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Curiosity data increases time water existed Gale Crater

9:45 am

New research using data from Curiosity has found evidence suggesting that significant water was present in Gale Crater for a very long time.

Lighter-toned bedrock that surrounds fractures and comprises high concentrations of silica — called “halos”— has been found in Gale crater on Mars, indicating that the planet had liquid water much longer than previously believed. The new finding is reported in a new paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

“The concentration of silica is very high at the centerlines of these halos,” said Jens Frydenvang, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Copenhagen and lead author of the new study. “What we’re seeing is that silica appears to have migrated between very old sedimentary bedrock and into younger overlying rocks. The goal of NASA’s Curiosity rover mission has been to find out if Mars was ever habitable, and it has been very successful in showing that Gale crater once held a lake with water that we would even have been able to drink, but we still don’t know how long this habitable environment endured. What this finding tells us is that, even when the lake eventually evaporated, substantial amounts of groundwater were present for much longer than we previously thought—thus further expanding the window for when life might have existed on Mars.”

The actual paper provides no time frame. What it does state is that for the halos to have formed requires a lot of time, and that during that time a lot of groundwater was required.

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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 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.

Results after one year on ISS for Bigelow’s inflatable module

8:38 am

Capitalism in space: NASA has released some of its findings learned from Bigelow’s inflatable BEAM module, attached now to ISS for one year.

During the first year, NASA and its astronauts on board the station have sought primarily to test the module’s ability to withstand space debris—as a rapidly depressurized habitat would be a bad thing in space. And indeed, sensors inside the module have recorded “a few probable” impacts from micrometeoroid debris strikes, according to NASA’s Langley Research Center. Fortunately, the module’s multiple layers of kevlar-like weave have prevented any penetration by the debris.

They have also found that the cosmic ray dosage in the module seems comparable to the rest of the station. They are now using the module to test the radiation shielding capability of several different kinds of materials.

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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 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

North Korea fires another ballistic missile

6:11 pm

North Korea today conducted its ninth ballistic missile test this year, all of which have been in violation of UN sanctions.

The missile, presumed to be a Scud type, was launched eastward from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon Province, at around 5:39 a.m., according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). “The flight distance is around 450 kilometers,” it said.

As a Scud, the missile would likely not have the capability of carrying a heavy payload, like a nuclear bomb. Nonetheless, with each test North Korea gains knowledge on how to do exactly that.

For a detailed look at the people building North Korea’s missile program see this article from yesterday: Kim’s rocket stars – The trio behind North Korea’s missile program

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Dog sits on editorial board of seven medical journals

4:16 pm

An Australian professor wondered if he could get his dog Ollie picked to be on the editorial board of a number of medical journals, and was astonished to discover seven who agreed without reservations.

Ollie’s owner is Mike Daube, Professor of Health Policy at Curtin University in Perth. Ollie likes to watch Mike working on his computer, and Mike gets a lot of emails from predatory journals. Wondering just how low these journals would go, he put together a curriculum vitae for his dog – detailing research interests such as “the benefits of abdominal massage for medium-sized canines” – and sent it off to a number of these journals, asking for a spot on their editorial boards.

Remarkably, the vast majority accepted Ollie without demur, and her name now adorns several journal websites. Ollie is a trailblazer, Professor Daube says, being the first dog ever to get on the editorial board of a journal.

“What makes it even more bizarre is that one of these journals has actually asked Ollie to review an article. It’s entitled “Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumours and their management.” Some poor soul has actually written an article on this theme in good faith, and the journal has sent it to a dog to review.”

The article provides a nice look at the problems facing the modern peer review journal field.

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Leaving Earth cover

There are now only 3 copies left of the now out-of-print hardback of Leaving Earth. The price for an autographed copy of this rare collector's item is now $150 (plus $5 shipping).

 

To get your copy while the getting is good, please send a $155 check (which includes $5 shipping) payable to Robert Zimmerman to
 

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

 

Leaving Earth is also available as an inexpensive ebook!

