Tag: Portal

Martian mountaintop

11:03 am

Mountains on Mars
Click for full image.

The outcrop top
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on September 21, 2021 by Curiosity’s high resolution mast camera, and shows the top of that spectacular rock outcrop about 200 feet to the west of where the rover presently sits. The top image, from my September 16, 2021 post, “Curiosity: Into the Mountains!”, indicates the location of the photo with the black rectangle. The red dotted line indicates the rover’s future planned route.

I estimate the whole outcrop is about 100 feet high, which means the cliff section seen in the photo to the right is probably about 30 feet high. It would make a great challenge for any number of rock climbers I know.

What makes this image especially striking are the overhanging rocks at the peak’s top. In the Martian gravity, about one third that of Earth’s, it is possible for much more delicate rock shapes to remain structurally stable, and the sharp jagged boulders hanging out at the top of this cliff demonstrate that in a quite breath-taking way. On Earth such delicate rocks would likely have quickly fallen.

The Curiosity science team is obviously most interested in the massive layers revealed by this cliff. I am also sure they are also as enthralled by the scenery as I am.

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Firefly selling its rocket engines to Astra

10:32 am

Capitalism in space: It now appears that Firefly’s effort to diversify its rocket business by selling its Reaver rocket engine to other companies has resulted in it selling that engines to its competitor Astra, for possible use either in that company’s smallsat rocket or in an new redesigned rocket not yet revealed.

Under the [$30 million] deal, which closed earlier this year, Firefly will send up to 50 of its Reaver rocket engines to Astra’s rocket factory in Alameda, California, where a development engine was already delivered in late spring for roughly half a million dollars, according to an internal Firefly document viewed by The Verge and a person briefed on the agreement. Astra engineers have been picking apart the engine for detailed inspection, said a person familiar with the terms, who, like others involved in the deal, declined to speak on the record because of a strict non-disclosure agreement.

Apparently, the contract includes clauses that forbid Astra from using the engine in circumstances that directly compete with Firefly’s Alpha rocket.

The article also suggests that the contract will allow Astra to manufacture the engine itself, thus keeping its operations in-house and not dependent on outside contractors.

The deal suggests two things. First, it shows the growing strength of Firefly. It is not only going to make money launching satellites, it will also do so selling engines to other companies. Second, the deal suggests Astra has issues with its own rocket engine, and needs something better quickly to survive.

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NASA awards Aerojet Rocketdyne contract to build 20 Orion main engines

10:21 am

NASA announced yesterday that it has awarded Aerojet Rocketdyne the contract to build twenty Orion main engines for capsules on missions running through 2032, with the first to be used on the seventh Artemis launch..

This engine is the one that Orion will use to enter and leave lunar orbit.

Based on the pace that NASA expects to launch SLS, once per year, I expect the last engine in this contract will fly in 2048, not 2032, since it will take about 27 years to put that many Orions into space after SLS’s first launch, expected sometime in the next five months.

In other words, this is a contract to keep the jobs at Aerojet Rocketdyne in existence for the next three decades, even if that company’s engineers build little and accomplish less. Nice welfare work I must say.

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Starliner unmanned demo flight likely delayed until ’22

9:20 am

Capitalism in space: The second Starliner unmanned demo flight, repeatedly delayed throughout ’21 due to scheduling and technical problems, is now likely to be delayed until next year.

Apparently, Boeing engineers have been unable to figure out why 13 of 64 valves on Starliner failed to function properly just hours before the last planned launch, causing the launch to be scrubbed.

The quality control systems at Boeing during this entire program have not shined. The capsule is now years behind schedule, and has been dogged by design and construction flaws — from software to parachutes to valves — that in the 21st century should not be problems any longer in building a manned spacecraft.

Like SpaceX and its Dragon capsule, Boeing owns Starliner and will be able to offer private citizens and companies flights on it once it is operational. These failures, however, will not be good for that future business. They make this spacecraft a far less appealing product when compared to the high quality of the engineering at SpaceX. Why would anyone risk their life on Starliner when they can buy a ticket on the apparently much more reliable Dragon?

In other words, Boeing has been doing terrible harm to its brand name with these problems. It needs to get them fixed, and fast.

