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, any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, 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

Perseverance on the verge of leaving Jezero Crater

12:44 pm

Looking up to Lookout Hill
Click for original image.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Since landing on Mars in 2021, the rover Perseverance has been exploring Jezero Crater, first the crater floor and then the delta that poured into the crater through a western gap.

Now, after three years of exploration and the drilling of 25 core samples, the science team is about to send Perseverance over the top of the crater’s western rim, to explore the very mountainous but potentially rich mining region beyond.

The blue dot on the overview map to the right indicates the rover’s present position, with the area covered by the panorama above, taken on November 26, 2024 by Perverance’s left navigation camera and cropped and annotated to post here, indicated by the yellow lines.

The red dotted line indicates the rover’s planned route. The black dotted line is a former plan that apparently has now been abandoned. It appears the science team really wants to check out Witch Hazel Hill, as well as reach the rim’s highest point to get views of its future travels. From an update posted yesterday:

Orbital views of Witch Hazel Hill suggest the area may contain layered and light-toned bedrock that likely record important information of the planet’s ancient climate. Prior to arriving at Witch Hazel Hill, the rover plans to pass through a high point known as Lookout Hill that will afford the team incredible views looking back into the crater, as well as get a glimpse westward of terrain far beyond Jezero.

The region beyond Jezero is hilly and rough. The views should be quite interesting.

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PLD obtains a new loan, this time for $11.6 million

11:45 am

The Spanish rocket startup PLD yesterday announced it has obtained a new $11.6 million loan that it plans to use to build its launch facility at the French-owned French Guiana spaceport.

The loan was issued by the Spanish governmment finance agency COFIDES, which comes on top of an earlier $43.8 million Spanish government grant. In addition, the company has gotten a $2.4 million grant from the European Commission, as well as a $1.37 million grant from the European Space Agency.

The company has also obtained a loan of $34 million from banks in Spain.

All told, the company has raised about $164 million, more than $58 million came from government agencies, with another $34 million from loans.

For whatever reason, PLD has found favor with the various governments in Europe, fueling its work. None of the other European rocket startups from Germany or Great Britain have been as lucky.

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Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black., You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:


1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.


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Analysis of Chang’e-6’s lunar samples suggest the giant impact that caused Aitken Basin occurred 2.83 billion years ago

10:33 am

Chang'e-6's landing site
Click for original image of Chang’e-6 on the Moon

In a paper published in mid-November, Chinese scientists have concluded that — based on their analysis of the lunar samples returned by their Chang’e-6 spacecraft — the giant impact that created the 1,600-mile-wide South Pole-Aitken Basin on the Moon occurred about 2.83 billion years ago.

This conclusion is based both on the dating of the samples as well an analysis of the cratering rate on the Moon. It also suggests the landing site as well as Aitken basin were volcanically active for longer than previous predictions. Overall, scientists believe most volcanic activity on the Moon ceased around three billion years ago.

As noted in the paper, the near and far sides of the Moon are very different.

The Moon has a global dichotomy, with its near and far sides having different geomorphology, topography, chemical composition, crustal thickness, and evidence of volcanism. Volcanic eruptions flooded parts of the surface with lava, producing rocks known as mare basalts, which are more common on the nearside (4), where they cover ~30% of the surface compared to 2% of the farside.

The farside’s crust is also thicker, though under Aitken Basin the difference largely disappears.

This first precise dating for the far side is the first step for understanding why the Moon’s hemispheres are so different. Though many theories exist, none can be considered definitive because we so far have only one data point for the far side.

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The uncertainty of science: Star refuses to erupt when predicted

9:48 am

Based on records of two past eruptions approximately eighty years apart, astronomers had predicted that the binary star system T Coronae Borealis would erupt sometime in September 2024, brightening from magnitude 10 to as much as magnitude 2, making it one of the sky’s brighter stars for a short while.

That eruption however has so far not taken place.

“We know it has to happen,” astrophysicist Elizabeth Hays, who is watching T CrB every day using NASA’s Fermi gamma-ray space telescope, told Space.com in a recent interview. “We just can’t pin it down to the month.”