 

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

Son of Democrat VP candidate charged for attacking pro-Trump demonstrators

11:06 am

The civility of Democrats: The son of Democrat vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine has been arrested and criminally charged for his participation in violent attacks against pro-Trump demonstrators at the Minnesota state capital on March 4.

To get a flavor of this civility, read this from the police reports:

During the rally, protesters arrived at the Capitol. Most were peaceful but some (more than 10) were wearing face and head coverings, and wearing goggles. Rally participants tried to physically block the stairs leading to the rotunda where the rally was taking place. Protesters pushed and shoved trying to get down the stairs, then began employing smoke bombs, tear gas (aka mace), and fireworks. Several people, identified in police reports, had to be treated by paramedics due to the effects of tear gas.”

A Minnesota State Trooper observing the crowd from the west staircase saw Bueckert spray several people with tear gas. Bueckert then ran up the stairs to the second floor. About 30 seconds later, the trooper saw Bueckert “run back down the stairs, pushing through the crowd and punching people at the bottom of the stairs.” The trooper grabbed Bueckert and placed him under arrest. Bueckert resisted the arrest and the trooper later discovered he suffered a broken thumb from the struggle.

It appears that Kaine’s son was one of the 10 wearing masks, and tried to flee when police moved in.

Note that though I have not posted anything about the Republican candidate in Montana who attacked a reporter, I do not condone that candidate’s behavior either. The reporter might have been rude and trespassing, but violence as a response is inappropriate. That such violence is beginning to be acceptable to both sides is another sign that civilization is dying and that we are heading for a new dark age.

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Construction begins on the European Extremely Large Telescope

10:47 am

On Friday the European Southern Observatory broke ground in Chile on the construction of the European Extemely Large Telescope (E-ELT), which when finished in 2024 will be the largest ground-based telescope in the world.

The mirror will be 39 meters across.

Meanwhile, construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope remains stalled. It was originally supposed to be operating before E-ELT, but that is becoming increasingly doubtful. Its builders can’t get Hawaii to approve a building permit, and they haven’t yet been willing to admit that they will never get permission to build there.

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Brewing beer on the Moon

10:41 am

Capitalism in space: A student experiment to attempt to brew beer on the Moon, rejected by one Google Lunar X-Prize contestant, has been accepted by another.

The experiment involves a small canister that, once on the moon, will mix yeast with wort, the mixture of barley and other ingredients that give beer its flavor, to cause fermentation and carbonation. Besides proving that beer can be brewed remotely and in low gravity, the experiment demonstrates the potential for making other things involving yeast in low gravity, such as bread and certain medicines, which could be important if a lunar colony is ever established.

The canister, designed by the students at the Qualcomm Institute Prototyping Facility, will be aboard a spacecraft being built by Synergy Moon, one of the teams competing for the Google Lunar XPrize, a contest meant to inspire engineers and entrepreneurs to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration..

They have also been accepted to fly the experiment on several Synergy Moon orbital flights.

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Kim Jong-Un Consults With Planned Parenthood To Learn How To Cover Up Atrocities

9:55 pm

News you can use! In an effort to improve his brand, Kim Jong-Un came to New York on Friday to learn Planned Parenthood’s techniques for manipulating the media and covering up its human rights atrocities.

The North Korean delegate reportedly met with leaders at Planned Parenthood, where a panel of public relations professionals demonstrated the organization’s advanced methods of squashing any clear evidence of its brutal, callous slaughtering of human babies the moment it arises. “So you just get a judge to pull all the damning videos right away, and charge those trying to expose you with felonies? Amazing. We don’t even have that kind of power over the media back in Pyongyang.”

In other news, from the same source: ISIS lays down arms after Katy Perry’s impassioned plea to ‘Like, just co-exist.’

It is now obvious I have been getting my news information from the wrong sources. Things are much better than I might have supposed.

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LRO hit by meteoriod in 2014

5:35 pm

LRO as it was hit by a meteor

While taking an image in October 2014, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter had apparently been hit by some small object, causing it to vibrate and create the zig-zag distortions seen on the image, a cropped section of which is shown on the right.

