Ennio Morricone – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
An evening pause: Performed by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra in 2018.
Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
September 3, 2021 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
Posted on the road in Las Vegas on the way home.
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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
Righteous Brothers – You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling
An evening pause: Performed live on television, c1966. The sound on this video has been remastered using the studio recording, in a manner that really enhances the live performance in every way. (The original is available, but the sound was not great, and was partly drowned out by the audience.)
Hat tip Dan Steele.
Caving in remote Nevada
I am leaving today for a four day caving expedition in the remote mountains of Nevada. Thus, there will be little added to the webpage until I return late Monday. I will also not be around to moderate comments. For those new people who post comments please forgive me. Be patient. I will get to it when I get home.
I hope my readers have a great Labor Day weekend. Get out, see friends, go sightseeing, have a great time to celebrate the end of summer. And above all, don’t do what the CDC is demanding, to stay home if you are not vaccinated and even if you are, to wear a mask, maybe two or three, all the time, even when outdoors by yourself. Ignore such idiocy.
Use your common sense instead. Be brave. Be free. And above all, pursue your happiness fully, with joy.
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.
House committee votes to postpone move of Space Force HQ to Alabama
The House Armed Services committee voted yesterday to postpone the proposed establishment of the Space Force’s headquarters in Alabama.
The House Armed Services Committee on Thursday passed, with bipartisan agreement, Colorado Springs U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn’s amendment to the Fiscal Year 2022’s National Defense Authorization Act — an amendment that would prevent the move of the command to Huntsville, Ala., and work leading up to it, until after the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General complete their reviews of the decision.
Results of the GAO review, currently underway, are expected to be released in March, Chuck Young, managing director of public affairs for the agency, told The Gazette on Thursday.
This congressional action is not a surprise. The vested interests in Colorado, where a great bulk of the present military space operations are based, were not going to take the shift to Alabama lying down.
Posted still driving north to Las Vegas. (Don’t worry, I’m not doing the driving.)
Perseverance’s 2nd drill attempt to get sample appears successful
It appears that Perseverance’s second drill attempt on Mars has successfully obtained sample material in its core.
Data received late Sept. 1 from NASA’s Perseverance rover indicate the team has achieved its goal of successfully coring a Mars rock. The initial images downlinked after the historic event show an intact sample present in the tube after coring. However, additional images taken after the arm completed sample acquisition were inconclusive due to poor sunlight conditions. Another round of images with better lighting will be taken before the sample processing continues.
Once they know for sure if they have a sample, they will store it and then move on, heading to the area that Ingenuity scouted for them in mid-August.
Posted halfway to Las Vegas.
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
FAA grounds Virgin Galactic pending investigationn
Probably in response to the revelation of the flight issue, not an actual safety issue, the FAA has grounded Virgin Galactic from any further flights pending the resolution of the investigation of the July flight, which drifted out of its planned flight path due to high winds.
This will likely delay their planned next manned flight, which had been tentatively scheduled for September-October.
Posted on the way to Nevada.
Today’s blacklisted American: Whites to be segregated at American University
The Civil Rights Act of 1964: Doesn’t exist at American University in DC.
“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” American University in Washington, D.C., has now instituted a policy segregating students by race in a course on racism, with the segregation specifically designed to give minorities a “safe space.”
According to The Eagle, the university added a Black affinity course section to AUx2, a class where students learn about “race, social identity, and structures of power.” In the course, students will “evaluate how racism intersects with other systems of oppression.”
The student newspaper states that all-Black sections of the course began during the spring 2020 semester, an addition that had been considered for a few years. “We’ve definitely heard from Black students and other students of color that the material can be a lot for them because it is part of their lived experiences,” Izzi Stern, the AUx program manager told the student newspaper. “And we wanted to create a space where they could be together in community and have an overall positive experience with the course.”
The problem Starship poses to NASA and Congress
An interesting essay published earlier this week in The Space Review raises the coming dilemma that both NASA and Congress will soon have to face once Starship is operational and launching large cargoes and crews to orbit, both near Earth and to the Moon.
That dilemma: What do about SLS and Lunar Gateway once it becomes ridiculously obvious that they are inferior vessels for future space travel?
I think this quote from the article more than any illustrates the reality that these government officials will soon have to deal with in some manner:
[When] the Lunar Starship ever docks with Gateway, the size comparison with Gateway will appear silly and beg the question as to whether Gateway is actually necessary. Does this even make sense? Couldn’t two Starships simply dock with each other and transfer propellant from one to another. Is there really a need for a middleman?
The author, Doug Plata, also notes other contrasts that will make SLS and Lunar Gateway look absurd, such as when two Starships begin transferring fuel in orbit or when a Starship launches 400 satellites in one go, or when a private Starship mission circles the Moon and returns to Earth for later reuse.
All of these scenarios are actually being planned, with the first something NASA itself is paying for, since the lunar landing Starship will dock with Lunar Gateway to pick up and drop off its passengers for the Moon.
The bottom line for Plata is that the federal government needs to stop wasting money on bad programs like SLS and Lunar Gateway and switch its focus to buying products from commercial sources like SpaceX. They will get far more bang for the buck, while actually getting something accomplished in space.
Though he uses different words, and has the advantage of recent events to reference, Plata is essentially repeating my recommendations from my 2017 policy paper, Capitalism in Space [free pdf]. Plata draws as his proof for his argument the recent developments with Starship. I drew as my proof a comparison between SLS and what private commercial space was doing for NASA, as starkly illustrated by this one table:
The government has got to stop trying to build things, as it does an abysmal job. It instead must buy what it needs from private commercial vendors who know how to do it and have proven they can do it well.
If the government does this, will not only save money, it will fuel an American renaissance in space. As we see already beginning to see happen now in rocketry and the unmanned lunar landing business.
Firefly first launch attempt fails after liftoff, shortly before stage separation
Screen capture from Everyday Astronaut live stream.
Capitalism in space: Firefly’s first attempt to launch its Alpha rocket to orbit failed at T+2:30 minutes, shortly after it went supersonic and just before first stage engine cut-off and stage separation.
The screen capture to the right shows that explosion.
Lift-off procedures went very well, though the rocket itself appeared to reach supersonic speeds later than their timeline predicted, suggesting it was underpowered.
In fact, the whole operation reminded me of SpaceX’s early attempts to launch its Falcon-1 rocket. Just as happened in one of those early SpaceX launches, there was a launch abort at liftoff, the launch team quickly figured out what happened, recycled the rocket, and successfully lifted off an hour later. Kudos to that team!
The failure is unfortunate, but to repeat the cliche, this is rocket science. They will try again.
Southern Raised – Sixteen Tons
An evening pause: Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
A peanut-shaped crater in the northern plains of Mars
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken in May 2008 by the wide angle context camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists have since labeled a “peanut-shaped crater.”
What caused this unusual shape? The obvious and most likely explanation is that this was a double impact that occurred simultaneously. Imagine the ground being hit either by an asteroid with two lobes or by two similar-sized asteroids falling side-by-side.
Fast forward thirteen years to 2021. In the fifteen years since 2006 when MRO begin science operations in orbit around Mars no high resolution images were taken of this crater. Finally, on July 30, 2021, scientists finally decided to take a high resolution image of this crater’s western half. You can see that image below, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here.
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