During its landing in April a manned Soyuz capsule became partially depressurized

7:20 pm

During its landing in April a Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts returning from ISS became partially depressurized at about five miles altitude.

The partial loss of pressure did not put the crew in jeopardy, Stafford said. A valve normally opens once the capsule descends to an altitude of five kilometers to allow outside air into the capsule. The crewmembers were also wearing pressure suits, as is standard procedure on Soyuz landings.

The incident occurred when a buckle from the parachute system hit a welding seam in the capsule as the parachute deployed.

There is a reason the Russians require astronauts to wear pressure suits while in a Soyuz capsule. During the return to Earth in 1971 of three cosmonauts from the first Russian space station, Salyut 1, the capsule depressurized and the three men died of suffocation.

2 comments

Bigelow and ULA propose lunar station

7:13 pm

Capitalism in space: Bigelow, builders of expandable space station modules, and ULA, building of rockets, have jointly proposed building an inexpensive lunar space station for NASA, to be launched by 2022.

The announcement build upon existing work between the two companies to study launching B330 modules, originally on the Atlas 5, Bigelow Aerospace President Robert Bigelow said in an Oct. 17 interview. He said his company decided to shift to the Vulcan vehicle and then build upon its capabilities, such as the ACES upper stage that is intended to also serve as a refuelable space tug. “There is synchronicity between what ULA has in the way of capabilities and what we’re doing,” Bigelow said. “We decided to collaborate and prepare a proposal that the White House and NASA could accept as part of an overall space plan.”

Bigelow emphasized he saw this proposal as a public-private partnership. He estimated NASA’s share of the costs to be $2.3 billion, in addition to the “hundreds of millions” being spent by both Bigelow Aerospace and ULA. “It’s executable within four years of receiving funding and NASA giving us the word,” he said.

The lunar depot would be available for both NASA and commercial uses, according to Bigelow. It could be visited by NASA Orion spacecraft launched by the Space Launch System, but he said it’s possible other spacecraft, like a version of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, could also provide transportation to and from the facility.

Bigelow also went out of his way to say that this proposal was not meant to replace NASA’s proposed Deep Space Gateway, also a lunar space station, but as a quicker and cheaper supplement that could be launched and put into service while the gateway was being built.

In other words, Bigelow wishes to be to the Deep Space Gateway what SpaceX has been to SLS/Orion, the real thing while Congress continues to pour money into a parallel boondoggle that never goes anywhere.

3 comments

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

Japanese metal manufacturer faked specifications to hundreds of companies

2:55 pm

Holy moly! Kobe Steel, a major Japanese supplier of steel and other metals worldwide, has admitted that it faked the specifications to metals shipped to hundreds of companies over the past decade.

Last week, Kobe Steel admitted that staff fudged reports on the strength and durability of products requested by its clients—including those from the airline industry, cars, space rockets, and Japan’s bullet trains. The company estimated that four percent of aluminum and copper products shipped from September 2016 to August 2017 were falsely labelled, Automotive News reported.

But on Friday, the company’s CEO, Hiroya Kawasaki, revealed the scandal has impacted about 500 companies—doubling the initial count—and now includes steel products, too. The practice of falsely labeling data to meet customer’s specifications could date back more than 10 years, according to the Financial Times.

For rockets the concern is less serious as they generally are not built for a long lifespan, but for airplanes and cars this news could be devastating, requiring major rebuilds on many operating vehicles.

13 comments

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.

Astronomers reduce estimate of still undiscovered dangerous asteroids

11:49 am

Astronomers have now reduced [pdf] their estimate of the number of still undiscovered dangerous Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) that could impact the Earth from 100 to less than 40.

Observers have been cataloging potentially hazardous asteroids for decades. Based on the number of finds, the area of sky explored, and the limiting brightness our telescopes and cameras can reach, researchers can estimate what fraction of the NEA population has been detected so far and how many more objects lurk undiscovered. Harris has published numerous such estimates over the years. Recently he realized that his estimates have been plagued by a seemingly innocuous but nonetheless consequential round-off error. Once corrected, the estimated number of large (diameter > 1 kilometer) NEAs remaining to be discovered decreases from more than 100 to less than 40.

To put it mildly, there is a lot of uncertainty here. This also reminds me of the cavers’ joke question: “How many miles of unexplored passages does this cave have?”

1 comment

Nearby asteroid orbits both the Earth and the Sun

11:42 am

Worlds without end: Astronomers have determined that a recently discovered object with a weird solar orbit that also has it loop around the Earth each year is an asteroid, not space junk.

The asteroid is dubbed 2016 HO3. What is most interesting about this story to me however was this tidbit:

“Of the near-Earth objects we know of, these types of objects would be the easiest to reach, so they could potentially make suitable targets for exploration,” said Veillet, director of the LBT Observatory. “With its binocular arrangement of two 8.4-meter mirrors, coupled with a very efficient pair of imagers and spectrographs like MODS, LBT is ideally suited to the characterization of these Earth’s companions.”

