Behind The Black – Robert Zimmerman

What it sounds like when Perseverance moves

March 18, 2021 8:41 am Robert Zimmerman

NASA has released audio recorded by one of Perseverance’s microphones as the rover completed one of its earliest drives.

NASA released two versions of the audio — one 90-second file edited and processed to filter out background noise, and another 16-minute clip with raw, unfiltered sound.

…Perseverance recorded the sounds during a 90-foot (27.3-meter) drive March 7, according to NASA. The rover’s top speed is a little less than 0.1 mph, or about 152 meters per hour.

The longer, raw audio clip includes a high-pitched scratching noise. The origin of the sound remains a mystery. “Perseverance’s engineering team continues to evaluate the source of the scratching noise, which may either be electromagnetic interference from one of the rover’s electronics boxes or interactions between the mobility system and the Martian surface,” NASA said in a statement. “The EDL microphone was not intended for surface operations and had limited testing in this configuration before launch.”

You can hear the recordings at the link.

In addition, the science team has picked the location where Perseverance will deploy the Ingenuity helicopter. A briefing will be held next week on March 23rd to outline the schedule for its test flight, now set for sometime in early April.

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March 17, 2021 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast

March 17, 2021 11:44 pm Robert Zimmerman

Embedded below the fold in four parts. This was my first appearance on the new John Batchelor Show for the CBS radio network. For those who used to listen to John on his old network, you will need to do some research to find his new radio locations.

Or you can listen to these podcasts here on Behind the Black, though they will usually get posted a day late.
» Read more

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David Bowie – The Man Who Sold The World

March 17, 2021 6:01 pm Robert Zimmerman

An evening pause: Performed live 1979 on Saturday Night Live.

Hat tip Chris McLaughlin.

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Quakes on Mars as seen by InSight

March 17, 2021 3:14 pm Robert Zimmerman

Martian quake map as seen by InSight

After completing its first full Martian year on the surface of the Red Planet, the scientists for the lander InSight today gave a report [pdf] of their results at this year’s annual 52nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, normally held in Texas but being done virtually this year out of terror of the coronavirus.

All told the lander’s seismometer has, as of just a few days ago, detected just over 500 quakes. The map to the right, showing the most distinct quakes and their locations, was adapted from a different presentation [pdf] at the conference. The numbers indicate the sols after landing when these quakes were detected.

This is essentially the region on Mars that I call volcano country. Some of the lava flood plains here are the youngest on Mars. To the east just beyond the edge of the map is the Tharsis Bulge, which holds Olympus Mons and the string of three giant volcanoes to its east. South of Cereberus Fossae but north of the yellow-colored cratered highlands is the vast Medusae Fossae Formation, the largest volcanic ash deposit on Mars.

The quakes suggest they are occurring as large blocks shift along faults, creating fissures and cracks that geologists call grabens. The long fissures of Cereberus Fossae are considered an example of grabens, so this activity suggests that shifting is still going on in the region.

In addition to outlining the location of the detected volcanoes, the presentation today summarized these other discoveries made by InSight about Mars’ interior structure:

The crust of Mars has likely two or three layers either 12 or 24 miles thick, with a total thickness no more than 45 miles. This is much thinner than most scientists had expected.
The mantle layer below the crust is estimated at about 250 to 375 miles thick, with a temperature between 1,600 to 1,700 degrees Kelvin. While quite hot, this is a cooler mantle than expected.
The core of Mars is somewhere between 1,100 to 1,300 miles in diameter, with a outer layer made of liquid. These results are at the high end of pre-mission expectations.

As already admitted, it was noted that the heat sensor experiment will not be able to provide the interior temperature of Mars, as its digging mole was unable to dig into the ground the 9 to 15 feet planned.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Bi-racial HS student punished for refusing to condemn his white half

March 17, 2021 12:31 pm Robert Zimmerman

The good black half of this student
One slide shown during the class, illustrating that according to
critical race theory, the student’s black half is pure goodness,
even as his white half is the devil incarnate.

They’re coming for you next: A Las Vegas high school student, born from the marriage of a white man and black woman, was given a failing grade because he would not label his white half as evil and racist.

William Clark received a failing grade in his Sociology of Change class after he refused to categorize and label his racial, religious and sexual identities, according to a press release from Schoolhouserights.org, which supports civil rights litigation in defense of students’ freedom of conscience in public education.
» Read more

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Scallops of Martian ice

March 17, 2021 11:19 am Robert Zimmerman

Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped to post here, was yesterday’s captioned image from the MRO science team. From the caption, written by Shane Byrne of the Lunar and Planetary Lab University of Arizona,

About a third of Mars has water ice just below the dusty surface. Figuring out exactly where is vital for future human explorers. One of the ways scientists do this is to look for landforms that only occur when this buried ice is present. These scallops are one of those diagnostic landforms.

A layer of clean ice lies just below the surface in this image. As the ice ablates away in some spots the surface dust collapses into the hole that’s left. These holes grow into the scallops visible here as more and more ice is lost.

You can see those holes near the top of the scallop’s slopes.
» Read more

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Musk confirms goal of orbital Starship flight this year

March 17, 2021 9:23 am Robert Zimmerman

Capitalism in space: Musk today confirmed the stories published earlier this week that SpaceX has a target goal of completing the first test orbital flight of Starship before the end of this year, possibly as early as July.

The only new news in the article is Musk’s confirmation. It does outline again the challenges SpaceX faces to meet this goal, recognizing that these dates are thus merely targets that almost certainly will not be met. It also recognizes that the targets tell us that development will continue to move forward swiftly, and that an orbital test flight is also likely not that far in the future.

Who wants to bet that a Starship/Super Heavy rocket reaches orbit before SLS? Right now the odds I’d say are about 50-50.