Clearly there was a brief violent movement of the left NAC [Narrow Angle Camera]. The only logical explanation is that the NAC was hit by a meteoroid! How big was the meteoroid, and where did it hit? The physical properties and vibration modes of the NAC are very well known – during development a detailed computer model was made to ensure the NAC would not fail during the vibrations caused by the launch, which are severe. The computer model was tested before launch by attaching the NAC to a vibration table that simulates launch. The model was solid, both NACs survived the test, and launch.

Most of each NAC is sequestered inside the spacecraft structure, so only the leading edge of the baffle and the radiator are exposed to space, and thus are potential targets for impactors. From the detailed computer model, the LROC team ran simulations to see if we could reproduce the distortions seen the image. Assuming an impact velocity of 7 kilometers per second and a density 2.7 g/cm3, an impacting particle would have been 0.8 mm in diameter (~half the size of a pinhead). If the velocity was faster, then the particle would have been smaller, and if slower then larger.

For comparison, the muzzle velocity of a bullet fired from a rifle is typically 0.5 to 1.0 kilometers per second. So the meteoroid was traveling much faster than a speeding bullet. In this case LROC did not dodge a speeding bullet, but rather survived a speeding bullet!

The image is fascinating because you can see the vibrations slowly disappear as the zig-zags shrink and fade.

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NASA delays launch of space-junk removal test satellite

5:06 pm

In order to do additional safety reviews NASA has ordered a six-month delay, at the minimum, in the launch of test space junk removal satellite.

“Nothing of this size has ever been launched from the ISS before,” said Jason Forshaw, RemoveDebris project manager at the University of Surrey’s Surrey Space Centre, which leads the consortium [that built the satellite]. “Most of the things they are launching from there are cubesats, much smaller objects, 10 [kilograms] or so,” Forshaw said. “As you can imagine, we are progressing through the safety reviews and we are just going through those at the moment.”

The article also includes some discussion of the legal limitations of salvage in space, once again due to the limits in the Outer Space Treaty.

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Connecticut: sinking in debt with a fleeing population

4:40 pm

Running out of other people’s money: Connecticut, run for years by Democrats, is sinking in debt with a population that is shrinking as people flee.

The administration of Gov. Dannel Malloy, a Democrat who has been in office since 2011, projects a budget deficit of more than $5 billion over the next two years, thanks to generous pension benefits and the burden of servicing its big debt, plus falling tax revenue due to the exodus of large employers and residents reaching retirement age.

Its budget woes, as well as concerns that they will be repeated year after year, helped lead General Electric in 2015 to consider moving its headquarters out of the state. Last year, it did exactly that.

The state’s population is falling: Its net domestic out-migration was nearly 30,000 from 2015 to 2016. In 2016, it lost slightly more than 8,000 people, leaving its population at 3.6 million. Indeed, recent national moving company surveys underscore the trend, showing more people leaving Connecticut than moving in. In 2016, the state also saw a population decline for the third consecutive year, according to Census Bureau estimates.

One of the companies, United Van Lines, reported that of all their Connecticut customers, 60 percent were leaving compared to 40 percent who were moving there. Only three other states had higher rates of people moving out – New York, New Jersey and Illinois. One out of five of those leaving said they were retiring. [emphasis mine]

Isn’t it interesting that the four states with the most people leaving are four states that have been largely run by Democrats for decades. And in those cases where Republicans have been in charge, they have taken the moderate go-along-to-get-along approach, essentially rubber-stamping the high spending and high tax agenda of the Democrats that dominate the political region.

Unfortunately, it is this agenda that dominates Washington and the federal government, and the Republican leadership there seems quite willing to do the same as the moderate Republicans in this states. Worse, we don’t have another country we can escape to.

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California single-payer $400 billion healthcare plan approved by state committee with no funding

3:01 pm

Running out of other people’s money: A California legislative committee yesterday approved a single-payer state healthcare plan that is estimated to cost $400 billion, twice the state’s entire annual budget, without indicating how they intend to pay for it.

