SpaceX to push for more than 140 launches in 2024

8:04 am

At a Senate hearing yesterday, a SpaceX official revealed the company is aiming to achieve 144 launches in 2024, an almost 50% increase from the record-setting pace it is maintaining this year.

“This year, we’re going to attempt to fly 100 flights,” Bill Gerstenmaier, the vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX, said on Wednesday (Oct. 18) during a hearing of the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Space and Science. “As we look to next year, we want to increase that flight rate to about 12 flights per month, or 144 flights,” he added during the hearing.

Getting to 12 launches per month will be a challenge, but not an unreasonable one. So far this year the company has routinely launched more than six times per month, but it has been pushing that rate since the summer, with it many times trying to do launches almost daily for a stretch. Often its biggest problem isn’t the company or rocket, but the weather and scheduling at Cape Canaveral, as there are others that wish to launch there.

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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, 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

Our utterly bankrupt “mainstream” press

2:17 pm

Lies from CNN
Lies from CNN

Lies from MSNBC
Lies from MSNBC

The so-called bombing of a hospital in the Gaza strip yesterday has revealed better than anything the utter bankruptcy of our modern press.

Without any confirmation mainstream sources like CNN and MSNBC accepted without question the claims by Hamas that the bombing was an “Israeli strike” and that 200 to 500+ people were killed. The graphic to the right illustrates CNN’s dishonesty. The report itself seemed eager to accept the Hamas claims, without any checking, while simultaneously treating the Israeli reports (that evidence showed that the impact was caused by a misfired Hamas rocket) with great skepticism and doubt requiring double and maybe triple verification.

MSNBC immediately reported the claims of Hamas, without any verification, while also exaggerating the damage incredibly, as shown by the second graphic to the right. The reporter first claims “the images coming out of Gaza are absolutely harrowing,” then notes that the known damage was in “the courtyard area of this hospital,” even as the video being shown during his report shows no damage, just ambulances arriving at a hospital with a variety of patients.

The irony is that not only have video and audio evidence confirmed without question now that the rocket was from Hamas (including audio of Hamas’ agents admitting to this fact), the impact itself didn’t appear to hit the hospital itself, just that courtyard/parking lot. As noted at the tweet, “How did 500 people die in a parking lot?”

In fact, the death toll remains very unclear indeed. It could very well be that very few were killed, though determining that fact will not be easy.

Both of these reports follow the standard operation procedures of all the mainstream press, not just CNN and MSNBC. » Read more

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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.

Erosion revealing ridges on Mars?

12:16 pm

Erosion revealing lava dikes on Mars?
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on June 30, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The science team calls the features here “narrow ridges”, but what makes these criss-crossing ridges interesting is their location within the picture.

They appear only inside the hollows and depressions, as if erosion had stripped out a top layer of softer material to reveal these ridges, made of a harder material. The almost random but straight orientations of the ridges also suggest they formed along faults or cracks, which also suggests we are seeing dikes where lava was pushed up from below.

Whether the eroded softer material is lava or volcanic ash is unclear, though it certainly resembles the ash layers seen in the giant Medusa Fossae Formation ash field on the opposite side of Mars.

As always, a wider look helps clarify things.
» Read more

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Israel negotiating with SpaceX to use Starlink

10:23 am

Israel is now in negotiations with SpaceX to get use of its Starlink constellation for communications, especially in the region around Gaza where the present conflict is ongoing.

Starlink currently isn’t available in Israel, so this would be the first time the service is introduced in any capacity. As it seeks to bolster its own communications during wartime, it is also looking into halting cell and internet communications in Gaza, that same official said.

“The activity of coordinating the Israeli company Starlink is taking place, enabling the operation of communication terminals by the company SpaceX, which will allow a wide broadband internet connection in Israel,” Israel Minister of Communications Shlomo Karhi said on X. “Additionally, under the guidance of the minister, the ministry promotes the purchase of these satellite devices for the benefit of regional councils and community leaders in conflict zone settlements.”

By having Starlink available, Israel could use it as it shut down the cell and internet capabilities being used by Hamas.

Whether a deal will be made remains unclear, as Musk has shown ambivalence about Starlink’s contribution in the Ukraine war.

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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

Location of mud volcanoes in Martian chaos terrain suggest past existence of mud lake

10:18 am

Mud volcanoes in the inland sea

Scientists mapping the location of mud volcanoes in chaos terrain in the dry equatorial regions of Mars have found numerous mud volcanoes, adding weight to the theory that an intermittent shallow lake once existed there.

The inset on the overview map to the right indicates the location of those mud volcanoes (of two types) in white and orange dots. What is significant is that none of the volcanoes are found on the mesas within this chaos terrain, only in the low flats below. From the caption:

Both feature types result from sedimentary volcanism – instead of magma upwells and eruptions, wet sediments, and salts reach and breach the surface, forming mounds and flows. Interestingly, these mounds only occur over the chaotic terrain floor materials and not on the mesas (red-shaded areas) they embay. This suggests a material composition link rather than a genesis by regional extensional forces generated by magmatic rises.

