TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
August 15, 2024
Late Night Vallentuna
Bright Mars and even brighter Jupiter are in close conjunction just above the pine trees in this post-midnight skyscape from Vallentuna, Sweden. Taken on August 12 during a geomagnetic storm, the snapshot records the glow of aurora borealis or northern lights, beaming from the left side of the frame. Of course on that date Perseid meteors rained through planet Earth's skies, grains of dust from the shower's parent, periodic comet Swift-Tuttle. The meteor streak at the upper right is a Perseid plowing through the atmosphere at about 60 kilometers per second. Also well-known in in Earth's night sky, the bright Pleides star cluster shines below the Perseid meteor streak. In Greek myth, the Pleiades were seven daughters of the astronomical titan Atlas and sea-nymph Pleione. The Pleiades and their parents' names are given to the cluster's nine brightest stars.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?
A Practiced Escape
Aug 14, 2024
In preparation for NASA’s Artemis II crewed mission, teams at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida practice getting out of the emergency escape, or egress, basket on Aug. 9, 2024.
The baskets, similar to gondolas on ski lifts, are used in the case of a pad abort emergency to enable astronauts and other pad personnel a way to quickly escape from the mobile launcher to the base of the pad and where waiting emergency transport vehicles will then drive them away.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/a-practiced-escape/
The Marshall Star for August 14, 2024
Contents
Marshall Director Joseph Pelfrey Addresses Space and Missile Defense Symposium
Artemis I Lessons Learned Focus of Mission Success Forum; Charlie Adams Receives Golden Eagle Award
Marshall Team Members Participate in Space Night with Rocket City Trash Pandas
I Am Artemis: Julia Khodabandeh
‘Legacy of the Invisible’ Event to Celebrate Marshall’s Contributions to Astrophysics
A ‘FURST’ of its Kind: Sounding Rocket Mission to Study Sun as a Star
NASA Challenge Seeks ‘Cooler’ Solutions for Deep Space Exploration
Webb Sees Gassy Baby Stars
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/marshall/the-marshall-star-for-august-14-2024/
Nevada needs serious help in all directions.
It's like the retarded offspring of California.
SpaceX Maxar 2 Mission
SpaceX is targeting Thursday, August 15 for launch of the Maxar 2 mission to orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The 60-minute window opens at 9:00 a.m. ET. If needed, a backup launch opportunity is available on Friday, August 16 with a three-hour window opening at 9:00 a.m. ET.
Maxar 2 is the second of three missions with Maxar to deliver their six WorldView Legion satellites to orbit.
Earlier this year, Falcon 9 launched the first two WorldView Legion satellites to orbit from California.
A live webcast of this mission will begin about 15 minutes prior to liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX.
This will be the 16th flight for the Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched CRS-26, OneWeb Launch 16, Intelsat IS-40e, O3b mPOWER, Ovzon 3, Eutelsat 36D, Turksat 6A, and eight Starlink missions.
After stage separation, the first stage will land on Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=maxar2
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-081524a-paul-allen-space-art-artifacts-christies-auction.html
https://www.christies.com/auction/pushing-boundaries-ingenuity-from-the-paul-g-allen-collection-23617-nyc
Microsoft co-founder's space art, artifacts to be sold by Christie's
August 15, 2024
Visions of humanity's future in space and historic spaceflight artifacts are heading for auction from the estate of Paul G. Allen.
Christie's on Thursday (April 15) released the catalogs for three upcoming sales devoted to Allen's sprawling collection of "groundbreaking scientific and artistic achievements throughout history."
The "Gen One: Innovations" auctions include a live "Pushing Boundaries: Ingenuity" sale in New York on Sep. 10 and two online auctions themed to the history of computing and the art of the future that are open for bidding through the same date.
"This is a collection that was assembled to illustrate the inspiring nature of scientific exploration and achievement that were such a part of Paul Allen's remarkable life," Christina Geiger, head of Christie's rare books and manuscripts department, said in a statement provided to collectSPACE.
"The works of art and objects related to space are emblematic of the collection, since they put us in touch with the very boundaries of human experience."
Allen, who died in 2018, is perhaps best known for co-founding the Microsoft Corporation with Bill Gates in 1975.
During his lifetime, he also expressed his interest in space and exploration by investing in projects such as Stratolaunch, which developed the world's largest operating aircraft originally intended to support an air-launched space transportation system, and SpaceShipOne, the first crewed private spaceplane that claimed the Ansari X Prize in 2004.
