Today’s first attempt by SpaceX to complete a 6-mile flight of its tenth Starship prototype ended when the rocket’s computers shut the engines down at T-0, just after they had ignited.
At this time they are assessing the situation to see if they have time to try again today. The SpaceX live feed is there still active, and viewable in my previous post today.
UPDATE: They will try again in about two hours.
Today’s cool image might very well be giving us a glimpse of one of the most promising regions on Mars for future mining. The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced, is made up of two context camera images from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), found here and here. I chose to begin with this wider context camera mosaic because this is one of the rare times the context camera is more exciting an image than the close-up high resolution photo.
This photo covers the southern end of the one of the two curved fissures dubbed Nili Fossae and are thought to be left over evidence of the giant impact that created Isidis Basin to the southeast. These two fissures are about 300 miles long, and can be as much as 1,600 feet deep in places. At this southern end, we can see what look like at least two different drainage channels feeding into the fissure.
The overview map below provides the context of this location on Mars, including its relationship to Jezero Crater where Perseverance now sits.
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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.
"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
Click for full resolution image.
The photo above is only one small slice from the first high resolution panorama taken by Perseverance on the floor of Jezero Crater. It is also reduced in size to post here.
From the press release:
The camera was commanded to take these images by scanning the mast, or “head,” a full 360-degrees around the horizon visible from the landing site. [In the section above] the top of some of the distant crater rim is cut off … to ensure the images would cover the front ridge of the Jezero Crater’s ancient delta, which is only about 1.25 miles (2 kilometers) away from the rover in the center of this panorama. At that distance and focal length, Mastcam-Z can resolve features as small as about 50 centimeters (1.6 feet) across along the front of the delta.
The mosaic is not white balanced but is instead displayed in a preliminary calibrated version of a natural color composite, approximately simulating the colors of the scene that we would see if we were there viewing it ourselves.
So, this is approximately what you would really see if you were standing next to Perseverance and looked west towards the delta (the low hills in the foreground) and the high crater rim beyond.
Capitalism in space:
Yusaku Maezawa, the Japanese billionaire who has purchased a flight on SpaceX’s Starship to fly around the Moon, is now looking for volunteers to join him.
The Japanese entrepreneur said applicants would need to fulfill just two criteria: being ready to “push the envelope” creatively, and being willing to help other crew members do the same. In all, he said around 10 to 12 people will be on board the spaceship, which is expected to loop around the moon before returning to Earth.
The application timeline for spots on the trip calls for would-be space travellers to pre-register by 14 March, with initial screening carried out by 21 March. No deadlines are given for the next stages – an “assignment” and an online interview – but final interviews and medical checkups are currently scheduled for late May 2021, according to Maezawa’s website.
Both he and SpaceX are still aiming for a 2023 flight, though that date is likely optimistic.
To apply, go here.
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.
“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.
Capitalism in space: According to a job posting from SpaceX, it now plans to build a factory in Austin, Texas, to build its Starlink satellites.
The listing also noted that Musk, in a tweet, is suggesting the town of Boca Chica in Texas be renamed Starbase, Texas. According to this article, such a change will not be simple.
“Creating the city of Starbase, Texas,” Musk tweeted Tuesday. “From thence to Mars, And hence the Stars.”
A SpaceX representative made a “casual inquiry” recently about requirements to incorporate Boca Chica and rename it the City of Starbase, said Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino. In a statement, he said county commissioners have been notified of the discussions about Boca Chica, a small burg near the Mexican border where SpaceX’s new Starship prototypes dominate the seaside skyline. “Sending a tweet doesn’t make it so,” Trevino said in an interview. “They have a lot of hoops and hurdles to go through before they can make it so.”
I think Musk will be making a mistake to do this. Even if all the locals have moved out, there is history behind the Boca Chica name. He should keep it and simply give his facilities their own name.
A similar situation occurred at Cape Canaveral in Florida. After President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 the federal government renamed it Cape Kennedy, a name that never took with locals. The name was eventually changed back to its historic one.
The new colonial movement: According to a press release from iSpace, one of the pseudo-private companies that China’s government is allowing to exist, the reason its February 1st launch failed was because a piece of foam broke off from the rocket.
According to iSpace a piece of foam insulation, intended to fall off, struck and impeded one of four grid fins at the base of the first stage. The insulation foam later fell free, resulting an a change of angle of the grid fin and then subsequent rapid change of attitude and breakup of the launch vehicle.
The loss of the mission coincidentally followed 18 years to the day of the Columbia disaster. A piece of foam insulation broke off from the Space Shuttle’s external tank during launch and damaged a wing of the Orbiter, later leading to catastrophe on reentry.
ISpace is the only pseudo-private company in China to have successfully achieved an orbital launch, achieving that in July 2019 with its Hyperbola-1 rocket. It appears they redesigned the rocket significantly, and intend with its next iteration, Hyperbola-2, to attempt vertical landings. The grid fins and foam on the failed rocket were probably early tests of that technology. They are aiming to begin vertical hop tests next year.