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NASA reorganizes bureaucracy of manned programs

9:05 am

Moving those deck chairs! NASA yesterday announced that it is reorganizing the bureaucracy of its manned programs, splitting the Artemis program out from the commercial program.

The space agency announced today (Sept. 21) that it’s splitting the current Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) into two new entities: the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD) and Space Operations Mission Directorate (SOMD).

…ESDMD will be responsible for the development of systems and technology critical for NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to land astronauts on the moon in the next few years and establish a sustainable human presence on and around Earth’s nearest neighbor by the end of the 2020s. ESDMD will also map out NASA’s broader “Moon to Mars” exploration strategy, of which Artemis is an integral part, agency officials said. (NASA aims to land humans on Mars in the 2030s, by leveraging the skills and techniques learned during the Artemis moon effort.)

SOMD, meanwhile, will be in charge of crewed launches and ongoing human spaceflight operations, including activities on the International Space Station and the commercialization of low Earth orbit, a NASA priority over the coming years. SOMD will also be responsible for crewed operations on and around the moon once they get up and running.

Kathy Lueders, who had been promoted from just running the commercial crew program to run all of manned space back in 2020, will once again run just the commercial side. The Artemis side will be run by another long time NASA administrator, Jim Free.

As I noted in 2020, these kinds of reorganizations at NASA happen periodically, and generally accomplish little except to allow NASA’s top managers to make believe they are doing something. In this case the split I think is intended to prevent Artemis from being completely taken over by commercial space, thus giving some bureaucratic clout to SLS and the factions at NASA that favor government control, with NASA designing and building everything rather than simply being a customer. If so, the decision is a bad one for Artemis. It means the Biden administration and those factions want to once again take over the design and construction of the entire Artemis program. Since NASA’s track record in this area has been abysmal for decades, it is unlikely this shift will change anything for the better.

This reorganization also suggests that the Biden administration has had second thoughts about the private and commercial approach as recommended in my policy paper, Capitalism in space and adopted by the Trump administration. If so, the consequences for the new emerging private space industry will not be good. They shall increasingly find the government more eager to micromanage their designs and concepts, rather than allowing the private sector the freedom to create things on its own.

The one silver lining to this change is that by creating these two divisions, NASA will be highlighting the competition between them. As commercial space increasingly succeeds, leaving the cumbersome Artemis program far behind, the split will illustrate clearly to the entire world that a government-built program is not the way to go.

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How to discover interesting things on Mars

2:13 pm

Overview map

Today’s cool image will do something a little different. We are going to begin in orbit, and by step-by-step zooming in we will hopefully illustrate the great challenge of finding cool geological features on the surface of Mars.

The first image to the right is an overview map of the Valles Marineris region. To its east, centered at the white dot, is a vast region of chaos terrain, endless small buttes and mesas and criss-crossing canyons. Travel in this region will always be difficult, and will likely always require some form of helicopter to get from point to point.

What is hidden in that terrain? Well, to find out you need to take a global survey from orbit with a good enough resolution to reveal some details. Below is a mosaic made from two wide angle context camera pictures taken by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

Context mosaic of chaos terrain
For full images go here and here.

This mosaic, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, only captures a small section of the long north-south strips taken by MRO. The orbiter has taken tens of thousands of these strips, in its effort to produce a global map of Mars that shows some reasonable detail.

Do you see anything in this mosaic that looks interesting? Scientists need to pore over such images, one by one, searching for geology that is both puzzling and revealing. Sometimes the features are obvious, such as a single blobby crater in the flat relatively featureless northern lowlands.

Sometimes however the search can be slow and time-consuming because the terrain is complex, as is the example to the right. The many mesas and canyons can hide many interesting features. Since MRO can’t possibly take high resolution photos of everything, scientists have to pick and choose.

The planetary scientists who use MRO did find something here worth looking at in high resolution. Can you find it? Normally I’d provide a box to indicate it, but this time I’d thought I’d challenge my readers. Before you click below to see the feature, see if you can find it yourself in this mosaic. What would you want to photograph in high resolution?
» Read more

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Landing site chosen for VIPER lunar rover

9:49 am

Overview map

NASA has now chosen the landing site for its VIPER rover, in a relatively flat area about 85 miles from the Moon’s south pole and near the western edge of Nobile Crater (pronounced No-BEEL-e).