Between the three upcoming sales, more than 50 of the lots offer art, memorabilia and artifacts related to space.
Have spacesuit (layer), will EVA
Among the featured lots in the "Pushing Boundaries: Ingenuity" live auction are part of a spacesuit and the cue cards used by the first American to walk in space.
Astronaut Edward H White II wore the offered silvery spacesuit cover-layer for his NASA portrait taken on Sept. 10, 1964.
Nine months later, while wearing a similar garment but with a white Nomex outer layer, White exited the Gemini 4 spacecraft and conducted a 20-minute extravehicular activity (EVA).
Although not a complete suit, the unflown cover layer retains its original NASA "meatball" patch and its "E.H. White, II" name tag. An internal label identifies the garment as having been made by the David Clark Co. and that it was sized for White in January 1964.
White may have also worn the cover layer for part of his training at NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center (today, Johnson Space Center) in Houston, Texas.
According to Christie's, Allen bought the garment in 1991 from the estate an area auto mechanic who befriended the Mercury and Gemini astronauts through his work on their Corvettes.
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Christie's expects White's spacesuit cover layer will sell for $80,000 to $120,000.
Allen also owned the original and complete set of procedures that White followed to perform his June 3, 1965 spacewalk.
Certified by White's crewmate, Jim McDivitt, as "flown on Gemini IV for the first USA EVA," the 13-page checklist on seven 3.5-by-8-inch (9-by-20-cm) cue cards includes notes written in pencil during the flight.
The instructions detail the steps that McDivitt and White followed to prepare for the spacewalk, including checking the integrity of both of their spacesuits as the Gemini spacecraft did not have a separate airlock.
The cards also outline what the astronauts were to do when White returned to the capsule, a moment he famously described as "the saddest moment of my life."
The full set of cards, held together by a single ring binding, was acquired by Allen at a 2015 auction for $47,500.
Christie's estimates that the checklists will now sell for $60,000 to $80,000.
The "Over the Horizon: Art of the Future from the Paul G. Allen Collection" online sale presents a three-week window for bidders to vie over paintings and other art works that captured space exploration from new and prophetic perspectives.
The auction includes numerous original illustrations by artists Chesley Bonestell and Fred Freeman from Collier's magazine series "Man Will Conquer Space Soon!" which ran from 1952 to 1954 and is credited with selling the U.S. public on the country's burgeoning efforts to leave Earth.
Allen's collection also included 14 illustrations by Freeman for German rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun's 1960 book "First Men to the Moon" and "Saturn as Seen from Titan," a 1944 painting by Bonestell that is considered by many his most iconic work and has been called the "most famous astronomical painting ever created."
Christie's estimates "Saturn as Seen from Titan" will sell for $30,000 to $50,000.
Space artist Robert McCall is also represented in the online sale with his 1986 oil painting,
"Pioneering the Space Frontier No. 8." Signed and dated by McCall, the 46-by-72-inch (117-by-180-cm) futuristic scene of an active space settlement was sold to Allen for $46,250 in 2015.
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Lost in space and asleep at the wheel: The US space program is cratering
08/14/24 8:30 AM ET
Today, two astronauts, Sunita “Sunny” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, are unable to leave the International Space Station on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.
They are safe for now, but after nine weeks, the space capsule in which they arrived does not appear to be reliable enough to bring them home. The choices are risky, difficult and expensive.
NASA is considering several contingency plans, but the two most obvious are either to send only two astronauts up as part of Crew-9, to allow space for Williams and Wilmore to return on the SpaceX Crew Dragon, or to risk bringing them home on Starliner.
If Starliner is brought back to Earth without astronauts, it is being reported that Starliner will require up to four weeks to update and validate its software to return to Earth autonomously.
Who decides what to do next?
As a deputy administrator at NASA, I experienced the process first-hand. The White House — specifically the National Space Council and its chair, Vice President Kamala Harris, will heavily influence the decision.
Understandably, no one around the vice president wants her to be blamed if things go wrong, especially now.
As she has been glaringly absent in her role as chair, she would be held responsible if a mishap occurred involving the astronauts or the capsule.
As a result, and perhaps shockingly to some, the astronauts will likely remain in space until after the November election, just to avoid a bad day for the Harris campaign.
The record does not instill confidence.
We no longer lead in space. Instead, we talk about broken capsules that cannot get home, delayed and canceled programs, and trying to catch up with China.
As president, Donald Trump increased funding for space efforts across the government, and leadership in space was not abdicated to China and Russia, both of which continue to develop and deploy offensive weapons in space. Most of our critical infrastructure depends on space assets, including national security missions, the Global Positioning System that is essential for banking and navigation, and 5G networks.