The blue areas are where this same science team think an intermittent inland sea once existed. This new data reinforces that hypothesis.

Features that look like mud volcanoes are common in the icy northern lowland plains. Finding them in the dry equatorial regions strengthens the theory that water was once common there. For this reason the scientists are proposing a mission to this location, especially because the possibility of water might increase the chances of discovering past life.

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Review of orbital images confirms source of largest Mars quake was not an impact

9:35 am

Location of May quake
The white patches mark the locations on Mars of the largest quakes
detected by InSight. The green dotted patch marks this particular 4.7 quake.

Scientists reviewing images from several different orbiters have confirmed that the source of the largest Mars quake detected by InSight, 4.7 magnitude, was not caused by a meteorite impact and thus proves that movement in the interior of Mars is still occurring.

The quake, which had a magnitude of 4.7 and caused vibrations to reverberate through the planet for at least six hours, was recorded by NASA’s InSight lander on Wednesday 4 May 2022. Because its seismic signal was similar to previous quakes known to be caused by meteoroid impacts, the team believed that this event (dubbed ‘S1222a’) might have been caused by an impact as well, and launched an international search for a fresh crater.

…During its time on Mars, InSight (which was co-designed by the University of Oxford) recorded at least 8 marsquake events caused by meteoroid impacts. The largest two of these formed craters around 150m in diameter. If the S1222a event was formed by an impact, the crater would be expected to be at least 300m in diameter. Each group examined data from their satellites orbiting Mars to look for a new crater, or any other tell-tale signature of an impact (e.g. a dust cloud appearing in the hours after the quake).

After several months of searching, the team announced today that no fresh crater was found.

You can read their paper here. To do the survey, the team used data from the American orbiters Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey, and also enlisted help from scientists controlling the data from Europe’s Mars Express, China’s Tianwen-1, India’s Mangalyaan, and the United Arab Emirates’ Al-Mal.

The results suggest the quake occurred at “a dip-slip fault in the mid-crust, consistent with an origin between 18 and 28 km depth,” as stated in the conclusion of their paper. More analysis is necessary, but this result proves that the Martian interior still active enough to produce relatively large quakes..

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Russian geosynchronous spy satellite making close-up inspections of other commercial satellites

9:13 am

A second Russian “inspector” spy satellite in geosynchronous orbit is being directed to move relatively close to other commercial satellites, close enough to obtain high resolution images.

According to data gathered by California startup Slingshot Aerospace, the satellite known as Luch-5X or Olymp-K-2 [Norad ID 5584] began moving east to west shortly after its launch on March 12 — in what company officials told Breaking Defense on Oct. 6 shows a “pattern of life” that includes making stops nearby non-Russian satellites.

So far it the closest it has gotten to another satellite is about 10 miles, just far enough away so as to avoid triggering any collision concerns but close enough that good cameras will see fine details. It is believed the satellite so far under surveillance is a communications satellite from Eutelsat that covers Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and central Asia, suggesting a link to the wars in the Ukraine and Gaza.

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India rocket startup Agnikul raises $26.7 million in new private investment capital

9:01 am

The new colonial movement: The Indian rocket startup Agnikul has now raised an additional $26.7 million in private investment capital, bringing its total cash on hand now to about $40 million.

The company hopes to complete the first suborbital launch of its Vikram-S rocket in mid-November. If successful, it will be the second private rocket startup in India to do it, joining Skyroot, which did its first suborbital test flight last year. Both companies plan orbital versions of these rockets, and are also likely bidding to take over the SSLV (Small Satellite Launch Vehicle) rocket from India’s space agency ISRO. The Modi government is offering to literally give it to a private company to operate for profit.

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Ingenuity completes 62nd flight on Mars

8:50 pm

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

On October 12, 2023 the Mars helicopter Ingeniuty successfully completed its 62nd flight on Mars, flying a total of 880 feet for just over two minutes while setting a new ground speed record of 22.4 miles per hour.

The flight was a scouting trip to the northeast about 440 feet, then returning to land back at about its take-off point. The green line on the overview map above shows the route of that flight, with the green dot marking Ingenuity’s landing spot. The blue dot marks Perseverance’s present location.

The distance and time of the flight, as well as the speed record, were almost identical to the flight plan released prior to the flight.

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SpaceX launches another 22 Starlink satellites, using a first stage flying for the 16th time

8:28 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched another 22 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canavera with a first stage flying for the 16th time.

The first stage successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic. By my count SpaceX now has two stages that have flown seventeen times, and one that has flown sixteen times. While not there yet, its fleet of first stages is getting close to accumulating more flights than NASA’s space shuttle fleet.

The leaders in 2023 launch race:

74 SpaceX
46 China
13 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise now leads China in successfully launches 86 to 46, and the entire world combined 86 to 74. SpaceX by itself is once again tied with the entire world combined (excluding American companies) 74 to 74, with another launch scheduled for late tomorrow.

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