The white rectangle on the overview map to the right shows the landing zone. The green cross on the rim of Shackleton Crater marks the South Pole. The red outlines inside craters are regions that are believed to be permanently shadowed, and thus locations that might have water ice within them. Additionally, the data suggests there are a handful of small areas inside craters within the landing zone that might also have ice.

From the press release:

The area VIPER will study in the Nobile region covers an approximate surface area of 36 square miles (93 square kilometers), 10 to 15 miles (16 to 24 km) of which VIPER is expected to traverse through during the course of its mission. During this time, the rover will visit carefully chosen areas of scientific interest that will provide further insight into a wide array of different kinds of lunar environments. The VIPER team will look to characterize ice and other resources in these areas using VIPER’s sensors and drill.

The mission’s planned lifespan is presently set at 100 days. While the Moon’s day/night is 28 days long, the rover will likely see little darkness, since at this very high latitude the Sun will simply circle the sky near the horizon.

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SpaceX schedules likely first static fire tests for orbital Starship and Superheavy

9:01 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has scheduled a weeklong series of road closures at Boca Chica, beginning next week, suggesting they are about to begin the first static fire tests for the orbital prototypes of both Starship (#20) and Superheavy (#4).

The company has been installing or replacing engines on both prototypes, with the installation apparently now complete on Starship #20.

Starship’s current design features three gimballing sea-level Raptors and three vacuum-optimized variants with much larger nozzles – all in close proximity inside a 9m-wide (30 ft) skirt. As such, the first Starship static fire with any combination of Raptor Center and Raptor Vacuum engines will be a significant milestone for SpaceX. Eventually, that will likely culminate in the first static fire(s) of a Starship (likely S20) with all six Raptors installed – a test that will effectively qualify that prototype for its first orbital launch attempt.

As for Superheavy #4, they have been replacing some of its 29 engines while it sits on the launchpad, for reasons that are not clear.

It appears the company is aiming to get all of its ground-testing completed while the FAA’s approval process for the permit for the orbital flight is ongoing. This will make it possible to launch as soon as approval is obtained.

This strategy carries some risk. As long as the testing proceeds smoothly it will provide positive coverage during the FAA’s public comment period, running until mid-October. Should a test fail dramatically, however, the explosion could generate the wrong response during that comment period. Not surprisingly, SpaceX is willing to accept that risk.

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NASA reviewing a dozen commercial proposals for future government space stations

8:45 am

Capitalism in space: Rather than replace the aging International Space Station (ISS) with an entirely government-designed-and-built new station, NASA is now reviewing about a dozen commercial proposals from private companies.

NASA earlier this year unveiled the Commercial LEO Destinations project, with plans to award up to $400 million in total contracts to as many as four companies to begin development of private space stations. In response to NASA’s request, its director of commercial spaceflight, Phil McAlister, told CNBC that the agency “received roughly about a dozen proposals” from a variety of companies for contracts under the project.

…The ISS is more than 20 years old and costs NASA about $4 billion a year to operate. The space station is approved to operate through the end of 2024, with a likely lifespan extension to the end of 2028. But, moving forward, McAlister says NASA wants “to be just one of many users instead of the primary sponsor and infrastructure supporter” for stations in low Earth orbit.

Based on these initial proposals, NASA officials estimate that the agency’s cost for running this future privately-built station will be about $1 billion per year less than the cost for operating ISS.

The agency will also only pay a part of the development cost for the new station, expecting that since the private company or companies will be making money from it also they should front a significant portion of that development cost.

Essentially NASA is following precisely the recommendations I put forth in my 2017 policy paper, Capitalism in space. And as I also predicted, the result is more achievement faster for far less cost.

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Glacial falls on Mars

11:01 am

A glacial falls on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on July 2, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It provides us just one more clear example of the many glaciers found in that 2,000-mile-long strip of chaos terrain at 30 to 47 degrees north latitude that runs between the northern lowland plains and the southern cratered highlands, a region I like to call Mars’ glacier country.