Details, details! Who cares about how one pays for an entitlement program? The point is to pass it, and let your great-granchildren figure it out. In this case, however, the problem is so large that it’s impossible to do without the funding in place first, because of the need to pay providers for goods and services. California hardly has an extra $200 billion laying around, and even if it did, it would need to shore up its collapsing pension system first. The state is also on the hook for a $100 billion high-speed rail system whose funding is still unclear. Democrats don’t have much idea about how to pay for their current priorities, let alone their seizure of the health-care sector. [emphasis in original]

The leftists in California want to secede from the U.S. Maybe we should let them, since that state is about to go bankrupt and I am sure most Americans in the remain 49 states don’t wish to stuck with the bill.

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Looking at Jupiter’s southern hemisphere

9:43 am

Jupiter's southern hemisphere

Cool image time! The image on the right, reduced to post here, shows Jupiter’s south pole and much of its southern hemisphere. It was taken during Juno’s last orbital fly-by of the gas giant’s cloud tops last week, and has been enhanced by Fevig-58, an ordinary citizen who downloaded the raw image and then uploaded his enhanced version to the Juno website.

It is definitely worthwhile taking a close look at the full resolution image. At the top its shows the horizontally banded Jupiter at equatorial- and mid-latitudes that has been that planet’s familiar face for centuries. In the middle is the transitional region from those horizontal bands to the chaotic polar regions. And at the bottom is the pole, where there the storms appear to follow no pattern and form a mish-mash.

One thing about Jupiter’s pole. It appears very different than Saturn’s. While I am certain they will find a vortex of some kind there, so far there is no indication of a coherent jet stream, as seen by Saturn’s hexagon. This once again demonstrates the one unbroken rule of planetary science that has been found with every planetary mission to every planetary body, whether they be pebbles, asteroids, dwarf planets, gas giants, or moons: Every single one of them is different and unique. They might fall into a single category, say gas giants, but each has its own unique features that make it different from every other member of that category.

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Egypt considers creating space agency

9:12 am

The Egyptian government is considering creating an Egyptian Space Agency.

The Egyptian government believes that the establishment of a space agency is necessary to invigorate and administer space programmes in Egypt, that in turn – it is hoped – will revitalize Egypt’s economy and entrepreneurship. While this approach is not without merit, it has been the cause of significant political controversy in Egypt as many of its citizens have voiced harsh criticism of the country’s space plans as the economy continues to deteriorate.

The proposed space agency will also administer Egyptian ambitions to build and even launch its own satellites.

Essentially, the government needs certain space capabilities (military and communications satellites), and a space agency would serve as its corporate arm for obtaining and managing those capabilities. It would also serve as a place where lots of foreign aid cash could be deposited into the government to be distributed to various friends. Along the way it might also help the economy and help shift Egypt in a more western and commercial direction.

How successful this becomes will depend on whether the Egyptian government lets the crony component dominate the process.

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The Muffs – Don’t Pick on Me

6:01 pm

An evening pause: What makes this music video appealing is the cartoon, which recreates the style of Hollywood’s early 1930s black & white cartoons.

Hat tip Jim Mallamace.

As always, I welcome suggestions for Evening Pauses. If you think you have something and have not emailed me any suggestions previously, mention in a comment that you want to suggest something. Do not post the link to the video. I will contact you myself.

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Threats and violence against dissent at university

5:39 pm

Fascists: A white professor as well as numerous students who came to his defense have been physically threatened by mobs at Evergreen State University, demanding their removal from the college.

The protest apparently got so out of hand that Professor Weinstein reported on Twitter that the police had warned him that he would not be “safe on campus” because they could not protect him. “To be clear: the police told me I am not safe on campus. They cannot protect me. Students in jeopardy. No contact from admin,” Weinstein wrote.

In another tweet, he alleged that students defending him have been “singled out” and threatened, posting a screenshot of an individual who claimed to have the “names and faces of students in Bret’s class” so that other can “see these faces for your own safety.”

Meanwhile, The Olympian reports that hundreds of students participated in the protest, which was also partly inspired by “anti-black comments on social media.” According to a blog post on Liberty Hangout, student Kai-Avé Douvia became “public enemy number one” on campus after he responded to a post from a peer advocating for the creation of a class specifically for “black/brown people” to study multiculturalism.