The unpredictability stems partly from limited historical records of T CrB’s outbursts. Only two such eruptions have been definitively observed in recent history: on May 12, 1866, when a star’s outburst briefly outshined all the stars in its constellation, reaching magnitude 2.0, and again on February 9, 1946, when it peaked at magnitude 3.0. These events appear to follow the star’s roughly 80-year cycle, suggesting that the next outburst may not occur until 2026. [emphasis mine]

The eruptions are thought to occur because the system’s denser white dwarf star pulls material from the lighter orbiting red giant. Over time that material accumulates on the surface of the white dwarf until it reaches critical mass, triggering a nuclear explosion that we see as the star’s brightening.

Astronomers have assumed this process is predictable, but in truth it really is not. For example, the star has brightened at other times, in 1938 and again in 2015, though not as much. These other brightenings suggest a great deal of uncertainty in the rate in which material accumulates, as well as how much is needed to trigger a nuclear burst.

Because of the possibility however of a burst at any time, astronomers have been poised eagerly now for months, observing the star regularly with the many orbiting telescopes that can observe it not only in optical wavelengths but in gamma, X-rays, and infrared. The latter capabilities didn’t exist in previous eruptions, and are now able to tell them things about the system that was impossible for earlier astronomers.

Assuming the eruption occurs at all. Despite the certainty of the astronomer’s quote highlighted above, there is no certainty here. This star system will do whatever it wants, despite the predictions of mere human beings.

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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.

Varda wins $48 million Air Force contract

9:29 am

Varda's space capsule, on the ground in Utah
Varda’s first capsule on the ground in Utah.

The U.S. Air Force last week awarded the reusable orbiting capsule company Varda a four-year $48 million contract for placing experimental hypersonic payloads on the capsule for testing during its re-entry through the atmosphere.

The four-year deal with AFRL [Air Force Research Laboratory], announced on Nov. 26, leverages Varda’s W-Series reentry capsules as platforms to test payloads at hypersonic speeds. The spacecraft are built on Rocket Lab’s Photon satellite bus,

…Varda’s next mission, W-2, is scheduled for early 2025. This mission is designed to showcase the Varda Hypersonic Testbed vehicle. The capsule will carry an AFRL-developed spectrometer payload named OSPREE (Optical Sensing of Plasmas in the Reentry Environment) to collect critical data during atmospheric descent.

Up until now Varda’s customers have been entirely focused on using the capsule to produce pharmaceuticals in weightlessness for sale back on Earth. This new contract provides it another and initially unexpected way to make money on the capsule’s capabilities.

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China launches communications test satellite

9:19 am

China today successfully launched a communications satellite designed according to its state-run press to test new communication technologies, its Long March 3B rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages and four strap-on boosters, all using toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

124 SpaceX
57 China
15 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 143 to 85, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 124 to 104.

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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

The real proof that the American political scene is about to experience a new revolution

10:27 am

The Democratic Party for the past half century
The Democratic Party for the past half century

While the conservative press is today going ga-ga over Joe Biden’s pardoning of his son Hunter yesterday — noting accurately that Biden’s action proved himself once again to be a liar and a fraud, having spent the last four years insisting he would never do such a thing while also insisting that “no one is above the law” — I think it more instructive to look at what some of the most rabid partisan leftists have been saying, before and after the election of Donald Trump.

You see, some of these partisan leftists are actually doing something I have not seen a partisan leftist do since before Bill Clinton was president — they are showing an ability to have an open mind.

Let’s begin with two members of a leftist podcast group dubbed the Young Turks that for years saw nothing good about any Republican and considering Donald Trump the epitomization of the devil himself. Anything Trump did was wrong. Everything Trump and the Republicans represented was evil and must be opposed blindly. During and after this presidential election campaign however two of the more noted members of this podcast, Ann Kasparian and Cenk Uygar, changed their tune, and did so in an astonishing way.

First there was Kasparian’s announcement in October that she has left the Democratic Party. Watch:
» Read more

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New stars shaped by old stars

8:50 am

New stars shaped by old stars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a study focused on looking at star formation in nearby galaxies. From the caption:

Evidence of star formation is scattered all around NGC 1637, if you know where to look. The galaxy’s spiral arms are dotted with what appear to be pink clouds, many of which are accompanied by bright blue stars. The pinkish colour comes from hydrogen atoms that have been excited by ultraviolet light from young, massive stars. This contrasts with the warm yellow glow of the galaxy’s centre, which is home to a densely packed collection of older, redder stars.