What makes this glacial feature interesting is that these ice-filled alcoves are south-facing, which in the northern hemisphere means they get the most sunlight. Yet, the ice here remains, well-protected by its layer of dust and debris. Think of the dirty ice slush that manages to survive the longest on city streets in the spring. The dirt acts as protection so that the ice takes more time to melt.

The overview map as always provides our context.
» Read more

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China launches unmanned Tianzhou freighter to its space station

9:05 am

The new colonial movement: In preparation for the arrival of its next three-person crew, China yesterday successfully used its Long March 7 rocket to launch an unmanned Tianzhou freighter to its new space station, docking there seven hours later.

The Long March 7 is a new rocket that launches from China’s Wenchang spaceport on the country’s southern coast. Thus, its expendable stages fall into the ocean, not within China. The rocket also does not use toxic hypergolic fuels, but kerosene and oxygen, so it is less environmental harmful.

The crew will launch to the station on October 13th and will likely spend six months at the station.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

32 China
23 SpaceX
15 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

The U.S. still leads China 34 to 32 in the national rankings.

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SpaceX targeting 6 commercial manned flights per year

9:06 am

Capitalism in space: With the successfully completion of its first manned orbital private space, SpaceX officials announced yesterday that they are expecting to fly about six such commercial manned flights per year.

Benji Reed, SpaceX’s senior director for its human spaceflight program projected as many as a half a dozen flights a year. “There’s nothing really that limits our capability to launch,” he said. “It’s about having rockets and Dragons ready to go and having everything in the manifest align with our other launches.”

…“The reality is the Dragon manifest is getting busier by the moment,” Reed said, noting the planned flight in early 2022 of four passengers for customer Axiom Space that will actually fly to and stay on the ISS for a few days. “It just goes on from there. We have a number of NASA missions that we’ll do, and we also have a growing backlog of commercial astronaut missions that we’re looking forward to perform.” [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words are most intriguing, suggesting that SpaceX might have an already signed line-up of customers ready to pay the ticket price to fly on a Dragon capsule.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk announced late yesterday that he has decided to donate $50 million of his own money to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, in celebration of the completion of the Inspiration4 flight.

“This brings tears to my eyes,” wrote Inspiration4 medical officer Hayley Arceneaux, a St. Jude physicians assistant and survivor of childhood bone cancer, of Musk’s donation. “Thank you Elon Musk for this generous donation toward our $200 million dollar fundraising goal for St. Jude!!!”

Isaacman also thanked Musk and reminded the public that the fundraiser is still underway. Isaacman donated $100 million of his own money to the fundraising goal, then donated the three other seats on Inspiration4 to raise awareness for St. Jude. Arceneaux was selected by St. Jude to fill the “Hope” seat on the crew.

If you wish to make your own donation to St. Jude, you can do so here. You can donate cash directly, or you can bid to win one or more of a variety of items that were carried on the flight.

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Inspiration4 passengers scheduled for return to Earth tonight

9:01 am

The first entirely private manned orbital mission to space is now scheduled to return to Earth tonight, with splashdown set for 7:06 pm (eastern).

The SpaceX live stream of the landing will begin approximately 4:30 pm (eastern).

Yesterday the passengers released some videos, including a conversation with children who are cancer patients at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. They also provided a video update to the general public.

As I noted yesterday, the primary goal of this flight is to raise money for St. Jude. If you wish to send a donation to St. Jude as part of the Inspiration4 spaceflight, you can do so here. You can donate cash directly, or you can bid to win one or more of a variety of items that are on the flight now.

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Badlands on the floor of a Martian crater

1:27 pm

Badlands on the floor of a Martian crater
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, shows one small section of a 30-mile-wide unnamed crater in the cratered equatorial regions of Mars northeast of Hellas Basin. Taken on July 21, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), the science team labeled merely as “Rocky crater fill.”

Being at 17 degrees south latitude, there shouldn’t be any ice features in this crater, and the high resolution image to the right seems to confirm this. All we see is an endless plain made up of innumerable small sharp rock ridges interspersed with small low areas filled with sand dunes. This is bed rock, and if its strange stucco-like appearance was caused by a past glacial era, that era is long gone.