In his response, Douvia had experimentally reworded the post to replace “black/brown” with “white” in an effort to demonstrate the post’s racist nature, sparking a backlash on social media that eventually escalated to public shaming and threats from classmates. “Rather than respectfully responding and having civil discourse, I was then threatened and/or insulted by many so called ‘inclusive activists,’ leading to me to contact the police for protection,” Douvia writes in his blog on the matter. “This highlights a massive issue–the left is now mobilizing against itself to push its overused rhetoric on every free thinker, and if you disagree well, welcome to being every ‘-ist’ in the book.”

Everyone realizes that these thugs are not going to be punished for their fascist behavior. Consider the university’s mealy-mouthed response:

“It’s been an intense and useful conversation with a group of students,” spokesperson Zach Powers told The Olympian. “The college is working with the group to address their issues. This type of conversation is being replicated across the country right now. We remain committed to providing a great education to all students.”

These mobs could kill someone and the university administration might finally gasp in horror. It still wouldn’t do anything, however.

What no one is realizing is that these thugs are going to graduate from this university and move into the political arena, armed and willing to use their jackbooted fascist tactics wherever they can. The future does not look good.

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First science results from Juno

11:48 am

The Juno science team today released their first research results since the spacecraft entered orbit around Jupiter in July 2016.

“Although many of the observations have terrestrial analogs, it appears that different processes are at work creating the auroras,” said SwRI’s Dr. Phil Valek, JADE instrument lead. “With JADE we’ve observed plasmas upwelling from the upper atmosphere to help populate Jupiter’s magnetosphere. However, the energetic particles associated with Jovian auroras are very different from those that power the most intense auroral emissions at Earth.”

Also surprising, Jupiter’s signature bands disappear near its poles. JunoCam images show a chaotic scene of swirling storms up to the size of Mars towering above a bluish backdrop. Since the first observations of these belts and zones many decades ago, scientists have wondered how far beneath the gas giant’s swirling façade these features persist. Juno’s microwave sounding instrument reveals that topical weather phenomena extend deep below the cloudtops, to pressures of 100 bars, 100 times Earth’s air pressure at sea level.

“However, there’s a north-south asymmetry. The depths of the bands are distributed unequally,” Bolton said. “We’ve observed a narrow ammonia-rich plume at the equator. It resembles a deeper, wider version of the air currents that rise from Earth’s equator and generate the trade winds.”

Juno is mapping Jupiter’s gravitational and magnetic fields to better understand the planet’s interior structure and measure the mass of the core. Scientists think a dynamo — a rotating, convecting, electrically conducting fluid in a planet’s outer core — is the mechanism for generating the planetary magnetic fields. “Juno’s gravity field measurements differ significantly from what we expected, which has implications for the distribution of heavy elements in the interior, including the existence and mass of Jupiter’s core,” Bolton said. The magnitude of the observed magnetic field was 7.766 Gauss, significantly stronger than expected. But the real surprise was the dramatic spatial variation in the field, which was significantly higher than expected in some locations, and markedly lower in others. “We characterized the field to estimate the depth of the dynamo region, suggesting that it may occur in a molecular hydrogen layer above the pressure-induced transition to the metallic state.”

What I want to see is a depth map showing where Jupiter’s atmosphere ends and its solid core begins. I expect Juno will eventually be able to give us a first glimpse.

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Star becomes black hole without supernova explosion

10:20 am

The uncertainty of science: Astronomers think they have identified a star that, rather than die and become a black hole in a supernova explosion, merely fizzled into a black hole.

Starting in 2009, one particular star in the Fireworks Galaxy, named N6946-BH1, began to brighten weakly. By 2015, it appeared to have winked out of existence. The astronomers aimed the Hubble Space Telescope at the star’s location to see if it was still there but merely dimmed. They also used the Spitzer Space Telescope to search for any infrared radiation emanating from the spot. That would have been a sign that the star was still present, but perhaps just hidden behind a dust cloud.

All the tests came up negative. The star was no longer there. By a careful process of elimination, the researchers eventually concluded that the star must have become a black hole.