The stars that set their birthplaces aglow are comparatively short-lived, and many of these stars will explode as supernovae just a few million years after they’re born. In 1999, NGC 1637 played host to a supernova, pithily named SN 1999EM, that was lauded as the brightest supernova seen that year. When a massive star expires as a supernova, the explosion outshines its entire home galaxy for a short time. While a supernova marks the end of a star’s life, it can also jump start the formation of new stars by compressing nearby clouds of gas, beginning the stellar lifecycle anew.

This galaxy is one worth keeping an eye on for supernovae, since every one of those blue stars has the potential of erupting.

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China completes first launch of its Long March 12 rocket

9:19 pm

China today successfully launched for the first time its new Long March 12 rocket, lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport and placing “two technology test satellites” into orbit.

The two-stage rocket, powered by burning kerosene and liquid oxygen, is notable as the first 3.8-metre-wide rocket launched so far by China, said Wu Jialin, an engineer with the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology under CASC, which developed the spacecraft.

Most Chinese rockets have a diameter of 3.35 meters, Wu told a press conference on site shortly after the launch was announced successful. “A wider body means the rocket can hold about 30 per cent more propellant, giving it much enhanced carrying capacity,” he said.

For comparison, the Falcon 9 has a diameter of 3.7 meters, though its payload fairing is wider. China intends to use this new rocket to launch its own large satellite constellations to compete with SpaceX.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

124 SpaceX
56 China
15 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 143 to 84, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 124 to 103.

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Construction begins for 3rd spaceport in Scotland

8:04 am

Map of spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea

Construction of a third spaceport in Scotland has now begun, its location on the northwest coast of the island of North Uist (as shown on the map to the right), with its plans to serve suborbital launches initially.

The Highlands and Islands Enterprise, a Scottish government agency focused on regional development, has allocated £947,000 for the construction of the site’s enabling infrastructure. Additionally, the Comhairle is contributing £675,000 from its 2023-2028 capital programme. The total cost of the enabling works project is estimated to be £2.6 million.

After the construction of the enabling infrastructure is complete, which is expected to occur by Spring 2025, a private sector operator will take over to complete the second phase of construction and manage the spaceport.

According to the Wikipedia page for this area on North Uist, the project was first proposed in 2019, and was then hoping to attract orbital launches. Subsequent opposition by activists slowed development and likely reduced the project from orbital to suborbital, at least for now.

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SpaceX launches for NRO

7:46 am

SpaceX early today successfully completed a launch for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The broadcast by SpaceX began after launch, had degraded visuals, and cut off immediately after the first stage, on its very first flight, touched down successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific. Very little confirmed information was released about the payload, though according to this story that payload included 20 Starlink satellites as well as an additional payload for NRO. It is also possible the Starlink satellites were that NRO payload, being the Starshield military version of Starlink.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

124 SpaceX
55 China
15 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 143 to 83, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 124 to 102.

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SpaceX launches 24 Starlink satellites

12:35 am

SpaceX tonight successfully placed another 24 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its sixth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

123 SpaceX
55 China
15 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 142 to 83, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 123 to 102.

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November 29, 2024 Quick space links

4:07 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

3 comments

Russia launches radar satellite

3:36 pm

Russia today successfully launched a new radar Earth-observation satellite, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Vostochny spaceport in the far east.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

122 SpaceX
55 China
15 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 141 to 83, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 122 to 102.

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Strange mesas in the glacier country of Mars

11:48 am

Overview map

Strange mesas in the glacier country of Mars

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 2, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The white dot in the overview map above marks the location, inside the chaos terrain of Deuternilus Mensae and part of the 2,000-mile-long mid-latitude Martian strip I label “glacier country,” because practically every image of every part of its landscape has glacial features. For example, the splash apron around the picture’s largest crater as well as the material within it all suggest some form of glacial activity and near-surface ice.

The scientists label what they see here as “Mesas in Small Craters.” These features are located in a low flat plain that geologists think was created when the ground eroded away, leaving behind scattered high plateaus that indicate the previous surface elevation. The geological map [pdf] of this plain describes it as follows:

Smooth, relatively featureless materials with regions of variable albedo north of continuous cratered highlands; exhibits scattered clusters of small circular to irregular knobs.

Based on the many accumulated photos from MRO, the general conclusion is that we are looking at a sheet of ice/dirt and covered by a thin dust layer that acts to protect that ice from sublimating away. When wind blows that dust off and the summer sun hits that near-surface ice, however, it does sublimate in bursts, which thus provides an explanation for the erosion that caused these low featureless plains.