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China to build spaceport for its pseudo-commercial space sector

March 17, 2021 9:13 am Robert Zimmerman

The new colonial movement: According to its newest five year plan, the Chinese government intends to build a new spaceport, the country’s fifth, dedicated solely for the commercial launches of the growing number of pseudo-commercial private Chinese launch companies.

Dou Xiaoyu, a deputy to the National People’s Congress (NPC), the top Chinese legislative body, and a vice chairperson at China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp. (CASIC), a giant state-owned enterprise, called for a Chinese commercial spaceport project in order to meet an expected surge in demand for space launch services.

Dou said China needs to strengthen domestic launch site capacity and continuously improve and optimize facilities. She also noted that launch-related policies and regulations have yet to be promulgated and perfected.

About a half-dozen privately funded entities in China have been using solid and liquid rocket technology in their effort to build commercially affordable rockets. This spaceport would provide them a location to launch devoted exclusively to their needs.

I call these companies “pseudo” however because they are not independent and private in the same sense you would use in the west. Their funding might be private capital, but they do nothing without the approval and supervision of the Chinese government. Thus, each is building only what the government allows them to build, or wants built. They might be able to then sell their rockets on the open market, but their purpose is shaped entirely by governmental orders.

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New hypothesis: Mars didn’t lose water, it got trapped chemically in its crust

March 17, 2021 9:03 am Robert Zimmerman

Using data from the many orbiters, landers, and rovers sent to Mars, scientists yesterday proposed a new model for the loss of water on Mars, suggesting that instead of escaping through its thin atmosphere it was instead chemically trapped in the planet’s crust.

New data challenges the long-held theory that all of Mars’s water escaped into space

Billions of years ago, the Red Planet was far more blue; according to evidence still found on the surface, abundant water flowed across Mars and forming pools, lakes, and deep oceans. The question, then, is where did all that water go?

The answer: nowhere. According to new research from Caltech and JPL, a significant portion of Mars’s water—between 30 and 99 percent—is trapped within minerals in the planet’s crust. The research challenges the current theory that the Red Planet’s water escaped into space.

First, this is only a model. It proves nothing, and carries many assumptions based on our limited knowledge. We mustn’t accept it at face value.

Second, the first sentence quoted above from this Caltech press release is an example of a trick the scientists have played that our ignorant press has fallen far. What the press release implies superficially is that Mars is now a barren dry place, with little water. Researchers (and readers of Behind the Black) know however that this description is not accurate, that the planet apparently has a lot of water still, only that it is confined as buried ice to latitudes above 30 degrees. Only the equatorial regions appear dry, but not the rest of the planet.

Regardless, this new hypothesis is important if true, as it will help provide an explanation for the Red Planet’s entire geological and climatic history. It might even help solve the mystery of the liquid water that appears to have once existed there, on a planet whose atmosphere is too thin and cold to allow for such a thing.

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Private Snafu – Coming!!

March 16, 2021 6:01 pm Robert Zimmerman

An evening pause: This was the first of a World War II cartoon series directed by Chuck Jones, voiced by Mel Blanc, and written by Theodor Geisel aka Dr. Seuss and designed to with humor raise the work ethic of soldiers and officers.

Hat tip Lazurus Long, who adds that “it was a bit racy and [thus] popular with the servicemen.”

Today our military authorities probably consider our servicemen and women to be too fragile for such stuff. And hopefully this evening pause will air before Google’s YouTube decides it must be banned.

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: In Iowa the oppressed fight back

March 16, 2021 3:36 pm Robert Zimmerman

The Bill of Rights, not cancelled!
Not yet cancelled, at least in Iowa.

Today’s story about blacklisting might actually be revealing a hopeful sign, albeit only one which is still not resolved entirely in favor of freedom.

Our story begins in October 2020:

In October, David Johnsen, the dean for the college of dentistry at the University of Iowa, sent a mass email to the college criticizing an executive order issued by then-President Donald Trump. The email condemned the barring of certain types of diversity training that aim to promote “anti-American race and sex stereotyping.”

A conservative student, Michael Brase, “replied all” to the email, asking clarifying questions and sparking discussion on the email chain of about 1,200 students, faculty, and staff. Between two email threads, 18 emails were exchanged over the topic. According to the Daily Iowan, in one of his follow-up emails on the thread, Brase says “simply do the trainings without intentionally race/sex scapegoating people in those trainings. That shouldn’t be that hard.”

According to The Gazette, administrators at the university then summoned Brase to a disciplinary hearing for “unprofessional behavior.” The letter used to summon Brase included warnings of “dismissal” based on his actions.

This is very typical of our modern fascist and bankrupt academia. While partisan Democrats and leftists always have the right to say anything they want, and use all resources — some that are entirely inappropriate — to spread their message, partisan Republicans and even non-partisan neutrals have no right to question this behavior, and if they do must be punished immediately.

In this case however Iowa elected officials actually appear to be doing their job. After getting his disciplinary summons, Brase immediately contacted his local legislator, complaining that this behavior by administrators in a publicly financed institution seemed unjust and wrong. And unlike most modern legislators, who routinely run for the hills when such issues are brought before them out of fear of being called racist, these legislators heartily agreed with Brase.
» Read more

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A cracking Martian glacier?

March 16, 2021 12:21 pm Robert Zimmerman

Click for entire image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on December 4, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)

I have cropped it to show at full resolution the area that contains what the scientists apparently consider the most interesting feature in this image, which they have labeled as “pits forming lines.” These are the vertical cracks and strings of holes that can be seen in this glacier-like flow. In addition, you can see that the cracking is not just vertical, but also extends out in horizontal directions, though the widest cracks are all vertical.

The next image below, which is a lower resolution crop of the full photo, shows a wider view to provide a better picture of the glacier itself.
» Read more

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Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.