Bob Lind – Elusive Butterfly
An evening pause: Performed in 1965.
Hat tip Cotour.
May 31, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Roscosmos proposes extending its astronaut barter deal with NASA
The current deal ends after four astronauts from each nation fly to ISS on the other nation’s rockets/capsules.
- ESA press release calls for private European companies to provide freighter service to ISS and future stations
This announcement is a followup on ESA’s new policy to emulate NASA by adopting my recommendations from my 2017 policy paper, Capitalism in Space by becoming a mere customer hiring its aerospace private sector rather than being the designer and builder of spacecraft and rockets.
- South Korea replaces Russia with Arianespace to launch an Earth observation satellite
The Arianespace press release is here. This switch is a direct result of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, and results in the loss of approximately $100 million in revenue.
- Spanish rocket startup PLD scrubs first suborbital test launch of its Miura-1 rocket due to high winds
No word on a new launch date.
- UAE touts its new planned asteroid mission
The details revealed in this week’s announcement are essentially the same as revealed on May 10th.
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
Pushback: If the young are beginning to resist the leftist queer agenda, then there is real hope
“A little child shall lead them,” painting by James L. Johnson.
And a little child shall lead them: There appears to be increasing evidence that it isn’t just the parents that are becoming aware and opposed to the queer and Marxist agenda that the public schools and leftist governments have been force feeding down children’s throats for the past decade. It now appears the students themselves are beginning to rise up in rebellion.
This story from May 29, 2023 illustrates the point:
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Curiosity looks back again as it climbs higher onto Mount Sharp
Click for full panorama.
Click for interactive map.
After completing several weeks of drilling, Curiosity has once again started climbing the rocky rough slope of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater, working its way up into the giant slot canyon dubbed Gediz Vallis.
The panorama above, cropped, reduced, sharpened, and annotated to post here, was created from 31 pictures taken on May 30, 2023 by the rover’s right navigation camera. It looks back both at Curiosity’s past travels climbing Mount Sharp as well as the now increasingly distant floor and rim of Gale Crater. The rim is about 20-30 miles away.
On the overview map to the right, the blue dot marks Curiosity’s position when this panorama was taken, with the yellow lines indicating the approximate area covered. The white dotted line on both the panorama and map indicates the rover’s actual route, with the red dotted line its planned route.
Because of the steep rough terrain, the science team has shifted the rover a bit to the west as it climbs. It is going to be fascinating to watch how it manages this climb into Gediz Vallis, as it appears the terrain is going to get no less steep or rough.
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.
North Korean rocket fails in attempt to put spy satellite into orbit
In North Korea’s first attempt today to place a spy satellite into orbit since 2016, the rocket failed shortly after launch, dropping into the ocean.
But the rocket lost thrust and plunged into the sea with its satellite payload, the official Korean Central News Agency reported. It added that authorities would investigate the “serious defects” revealed by the launch and conduct another test as soon as possible.
South Korea’s military said it had managed to locate and salvage a portion of the suspected debris. It released images showing a large barrel-like metal structure with thin pipes and wires at the bottom, which experts said might be a liquid fuel tank.
The U.S., Japan, and South Korea all condemned the launch as violating UN sanctions, as did the UN’s secretary-general.
The recovery by South Korea could yield a great deal of technical information about North Korea’s rocketry and missile program.
Russia delays launch of its Luna-25 mission one month to August
Click for interactive map.
Russia today announced that it is delaying the July launch of its Luna-25 mission to August.
No reason for the delay was revealed. The mission itself has been under development for almost a quarter century, with numerous delays. It will be the first lunar probe by Russia since the 1970s.
The lunar mission will be launched atop a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with a Fregat booster from the Vostochny space center in the Russian Far East. Under the lunar project, the Luna-25 automatic station will be launched for studies in the area of the lunar south pole. The lander is set to touch down in the area of the Boguslawsky crater.
The green dot on the map shows this crater, with the white cross the Moon’s south pole. The other two missions are also targeting launches this summer, with Chandrayaan-3 set for a July launch and Nova-C in late September.