As for these strange terraced mesas inside these distorted hollows, my guess is that the mesas predate the icesheet and are made of material with less ice impregnated within it. As that ice sublimates away it creates the craters within which the mesas remain. The terraces suggest a earlier series of geological sedimentary history.

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Update on Astroscale’s mission to de-orbit a OneWeb satellite

9:34 am

Link here. Lots of details. The project is now targeting a ’26 launch, and if successful would be the first to capture a spacecraft in orbit and de-orbit it commercially — assuming some other orbital tug company doesn’t do it first.

One tidbit from the article that I had not known:

While the UK Space Agency and European Space Agency have provided around $35 million in funds, … Astroscale is financing “well over 50%” of the mission.

In other words, both the UK and ESA are following the capitalism model. They have left ownership and control of the de-orbit tug to Astroscale, which means they require it to obtain outside private investment capital on its own.

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“Toxic smell” at Progress hatch was hypergolic fuel

9:24 am

Figure 3 from September Inspector General report
Figure 3 from September Inspector General report, annotated to show Zvezda and Poisk locations.

According to information obtained by Anatoly Zak at RussianSpaceWeb.com, the “toxic smell” detected by Russian astronauts immediately after opening the hatch to unload the newly docked Progress at ISS was actually a small but very dangerous amount of hypergolic fuel left over from the previous Progress freighter.

[T]he working hypothesis was that the ground control failed to perform a routine purging of propellant lines between the station and Progress MS-27 before its undocking. As a result, highly toxic residue of hypergolic propellant remaining in the lines could easily spill into the main cavity of the docking mechanism on Poisk, once Progress MS-27 undocked from the module, an industry source told RussianSpaceWeb.com. After the arrival of Progress MS-29, the interior of the docking mechanism between the space station and the cargo ship was re-pressurized trapping the propellant residue and letting it into the station after opening of the hatches. [emphasis mine]

If true, this incident indicates a shocking level of incompetence, sloppiness, or even malice at Russian mission control. How can mission controllers forget to do a “routine purging” of hypergolic fuel, especially when it is known that this very dangerous fuel — which can dissolve skin if you allow yourself to get in contact with it — can “easily spill” into the docking port where people will travel?

The Russian government pays its top-level engineers very little, even as those engineers watch often bungling managers rake in big bucks through legal deal-making as well as bribery and embezzlement (only rarely caught and punished). These circumstances have been suggested as behind the various suspicious leaks in Soyuz and Progress capsules as well as the new Nauka module. In the case of the Soyuz, it was clearly caused by someone drilling a hole on the ground before launch and then fixing it with a makeshift patch that was certain to fail during the mission in space. Both the Progress and Nauka leaks also suggested a similar cause. The Russians told NASA its investigation discovered who drilled that Soyuz hole, but never revealed what it had found. As for the Progress and Nauka leaks, no investigation results were ever even discussed.

There is something distinctly rotten within Roscosmos, a rottenness that it appears Russia is doing little to fix. More likely it can’t really fix it, because the Putin administration in the late 2000s made Russia’s aerospace industry a remake of the Soviet Union, a single government-run corporation that owns everything and blocks all competition. Since then it has shown a steady decline in its ability to accomplish much and the steady growth of problems such as this.

The sooner Americans no longer have to partner with Russia the better. We must hope that NASA can at least get to 2030 and its planned retirement of ISS without a major failure. This leak occurred within the Poisk docking module that is attached to the larger Zvezda module where air is leaking from the station due to serious stress fractures in its hull. Each docking puts more stress on Zvezda, risking a catastrophic failure, so much so that it is now NASA policy to close the hatch between the American and Russian halves of the station whenever such dockings take place.

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Aaron Copland – “The Promise of Living” from The Tender Land

6:01 pm

An evening pause: I posted this for Thanksgiving in 2012 and 2015. Time to post again. As I wrote in 2015:

The hope of America will always live on, even when America is gone. Ordinary people want freedom, love, family, and the right to live their lives as they wish, without harming others, so they can bring in “the blessings of harvest,” whatever that harvest might be. It must be our goal to allow that to happen, and to stop those that wish to prevent it.

The promise of living
With hope and thanksgiving,,,

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UPDATE: Launch did not occur

3:15 pm

UPDATE: Thanks to my readers (see below), we can now confirm that the launch listed below did not occur as indicated at the link I provided, and is rescheduled for a few days hence. I have therefore removed this launch from Russia’s totals for 2024.