0 comments

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

I am looking for a library to donate my space history files

11:27 am

I am in the process of updating my will, and in the process I am searching for a library or university or archive that would be an appropriate place to leave my space history archives, collected during the past two and a half decades. This archive includes recordings of numerous interviews with Russian and American astronauts and engineers as well as numerous scientists. It also documents quite thoroughly the first half century of the space age.

I had considered giving this archive to the four year university here in Tucson, but it appears they really don’t want it. My last conversation with the head of their special collections was quite hostile, making me wonder if he might have glanced at my webpage and was triggered by it.

If someone has a suggestion, please comment here or email me. My main desire is that this collection should stay intact. I also desire that whichever university or library accepts it also agree to this clause:

It is my request however that these space materials, which cover the history of the first half century of space exploration by someone who witnessed it and thus will be of special interest to future residents not living on Earth, shall be transferred to the first university established on a world other than Earth that is willing to cover the cost for that transfer. Should such transfer occur, the [Earth-bound university/archive] will have the right to retain copies of all materials.

18 comments

Russian bribes funneled to Clinton foundation in 2009

9:55 am

Some real Russian collusion finally found! FBI investigations in 2010 found evidence of numerous Russian bribes that funneled millions to the Clinton foundation in 2009, just prior to Hillary Clinton’s decision to hand over control of a significant portion of the U.S. uranium industry to Russia.

[The FBI] obtained an eyewitness account — backed by documents — indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill.

It also appears that the Obama administration sat on this evidence for four years, and then worked out plea deals for those involved that managed to hide the bribery from pubic scrutiny.

In fact, they buried the probe even after indicting some Russian principals in the operation. They only announced in 2015 that they had reached plea deals in a case involving money laundering, saying nothing about bribery, extortion, or the intent to corrupt the US nuclear industry. That information was so compartmentalized that even the FBI’s top criminal-investigation officer had no idea of the extent of the case, and no one in Congress was ever briefed on the national security concerns raised in the case. In fact, House Intelligence chair Mike Rogers claimed to the Hill that no one ever mentioned the case at all to him, despite already-extant concerns over the Uranium One deal on Capitol Hill.

Don’t expect the mainstream press, partisan Democrats all, to report on this.

14 comments

Ethiopia and India consider space partnership

8:55 am

The new colonial movement: Ethiopia and India are in discussions about forging a space partnership.

The article gives little details about this partnership, focusing mostly in describing Ethiopia’s space ambitions.

The Ethiopian government announced in early 2017 that it intends to build its own medium-sized space launch vehicle (SLV) and develop the capabilities to domestically build satellites. The Ethiopian Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) said that it will develop a medium-sized SLV that should have its maiden launch within the next three years, according to MOST spokesperson Wondwosen Andualem.

Andualem also pointed out that Ethiopian capacity and capability to build its own satellites is increasing, thanks in part to the partnerships forged by Ethiopia with foreign governments and companies. The Ethiopian government has already stated that it seeks to develop and build satellites for the purposes of national security, disaster management and response, and land management.

…In November 2015, the Mekele Institute of Technology in Ethiopia launched a rocket called Alpha Meles to an altitude of 30 kilometres. The Alpha Meles rocket is believed to cost U.S.$2.3 million to develop, build, and launch, but there have been no reports of any subsequent launches of the rocket.

The question of whether Ethiopia really has a space program remains unclear. It could be that they are exploring this partnership with India because of internal problems getting their independent rockets off the ground.

2 comments

Suppression of academic freedom a global crisis

10:35 pm

A new report the charity Scholars at Risk (SAR) reveals that the attacks on academic freedom and free speech are part of a growing global crisis.

SAR’s report Free to Think 2017 summarises a year of data collected by SAR’s monitoring project; it includes 257 reported attacks in 35 countries. ‘Attacks’ include killings, violence and disappearances; wrongful prosecution and imprisonment; loss of position and expulsion from study; improper travel restrictions; and other severe or systemic issues including, for example, university closures or military occupation of a campus.

There is a growing trend that, in societies experiencing armed conflict or extremism, higher education communities are perceived as symbols of state authority or sources of potential opposition to radical ideologies. Attacks are generally intended to punish or deter inquiry, or even expression, on unpopular topics. During the past year, SAR found evidence of large-scale violent attacks on campuses in Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria, while targeted killings of individuals were reported in Pakistan, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

Thousands of people in the higher education sector have been targeted in Turkey where state and university authorities continue to take sweeping measures in retaliation for alleged political links or content of research, publications or teaching. Punitive actions by the Turkish state have included imprisonment and prosecution; dismissal and expulsion of scholars and students; and restrictions on travel and institutional autonomy.

Incidents of violence against organised student expression were reported in increasing numbers this year. In Venezuela, South Africa, Niger, Cameroon, Turkey and India, state authorities responded to nonviolent student protests with force, including with rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades. In some cases, however, students engaged in violent or coercive conduct, including incidents in South Africa, where campus facilities were damaged, and in the US, where physical force was used to intimidate and disrupt certain speakers on campus.

It is shameful that American campuses, once the world’s shining beacon of freedom of speech, have now become part of this oppressive trend.

2 comments

Cause of Long March 5 July failure is in “first-stage propulsion”

8:21 pm

In an interview earlier this week a Chinese official revealed that the problem during the July Long March 5 launch was related to an issue with “first-stage propulsion.”

