Jolie Môme – C’est Si Bon
An eveningpause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
OSIRIS-REx completes last close-fly of Bennu
OSIRIS-REx today successfully completed its last close-fly of Bennu before it will fire its engines on May 10th and begin its journey back to Earth to return its samples.
During the flyby, OSIRIS-REx imaged Bennu for 5.9 hours, covering more than a full rotation of the asteroid. It flew within 2.1 miles’ (3.5 kilometers) distance to the surface of Bennu – the closest it’s been since the TAG sample collection event.
It will take until at least April 13 for OSIRIS-REx to downlink all of the data and new pictures of Bennu’s surface recorded during the flyby. It shares the Deep Space Network antennas with other missions like Mars Perseverance, and typically gets 4–6 hours of downlink time per day. “We collected about 4,000 megabytes of data during the flyby,” said Mike Moreau, deputy project manager of OSIRIS-REx at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Bennu is approximately 185 million miles from Earth right now, which means we can only achieve a downlink data-rate of 412 kilobits per second, so it will take several days to download all of the flyby data.”
While they will get images of the asteroid’s entire surface, the region scientists are most interested in is the Nightingale sample return site where the spacecraft grabbed its samples. To best understand the asteroid they need to have before and after shots, and this last fly-by gave them the latter.
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
Today’s blacklisted Americans: Anyone under 50 in Vermont who is not a minority
We don’t need no stinkin’ 14th amendment in Vermont!
You want to get a COVID-19 vaccine shot in Vermont? Well, if you are not part of the new BIPOC community (Black, Indigenous, People Of Color) you have to go to the back of the bus.
This according to a decision by Vermont’s state government on April 3rd:
Governor Phill Scott, a Republican who voted for Joe Biden, explains. “If you or anyone in your household identifies as Black, Indigenous, or a person of color (BIPOC), including anyone with Abenaki or other First Nations heritage, all household members who are 16 years or older can sign up to get a vaccine!
Before this announcement the rules had limited vaccinations to all those over 50. The new rules opened up shots to everyone but whites over 16 years or older.
» Read more
Perseverance as seen from orbit
Click for full image.
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The two photos to the right show the landing site for the Perseverance rover in Jezero Crater on Mars. The first image was taken in 2016 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The second image was made available today in the monthly release of photos taken that camera on MRO.
The arrow points to a small white streak that is not visible in the 2016 photo. A closer look reveals that the streak is actually two fanlike white deposits expanding outward in opposite directions from a central point.
What we are seeing are the exhaust fans blown onto the Martian surface by the retro-jets on the Sky crane that was lowering Perseverance to the ground. The rover was put down at the centerpoint, and was still at that spot on March 2nd when this photo was acquired.
The highest resolution version of this image requires special software, so in this version you cannot see the rover itself. Nor can you see the Sky crane after it crashed landed or the parachutes.
The new photo was taken one week after the first high resolution image from MRO, as part of what will become a routine periodic monitoring of the site, along with obtaining mapping information for picking the rover’s upcoming route They will also probably use both images to try to locate both the Sky crane and parachutes, on the ground.
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.
SpaceX successfully launches another sixty Starlink satellites
SpaceX this morning successfully launched another 60 Starlink satellites, bringing the total number in orbit to more than 1,500.
The first stage, on its seventh flight, successfully landed on the drone ship. During SpaceX’s live stream they noted that every launch by the company this year has used a previously flown first stage. Both fairings on this flight were also reused.
The leaders in the 2021 launch race:
10 SpaceX
7 China
5 Russia
2 Rocket Lab
The U.S. now leads China 14 to 7 in the national rankings.
I have embedded SpaceX’s live stream below the fold. Because of the clear weather this was a particularly beautiful launch. The video during the landing of the first stage was especially spectacular, with the camera on the booster showing the entire landing.
» Read more
Watching Ingenuity’s flight
NASA has now announced the planned flight time for its Ingenuity helicopter now on the Martian surface, including information for watching the live stream of the attempt.
A livestream confirming Ingenuity’s first flight is targeted to begin around 3:30 a.m. EDT Monday, April 12, on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website, and will livestream on multiple agency social media platforms, including the JPL YouTube and Facebook channels.
I will embed the JPL live stream on Behind the Black when it goes live.
Meanwhile, Perseverance’s weather station is now functioning, providing its first weather reports from Jezero Crater.
[E]ngineers now have atmospheric data from three different locations on the Red Planet – Perseverance, Curiosity, and NASA’s InSight lander, which hosts the Temperature and Wind sensors for InSight (TWINS). The trio will enable a deeper understanding of Martian weather patterns, events, and atmospheric turbulence that could influence planning for future missions. In the near term, MEDA’s information is helping decide the best atmospheric conditions for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter flights.
As Ingenuity achieved pre-flight milestones, a MEDA report from the 43rd and 44th Martian days, or sols, of the mission (April 3-4 on Earth) showed a temperature high of minus 7.6 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 22 degrees Celsius) and low of minus 117.4 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 83 degrees Celsius) in Jezero Crater. MEDA also measured wind gusts at around 22 mph (10 meters per second).
Those numbers are about normal for Jezero Crater at 18 degrees north latitude in the spring.
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
Chang’e-4 and Yutu-2 reactivated for 29th lunar day
Chinese engineers have reactivated their Chang’e-4 lander and Yutu-2 rover, beginning their 29th lunar day on the far side of the Moon.
