M. Thomas Apple's Blog, page 22

Just another week on the ISS…

Until the new Soyuz pulls up, emergency plans call for Rubio to switch to a SpaceX crew capsule that’s docked at the space station. Prokopyev and Petelin remain assigned to their damaged Soyuz in the unlikely need for a fast getaway. Having one less person on board would keep the temperature down to a hopefully manageable level, Russian engineers concluded.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/russia-launches-rescue-ship-space-station-leaks-rcna72161

Russian space agency Roscosmos concluded that the leak in the docked Soyuz capsule was from a micrometeorite impact.

They also reversed the previous decision last year to abandon the ISS. Now Russia will still send cosmonauts through 2028.

A positive step in a brutal political climate. International space projects should include more, not fewer, countries. Space is for everyone.

Bringer of Light, Chapter 39: Transit — Lost

Unaware of events on Mars, Gennaji was hurrying to help Sergey, his old captain, on Luna. But the unexpected happened, and now the Sagittarius is minus one crew member. And an unidentified object approaches..

“…Be happy. Be free.”

The transmission ended. Gennaji felt liquid on his cheek.

Not tears. A blood bubble had alighted. He brushed it off angrily.

“Ory, what’s the source of this message?”

“Ch-checking.”

He grabbed the navigator’s seat and strapped in. Another splotch on the panel. He wiped it off with his forearm and turned on the aft video feed.

The lifepod had slipped behind and below them. Who was in it? Surely not Sergey. The old man had always said he’d rather die than—

Gennaji snapped his head up.

No.

He unstrapped and bounced to another console. Fingers dancing, trying to remember. He slapped the console in frustration. Lena had always been better than him at controlling the drones and the arm for rock retrieval. He had relied on Andrej too much. Relied too much on others. If only there were an easier way to learn how to do this. He shouldn’t have to do menial work. He was the captain! He should give the orders and the others should follow! He…

The arm extended at last. He sighed. Was it too late?

“Ory, can you open the cargo doors while I try to grab the pod?”

She nodded. Looking like a small frightened animal.

Gennaji grimaced. Not surprised. He probably looked like a maniac. Blood floating in the area. Disheveled and anxious. And she hadn’t even spotted the bo—

Ory gave a high-pitched shriek. Looks like she finally saw Karel. What was left of the man, anyway.

“Ory,” he said firmly. “The doors.”

“A-aye, sir.”

“And where’s the source of that message?”

“Just. Just a minute, sir.”

He fiddled with the aft video controls and changed the angle. Not a great view, but good enough. The pod had just slipped sideways underneath them. He punched the panel in front of him. Twice. Slowly the ship turned, pitched down. The pod came back into view again. Not directly behind but close enough.

“Extending. Now.”

The arm reached for the pod, glanced off one end. No sound in space, of course, but Gennaji imagined what the grind of titanium on aluminum would sound like. He tried again.

Grabbed it. But poked a hole as well. Vapor escaped the pod.

Shit. He might kill whoever was in the thing. Or maybe whoever it was had already died and the vapor was just engine coolant.

“Ory! Doors!”

She sniffled. Nodded.

The cargo doors opened slowly. The arm dragged the pod toward them. Gennaji dared not release the pod just yet. The arm might accidentally fling the pod over the ship. He waited.

Closer. Minutes went by.

Closer. The arm was nearly at the open doors. Gennaji checked the location of the rocks so carefully tied down by the robots of Ceres.

Gently. He released the controls.

The pod was lifted, scraped the roof of the cargo, flipped end to end. Settled down and slid on the floor. The Sagittarius protested and he felt the vibration of the cargo hold groaning at the metal on metal friction.

But it was soon over. He collapsed the arm back into its holding port, closed the port door.

“Close the doors. Pressurize.”

Ory nodded. Tears trickled down her frightened face. She obeyed his commands, then shrank back. Balled up her trembling hands in front of her chest.

He released his breath. Only then did he realize he had been holding it. He looked over at the woman. Not his first choice, but he needed her. Wanted her. Would never hurt her.

He said so. She nodded, still shaking.

He thought of holding her in his arms, but shook his head. Too soon. He needed to calm himself. Clean the ship.

“Ory, stay here. Direct a cleaning unit to vacuum the air and ionize any particles. I’ll…I’ll deal with the body.”

He stood, stared at the empty-headed Karel floating just above the command center floor. The body had moved back, then to the right. Rigor mortis already set in. It looked bloated and didn’t smell all that great, either. From both ends.

That’s what he expected to find in the pod, as well. Death never was a clean, noble thing. At least Karel had his eyes wide open. Staring death in the face. Smiling.

Damn him. Damn me.