The official only added that the investigation is “on-going” and that they intend to fix the problem because the Long March 5 is needed for China’s human and deep space programs.

The vagueness here suggests to me the possibility of some very fundamental problems that might be requiring a major redesign. That is a pure guess, however, and should not be taken very seriously.

0 comments

Iraq moves to take control of Kurdish area

3:05 pm

The old world rolls on: With the defeat of ISIS almost complete in Iraq, Iraqi forces have now moved into Kirkuk, aiming to retake control of that region from Kurdish forces.

The overnight advance was the most decisive step Baghdad has taken yet to block the independence bid of the Kurds, who have governed an autonomous tract of northern Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and voted three weeks ago to secede.

Kirkuk, one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse cities in Iraq, is located just outside the autonomous Kurdish zone. Kurds consider it the heart of their homeland; they say it was cleansed of Kurds and settled with Arabs under Saddam to secure control of the oil that was the source of Iraq’s wealth.

As is usual in these typical old world waves of ethnic conflict, there are now thousands of Kurdish refugees fleeing Kirkuk.

The problem here is the desire of the Kurds to create a country based solely on ethnicity. Such a nation by definition, in the end, must be bigoted and must oppress everyone of the wrong ethnicity. Nor are the Iraqis innocent, as there is ample evidence that they have responded in the past in kind, trying to wipe out the Kurdish population because of its ethnicity. Thus, the Kurdish refugees now.

Once again, the real solution is to not define people by their race, ethnicity, gender, or religion, but by what each person does individually. Build a nation where each person can live and follow his or her dreams, irrelevant of these issues, and you will have justice, freedom, and prosperity. Build a nation based on these racist issues, and you will instead have war, bigotry, and hate. History has shown this repeatedly. It is tragic that we imperfect humans have trouble seeing it.

11 comments

New findings from Cassini’s final months

11:49 am

Link here. Among a bunch of other interesting results, this one I found the most tantalizing:

The spacecraft’s Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) returned a host of first-ever direct measurements of the components in Saturn’s upper atmosphere, which stretches almost to the rings. From these observations, the team sees evidence that molecules from the rings are raining down onto the atmosphere. This influx of material from the rings was expected, but INMS data show hints of ingredients more complex than just water, which makes up the bulk of the rings’ composition. In particular, the instrument detected methane, a volatile molecule that scientists would not expect to be abundant in the rings or found so high in Saturn’s atmosphere.

The results generally leave behind more questions than answers, but that is exactly why exploring the universe is so much fun.

0 comments

Facebook updates privacy policy to simply read “LOL”

10:13 am

News you can use! Facebook has replaced its long and complex privacy policy to the simple three letter term “LOL.”

“We wanted to be more forthright with our users,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told reporters. “We could give you this boring tome of legalese, or we could simply put it in terms everyone can understand. The popular internet abbreviation for ‘laughing out loud’ is an accurate, concise summary of how we feel about your private data.”

“It’s short, sweet, and to the point,” he added.

Users joining the site for the first time are asked to read the three-letter privacy policy in its entirety before clicking “accept” to acknowledge that the social networking company just laughs its collective keister off at the notion of any Facebook user having any kind of privacy whatsoever.

It is said that for humor to work, it must be based on truth. I think this is a good example.

2 comments

EPA will no longer quickly settle lawsuits with environmental activists

10:03 am

The Trump administration has decided that it will no longer quickly settle lawsuits from environmental activist groups, an Obama policy that not only provided these groups a significant amount of easy funding from the federal government but also allowed them control over the regulatory process.

This is a step in the right direction but the article suggests that EPA head Scott Pruitt set a limit on the number of lawsuits the EPA can settle. This means it can settle some suits. It also suggests that the EPA will be able to argue for settling additional suits on a case-by-case basis.

0 comments

Europe’s Trace Gas Orbiter detects clouds over Martian volcano

9:31 am

Europe’s Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) has detected clouds over the western slopes of the giant Martian volcano Arsia Mons.

This is not a new discovery, merely a confirmation of many past observations, all of which suggest that water-ice glaciers once flowed down those western slopes, and that some of that ice remains trapped in underground caves and lava tubes there. Undeniably this region appears at present to be the most valuable real estate on Mars. It has caves where the first colonies can be more easily built. Those caves likely have water in them. And the location is near the equator, which is easier to reach and also makes the environment somewhat less hostile.

TGO is presently slowly aerobraking itself down to its planned science orbit, which it is expected to reach in 2018.

7 comments

Highlights from Elon Musk’s Reddit session yesterday

9:20 am

Link here. Musk focused a lot on the technical engineering stuff that the geeks love. The take-away is that development is proceeding on the big rocket that will make the Falcon Heavy seem small, and that they are definitely incorporating the idea of point-to-point Earth transportation into its design.

Let me add that Musk needs to come up with a usable name for his big new rocket. A name that includes an obscenity, as it does now, is not good marketing. And if it is, then we are closer to the coming dark age than I can possibly imagine.

9 comments
1 … 908 909 910 911 912 … 1,760