Below is a mosaic showing the entire crater, created from two MRO context camera images.
» Read more

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FAA now taking public comments on the licensing of SpaceX to launch Starship/Superheavy from Boca Chica

10:59 am

Capitalism in space: The FAA today announced by email that it is now taking public comments on the “Draft Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA)” it requires from SpaceX before it can issue a launch license at Boca Chica, Texas for Starship/Superheavy orbital launches.

From the email:

The FAA invites interested agencies, organizations, Native American tribes, and members of the public to submit comments on all aspects of the Draft PEA. Public comments are due on Monday, October 18, 2021. Comments or questions on the Draft PEA can be addressed to Ms. Stacey Zee, SpaceX PEA, c/o ICF, 9300 Lee Highway, Fairfax, VA 22031. Comments may also be submitted by email to SpaceXBocaChica@icf.com. Before including your address, phone number, e-mail address, or other personal identifying information in your comment, be advised that your entire comment – including your personal identifying information – may be made publicly available at any time. While you can ask us in your comment to withhold from public review your personal identifying information, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so.

The FAA will also hold two public hearings on October 6th and 7th, though it provided no information yet on where those hearings will be held.

This announcement means that the Starship/Superheavy orbital test flight cannot occur any earlier than October 18, 2021, and will actually occur at least several weeks or months later, based on the schedule outlined on slide 32 of this FAA presentation [pdf]. Once the 30-day public comment period ends the FAA must then hold “an industry workshop” reviewing the comments and then issue an update of the PEA, or a rejection of it.

Though the chances of the FAA rejecting SpaceX’s permit are practically nil, I fully expect this process to be slow-walked by the FAA under orders of the Biden administration in order to do whatever it can to prevent this orbital flight occurring before SLS’s first launch, now expected in early ’22.

I hope I am wrong, and that the FAA surprises me. We can only wait and see.

Update: If you think I am crazy thinking that the politics of the Biden administration will cause a slowdown in the FAA’s process, just read this story about the FAA suddenly imposing flight restrictions at the southern border to block drone flights by media outlets that show the illegal immigrant crisis there.

“We’ve learned that the FAA just implemented a two week TFR (Temporary Flight Restrictions) over the international bridge in Del Rio, TX, meaning we can no longer fly our FOX drone over it to show images of the thousands of migrants,” Fox News reporter Bill Melugin tweeted. “FAA says ‘special security reason.’”

Fox’s report resulted in a quick lifting of this flight restriction on their drone, but the action by the Biden administration shows that it is quite willing to interfere with normal aviation regulations for its own political reasons.

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India signs deal with private rocket startup

9:57 am

Capitalism in space: India’s new Department of Space, dedicated to encouraging the growth of a private commercial and independent Indian space industry, has signed a deal with the private rocket startup, Agnikul Cosmos, to give it access to government space facilities as it develops its own smallsat rocket.

Indian startup Agnikul Cosmos signed a framework memorandum of understanding (MOU) with India’s Department of Space on Friday for access to ISRO facilities and expertise for the development of its two-stage small-satellite Agnibaan launch vehicle.

“The Framework MoU…will enable the company for undertaking multiple tests and access facilities at various ISRO centers for testing and qualification of their single piece 3D printed Semi Cryo engine and other systems. The MoU also enable Agnikul to avail technical expertise of ISRO for testing and qualifying their space launch vehicle systems and subsystems,” ISRO said in a press release.

The company has raised more than $14.1 million in investment capital, and hopes to complete the first launch of its Agnibaan rocket by ’22.

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Inspiration4 has raised $130 million so far for St. Jude out of $200 million goal

9:50 am

Capitalism in space: Inspiration4, the first privately launched manned orbital mission has so far raised about $130 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, still short of the $200 million goal that Jared Isaacman had set when he bought the flight from SpaceX.

A portion of the money came from 72,000 entrants in a sweepstakes that offered the chance to win a seat on the flight. Entrants were encouraged, but not required, to donate to St. Jude, according to the contest rules, which estimated the retail value of the space flight at $2.21 million.

Crew member Chris Sembroski, a 42-year-old data engineer and U.S. Air Force veteran from Everett, Wash., entered the lottery by donating. He didn’t win, but a friend did and gave him the slot, according to the Associated Press.

If you wish to send a donation to St. Jude as part of the Inspiration4 spaceflight, you can do so here. You can donate cash directly, or you can bid to win one or more of a variety of items that are on the flight now.