The corrected leaders in the 2024 launch race:

122 SpaceX
55 China
14 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 141 to 82, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 122 to 101.

The original post, minus the launch totals:
————————
Russia yesterday apparently launched a classified military payload, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport in northwest Russia.

This launch however remains unconfirmed by any other sources. No information about its launch or payload appears available on line, except for the link I provide above. Though I am adding it to Russia’s launch totals, I will remove if if further information proves it did not happen.

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Lincoln proclaims a day of Thanksgiving — in the middle of the Civil War

9:01 am

Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln

As I wrote in 2023 for Thanksgiving last year, just six weeks after the horrible murderous massacre of innocent people by Hamas on October 7, 2023:

The date was October 3, 1863. The Civil War was at its height, with no end in sight and no clear sign yet of victory for the Union. For all anyone knew, the great American experiment in self-government, freedom, and constitutional law was about to end in failure, with one half of the nation committed to the idea that it was okay to enslave other human beings, based on their race.

In such a moment, President Abraham Lincoln did what all past leaders in America had done, call for a day of prayer to God for the future while giving thanks for the blessings still abounding. For this purpose he set aside the last Thursday of November of that year.

Since then, Americans have never stopped celebrating Thanksgiving on that day. Today comes another Thanksgiving during a time of chaos, hate, violence, and oppression. There is much to invoke horror and outrage.

There is much more to be thankful for. As much as some have tried to squelch freedom here in America and abroad, all signs say that freedom-lovers everywhere are refusing to go down without a fight. Let us join together to renew that effort, so that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Thanksgiving continues to be an utterly American holiday. No other nation has anything like it. And it lives on, because deep down, all ordinary Americans — from all walks of life and political persuasions — are still hopeful and determined to build a life for themselves and their loved ones, with joy and justice and freedom at its heart.

Thus, the words of Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving proclamation still rings true to us all. Let us put aside our petty factional differences and, as Lincoln asked, give thanks as “one heart and one voice by the whole American People.”
—————————–
A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.
» Read more

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November 27, 2024 Quick space links

3:04 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

  • On this day in 2018 InSight touched down on Mars
    Though the mission was able to do the first seismology on Mars, overall it was a troubled mission. It was delayed years because the first seismometer, built by France, didn’t work and had to be replaced, and then the second science instrument, a German-built drill designed to drill down five meters, failed to work on Mars.
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Unusual light-colored Martian dunes

1:49 pm

Unusual light-colored Martian dunes
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 27, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The picture was simply labeled a “terrain sample,” which usually means it was taken not as part of any specific research request, but to fill a gap in the schedule so as to maintain the camera’s proper temperature. When such gap-filler pictures are necessary, the MRO camera team tries to snap something of interest. Sometimes the pictures end up somewhat boring. This time however the picture highlights a dune field that is unusually light in color.

Since most Martian sand is volcanic in origin, it tends to look dark in orbital pictures. That this sand looks bright could be because it is inherently different, or it could be that lighting conditions make what normally looks dark to look bright instead.
» Read more

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Trump’s picks to run all the federal health agencies guarantees major change is coming

1:02 pm

Trump defiant after being shot
Trump defiant

Fight! Fight! Fight! The announcement late yesterday that president-elect Donald Trump has picked Jay Bhattacharya, the director of Stanford University’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging, to head the National Institutes of Health (NIH) underlined quite forcefully the certainty that the outsider nature of all of Trump’s picks to head all the health-related agencies in the federal government will led to major changes in how those agencies operate.

Bhattacharya had been blacklisted for his very vocal opposition to the government’s lockdown and mandate policies during the COVID epidemic. He along with Martin Kulldorff, one of the world’s foremost experts on vaccines and who was also blacklisted during the epidemic, co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration that strongly criticized the policies of imposed by these health agencies, calling instead for a return to the standard response to infectious diseases that had been followed successfully for more than a century.

Putting Bhattacharya in charge of NIH is incredibly ironic. When he along with Kulldorff had come out opposed to the lockdown and jab mandates advocated by Francis Collins, then-head of the NIH, Collins in league with Anthony Fauci, then head of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), put together a back-room campaign to have Bhattacharya, Kulldorff, and many others blacklisted across social media. This campaign also had Kulldorf removed as a member of the CDC’s vaccine safety advisory committee.

Two years later, Collins is now gone, is being sued for his actions, and Bhattacharya has replaced him.

