Russia launches Progress to ISS
Russia today successfully launched a Progress cargo freighter to ISS using its Soyuz-2 rocket.
The 2022 launch race:
6 SpaceX
2 China
2 Russia
1 Virgin Orbit
1 ULA
1 Europe (Arianespace)
1 India
SpaceX and Jared Isaacman announce another private Dragon flight
Capitalism in space: SpaceX and Jared Isaacman, the man who organized and commanded the Inspiration4 private commercial manned Dragon flight last fall, today announced a second private commercial Dragon flight, scheduled for this coming fall.
SpaceX plans to launch a new private astronaut mission, Polaris Dawn, from Florida as early as Nov. 1 and will attempt to conduct the first private spacewalk in history, the company announced Monday.
Businessman Jared Isaacman, founder and CEO of the payments company Shift4, will command the mission, having previously he led the first all-private orbital mission in September known as Inspiration4. Isaacman is an experienced jet pilot.
The crew will also include two SpaceX engineers, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, as mission specialists and Isaacman’s business associate, Scott “Kidd” Poteet, as pilot.
The flight will attempt to achieve a higher orbit than even the highest flights during the U.S. space program’s Gemini missions that flew 853 miles above the Earth with astronauts Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon.
Isaacman has also tied this flight to more fundraising for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, suggesting that he was very happy with the charity received in connection with his Inspiration4 spaceflight. If this new flight comes off as planned, Isaacman will follow it up with two more SpaceX manned flights.
For the spacewalk, SpaceX will have to complete the development of its own EVA spacesuit, and have four suits available for the crew since Dragon capsules do not have an airlock.
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
Krisztina Vellai – Aerial Silk Act
A evening pause: Don’t try this at home.
Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
Want to make a suggestion for an evening pause? Behind the Black could use your help. If you’ve done it before you know the routine. If not, mention that you have something in the comments but don’t post the link to it. I will contact you.
The guidelines:
1. The subject line should say “evening pause.”
2. Don’t send more than three in any email. I prefer however if you send them one email at a time.
3. Variety! Don’t send me five from the same artist. I can only use one. Pick your favorite and send that.
4. Live performance preferred.
5. Quirky technology, humor, and short entertaining films also work.
6. Search BtB first to make sure your suggestion hasn’t already been posted.
7. I might not respond immediately, as I schedule these in a bunch.
8. Avoid the politics of the day. The pause is a break from such discussion.
FAA delays Starship approval again
Death by a thousand cuts: The FAA today announced that it is once again delaying the release of the final version of its environmental reassessment of SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility, the PEA, that will allow Starship orbital launches to occur there.
The FAA intended to release the Final PEA on February 28, 2022. The FAA now plans to release the Final PEA on March 28, 2022 to account for further comment review and ongoing interagency consultations.
Though the draft PEA had approved SpaceX future Starship operations at Boca Chica, all signs continue to point to heavy resistance to making that approval official both within the Biden administration as well as those other “interagency consultations.”
I predict that the FAA will delay again, and it will delay repeatedly month by month as agencies like Fish & Wildlife and NOAA refuse to go along. The only one who could break this deadlock would be President Biden, and the only chance he or any of the people running his administration will do so is if they decide to reject the FAA’s reassessment to instead demand a new and full environmental impact statement, which would likely take years to complete.
Texas politicians might want to wake up. If SpaceX fails to get this approval it will shift its Starship operations almost entirely to Florida. I must also add that politicians across the nation should wake up as well, because if the Biden administration blocks SpaceX, the many year delay for the launch of Starship will likely impact many many businesses nationwide. It will also negatively impact NASA’s effort to land humans on the Moon this decade.
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.
The lie that was COVID
How our governments determined policy against COVID during
the past two years.
Almost two years after the first arrival of the Wuhan virus into the United States, we now can look back at what has transpired and come to some solid conclusions about this respiratory illness as well as the draconian panic-based responses by governments and many citizens.
The most significant take-away from this review is simple: Routinely, government officials, especially those in states controlled by Democrats, lied repeatedly in order to create fear and terror in the general population. Almost every claim they made, edict they declared, or mandate they ordered, was either an outright lie, or designed to obscure the truth. Let’s take them one-by-one.
The models
Almost immediately, politicians, health officials, and government scientists began touting a variety of computer models, with the model [pdf] put forth by scientists at Imperial College leading the way, that claimed millions would die if some short-term draconian measures were not taken immediately. Governments and corporations had to impose very temporary two-week lockdowns, social distancing, and mask mandates to slow the spread of COVID in order to reduce the immediate impact and thus avoid hospitals and health facilities from being overrun.
