled this a “lava margin.” The darker material on the right is apparently a newer deposit of lava, flowing on top of the lighter lava on the left. The newer deposit is only about three feet thick, so it had to have flowed fast almost like water to cover this large area with such a thin layer before freezing. Even so, this new lava layer has a roughness greater than the older layer below it. Either the older layer is smoother because of erosion from wind over eons, or the lava in these two layers was comprised of slightly different materials that froze with different textures.
The small ridges appear to be wrinkle ridges, created when material shrinks as it freezes.
This margin marks the edge of a very large flood lava event, as illustrated by the overview map below.
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February 15, 2024 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
This will be Jay’s last quick space links post until March 11th, as he is off to the Solomon Islands as part of a ham radio DX expedition. For those other hams who want to try to make contact with him during this expedition, the call sign is H40WA.
Note too that posting has been light today because of software issue that prevents me from uploading images. I hope it will be fixed momentarily.
- Intuitive Machines Odysseus lunar lander is in good shape on its way to the Moon
Arrival is now in seven days.
- Launch by India of its GSLV rocket carrying Insat satellite two days away
Launch time will be on February 17, 2023 at 4:04 am (Pacific).
- Europe’s Euclid orbiting space telescope now operational and is beginning its survey of billions of galaxies
Astronomers hope the data will help solve the mystery of both dark energy and dark matter.
- On this date in 1990, Voyager-1 looked back and took a picture of Earth as seen from the outer edge of the solar system
Environmentalists dubbed this “The pale blue dot image.”
- On this date in 1973 Pioneer 10 became the first human spacecraft to pass through the asteroid belt
It would fly past Jupiter in December 1973, and operate until 1997 on its journey outward beyond the solar system.
- On this date in 1564 Galileo Galilei was born
He invented the telescope, discovered the Galilean moons of Jupiter, and proved that Copernicus was right, the Sun is the center of the solar system.
SpaceX launches 22 Starlink satellites
SpaceX today successfully launched another 22 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California at 1:34 pm Pacific.
This was the launch scrubbed yesterday, and its launch today means the company completed three launches in less than 24 hours. The first stage successfully completed its second flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
15 SpaceX
8 China
2 Iran
2 Russia
American private enterprise now leads the entire world combined 17 to 14 in successful launches, with SpaceX by itself is leading the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 15 to 14.