Trump’s defiant choice of Bhattacharya however is only one of many similar decisions, beginning last month with the choice of Robert Kennedy Jr. to run the Department of Health and Human Services.
» Read more

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NASA: forcing it to fly VIPER would cause it to cancel funding to 1 to 4 other commercial lunar landers

10:31 am

VIPER's planned route on the Moon
VIPER’s now canceled planned route at the Moon’s south pole

According to a response by NASA to a House committee and obtained by Space News, if Congress forces the agency to fly its canceled VIPER moon rover NASA would have to cancel funding to one to four other commercial lunar landers being built by private companies as part of NASA’s CLPS program.

In one scenario, NASA assumed VIPER would launch on Astrobotic’s Griffin lander as previously planned in September 2025. The agency estimated it would need to spend $104 million to prepare VIPER itself, $20 million of which had already been allocated for activities in fiscal year 2024, along with $20 million in “additional risk mitigation activities” for Griffin. “NASA estimated that these additional funding requirements would lead to cancellation of one CLPS delivery and delay of another delivery by a year,” it stated.

A second scenario anticipated a one-year slip in VIPER’s launch to September 2026. NASA projected an additional $50 million in costs for VIPER and $40 million for Griffin. That would have resulted in two canceled CLPS task orders and a one-year delay to two others.

NASA also revealed it considered “alternative delivery means” for VIPER other than Griffin. NASA did not disclose details about those alternatives, calling them “highly proprietary” but which would have delayed the launch of VIPER beyond 2026 “and would still include significant uncertainty about the reliability of delivery success.” NASA projected total costs of $350 million to $550 million with this scenario, resulting in the cancellation of four CLPS task orders and delaying three to four more by two years.

NASA preferred option is for a private company to take over VIPER. At the moment the agency is reviewing eleven proposals put forth by such companies that has “enough spaceflight experience and technical abilities to conduct the VIPER mission.”

Congress has gotten involved because the science community has lobbied hard to save it. The project itself has been a problem for NASA since its first iteration as Resource Prospector, when NASA would have built both the rover and lander. It has consistently gone over budget and behind schedule, even after NASA gave the lander portion to a private company, Astrobotic. At present the rover is 3X over budget with more overages expected, which is why NASA cancelled it.

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American spaceplane startup signs deal with Australian spaceport startup

10:17 am

Australian commercial spaceports
Australia’s commercial spaceports. Click for original map.

The American spaceplane startup Titans Space, which hopes to develop a reusuable space plane based on designs developed in the 1970s by Rockwell, has now signed a deal with the Australian spaceport startup Space Port Australia to work together to find an Australian location for both building the spaceplane and launching it.

Titans Space, a company that is taking an innovative approach to the space industry, has ambitious plans to become the largest low-earth orbit and lunar space tourism company in the world, as well as the largest “real estate owner in space and the Moon”.

Space Port Australia, which is headquartered in the NSW regional town of Moree, is committed to creating an integrated space facility which fosters innovation, industry, education and helps grow Australia’s place in the space sector.

Though Titans has raised some investment capital, this project is right now in its aspirational phase. It is very possible none of this will happen. This announcement is mostly an attempt to generate interest in both projects.

As for Space Port Australia, if it finds a location for this project it would be the fourth spaceport in Australia, joining the three spaceports that already have completed or have planned launches, as shown on the map to the right.

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FCC approves use of Starlink for direct cell-to-satellite T-Mobile service

10:02 am

Despite objections from all of SpaceX’s competitors, the FCC has now approved the use of its Starlink constellation for direct cell-to-satellite service as part of T-Mobile’s cellular network.

The decision noted that many technical issues still must be cleared.

There are a few limitations on how this type of service (which the FCC calls “supplemental coverage from space,” or SCS) can work. Right now it officially has to operate as an extension of an existing terrestrial provider, in this case T-Mobile. That’s because the regulations on how you broadcast stuff in space are different from those for how you broadcast stuff to and from a phone (as opposed to a base station antenna). AT&T, for its part, is partnering with AST SpaceMobile.

SpaceX must also be sure that its service does not interfere with other services on the ground, while the ground services do not have to worry about whether they might interfere with the satellite signals.

Nonetheless, this approval likely means that soon users of T-Mobile (as well as AT&T) will no longer have any dead zones. When there are no cell towers available, their phones will simply access the orbiting constellations of either Starlink or AST SpaceMobile.

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