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China’s three astronauts land safely

9:33 am

The new colonial movement: China’s three astronauts safely returned to Earth today after spending 91 days in space and 90 days on China’s new space station.

During their stay they did two spacewalks preparing the station for additional modules and later missions.

China is expected to send the robotic Tianzhou 3 cargo spacecraft toward Tianhe around Sept. 20. And the next crewed mission to the module, the six-month-long Shenzhou 13, is apparently scheduled to launch in mid-October. (Exact target dates are hard to come by with Chinese missions, because the nation tends not to announce many details of its spaceflight plans in advance.)

China will also in the next year launch two more large modules to attach to the station, using its Long March 5B rocket. Assuming they have not redesigned that rocket, expect the very large upper stage on both launches to once again crash out-of-control somewhere on the Earth, possibly in habitable areas.

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Curiosity: Into the mountains!

12:46 pm

Curiosity's path into the mountains
Click for full image.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Time for another cool image from Curiosity. The photo above was taken by one of the rover’s navigation cameras today, and looks south in the direction of Curiosity’s future travels. The red dotted line shows that planned route, along the cliff face to then turn west into what the science team has dubbed Maria Gordon Notch, in honor of a Scottish scientist from the early 20th century.

The map to the right gives the context as seen from above, as well as the planned travels beyond the notch. The white dotted route marks Curiosity’s actual travel route. The red dotted line marks the planned route. The yellow lines the area seen in the above picture.

At present Curiosity is paused as it performs a new drilling campaign about 200 feet from the base of that cliff face, drilling the rover’s 33rd hole on Mars.

The outcrop resembling a ship’s prow on the image’s right, which I still consider the most spectacular rock outcrop seen yet on any planetary mission anywhere, is about 100 feet high.

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Chinese astronauts undock from space station in return to Earth

10:07 am

The new colonial movement: Three Chinese astronauts, having completed their 90 day mission on China’s new space station, early today boarded their Shenzhou capsule and undocked from the station, with the expectation that they will return to Earth sometime tomorrow.

The astronauts have already set China’s record for the most time spent in space. After launching on June 17, mission commander Nie and astronauts Liu and Tang went on two spacewalks, deployed a 10-meter (33-foot) mechanical arm, and had a video call with Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.

Following their safe return, China will launch another unmanned cargo freighter to the station, followed by the launch of three more astronauts for another 90 day mission, continuing the station’s assembly construction. In addition to several more manned flights, in the next two years two more large modules will added.

NOTE: The New York Times actually did some good [and increasingly rare] journalism today to point out that the number of people presently in space, 14, is a record, beating the 13 that were on ISS in 2009. The difference now is that those spacefarers are on three different and very independent projects, ISS, the Chinese space program, and the first entirely private space mission launched by SpaceX.

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SpaceX leases several large facilities in Brownsville, Texas

9:36 am

Capitalism in space: In a clear sign that SpaceX plans to expand its Starship/Superheavy operations in Boca Chica, Texas, it has now leased several large facilities in nearby Brownsville.

Earlier this month, the company signed leases with the Brownsville South Padre Island Airport (BRO) for 46,000 square feet of warehouse space and a neighboring private industrial park owned by PacVentures for 60,000 square feet of warehouse space. Francisco Partida, the airport’s special projects manager, said talks with SpaceX about leasing the former Taylorcraft building at 2100 Les Mauldin Road began in mid-July.

The company was looking for 100,000 square feet of warehouse, which the airport couldn’t supply, though SpaceX found the additional square footage it needed in the privately owned industrial park at 1900 Billy Mitchell Blvd., he said.

SpaceX has also committed about a half million dollars to repairing and refurbishing the airport warehouse.

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Astronaut’s mission on ISS will be extended to almost a year

9:30 am

As expected because the Russian’s have taken his return seat in October to bring home two commercial passengers (a film director and his star actress), the mission of astronaut Mark Vande Hei has been extended to March for a total of 353 days in space, just short of a year.

This time will exceed the previous American record for the longest spaceflight, set by Scott Kelly during his 340 day mission in 2015. It remains below about four Russian flights that lasted a full year or more, including the longest flight so far by Valeri Polyakov of 438 days in 1993 and 1994.