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.
"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
Screen capture from LabPadre Nerdle camera live stream.
It appears that SpaceX is going to attempt the first test flight of its tenth Starship prototype today. The roads are closed and the pad has been cleared. Below is a list of some of the independent live streams. I will also embed below the fold SpaceX’s live stream when they finally activate it shortly before launch. That live stream will provide the best video coverage.
UPDATE: SpaceX live stream is now embedded below.
In the comments are links to more live streams, if you want to try them out.
What I am doing is using keeping one of the live streams above active to get updates. I will then switch to SpaceX’s live feed when it goes live.
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NASA and Boeing have been forced to again delay the second unmanned Starliner demo mission to ISS due to scheduling conflicts with Soyuz and Dragon missions in April, forcing the flight to slip to May.
A Russian Soyuz capsule is set for launch April 9 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with two Russian cosmonauts and a U.S. astronaut. The Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft will dock with the space station about three hours after launch, and an outgoing three-person crew will depart and return to Earth on April 17.
SpaceX’s next Crew Dragon flight to the space station is set for launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida around April 20 with astronauts Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, Akihiko Hoshide, and Thomas Pesquet. Their mission, known as Crew-2, will last about six months.
The four astronauts who flew to the station last November on the Crew-1 mission — aboard the Crew Dragon “Resilience” spacecraft — will return to Earth in late April or early May. Both docking ports capable of receiving the Boeing Starliner capsule will be occupied during the crew handover in late April.
They had hoped to launch on April 2nd, but I suspect strongly that Boeing and NASA are glad to have this extra time.
They’re coming for you next: The Arizona Department of Education has created what it calls an “Equity Toolkit” for use by parents and teachers that claims that 3-month-old white babies are already racists, and that the schools should take “pro-active” action against white children, continuously.
More details here.
The toolkit teaches, among other things, that babies start to become racist at just three months of age. The toolkit insists that babies must be spoken to about race, as “letting children draw their own conclusions based on what they see” leads to racism. It is unclear how allowing children to think for themselves leads to racism.
It also suggests that white children specifically are strongly biased in favour of their own race by the time they are five years old, but claimed that such a phenomenon does not exist among black and “latinx” children.
The toolkit also teaches that if a white person disputes the accusation “that they are a racist [it] is taken as evidence of racism. The reading says that white people deny their own racism ‘to feel better about themselves.'”
I have already written my state representative, a conservative Republican, though I have doubts much will come of it. As I told him,
Do you think your leadership might be able to move their asses and put an end to this bigoted school program, now?
I have my doubts. Prove me wrong.
I do not expect much from him, even though I know he will sincerely want to do something. His Republican Party leadership in Arizona is a bunch of quisling backstabbers whose only goal is to gather campaign donations and compromise with corrupt and bigoted Democrats. They have been useless for years, which is why they are steadily losing ground in the state.
An evening pause: Hat tip Blair Ivey.
Time to do another sunspot update. Below is NOAA’s March 1, 2021 monthly graph, showing the Sun’s monthly sunspot activity. It is annotated by me as always to show the previous solar cycle predictions.
February continued the decline of sunspot activity seen in January after a very unusually active November and December. Though the actual sunspot number was more than the prediction, the difference in February was trivial.
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They’re coming for you next: McDonald’s has now established policies that will require firm statistical hiring quotas for its top management jobs aimed at discriminating against white men and favoring minorities, regardless of qualifications.
A press release on the McDonald’s website says that part of the bonuses awarded to top company executives will be based upon their efforts to hire women and what the company terms “historically underrepresented groups” for top corporate positions.
“Beginning in 2021, the Company is incorporating quantitative human capital management-related metrics to annual incentive compensation for its Executive Vice Presidents,” the company said. “In addition to the Company’s financial performance, executives will be measured on their ability to champion our core values, improve representation within leadership roles for both women and historically underrepresented groups, and create a strong culture of inclusion within the Company,” the company said.
Other reports indicate that an executive’s annual bonuses could be penalized by as much as 15% if he or she fails to meet these goals.
In other words, if you don’t favor women and minorities in your promotions and hiring, discriminating specifically against white men merely because of their sex and race, your bonuses will be reduced.
Nor is this policy of racial discrimination limited to the company’s top management.
The company’s diversity website notes that in America, 70 percent of those hired in 2019 were women (54 percent) or minorities (33 percent).
The company was even more focused on non-white, non-male applicants through its University program in 2019–2020, with 81 percent of those admitted being women or minorities.
All of these policies are 100% illegal based on all of the civil rights laws passed in the past half century. Period. The law forbids you to consider race, religion, creed, or sex in your hiring and promotion practices.
No matter. When it comes to oppressing some races and sexes the law no longer matters. What matters is punishing today’s innocent generation for the sins of long dead past generations.
So, remember this the next time you stop for a hamburger. Your money will be supporting an inherently racist company which determines who it will hire and promote not by their talent, skills, and performance, but by their race and sex. According to McDonald’s the quality of a person’s character be damned!
