Clara Cernat & Thierry Huillet – Porumbescu Balada
An evening pause: Hat tip Judd Clark.
Sunspot update: May activity once again far above prediction
With the start of the month it is time once again for our monthly sunspot update, based on the new data that NOAA today added to its own monthly graph that tracks the number of sunspots on the Sun’s Earth-facing hemisphere. I have posted that graph below, but have added some extra details to provide some context.
In May the number of sunspots zipped upward again, ending up at the second highest monthly count during this ramp up to solar maximum, and the second highest count since the last solar maximum in 2014.
» 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
June 1, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- SpaceX’s Starlink wins Pentagon contract for satellite services to Ukraine
Terms were not released, but this contract is essentially the military’s recognition that if it wants Starlink available for use in the Ukraine it will have to pay for it. As Musk said several months ago, the freebie deal with SpaceX has to end.
- First Dream Chaser launch delayed to no early than the end of this year
This new delay appears mostly related to ULA’s problems in getting the launch rocket, Vulcan, operational.
- Tweet outlining activity launchpad construction activity at Cape Canaveral
I include this link because Jay thinks it is worth seeing, but it is written in the kind of typical Twitter shorthand that I find incredibly uninformative and confusing. All it does is hint at stuff without providing any real information.
- Analysis of Relativity’s Terran-R rocket says its launch price should be $55 million, though the early contracts are paying $45 million
The lower initial contract prices are nothing unusual. Satellite companies routinely get better prices on new rockets. Once established and proven the price then goes up. And at $55 million that price will still be competitive, and likely will soon drop once Relativity begins reusing parts, as it aims to do.
- Pakistan official says it plans to partner with China on its Lunar Base
The specifics still have to be worked out.
Martian rootless cones
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on March 8, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The camera team labeled this picture simply “Rootless Cones,” which is a feature that is created when the lava that covers the surface is thin, allowing the heated material below (which is not lava) to burst upward, producing the cone and caldera. If you look at the full image you will see other similar clusters of cones scattered about on this very flat and featureless plain. Apparently, the material that this lava plain covered had several similar bursts in a number of areas.
Such cones in this particular lava field are not rare, and in fact are evidence that this particular field is young.
» Read more
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.
Pushback: Christian adoption agency wins against NY’s attempt to force it to send kids to queer families
New Hope: willing to fight for its
religious beliefs
Bring a gun to a knife fight: When two different New York state agencies threatened to investigate and penalize the Christian nonprofit New Hope Family Services because it refused to place orphans with queer couples, instead insisting that the children under its care be adopted only by a mother and father, New Hope sued — twice — and has now won two settlements that will allow it to continue to place children in the manner that matches its beliefs.
Faith-based adoption provider New Hope Family Services secured a second victory against New York state officials, after securing a favorable settlement and a payment of $250,000 for attorneys’ fees in a related lawsuit settled last month. In settlement of the second lawsuit—which challenged an attempt by a different New York state agency to punish New Hope for adhering to its religious convictions—New York officials agreed to pay an additional $25,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs, and broadly confirmed New Hope’s right to continue its critical work of placing infants in permanent homes without government harassment.
ESA to live-stream image downloads from Mars Express
To celebrate Mars Express’s 20th year in orbit around Mars, the European Space Agency (ESA) has announced that tomorrow it will for one hour live-stream the image downloads coming from the orbiter.
I have embedded that live stream below. According to the press release, new images will arrive about once every 50 seconds. The camera that will be taking the pictures however is not one of Mars Express’s main instruments, but designed instead to simply monitor the separation of the Beagle-2 lander from the orbiter in 2003. Since 2007 however the science team has used its low resolution global images of Mars for public relations, education, and even some science research.
That the science team is not providing the live feed from its high resolution camera however illustrates why Mars Express gets so little press coverage, compared to Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). All MRO images are released to the public, usually only a month or so after they reach Earth. The ESA however has never made the archive of Mars Express accessible, as far as I have been able to discover. All it does is periodically issue a press release about once every few months touting one new image, even though the spacecraft is taking dozens daily.
» Read more
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
Viasat completes merger with Inmarsat
After two years dealing with regulatory delays, Viasat has finally completed its purchase of Inmarsat, producing a single company that has 8,000 employees and a fleet of nineteen operating satellites.
The key quote from the link however is this:
Their merger announcement sparked additional consolidation plans as operators look to bolster their defenses amid a growing competitive threat from Starlink in the satellite broadband market. Eutelsat announced plans to buy OneWeb in November 2022 and hopes to complete its merger this summer. SES and Intelsat confirmed March 29 they were in talks about merging, although they have not provided a meaningful update since then.
In other words, the older geosynchronous satellite companies are consolidating because of the competition posed by SpaceX’s Starlink system, which also suggests these companies have never competed very aggressively against each other to cut costs. Now that someone new (SpaceX) has arrived doing that, they find their only option is to merge. Apparently the corporate culture in each separate company finds cutting costs difficult. Merger appears to be their only avenue for doing so.
I wonder what will happen to these old satellite companies when (or if) Amazon finally begins launching and operating its own Kuiper constellation, in direct competition with SpaceX. Unless they finally begin to offer a competitive product at a competitive price, I expect after consolidation we will begin to see bankruptcies.
Sierra Space powers up its Dream Chaser mini-shuttle for the first time
Sierra Space yesterday announced that it has successfully run electricity for the first time through its first Dream Chaser mini-shuttle, dubbed Tenacity.
The press release is remarkably lacking in detailed information, or graphics. This quote is really the only hard facts mentioned:
Sierra Space simulated the power that will be generated from Dream Chaser’s solar arrays once on orbit. Test engineers plugged that power into Dream Chaser and began turning on systems. Sierra Space exercised flight computers, base processors and low-voltage distribution units.
Tenacity has been under construction since 2016, when the company won its NASA contract to build it. That’s seven years to build a single spacecraft, and yet all they have done so far is feed electricity through it for the first time. In that time period SpaceX not only built multiple prototypes of Starship and Superheavy, it has flown multiple test flights.
Is money an issue? The actual contract amount NASA gave Sierra Space to build Tenacity has never been published, though NASA has said the total awarded for all the cargo missions to be flown by SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, and Sierra Space equaled $14 billion. Since these fixed price contracts also require the companies also commit some of their own funds, or obtain outside financing, it is possible that Sierra Space has had money issues slowing development.
Regardless, Dream Chaser was first supposed to fly in 2020. It is now three years late, with no clear indication that a launch will come anytime soon. In many way, Sierra Space is beginning to remind me of Blue Origin, endlessly issuing promises but never delivering.
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.
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:
» Read more
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.