Rose Royce – I Wanna Get Next To You
An evening pause: Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
Today’s blacklisted American: Cancelled by his bank for being pro-life, he started his own
What too many banks want to do to conservatives.
Today’s story is similar to my blacklist story two days ago about former national security advisor Michael Flynn [See the bottom of this post for an update on the Flynn story!]
Just as Flynn was blackballed by Chase bank, evangelist and motivational speaker Nick Vujicic found himself frozen out by his own bank because of his Christian, political, and pro-life beliefs.
Vujicic said he began to speak out against the innocent killing of unborn babies in March 2019. Within 16 weeks of doing that, he revealed, “we had a grenade at our house, a false magazine article published against me, a lawsuit threat, a spying drone, and a bank kicked me out.”
…”I got kicked out of a bank with no warning. They froze my credit cards, froze my debit cards,” he said. “They gave me a letter to say that they did a review of me as a client and they don’t want anything to do with me.”
What makes this story different from the Flynn story is that Vujicic responded by starting a project to found his own bank.
» 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
A Martian sunset in Jezero Crater
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, reduced slightly to post here, was taken by the left navigation camera on the Mars rover Perseverance. Looking west to the rim of Jezero Crater, it catches the Sun as it sets behind that rim.
The image was taken on July 20, 2021, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. Seems somehow fitting to catch a sunset on Mars on this date, to illustrate how far we have come in that half century.
To my mind, not enough. Our ability to send robots to other worlds has certainly improved, but in 1969 we were able to put a human on another world. Since 1972 we no longer have had that capability, so that in 2021 all we can do is fly robots elsewhere.
It is time for this to change. I’d much prefer to make believe this photo was a sunrise suggesting a bright future, than the sunset it actually is, indicating a coming dark age.
Launch schedules impacted by shortages and delivery delays of oxygen/nitrogen
The launch dates of several upcoming launches have been pushed back because of a shortage of liquid oxygen, needed instead for medical purposes, which in turn has slowed deliveries of liquid nitrogen because trucks have been reassigned to delivering oxygen to hospitals..
The effects of a nationwide liquid oxygen shortage caused by the recent spike in hospitalized coronavirus patients has already delayed the launch of a Landsat imaging satellite by a week, and threatens to impact more missions from launch sites in Florida and California.
NASA said last week that the launch of the Landsat 9 satellite aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California would be delayed one week until no earlier than Sept. 23 due to a lack of liquid nitrogen at the military base. ULA uses gaseous nitrogen, which is converted from liquid nitrogen, for purges during testing and countdown operations.
The space agency said pandemic demands for medical liquid oxygen impacted the delivery of liquid nitrogen to Vandenberg.
SpaceX officials have also indicated that their launch schedule may be effected as well.
While the Wuhan flu is being blamed for this shortage, I think it is possibly more related to the rise in launches themselves. Such flu epidemics have happened in the past, causing similar spikes in hospitals, without causing delays in rocket launches. However, the U.S. this year has already almost doubled the number of yearly launches as had occurred during most of the 21st century. In addition, there are now numerous companies building and testing new rockets, all of which require liquid oxygen. The demand by rocket companies for such fuels is thus far higher than it has been for decades.
So, what is the solution? I just described it. The high demand will force the price up for liquid oxygen, which in turn will make it profitable for new providers to enter the market producing liquid oxygen to meet the new demand. It simply appears that at this moment the industry that produces these gases has been slow in reacting to its new demand.
We need only give the situation time and freedom to get solved and, most important, stay out of the way. Freedom and capitalism will solve the problem, as it always does.
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.
Prep of first SLS rocket continues to suggest no launch in ’21
Though NASA and Boeing crews and management have been striving very hard to get the SLS rocket on the launchpad for a liftoff before the end of this year, the schedule has as expected continued to slip, with the chances of a launch by December now increasingly unlikely.
NASA engineers have not discovered any major problems during the SLS testing, but key milestones leading up to the Artemis 1 launch have been steadily sliding to the right in NASA’s processing schedule.
Before NASA raised the Boeing-made SLS core stage onto its mobile launch platform inside High Bay 3 of the VAB in June, managers hoped to connect he Orion spacecraft for the Artemis 1 mission on top of the rocket in August. That’s now expected this fall.
The first rollout of the 322-foot-tall (98-meter) rocket from the VAB to launch pad 39B was scheduled no earlier than September. That’s now expected in late November, at the soonest, according to [Cliff Lanham, senior vehicle operations manager for NASA’s exploration ground systems program].
The schedule slips, while not significant amid the history of SLS program delays, have put a major crunch on NASA’s ambition to launch the Artemis 1 mission this year. The agency is evaluating Artemis 1 launch opportunities in the second half of December, multiple sources said, but that would require NASA to cut in half the time it originally allotted between the SLS fueling test and the actual launch date.
None of this is really a surprise. NASA had always said it would take about six to ten months to get the rocket ready for launch once it arrived in Florida, and it only got there in May. That meant a late November launch could only occur if everything went perfectly. As this is the first time this rocket has ever been assembled, it is not reasonable to expect such perfection.
Based on all factors, the launch will likely occur no earlier than January, but more likely in February, at the earliest. On that schedule it is very likely SpaceX’s Starship will reach orbit first.
Tommy Shaw & Contemporary Youth Orchestra of Cleveland – Blue Collar Man
An evening pause: Performed live in 2016.
Hat tip Daniel Morris.
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
Stucco on Mars!
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on June 8, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a strangely flat plain with a complex stucco-type surface of ridges and depressions. The sunlight is coming from the west, which makes the smoother flat areas depressions.