Grabbing the body by the back of the belt, he dragged it into the corridor. Found a garbage chute. Dumped it. Good riddance. He’d dispose of it all later, jettison the refuse into space. After the clean up, no one would know the difference. For all they could tell, Karel had simply finished his contract and then decided on a career change. Moved to Triton, perhaps. Or Europa. Somewhere there was profit to be made from methane or other natural gas extraction, compression, distribution.

He reached the cargo hold. He paused, reflecting. Remembering.

Once, three of them had entered the hold. Sergey, Lena, and himself. Ildico up in the command center holding down the fort.

Now it was only him.

Ory had never told him the source of the transmission, but he knew.

He checked the air pressure. After another minute to make sure, he opened the door.

Entered the hold.

There it was. Just like before. Only there was no small child waiting to be awakened, waiting to ruin his life.

The pod lay on its face. It’d have to be cut open like a tin can, unless he could somehow push it over. But he was just a man. No special powers like that geist or that Loonie with the strange eyes. No kung fu or martial arts tricks.

Only his anger. His rage.

And his miner’s exoskeleton. He’d almost forgotten about that.

He opened a locker door next to where he kept the hollow point. The external mechanical frame was a bit rusty, but it seemed functional. He yanked it out, started unfolding it. At best, he’d only irradiate himself with a few microsieverts from the nuclear-powered suit. At worst, he might accidentally break his kneecaps or pull a lat. Either way, he’d get what he wanted.

If only there were a way to use the exoskeleton more efficiently, as part of his body and not as an external support. He supposed a smarter man than himself would figure it out someday.

The final adjustments for height made, he immediately felt stronger. Also felt his spine compressing under the weight of the frame. He’d better do this quickly.

He bent down and flexed his knees. No pain so far. Tested the arms, shoulders. Everything fine. Now for the pod.

He placed both hands underneath the side. Squatted. Waited for the exoskeleton to absorb the full weight of the pod. Then slowly stood. Little by little, the pod lifted. He could feel the strain, his elbows shake momentarily. The suit compensated, pressure valves releasing air as the power converter worked its magic. His feet felt like lead anchors digging into the metal floor of the cargo hold. The ship groaned. He was nearly standing straight.

The pod slipped away from him. It landed. Slight bounce. The floor groaned again, and he fell forward. Caught himself on top of the pod.

There was a window. A door.

He lifted himself up.

Sergey.

Tears came unbidden. He cursed.

He cursed Sergey.

Cursed Riss.

Most of all, he cursed himself.

When he came to, he was prone over the pod, arms extended across the window through which his mentor seemed to sleep. He heard a sound behind him.

He turned. Ory.

She walked toward him. Hesitantly. Expressionless.

“Captain,” she said in quiet voice. “I didn’t have the chance to tell you.”

He closed his eyes. It wouldn’t have mattered. He had already known. There must have been no other option for Sergey. He must have been kidnapped. Shanghaied into coming with another miner, or a hunter. Some other viper from Ceres.

Who had gotten away.

“Where will we go?” Ory asked.

Gennaji stood. He flexed his knees, elbows. Everything seemed alright.

He slowly detached the exoskeleton from his ankles, then waist. “I don’t know,” he said. He continued with the wrists, then the shoulders. The neck.

The suit dropped on the floor behind him with a dull clang. He looked back at the lifepod.

Sergey, I will never understand you. Why? Why throw away your life for her? Why throw away your life for anybody? Everyone makes choices. It’s not your job to save everyone else. Let them do what they want. Whatever they get, they deserve it. Kill or be killed. Survive or die. That’s the way of the universe.

He shrugged. “We can’t go back to Ceres. Luna is probably under martial law now. I can’t stand the UA.”

“Mars?”

He said nothing. Massaged his wrists and then elbows.

“At least we can bury the Captain.”

He nodded. Then grimaced again. Far into the red planet’s interior, away from the poles, away from the Colonies, where no one would ever find Sergey. But after fulfilling his duty to his former captain, where else could he go? Besides far away from that bitch, Riss.

There was only one location left. And he had to hope nobody knew what the Sagittarius had set up there, years ago.

Next: Bringer of Light, Chapter 40: United Mars Colonies — The Sundering Begins

© Vadim Sadovski via BBC Earth

What happens when two neutron stars collide? “A perfect explosion”

“I was quite surprised by how simple the story hiding behind the curtain of complexity in the data,” Sneppen continued. “You have this immensely complex physics, unimaginable dense stars and the birth of a black hole — and then it all reduces to this beautiful sphere.”

The neutron stars that crashed into each other are “dense and compact,” Sneppen said. They only measured around 20 km in diameter — about 12 miles — but they are “heavier than the sun,” he said. “A teaspoon of neutron star matter weighs more than Mount Everest.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/02/16/kilonova-perfect-explosion-black-hole/

First reported in 2017, a new study in Nature gives more details about a “kilo nova” only detected by using gravitational waves. The collision led to the formation of a black hole.