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
Spain becomes 25th nation to sign Artemis Accords
In a ceremony yesterday in Spain, that country became the 25th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, a bi-lateral agreement with the United States that was designed during the Trump administration to act as a work around to the limitations to private enterprise in space created by the Outer Space Treaty.
The full list of signatories so far: Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.
This alliance gives the United States a great deal of leverage in establishing legal policy, if it is used as originally intended. It however at present remains unclear if the Biden administration intends to do so, considering its general hostility to the private sector and freedom.
SpaceX launches another 52 Starlink satellites
SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 52 Starlink satellites, using its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its fourteenth flight, landing successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific. The fairing halves completed their fifth and seventh flights respectively.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
36 SpaceX
20 China
8 Russia
5 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads China 41 to 20 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 41 to 36. SpaceX alone is now tied with the rest of the world combined 36 to 36, but trails the entire world including American companies 36 to 41.
AX-2 commercial passenger flight to ISS splashes down safely
Axiom’s second commercial passenger flight to ISS, dubbed AX-2, successfully splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico a little after 11 pm (Eastern) tonight after spending eight days in space.
Recovery efforts of the Freedom capsule are still underway by SpaceX crews. It is necessary again to emphasize that this is a private mission, launched by a private company in a privately owned capsule for a private company and private passengers. The only government involvement was when the capsule was docked to ISS and the crew was on the station.
Ray Bolger & Judy Garland – If I Only Had a Brain
An evening pause: From the 1939 MGM classic, The Wizard of Oz, when Hollywood still made films in which the witches were the bad guys, not the heroes.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
May 30, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Dawn Aerospace: now producing 2 B20 satellite thrusters per week, having shipped 100 to customers
More information about the thruster here.
- PLD’s suborbital Miura-1 set to launch later today on first test flight from Spain
The live stream is available here, beginning at 8:30 pm (Pacific).
- New crew welcomed on China’s Tiangong-3 space station
The two crews will remain together on the station for the next five days, when the old crew will return to Earth. Video of the docking can be seen here.
- China announces plan to land humans on Moon before 2030
The officials claim they are working full speed on their manned lunar lander, the rocket, lunar spacesuits, etc. I have no idea if they will meet the date, but I agree with Jay, who wrote, “I bet they beat Blue Moon.”
New data gives the same result as old data: Like the flu, COVID hurt NO ONE who was young and healthy
Trofim Lysenko (on the left), the person now considered the ideal
scientific model by health officials, preaching to Stalin as he destroyed
Soviet plant research, persecuted anyone who disagreed with him,
and caused famines that killed millions.
New data from Israel has now confirmed what was obvious almost from the beginning, that COVID-19 was nothing more than a variation of the flu, a danger only to the elderly and the chronically sick.
According to newly revealed Israeli Ministry of Health data, during the entire epidemic there were zero deaths (that’s 0, nil, none, naught, zilch, null) from COVID to anyone under fifty who was of average and reasonable health.
Zero healthy individuals under the age of 50 have died of COVID-19 in Israel, according to newly released data. “Zero deceased of 18–49 years of age with no underlying morbidities,” the Israel Ministry of Health (MOH) said in response to a formal request from an attorney. Officials noted that the statement only applies to COVID-19 deaths where the MOH conducted an epidemiological investigation and had received information about the underlying diseases.
“Zero is a very, very clear number, and cannot be subject to interpretation,” Yoav Yehezkelli, a specialist in internal medicine and medical management, and former lecturer in the Department of Emergency and Disaster Management at Tel Aviv University in Israel, told The Epoch Times.
“Why were all the extreme measures of school closures, vaccination of children, and lockdowns needed?” he added. [emphasis mine]
This data simply confirms what numerous health experts unwilling to play political games with the data have said from the beginning, that COVID was essentially similar to the flu, harmless to healthy people and only a risk to the elderly and those with serious chronic health issues. Just like the flu, if you are healthy you have no reason to fear it, and in fact, you should be unbothered about getting it as it will give you natural immunity, thus making the spread of the virus more difficult and reducing the risk to those whom the virus (and the flu) could kill.
Trump — along with a lot of other Washington officials — proved this point when they all got COVID in October 2020 and quickly recovered. As I wrote then:
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