What are we looking at? What causes this strange surface? Make sure you look at the full image, because the section I cropped out doesn’t give a true sense of the terrain’s vastness.
The MRO science team labeled the photo “volcanic terrain,” but that tells only part of the story, since this volcanic terrain is actually part of Mars’ most interesting lava plains, as the overview map below shows.
» Read more
Today’s blacklisted American: Mother of slain soldier censored by Instagram and Facebook
The new dark age of silencing: Apparently because her posts on Instagram and Facebook were highly critical of Democrat President Joe Biden, both social media companies immediately either shut down or restricted the accounts of Shana Chappell, the mother of one of the soldiers killed in the Kabul Airport suicide bombing.
The mother of a Marine killed in the suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, last week had her account removed from Instagram and “incorrectly deleted” from Facebook following her fierce criticism of President Biden in the wake of her son’s death.
Shana Chappell, the mother of Kareem Nikoui, 20, took to Facebook on Monday to slam Instagram for removing her account after she started posting about what happened to her son and her belief that Biden is to blame. Chappell claimed the social media platform started to flag several of her “posts from months ago,” and began to send her warnings that she could have her account disabled.
“It seems Instagram took it upon themselves to delete my account because i am assuming it was because i gained so many followers over my sons death due to Biden’s negligence, ignorance and him being a traitor,” she wrote on Facebook. “I’m gonna assume that Facebook is gonna delete me next! Funny how these leftist one sided pieces of crap don’t want the truth to come out!
It appears both Instagram and Facebook have since restored her accounts and apologized, with both saying that her account was “accidentally deleted.” Hogwash. These actions are never an accident. They are almost always against people criticizing the left or the Democratic Party (I repeat myself), with many such bannings never explained or corrected.
» Read more
South Korea to launch its own rocket in October
The new colonial movement: South Korea is now targeting October 21, 2021 for the first test launch of its home-built Nuri rocket.
The October flight will be South Korea’s first domestic orbital launch attempt in more than eight years. On Jan. 30, 2013, a Naro-1 rocket placed the STSAT-2C technology demonstration satellite into low Earth orbit.
It was the final of three launches for now retired Naro-1, which consisted of a Russian Angara first stage with a downgraded engine and a South Korean developed solid-fuel upper stage. Two previous Naro-1 launches failed in 2009 and 2010.
They have also scheduled a follow-up test launch in May ’22, assuming all goes well on this first test launch.
Zhurong completes 100 days on Mars
The new colonial movement: In announcing today that its Mars rover Zhurong has completed 100 days on the Martian surface, the state-run Chinese press released one very low-resolution panorama taken at the rover’s new position, and a map showing its full route since landing.
The map to the right, created by placing that route on a high resolution Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image, shows us where Zhurong presently sits as well as where it might travel next. It still appears that they are attempting to reach the heat shield used during landing, which also suggests that they are giving high priority to the engineering aspects of this mission, possibly ranking that component higher than any science they get.
If high resolution versions of that panorama are available, they are probably only available on the Chinese language sites, which makes it very difficult for a non-Chinese-speaker to find.
According to the release, the rover has now traveled just under 3,500 feet, which means it is maintaining a pace greater than 1,000 feet per month. The release also noted this fact about the rover’s upcoming travels, as well as the Tianwen-1 orbiter being used as a communications relay satellite:
The probes will experience a sun outage in mid-to-late September when the Sun is aligned with Earth and Mars, with the solar radiation interfering with the communication between the probes and ground stations. The orbiter and rover will stop working until the sun outage comes to an end.
This conjunction occurs every two years. It means there will also be a pause in data from the American rovers and orbiters. When the last conjunction occurred in September 2019, the communications shutdown lasted about two weeks.
New cracks discovered on a different Russian ISS module
Russian officials revealed today that their astronauts have discovered new cracks on a different Russian ISS module, dubbed Zarya.
“Superficial fissures have been found in some places on the Zarya module,” Vladimir Solovyov, chief engineer of rocket and space corporation Energia, told RIA news agency, according to Reuters. “This is bad and suggests that the fissures will begin to spread over time.” The Zarya module, also called the Functional Cargo Block, was the first component of the ISS ever launched, having blasted into orbit on Nov. 20, 1998, according to NASA.
Russians have now found what appear to be age stress fractures on both Zarya and Zvezda, the two oldest modules of ISS. More important, the Russians are finally admitting that the cracks are stress fractures, something they had earlier denied.
The need to launch new commercial American modules to ISS as quickly as possible has now become even more urgent. Axiom plans to do so, but its first module is not scheduled to arrive before ’24. It now looks increasingly that the Russian modules might not make it till then.
German rocket company successfully tests first stage to failure
Capitalism in space: The German startup rocket company Rocket Factory Augsburg has successfully completed a tank pressure test of its rocket’s core first stage, testing that stage to failure.
The German startup Rocket Factory Augsburg, or RFA, has concluded another test of their RFA One rocket. In the test, the company performed a destructive cryogenic pressure test of their first stage prototype. The company has shown a video in which the prototype stage broke apart after it was fueled with cryogenic nitrogen to test the quality of the welds and determine the pressure at which the structure fails.
The milestone is the latest for the company which is aiming to develop a reusable launch vehicle for small payloads. The first flight of RFA One is currently slated for late 2022, following more testing and development.
The video of the test, with a dramatic soundtrack (as has sadly become the practice today since all life always has its own soundtrack) can be seen at the link.
This company is one of three German private rocket startups vying to enter the smallsat launch market — Isar, RFA, and HyImpulse — with two hoping to make their first launch next year.