There are a lot of uncertainties here. Nonetheless, astronomers have theorized that some stars could collapse into black holes with any explosions, and it appears they might have found their first example of that.

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Civil War museum closes rather than remove its Confederate flags

9:35 am

The coming dark age: A Civil War museum is forced to close when Virginia county officials ordered them to remove all Confederate flags.

A Henry County commissioner requested a few months ago that a local Civil War museum remove its Confederate flags.

But without that symbol, the Nash Farm Battlefield and Museum announced that it can’t conduct its mission properly and will close June 1. In a Facebook post, the museum’s directors cited the request by District 2 Commissioner Dee Clemmons that all Confederate flags be removed from the museum, in addition to the gift shop, “in an effort not to offend anyone.”

“To exclude any Confederate flag would mean the historical value has been taken from our exhibits, and a fair interpretation could not be presented to each guest,” the post read. “Confederate flags were on this hallowed ground, as were the Union flags. To remove either of them would be a dishonor.”

In other words, it is better now for people to be ignorant of history so that they might avoid looking at a flag.

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College professor arrested for attacks against Trump supporters

9:26 am

Fascist: Berkeley policy have arrested the college professor who was identified as committing several violent attacks on pro-Trump demonstrators during protests in Berkeley in April.

Video of the most vicious attack, smashing a bike lock on a person’s head, can be seen at the link. It is quite ugly to see. There is also a video showing how the attacker was identified.

Note that this guy was a college professor, and he also followed the procedures of the fascist thugs that have been attacking conservatives in Berkeley, wearing a mask during protests and using violence against those he disagrees with. That he has been identified and arrested is a positive step forward. That it took an investigation by private citizens to force Berkeley police to arrest him is not good.

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Russia completes first military launch in a year

8:51 am

Russia today successfully launched a military payload on a Soyuz rocket, ending a year long gap in such launches due to the discovery of faulty and corrupt practices at rocket engine manufacturing facilities.

The lull in activity has in part been down to manufacturing defects and quality control issues affecting Russia’s production of rocket engines. A contractor was found to have been using cheaper materials in place of precious metals in alloys used to make parts of the engines. Seventy-one Proton engines and a number of Soyuz engines were recalled for inspection and repair.

Reliability concerns have lingered around Russia’s launch fleet in recent years, with Proton failing ten times since 2007 and Soyuz experiencing seven failures in the last eight years. Two Rokots and a Zenit have also failed in the last decade, while Russia’s flagship Fobos-Grunt mission to Mars never left low Earth orbit after the spacecraft itself malfunctioned.

In 2016, Russia experienced just one launch failure – with a Soyuz-U rocket suffering a third stage failure during December’s attempted launch of the Progress MS-04 vehicle to resupply the International Space Station. Despite this, there were two near-misses: a Soyuz-2-1b underperformed during the launch of a GLONASS navigation satellite last May, and the Proton launch in June suffered a second stage engine failure. In both cases the rockets’ upper stages – Fregat-M and Briz-M respectively – were able to alter their flight plans and inject the satellites into their planned orbits despite the anomalies.

They hope to resume Proton flights next month. Either way, it looks likely that in 2017 Russia will launch the fewest rockets in decades.

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Rocket Lab launches its first Electron rocket

8:34 am

Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab today successfully completed the first test flight of their Electron rocket.

The rocket did not reach orbit, though it did reach space altitude. More details here.

“It has been an incredible day and I’m immensely proud of our talented team,” said Peter Beck, CEO and founder of Rocket Lab. “We’re one of a few companies to ever develop a rocket from scratch and we did it in under four years. We’ve worked tirelessly to get to this point. We’ve developed everything in house, built the world’s first private orbital launch range, and we’ve done it with a small team.

“It was a great flight. We had a great first stage burn, stage separation, second stage ignition and fairing separation. We didn’t quite reach orbit and we’ll be investigating why, however reaching space in our first test puts us in an incredibly strong position to accelerate the commercial phase of our program, deliver our customers to orbit and make space open for business,” says Beck.

It appears they had a problem with the upper stage. Nonetheless, this is a great achievement. They were completely privately funded. They built their own launchpad. When they make orbit they will be the first company to have done such a thing.

