May 4, 2023 Quick space links

3:43 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

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Weird dome near Starship candidate landing zone on Mars

1:47 pm

Weird dome near Starship candidate landing zone 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 February 27, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as domes in Arcadia Planitia, one of the many large northern lowland plains of Mars.

This to me is a “What the heck?” image. I won’t dare try to explain the warped concentric ringed pattern at the top of the mesa, nor the bright and dark splotch that surrounds it. The small craters around it appear to have glacier material within them, and the terrain here likely has a lot of near surface ice, being at 37 degrees north latitude in a region where the data suggests such ice exists. The different colors here likely indicate the difference between dust (orange) and coarser material (aqua).

The location, as shown in the overview map below, makes this mesa more tantalizing.
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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

Today’s blacklisted American: Biden administration threatens to shut down Catholic hospital system because of a candle

12:36 pm

The evil candle that must be snuffed out!
The evil candle that the Biden administration insists must be snuffed out,
or else the hospital must close.

They’re coming for you next: Because the Saint Francis Health System in Oklahoma has always kept a single candle lit in its hospital chapels, Biden administration officials are now threatening to shut down five Catholic hospitals in Oklahoma, citing federal government fire safety requirements.

If Saint Francis does not comply, the government will revoke its ability to obtain any Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) payments for treating patients, in essence blocking those patients from healthcare while threatening the entire Saint Francis Health System with bankruptcy.

In response, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty (as legal representative of St. Francis) sent a letter [pdf] in protest, noting that the Biden administration’s goal has nothing to do with fire safety, but to censor and squelch the religious practice of the St. Francis Health System:
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Two interacting galaxies, both with active supermassive black holes at their center

10:20 am

Interacting galaxies
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released today. From the caption:

This new image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows interacting galaxies known as AM 1214-255. These galaxies contain active galactic nuclei, or AGNs. An AGN is an extraordinarily luminous central region of a galaxy. Its extreme brightness is caused by matter whirling into a supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s heart.

Hubble observed the galaxy [on the right] as part of an AGN survey, with the aim of compiling a dataset about nearby AGNs to be used as a resource for astronomers investigating AGN physics, black holes, host galaxy structure, and more.

Note how the outer arms of both galaxies appear warped, with long streams of stars being pulled towards the other galaxy. Imagine living on a planet orbiting one of those stars as it finds itself over time farther and farther from its home galaxy, out in the vast emptiness of intergalactic space. While this sounds lonely, it has advantages for life, because isolated from the galaxy the star will not be threatened by supernovae, gamma ray bursts, and the host of other events that happen inside galaxies that can threaten biology.

It also means your night sky will be heralded by the rising and setting of two nearby giant galaxies.

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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.

Two Russian astronauts shift airlock on ISS during 7-hour spacewalk

9:58 am

With the help of the new European robot arm on the Russian half of ISS, two Russian astronauts completed a 7-hour spacewalk yesterday, successfully shifting a Russian airlock module to the new Nauka module on ISS.

The cosmonauts began their spacewalk at 11:01 p.m. Moscow time on Wednesday and spent seven hours and ten minutes outside the International Space Station (ISS). The main objective of their extravehicular activities was to transfer an airlock from the Rassvet module to the Nauka multi-purpose laboratory module. It was done with the help of the ERA robotic arm under the remote control of cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, who stayed aboard the ISS.

The work is part of an ongoing series of spacewalks required to complete the installation of Nauka to the station.

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Maxar sale closes and company goes private

9:44 am

With the purchase today for $6.4 billion of the satellite company Maxar by two private investment firms, its stock was removed from the NY stock exchange and is no longer traded publicly.

The company was acquired for $53 per share by the U.S. private equity firm Advent International and minority investor British Columbia Investment Management Corp. in a deal announced in December. “With the closing of the transaction, Maxar will remain a U.S.-controlled, owned and operated company,” the company said. Maxar’s common stock will also be delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Maxar started trading on the New York Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2017. It officially became a U.S. corporation in 2020 when the company spun off the Canadian subsidiary MDA.

The desire of these private investors to spend so much strongly indicates that Maxar has real value. It also indicates indirectly the strength of the emerging new commercial launch market. These investors clearly believe that this launch market will continue to grow and force the launch price of its satellites to go down.

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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

SpaceX launches 56 Starlink satellites into orbit

12:41 am

Using its Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX tonight successfully placed 56 Starlink satellites into orbit, lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its seventh flight, landing safely on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The two fairing halves completed their eighth and ninth flights, respectively.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

29 SpaceX
16 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
3 India

American private enterprise now leads China 32 to 16 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 32 to 28. SpaceX now trails the rest of the world, including American companies, 29 to 31.

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May 3, 2023 Quick space links

4:23 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

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In a Martian cold cauldron, boil and bake

1:25 pm

bubbles and boiling ground
Click for original image.

Cool image time! My headline paraphrases slightly the witches’ chant from Shakespeare’s MacBeth, if only to make it more accurately describe the picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here. Taken on January 5, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), it shows a patch of mid-latitude terrain in the icy northern lowland plains of Mars.

While some of the craters here were certainly caused by impact, it is also likely that most were instead cryo-volcanic in nature, whereby ice bubbles up from below as changing temperature conditions — none of which need to be very warm — cause it to either melt temporarily into liquid or sublimate directly into a gas. The dark pimplelike hole on the picture’s right edge is a perfect example, with the hole sitting at the top of a cone.
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Pushback: Court rules that PA school district denied parent public documents in “bad faith”

12:26 pm

Megan Brock, without question still being targeted by the government
Megan Brock, without question still
being targeted by the government

Bring a gun to a knife fight: When Pennsylvania parent Megan Brock demanded, under her state’s right-to-know law, public documents of the Bucks County health department concerning its decisions to impose Wuhan flu lockdowns and school closures (with the office of open records ruling in her favor), county officials then sued her multiple times to try to prevent her access to the records.

The court has now ruled against the county’s lawsuits, while also ruling that the county had operated in “bad faith” and fined it $1,500, the maximum allowed by law.

After the court conducted an in-camera review of the records, Judge Denise M. Bowman ruled on April 28 that more than half of Brock’s requests, which were made under the state’s Right-to-Know Law (RTK), had been withheld “in bad faith.” She ordered the county to release certain documents and pay $1,500 in sanctions for each of the two lawsuits brought against Brock, the maximum allowed under RTK.

You can read the ruling here [pdf]. It notes in particular how county officials had even refused to provide the court one of these documents for review, demonstrating clearly its bad faith.
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