As is usual from the state-run Chinese press, the article provides little other detail, other than stating that Yutu-2 ” will continue to move northwest toward the basalt distribution area located about 1.2 km away from the rover.” That’s about 3,900 feet. Based on Yutu-2 pace of moving about 100 feet per lunar day, it will be more than three years before it reaches that goal.
The Carol Burnett Show – The Hitman
An evening pause: Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
Study: a Martian crater lake fed by glacial run-off
From figure 1 on the research paper.
A new study of a 33-mile-wide Martian crater in its southern cratered highlands has found evidence that a lake had once existed on the crater floor, and was fed entirely by glacial run-off in a cold climate, coming from its interior walls, not from outside the crater.
In a study published in Planetary Science Journal, a research team led by Brown Ph.D. student Ben Boatwright describes an as-yet unnamed crater with some puzzling characteristics. The crater’s floor has unmistakable geologic evidence of ancient stream beds and ponds, yet there’s no evidence of inlet channels where water could have entered the crater from outside, and no evidence of groundwater activity where it could have bubbled up from below.
So where did the water come from?
The researchers conclude that the system was likely fed by runoff from a long-lost Martian glacier. Water flowed into the crater atop the glacier, which meant it didn’t leave behind a valley as it would have had it flowed directly on the ground. The water eventually emptied into the low-lying crater floor, where it left its geological mark on the bare Martian soil.
You can read the full paper here. The crater is considered very old, which means this evidence dates from a very early Mars when the climate was very different. As the scientists note in their conclusion:
» Read more
Today’s blacklisted American: Whites at Cornell University
The Civil Rights Act of 1964: repealed by Cornell
Continuing my weeklong series documenting the modern bigotry of our culture, today’s bigot is Cornell University, who recently offered a segregated rock-climbing course that whites were forbidden to attend. From the course’s original description:
This class is for people who identify as Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, or other people of color.
Moreover, that original course description made it very clear that the course was limited to such students only.
The original description gave no indication that BIPOC [Black, Indigenous People, Others of Color] students were the “special focus” of the course, instead of the only eligible category for enrollment. While [that original version] said students “will also talk about BIPOC individuals and groups in rock climbing,” that sentence was immediately followed by the restriction to “people who identify as” BIPOC.
Such a class would be illegal under both federal and New York state law.
» Read more
SpaceX’s decision to build launchpad with Starship tanks proves the rocket will be cheapest ever built
Capitalism in space: The decision by SpaceX’s to build the tank farm for its Starship/Super Heavy launchpad at Boca Chica using Starship tanks, rather than inexpensive off-the-shelf storage tanks, strongly suggests that the company’s manufacturing facility for building those tanks makes them very inexpensive, and also suggests that the final rocket will be as cheap to launch as SpaceX has promised.
SpaceX is effectively taking identical rocket parts, slightly tweaking a handful of those parts, and turning what could have been a rocket into a propellant storage tank. This is significant because relative to all other rockets in history, even including SpaceX’s own Falcon 9 and Heavy, building storage tanks with unchanged rocket parts on a rocket assembly line would be roughly akin to hiring Vincent van Gogh to paint lane lines.
Ever since Elon Musk made the radical decision to switch from composite structures to stainless steel, Starship has always aimed to be radically different than any large rocket before it. Crucially, by using commodity steel, the CEO imagined SpaceX would be able to build Starships fairly easily and for pennies on the dollar next to even SpaceX’s exceptionally affordable Falcon 9. In the last 18 months, it’s become apparent that SpaceX has built a factory capable of churning out one or two massive steel rockets per month and is willing to consign at least four or five of those Starship prototypes to all-but-guaranteed failures for the sake of data-gathering and iterative improvement.
Technically, the most logical conclusion would be that Musk was right and that SpaceX has quickly developed the ability to build steel rockets larger than any other launch vehicle on Earth for perhaps just $5M or less apiece.
The analysis at the link is detailed and worth reading. If correct, this decision by SpaceX proves that Starship and Super Heavy will be the cheapest rocket ever flown, even though it will be the largest ever flown, and also completely reusable.
Russia’s first private space tourism company shuts down
Capitalism in space? Russia’s first private space tourism company has been forced to close before it even launched its first rocket because of the obstacles placed before by Russia’s government.
Kosmokurs’ operations will cease due to “insurmountable difficulties” in coordinating with local authorities on the cosmodrome project as well as the company’s “inability to obtain needed regulatory documents from the Defense Ministry” for the design of a suborbital tourist rocket, its CEO Pavel Pushkin told RIA Novosti.
However, the government-run Roscosmos, which controls the rest of Russia’s aerospace industry, has graciously announced it will hire Kosmokurs’ fifty employees.
Do you see a pattern? I do. Kosmokurs was cutting into Roscosmos’s territory. That could not be tolerated, and so the government moved to sabotage it. Now that it is dead, the government can absorb it to try to build its rocket and make money using it.
This kind of mob rule by the Russian government is why that country’s space industry is failing to compete with the new commercial industry coming out of the U.S. and elsewhere. It does not tolerate free competition, only top-down control by the government. The result is that while Russia might eventually fly its own space tourism rockets, it will have only one, and it will likely not be as efficient or as competitive. The only cost advantage it will likely have is Russia’s low wages.