Fortunately, this sort of cosmic event doesn’t occur too often. But..

…if a kilonova were to occur in the Milky Way — less than 30,000 light- years away — it would be the brightest star in the night sky, making it discoverable to the human eye…

Still, it’d be safer for Earth if it never happened…

Titan and its subsurface ocean has tides

It is this subsurface ocean, or rather its interaction with the ice shell that covers it, that a team of researchers led by the Catholic University of Louvain (UCLouvain) in Belgium hope to better understand. More specifically, they wish to understand how the ocean’s depth and the pressure exerted by the icy shell on the underground water body influence the formation of tidal motions and currents inside of it. 

https://www.space.com/saturn-moon-titan-ocean-tides-icy-crust-study

When I first heard of “Attack on Titan,” I was disappointed to learn that it didn’t take place actually on Titan. (The title in English is a mistranslation. It should be “Attack of the Titans” or “The Titans Attack” or even “Attacking Titans,” depending.) In any case, it’s a disgusting manga/anime with nothing to do with the icy moon of Saturn. Except for the name. And even that’s a misuse (they should have used “giant” as the storyline is very loosely based on Ymir and the frost giants of Scandinavian myth).

Anyway. It’s a fascinating moon the size of the planet Mercury with a liquid ocean and (mostly) nitrogen atmosphere, making it a candidate for extraterrestrial life. Here’s a cool view of it: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/saturn-moons/titan/overview/

JAXA failure. Here we (don’t) go again.

At liftoff time, smoke was seen rising from the bottom of the rocket, indicating the ignition of the main engine. However, the rocket did not rise from the launchpad. 

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Aerospace-Defense-Industries/Japan-s-H3-rocket-launch-aborted-after-booster-fails-to-ignite

Not a great start to the year, JAXA. This, on top of the Episilon failure (zero, zero…DESTRUCT…zero…)

Shooting star over the English Channel

Courtesy of @dlxinorbit – via @Marco_Langbroek

The agency earlier said the object was expected to “safely strike” the earth’s atmosphere near to the French city of Rouen.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64621721

“Near to”? OK.

Anyway, “SAR2667” provided some cross-cultural entertainment for people living in England, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Lots of photos and videos online.

Interesting note from ESA: they were able to detect it and notify everyone exactly where and when it would disintegrate.

Since there are more than 30,000 of these things that orbit the Sun relatively close to Earth’s orbit, it’s a good thing we’re getting better at detecting them. Maybe we’d better up the ante on deflecting them…

Rich people don’t even see money. All they know is…

Lots and lots and lots of new rockets in development now.

And the most well-known of the newbies is…

Also, see this one (pay wall, Washington Post) about NASA and DARPA working on one to reach Mars much faster to reduce astronauts’ exposure to radiation.

I still think “durp” every time I see that acronym

“Synthetic fuel”? We’ve heard this before…

Not too terribly helpful if you can’t read Japanese, but you can probably figure out which is water and which is “radical water.”

From 11 to 17 January, the Demonstration Business Promotion Team Osaka along with Sustainable Energy Inc. ran trials on a synthetic fuel produced from water and carbon dioxide present in the air. If successful, this could become the first carbon-based and truly carbon-neutral fuel of its kind.

https://soranews24.com/2023/02/02/synthetic-fossil-fuels-made-from-light-water-and-co2-in-the-air-tested-in-osaka/

So basically this company in Osaka did some water experiments with “radical water” (water whose molecules were subjected to a kind of electrolysis to ionize them), then a “seed fuel” (a fossil fuel like kerosene) was added to create synthetic fuel which in turn will create more CO2 that can be used to create more synthetic fuel.

And no, I didn’t have to insert goofy icons, but I’m on the train right now so why not.

Anyway, this all just sounds too good to be true. Surely it’s prohibitively expensive to constantly electrify water to the point where its unbound electrons can be available to bind with synthetic fuel electrons. Tidal generators, wind turbines, solar sun panels, and thermal heat from volcanos all seem more likely a source of electricity to power EVs.

At any rate, there’s been nothing in the news about this, so I doubt the experiments worked. Or if they did, someone has a vested interest in continuing Japan’s reliance on Middle Eastern, Indonesian, and Russian fossil fuels.

OK I arrived, so I can stop it with the icons for now.

Bringer of Light, Chapter 38 (Part 2): United Mars Colonies — Cut the Tether (this time for good!)

Concerned that the UA forces on Luna Base may use the quantum teleporter to send an unwelcome gift to the newly-declared independent United Mars Colonies, former Mars security chief Sergeant Major Hamels and former Artemis crew members Enoch Ryan and Brady Cooper attempted to disable the teleporter ahead of time.