Meanwhile, there is no word on the state of the pinched nerve that forced NASA to replace Vande Hei on an upcoming spacewalk. It is likely that weightlessness is probably helping it heal, but NASA and Vande Hei are presently keeping this personal medical information private.

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The real human exploration of the solar system began on September 15, 2021

11:26 pm

Falcon 9 at T+13 seconds

Capitalism in space: First the news: On September 15, 2021 SpaceX successfully placed four civilians into orbit using its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule.

Thus began the first private manned orbital mission in space, planned to last three days and reach an altitude of 595 kilometers or 370 miles, the highest any person has flown in space in decades.

The first stage, on its third flight, successfully landed for reuse. The Dragon capsule, Resilience, was on its second manned flight. The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

31 China
23 SpaceX
15 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

The U.S. now leads China 34 to 31 in the national rankings.

Now the significance: There was one moment about five minutes after lift off that revealed the fundamental difference between this real flight into space and the short suborbital hops that Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic did in July.

The three most critical moments of any launch had just been completed. The first stage engines had cut off, the first stage had separated successfully, and the single upper stage engine had ignited. It was now lifting the capsule towards orbit, with the only major technical task left were its engine cut off and the separation of the Dragon capsule.

At that moment John Insprucker, principal integretion engineer for SpaceX and frequent host during its launch live streams, made a quick comment that was clearly meant to illustrate the vast difference in achievement between this flight and those two July suborbital flights. He said,
» Read more

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Lozenge-shaped hole in Martian crater

12:15 pm

Hole in crater floor
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on June 7, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The left image shows what the scientists have dubbed a “lozenge-shaped depression” in the middle of an unnamed 60-mile-wide crater in the southern cratered highlands of Mars. The right image shows the same exact depression, but I have brightened the photo in order to see the details in the shadowed depression.

Though the image is inconclusive, the bottom of the darkest spot in that depression cannot be seen, suggesting it could be an entrance into a larger void below.

Even if there is no voids below, why is this depression here? What caused it? The wider view of MRO’s context camera below might give us a hint.
» Read more

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Watching the first all-private commercial manned orbital spaceflight

11:20 pm

Liberty and freedom enlightening the world
Liberty and freedom enlightening not only the world,
but the entire solar system.

Bumped: I will be out on a cave trip for most of today, September 15, 2021, so I’ve moved this post to the top of the page, as it clearly will be the most important space news today. I should be back before launch, but if not, enjoy!

Original post:
————————
Capitalism in space: Let’s begin by underlining one fundamental fact about the Inspiration4 manned Dragon orbital space mission, targeted for a September 15th launch tomorrow evening, that makes it different from every other orbital space mission ever flown since Yuri Gagarin completed the first manned mission in 1961:

The government has nothing to do with it.

The launch facilities, the rocket, the capsule, the drone ship where the rocket’s first stage will land, and the entire recovery operation in the ocean are all controlled and owned by SpaceX. The passengers are private citizens, one of whom purchased the flight directly from SpaceX.

It is was organized by 38-year-old billionaire and entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who is also a highly-capable jet warbird aircraft pilot. When he found out from SpaceX he could be the first to fly an all-commercial mission in Crew Dragon, he fronted $100 million to $200 million required and partnered with St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in a campaign to give away two of the missions seats and raise $200 Million for children’s cancer research.

Every person you will see in mission control, at the launchpad, and on the recovery ships are also private citizens, working for a private company that just happens to be in the business of flying rockets, spaceships, and humans into space. None are government employees, and I would suspect that most don’t want to be.

Not only is this mission privately run, its goals are completely different. While all past space launches were flown for purposes decided by the government, this mission’s goals have been determined by the free participants themselves. SpaceX is making money on the flight, Isaacman and his passengers are getting the chance to fulfill their long-held personal dream of going into space, and Isaacman is also using this flight to raise money for cancer research, a personal passion of his.

The flight itself will be unusual. It will be the first manned mission in more than a decade, since the last shuttle repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, to not go to an orbiting space station. Instead, the capsule will spend three days free-flying in orbit around the Earth. To enhance the flight for the passengers, SpaceX removed the docking port on Resilience (the capsule) and replaced it with a viewing port with large windows.