The current administration has allowed our peer competitors to “militarize” space. They can now grab, control or destroy our space assets.
We were directed by Trump’s Space Policy Directives to expand U.S. leadership in space, encourage private-sector growth and establish a human presence on the moon.
This strategy was very similar to former President Reagan’s effort to protect vital sea lanes for commerce. Trump’s efforts included the Space Force and NASA’s Artemis program to reach the moon and Mars.
In addition, he pushed SpaceX to realize its goals under the Commercial Crew Program of creating an affordable space economy, with regular deliveries of humans and payloads to low earth orbit.
When the current vice president took the job, the Space Council soon became irrelevant.
As a result, the Artemis program is delayed, systems integration is lacking, and costs are out of control.
The Viper program, which was to be a lunar robot that mapped resources for our return to the moon, is now canceled.
The Mars Sample Return program, which was to retrieve samples collected on Mars, is deemed to have an unrealistic budget and schedule.
To be fair, it is not easy making such programs work. The challenges are daunting, but that is why it is vital to create a vision for our future in space, develop it and move forward to responsibly fund and execute that vision.
Along the way, needed adjustments are made to keep costs down, and leaders do what is expected of them by using tools like honesty, integrity, courage, a desire to learn and an ability to motivate the team around you.
Serious leadership is required at the highest levels.
On Election Day, it will have been 152 days since the astronauts’ arrival at the Space Station.
That is a long time when they only planned to stay 10 days. They deserve better.
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4826170-astronauts-starliner-space-station/
Northrop Grumman continues to trim space workforce in California
August 14, 2024
U.S. defense contractor Northrop Grumman plans to lay off 550 full-time employees at its space business facilities in Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach, California, marking another round of job cuts in the sector.
The company on Aug. 12 filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice (WARN) with state and local government agencies, notifying employees of the potential workforce reductions.
Large employers in the state of California are required to notify workers about potential layoffs or business closures to provide them with adequate time to prepare.
“We are providing all potentially impacted employees with advance notice and have begun the process of working to match them with existing opportunities across the company,” a Northrop Grumman spokesperson said Aug. 14 in a statement to SpaceNews.
This latest round of layoffs follows a separate action earlier this year that resulted in 600 employees being redeployed across the company.
Northrop Grumman indicated that these workforce adjustments are ongoing and additional employees could receive WARN notices.
The aerospace giant, which employs approximately 100,000 people globally with one-third in its space systems sector, has not specified the reasons behind the job cuts.
This comes despite executives reporting growth in the company’s space business, particularly in military programs.
However, the backdrop to these layoffs includes a recent program cancellation by the U.S. Space Force, which terminated a multi-billion dollar military communications satellite project.
Some NASA programs, including Commercial Resupply Services missions and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) for the Artemis lunar program, have seen decreases in revenue, potentially contributing to the workforce reductions.
https://spacenews.com/northrop-grumman-continues-to-trim-space-workforce-in-california/
Space Force Supports Maui Firefighters
Aug. 13, 2024
In a rapid response to a wildfire on Maui’s Haleakalā in July, the U.S. Space Forces Indo-Pacific Headquarters provided valuable and timely commercial analytics to local government officials and first responders.
Within hours of receiving requests for assistance from Maui County Fire and Emergency Management Agency officials on July 18, the Space Force initiated a process to acquire and analyze satellite data of the wildfire along the Crater Road.
The resulting imagery products helped local agencies better understand the fire's progression and further inform their response efforts.
“This is a prime example of how our space-based capabilities can directly support our local communities,” said Col. Jason Schramm, U.S. Space Forces Indo-Pacific Deputy Commander.
“We were proud to contribute to the efforts to protect lives and property and will continue to work with local officials to offer assistance as needed in the future.”
Space Force’s data aided firefighters in their efforts to contain and extinguish the blaze.
This coordination demonstrates Space Force Guardians’ commitment and capability to supporting civil authorities during natural disasters and emergencies.
https://www.ssc.spaceforce.mil/Newsroom/Article-Display/Article/3873726/space-force-supports-maui-firefighters
What did John F. Kennedy know — and not know — about UFOs?
Updated: Aug 15, 2024 / 11:16 AM CDT
When John F. Kennedy became president in the early 1960s, there was a lot he knew about unidentified flying objects, aka UFOs, former Australian intelligence official Geoff Cruickshank told NewsNation’s “Reality Check with Ross Coulthart.”