Too late…

Cooper could sense the radioactive isotopes within the canister. The explosive materials could kill them and most of this part of the colony due to sudden decompression of the building’s atmosphere. Fine radioactive dust spread everywhere. If it reacted with the cobalt in the boxes around them, the resulting dirty bomb could poison half or most of the planet for years. Decades, even. Who knows how long it would last.

If anyone were around to care.

“Fly-boy, you sense that?”

“Yeah.”

“Let me try something.”

“You want the rifle?”

“The energy discharge will just set it off. That’s probably what they were counting on. Or hoping we’d try to disable it.”

“Or send it back,” Hamels said. “No doubt their end has a rigged signal to reject contact, which also would set the thing off.”

“Then there’s only one option.”

With a sigh, Enoch set the rifle down next to the console. “Coop, something tells me you need me to help.”

“You read my mind.”

“Not yet.”

Now it was Hamels’ turn to back away. “What are you both doing?”

“Sergeant Major, we need you to focus on maintaining the force shield.”

The geist sat down crosslegged on one side of the platform. Enoch sat down likewise across from him on the opposite site. They stared into the force shield, concentrating on the cylindrical container.

“What are you doing?!” Hamels repeated.

“Changing it to uridium,” Cooper replied.

“That’s from an ancient C64 game,” Enoch said, grinning.

“Yeah, I know. Thanks to you. It’s actually Iridium-192.”

Cooper mentally called up the revised table of elements. He felt confusion and frustration from the navigator, but he sent reassurance. If Cooper knew anything, he knew elements. He needed a backup, and emotional strength.

The navigator sensed this. The merging grew stronger.

Transmutation. Cesium-137. He felt the cobalt in the room. As if alive. Aware. A slight change. 60.

Yes. Fluctuation. Traces of gamma emission. Ah. Some positronic flow. He had seen the machine once.

Mother was scanned after the diagnosis.

No, that was me, not you.

Ah. Well, now you know what it used. What we can do to this.

The electrons in molecular orbit. Configure. Shift the shell. Hold. Opposite spins.

What the hell is the Aufbau principle?

Shut up, Enoch.

Band theory? Cool, heavy metal.

No, heavy metals, you moron. Now let me…

Ah. Nearly done.

I like the name “Hartree-Fock exact exchange.”

Give it a rest, Fly-boy. 

The fields shifted. Expanded. Settled. Solid state. Done.

Cooper signalled and they separated. He opened his eyes and only then realized that he had shut them. 

He was also sweating and shaking like a water buffalo after it emerges from the river, but it was no matter.

They had done it. The bomb was no longer a threat.

“Straight outta Compton suppression, man! That was bitchin’.”

Cooper sighed and shook his head. Then he tilted his head back and laughed.

“Are you two out of your minds?” Hamels asked. It appeared as if she hadn’t moved at all in the time they were in the merger. Gripping both sides of the console with white knuckles. The rifle at her feet, untouched.

Cooper pondered. Time flowed differently for them, when they were in that state. Maybe the ancients were right, after all. Time and matter were interchangeable, linked. Transmutable. But the arrow of time still only went one way.

For now.

“Not to worry, Sergeant Major,” he said, getting up. “The outer shell of the device is now solid eff ee.”

She blinked. “Lead?”

“Yup. We can use what’s inside as an energy source, if you like. I’ll just need a few weeks to tinker with what’s in these boxes. Set up a conduction system of some sort.”

Enoch yawned. “Have you turned off the whatsis-whosit?”

“The…oh, the teleportation node.” She checked the console. “Whatever you did to the device, looks like something effectively short-circuited the pad. The system’s fried at the core.”

Sure enough, a tiny smoke stream was emanating from the edge. The crack had finally breached it.

“Well, that settles that,” Enoch said, standing up and stretching his back. “I’m famished. What you all have to eat around here, anyway?”

Next: Bringer of Light, Chapter 39: Transit – Lost. Gennaji opens a new Pandora’s box.

Image by Amy from Pixabay

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s an airplane! It’s…

A Japanese telescope positioned on top of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, captured video of an eerie flying spiral in the night sky on Jan. 18.

In the video, a small bright spot appears and slowly gets brighter and starts to dissipate into a spiral before getting small again and disappearing.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/japanese-telescope-captures-image-mysterious-180332172.html

In fact, it was the remains of a discarded Falcon 9 booster from the launch of a SpaceX satellite. And it isn’t the first time this has happened. Japanese TV talked about this, too (since it was a Japanese astronomy, at the Subaru Telescope, that first recorded it).

So, an Identified Flying Object!

Yay, more metallic junk.

(Thanks to Glen Hill for bringing this article to my attention.)