The orbit itself will in a sense push the envelope, as SpaceX plans to loft the capsule to an altitude of about 370 miles, considerably higher than ISS’s orbit of about 260 miles and about 35 miles higher than the mission to Hubble. In fact, the Inspiration4 crew will be the farthest from the Earth’s surface than any human in decades, possibly going back as far as the Apollo era.

For watching this flight I have embedded SpaceX’s live stream below, which you can also find here. You will also be able to find that stream at SpaceX’s YouTube page, where the company is also airing preflight videos.

This mission illustrates the fundamentals that built the United States of America. Give humans freedom, don’t try to tell them what to do, and they will do astonishing and magnificent things, on their own.
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Russia launches another set of OneWeb satellites

2:03 pm

Using its Soyuz-2 rocket Russia today successfully launched another 34 OneWeb satellites, launching from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

At the time of publication about half the satellites have successfully deployed. The rest should be released within the next hour or so.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

31 China
22 SpaceX
15 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

With this launch Russia has now matched its total launches from last year, with three months still to go and a number of launches in ’21 on its manifest. For Russia’s launch industry, 2021 looks like it will be a good year.

The U.S. continues to lead China 33 to 31 in the national rankings.

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The layered history of Mars as revealed in Valles Marineris

1:01 pm

Layered cliff in Valles Marineris
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced, shows just one tiny cliff face in the gigantic canyon on Mars dubbed Valles Marineris. The photo was taken on June 13, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

Like many other similar cliff faces that MRO has photographed and that I have previously highlighted, there are many many layers visible here. In fact, it appears that almost every cliff in this part of Valles Marineris is many layered, suggesting that like the Grand Canyon on Earth, the canyon as it was carved exposed in great detail the long geological history of Mars.

In this part of Mars, each layer probably represents the placementof a new layer of volcanic material, pouring out from the giant volcanoes in the Tharsis Bulge to the west. In addition, overlain on this volcanic record are probably deposits lain down by the atmosphere as Mars underwent its many climate cycles due to the regular shifts in its orbit and rotational tilt.
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Make concrete on Mars using human blood?

9:17 am

What could possibly go wrong? Scientists at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom have developed a new formulation that can use material known to exist on Mars, combined with the addition of astronaut blood, to produce useful concrete.

Working with simulated lunar and Martian soils, the team experimented with using human blood and waste products as binding material, and turned up some interesting results.

The work showed that a common protein in the blood called serum albumin could be used as a binder to produce a concrete-like material with compressive strength comparable to ordinary concrete. In investigating the mechanisms at play, the team found the blood proteins “curdle” to form “beta sheets” that extend outward to hold the material together.

Even more interestingly, the team found that urea, a waste product found in urine, sweat and tears, could be incorporated to increase this compressive strength by more than 300 percent. That is to say, the key to cosmic concrete stronger than what we have here on Earth might be found in our blood, sweat and tears (and urine).

This work was inspired by ancient building techniques, which often used pig blood in concrete for similar reasons.

Though a lot of this makes sense, especially the utilization of waste products like urine, the idea that future colonies will tap the blood of their citizens for construction purposes raises so many moral questions I can’t list them all here.

For example, let me throw out one possibility should no one think about this too much on Mars. Why not use this need for blood as a method of criminal punishment? Do something the ruling powers think is wrong and we will suck your blood from you to build the colony!

The moral consequences of our actions require long careful thought. Unfortunately, long careful thought simply no longer exists among today’s intellectual and political classes. Instead, they make almost all their decisions off the cuff, based on what “feels” right to them. You merely have to watch the many interviews of Dr. Anthony Fauci in the past year to see what I mean. Nothing he says about masks or mandates is really based on new research or data. He merely throws out an opinion that feels right, at the moment. Thus, he contradicts himself repeatedly, and most of his advice has been worse than useless, resulting in so many unexpected negative consequences they almost cannot be counted.

Try to imagine the horrors that could take place in a colony on Mars, where resources are in short supply, should construction require the use of human blood and the leadership there approaches its problems with the same cavalier attitude toward moral consequences? I can, and it chills my own blood to the core (no pun intended).

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