I have embedded footage of the launch below the fold.
» Read more

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Boeing wins DARPA contract to build reusable first stage spaceplane

10:04 pm

Capitalism in space: DARPA has selected Boeing to build its XS-1 spaceplane concept, a reusable first stage that would launch vertically and land on a runway.

Boeing will develop its “Phantom Express” vehicle for phases 2 and 3 of DARPA’s Experimental Spaceplane 1 (XS-1) program, which has the goal of performing 10 flights in 10 days to demonstrate responsive and low-cost launch. Phase 2 will cover development of the vehicle and ground tests though 2019, with a series of 12 to 15 test flights planned for phase 3 in 2020.

DARPA spokesman Rick Weiss said the value of the award to Boeing is $146 million. The award is structured as a public-private partnership, with Boeing also contributing to the overall cost of the program, but Boeing declined to disclose its contribution. “As it’s a competitive market, we do not plan to disclose our investment,” Boeing Phantom Works spokeswoman Cheryl Sampson said. “We are making a significant commitment to help solve an enduring challenge to reduce the cost of space access.”

It makes sense that Boeing won the contract, since that company also built the X-37B and knows how to do this. Moreover, with this contract it appears that DARPA is following in the footsteps of NASA initial cargo and crew commercial contracts, where the companies were required to commit some of their own capital for development, the costs were kept low, and the resulting spacecraft belonged to the company to market to the launch industry.

In this case, Boeing is going to have a first stage that it can combine with many other available upper stages to produce a rocket that can compete both with SpaceX and Blue Origin.

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How to land a space shuttle

6:01 pm

An evening pause: This talk was given in October 2016, so the speaker, Bret Copeland, readily admits with great humor that he is describing something that no longer happens. Nonetheless, there will come a time when this will be done again, by vehicles better made and more often used. It is important to know how it was done.

Hat tip Edward Thelen.

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After 7 years Cassini reaches Saturn’s solstice

3:55 pm

In 2010 NASA extended the Cassini mission orbiting Saturn for seven years to the planet’s next solstice, so that the spacecraft could observe Saturn, its moons, and its rings, for one full season of its 28 year orbit.

Today, Cassini reached that target.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft still has a few months to go before it completes its mission in September, but the veteran Saturn explorer reaches a new milestone today. Saturn’s solstice — that is, the longest day of summer in the northern hemisphere and the shortest day of winter in the southern hemisphere — arrives today for the planet and its moons. The Saturnian solstice occurs about every 15 Earth years as the planet and its entourage slowly orbit the sun, with the north and south hemispheres alternating their roles as the summer and winter poles.

The article provides a detailed review of all the changes that have occurred during this long time period.

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Washington rallies around the Outer Space Treaty

1:52 pm

Yesterday Senator Ted Cruz (D-Texas) held the second in what he says will be a series of hearings on the future government regulation of the commercial space industry. The specific focus of this hearing was the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and its effect on private enterprise.

The hearing saw two panels of witnesses, the first three legal experts on the Outer Space Treaty, the second four industry experts from a variety of private space businesses.

Like the first hearing on April 27, the witnesses this time were once again unanimous in their call for a simplification of the present regulatory arrangement. They also emphasized repeatedly that private enterprise should not be required by Congress to get permission to do things in space. Instead, Congress should merely provide regulation that will facilitate private enterprise while helping them avoid interfering with each other.

Unlike the first hearing, however, the atmosphere was decidedly less interested in improving the overall international regulatory framework created under the Outer Space Treaty. Instead, the witnesses in unison were supportive of the treaty and did not want the U.S. to either pull out of it or try to change it. All advocated the position that the treaty as written allowed the U.S. to regulate private businesses in a manner that could protect property rights in space.

As I watched the hearing I was struck by this unity of position. To me, it appeared that the Washington elitist community was circling its wagons in order to protect the status quo.

The witnesses from the business community appeared afraid of the consequences of any effort to change the Outer Space Treaty. As Mike Gold, Vice President of Space Systems Loral, noted,
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