In other words, we were told that by simply under-going two weeks of martial law, the curve would flatten, hospitals would be able to handle the increased but controllable influx of patients, and we could then go back to normal.
This was an outright lie. » Read more
A floating Martian rock
For original images, click here and here.
Click for original photo.
Cool image time! As Curiosity begins the slow and careful journey up through the rocky Gordon Notch onto the even rockier Greenheugh Pedimont layer above, the science team is using its cameras to take pictures of the buttes that form the northern and southern walls of that notch.
The mosiac above and the photo to the right, both cropped and reduced to post here, is one beautiful example. Taken by Curiosity’s high resolution camera on February 11th, both images show the consequences on geology of Mars’ low gravity, one third that of Earth’s. The top image shows the entire top of the butte, with the picture to the right focusing on one boulder that almost seems to be floating in the air. Look close and you can see daylight under the rock’s entire left half.
I think this butte is the north wall of Gordon Notch, but am not sure. Either way, the photos once again demonstrate that it is very dangerous to assign our Earth-based assumptions to Martian geology. There may be similarities, but the differences must not be ignored, or else our conclusions about what we see will be wrong.
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
SES and Jio Platforms form partnership to launch broadbrand satellite constellation
Capitalism in space: Luxembourg’s satellite company SES and India’s Jio Platforms have formed a partnership to launch a new satellite constellation designed to deliver broadband services to the Asian and Indian market.
This new satellite constellation, dubbed Jio Space Technology, aims to compete with both OneWeb and SpaceX’s Starlink constellation. Like OneWeb, which is half owned by an Indian company, Jio Space has direct links to India that will give it an advantage over SpaceX. In fact, it appears from the formation of this new company as well as the OneWeb UK/India partnership, that the powers-that-be in India are working together lock SpaceX from that market.
Lockheed Martin cancels merger with Aerojet Rocketdyne
Capitalism in space: Faced with a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) opposing the merger, Lockheed Martin yesterday announced that it is terminating its effort to buy Aerojet Rocketdyne.
Aerojet released a press release at the same time, insisting that the company remains viable and healthy, but there are doubts. While its rocket engines (its main business) remain technically reliable and well-built, they are relatively expensive. Moreover, the shift by rocket companies to build their own engines in the last decade has reduced its customer base significantly.
This loss of market is now compounded by a battle between two factions on the company’s board of directors.
While monopolies do not encourage competition, the merger with Lockheed Martin would have been mostly good for the rocket industry. It would have quickly given Lockheed Martin the skills to make rockets, and kept Aerojet Rocketdyne alive, albeit as part of another company. Now the latter faces extinction, and the former will need more time to develop the capabilities required in its recently-won NASA contract to launch a rocket from Mars to return samples.
And once again, the FTC lawsuit indicates that the Biden administration has decided to take a heavy-regulatory hand when it comes to business. The result however of this approach in this case has not produced more competition, but the likely bankruptcy of at least one company.
India’s PSLV rocket launches radar satellite plus two cubesats
India successfully completed its first launch in 2022 yesterday, using its mid-sized PSLV rocket to launch an Indian radar satellite plus two cubesats.
The 2022 launch race:
6 SpaceX
2 China
1 Virgin Orbit
1 ULA
1 Russia
1 India
Rocket stage to hit Moon is from Chinese rocket, not Falcon 9 upper stage
Astronomers have now concluded that the rocket stage that will impact the Moon on March 4th is not an abandoned the Falcon 9 upper stage that launched the DISCOVR satellite in 2015, but an upper stage from a Chinese rocket.
It was an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Jon Giorgini, who realized this object was not in fact the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket. He wrote to Gray on Saturday morning explaining that the DSCOVR spacecraft’s trajectory did not go particularly close to the Moon, and that it would therefore be a little strange if the second stage strayed close enough to strike it. This prompted Gray to dig back into his data, and identify other potential candidates.
He soon found one—the Chinese Chang’e 5-T1 mission launched in October 2014 on a Long March 3C rocket. This lunar mission sent a small spacecraft to the Moon as a precursor test for an eventual lunar sample return mission. The launch time and lunar trajectory are almost an exact match for the orbit of the object that will hit the Moon in March.
Regardless, it will be very useful to pindown the exact impact time and place so that astronomers can observe it.
February 11, 2022 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, well worth your time, go here.
» Read more
The Eagles – Seven Bridges Road
An evening pause: Hat tip Blair Ivey.