For instance, official government footage which appears to show multiple Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) captured while he was in office has since been made public.
For instance, footage of a high-altitude nuclear test called “Bluegill,” part of “Operation Fishbowl,” appears to show an object plummeting to the ocean below after the bomb goes off.
A second angle of the explosion includes a triangle of paper over that same area, which Cruickshank says is an indication that the first unredacted video was released by accident.
Cruickshank also points to footage captured in 1962 of an Atlas rocket test, which appears to show an object tracking just above the warhead as it is in flight.
But it’s what Kennedy wasn’t told that may be the more fascinating story, according to Cruickshank.
“He knew quite a bit as he entered the Oval Office in 1961, but what he didn’t know was the existence of a very, very highly classified program called Palladium that was injecting false (unidentified aerial phenomena) signals into the Soviet air defense system, messing with their heads,” Cruickshank said.
“The man that was one of the masterminds of that program … was David Lamar Christ.”
Christ, a scientist with the Central Intelligence Agency, was tortured by Cuban and Russian interrogators while in a prison in Cuba called the “Isle of Pines.” While there, Christ revealed all about the secret program.
Watch “Reality Check” dive into UAP/UFO activity during the Cold War in the video above.
https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/reality-check-jfk-and-ufos/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VHdP_DdAUs
Hopkinsville residents prepare for Alien Invasion Day
Aug. 14, 2024 at 12:00 PM
HOPKINSVILLE, Ky. (WBKO) - The Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter refers to a 1955 incident where a family in the small town of Kelly claimed they were invaded by small alien-like creatures.
The story remains one of the most well-known and debated cases in UFO lore.
This year, the community will commemorate the 69th anniversary of the event with a special celebration.
The encounter began on the evening of August 21, 1955, when the Sutton family and their guests, while sitting down to dinner, reported seeing strange lights in the sky.
When one family member went outside to investigate, he claimed to have seen small, glowing creatures that floated above the ground.
“So, they did get scared enough to run here into Hopkinsville to grab the sheriff,” Ginnie Pruitt said. Pruitt serves as the finance and operations manager at Visit Hopkinsville.
As the story goes, the family felt threatened and retreated inside their home, where they engaged in a four-hour standoff, shooting at the creatures, who they claimed were impervious to bullets.
Frightened, the family eventually fled to Hopkinsville to seek help from the sheriff, sparking a large-scale investigation by local law enforcement and military personnel from nearby Fort Campbell.
Despite a thorough investigation, no concrete evidence of the creatures was found, leaving the incident shrouded in mystery.
Over the decades, the event has fueled debate over extraterrestrial life and inspired a yearly festival in the small community of Kelly, which had grown in popularity over the years until they were no longer held due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year, the festival is set to make a triumphant return on the at the Hopkinsville Visitor’s Center located in the Trail of Tears Commemorative Park.
One of the highlights of this year’s festival will be a special appearance by Geraldine Stith, the daughter of one of the original witnesses of the encounter.
“She travels all over the world telling the story,” Pruitt said.
The festival will also feature an evening screening of the film E.T., which owes its origin to the Hopkinsville Goblins story.
“Steven Spielberg was doing research on Close Encounters of the Third Kind when he came across the Kelly story and started writing a very dark and scary movie called Night Skies,” Pruitt said.
“But for some reason, he would have a change of heart halfway through and make it kind of more kid friendly, lighthearted, and we now have E.T. because of the Hopkinsville Goblins story.”
Discarded elements from Spielberg’s original script would later be used in other films like Gremlins and Poltergeist.
The story’s reach has even extended into the world of video games.
“In the process of designing Pokémon, they actually used the story of the Hopkinsville Goblin, and the diagrams drawn for the Pokémon Sableye,” Brett Pritchett, the learning coordinator for the Museums of Historic Hopkinsville-Christian County, said.
In addition to food trucks and games, there will also be costume contests for children and adults, with prizes awarded to the winners.
The event will kick off on Wednesday, August 21st, at 4 p.m. at 1730 E. 9th Street in Hopkinsville.
If you are unable to attend the celebration this year, Visit Hopkinsville is already hard at work to make next year’s 70th anniversary a spectacle you can’t miss.
“We’ve got big plans, nothing set in stone yet but keep your eye out for next year.
We’ve got big things coming, lots of cool stuff happening next year,” Pruitt said.
https://www.wbko.com/2024/08/14/hopkinsville-residents-prepare-alien-invasion-day/