Jan 132020
 

Recently added to the NASA Tech Report Server is NASA/TM-2019-220142, A Meteoroid Handbook for Aerospace Engineers and Managers. It covers a range of interesting topics such as effects on spacecraft, airbursts, dust in the air, etc.

At the beginning of the Space Age, spacecraft designers and mission planners were very concerned about meteoroids. They envisioned vehicles being ripped to pieces by streams of fast-moving space rocks, a notion promoted by the science fiction novels and movies of the time. The reality is, of course, different—the meteoroid streams that produce meteor showers are not dense by laypeople’s standards, having spatial densities of just a handful of particles per cubic kilometer, even during meteor outbursts. The ever-present, diffuse, sporadic background, which produces observed meteor rates of only 5 to 8 meteors per hour, makes up 90% of the meteoroid risk to spacecraft that spend at least a year in low Earth orbit (LEO), whereas the visually spectacular but short-lived meteor showers make up the other 10%. Still, meteoroids do pose a significant risk to spacecraft. At Earth, they can travel 12 to 72 km/s. These high speeds cause even small meteoroids to carry enormous kinetic energy, making them capable of doing serious damage to spacecraft. For example, a 1-mm-diameter meteoroid moving at 25 km/s can inflict the same damage as a bullet fired from a 0.357 Magnum pistol. An exterior wire can be severed by a 0.1-mm (100 mm) particle, a spacesuit can be penetrated by a 0.5-mm meteoroid, and an unshielded pressure wall (like the cabin of the Space Shuttle) can be perforated by centimeter-sized particles. Along with mechanical damage, meteoroids can also cause other types of spacecraft anomalies. Meteoroids can transfer their momentum to the spacecraft, which can destroy or damage equipment such as shunt resistors and charge-coupled device (CCD) detectors with a clear view of space. Meteoroid impacts can also generate plasma. The impact vaporizes material, producing a crater and an expanding plasma, which can in turn provide a conductive path for any charge accumulated on the spacecraft. This effect is thought to be responsible for the demise of a satellite in one case: the OLYMPUS communications satellite was sent tumbling out of control during the 1993 Perseid outburst, and a Perseid meteoroid strike has been posited as a possible cause (McDonnell et al. 1993; Caswell et al. 1995). Other researchers have suggested that very fast meteoroids could produce a small electromagnetic pulse capable of disrupting spacecraft function (Close et al. 2010).

The abstract and other data is HERE, or directly downloaded as a PDF HERE.

 

 

 Posted by at 7:03 pm
Jan 122020
 

Elizabeth Warren, Democratic party policy spokesmodel, has some interesting ideas on how destroying the American economy while letting China and India and Russia and Africa spew out all the CO2 they want can save the world:

Warren Says She’s Willing To Ban Construction of New Homes in America

“That means we’ve got to be willing to do things, for example, like regulation. By 2028, no new buildings, no new houses, without a zero carbon footprint.”

Go ahead. I double-dog dare you to come up with a construction method that somehow produces as much energy as it consumes. And then tell me what you can make a house out of that is “carbon neutral.”

 Posted by at 9:46 pm
Jan 112020
 

“Star Wars: Resistance” is an animated Star Wars series currently in its second – and last – season on Disney. I’ve found it to be at best “meh.” A lot of that is due to the target audience… it is clearly meant to be a kids show, with a lot of pratfalls, slapstick humor, simplistic characters and storytelling, etc. And a lot of the problem is due to the timeframe: it’s set at the time of “The Force Awakens,” which automatically kinda makes it suck. The most grating aspect of the show is the main character, one Kazuta Xiono, who is portrayed as someone who in a better series would be the comic relief. He’s a clumsy dumbass who is difficult to take at all seriously.

But then…

Which does kinda shift my opinion of the character. In a franchise that has repeatedly depended on space wizards and my least favorite trope of all time, “Chosen Ones,” Kaz is a guy with no force-powers whatsoever who succeeds by the fact that he has learned skills through hard work and training. Compared to MaRey Sue, who is the Bestest Jedi EVAR without needing a moments effort to train or learn, Kaz is freakin’ Shakespearean in his quality.

 Posted by at 11:39 am
Jan 112020
 

Who coulda guessed?

Iran plane crash: Ukrainian jet was ‘unintentionally’ shot down

Iran says its military “unintentionally” shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing all 176 people on board, Iran’s state TV reports.

The statement said it had done so due to “human error” after the plane flew close to a sensitive site belonging to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

This is zero surprise whatsoever. However, where things can get arguable is the definition of “unintentional.” I have no doubt that nobody involved explicitly wanted to shoot down a Ukranian jetliner… but I’d bet that a lot of those involved wanted to shot down *something.* The Revolutionary Guard is filled with people like Qasem Soleimani, crazed homicidal maniacs who are less distressed by killing innocent civilians than they are in failing to have killed the *right* innocent civilians.

 Posted by at 12:25 am
Jan 102020
 

I haven’t watched Amazon’s “Jack Ryan” series. I heard season 1 was good… and I’ve heard that season 2 was a trash fire. After watching this review, I can believe it.

Basically, it seems that season 2 revolved around Venezuela being an economic basketcase run by bad people. Well… sure, because that’s the actual factual case for Venezuela. But it seems that “Jack Ryan” has decided to rewrite history and claim that Venezuela is this way because of a pseudo-right wing government… and that the heroic opposition is just a female version of the socialists who in reality trashed Venezuela in the first place.

Those of you who remember the awesomely awful  action movies and TV shows of the 80’s doubtless remember Our Heros going to some Latin American craphole run by tin pot dictators. And when you’d crack open your World Book encyclopedia set, you’d find no mention of the craphole country… because Hollywood simply invented it. And that’s a fair way to go. Invent a country and you can claim anything about it you like. But when you use a *real* country and your show isn’t explicitly an alternate history show, ya gotta kinda stick to the facts. Those same 80’s action shows that featured fictional South American, Caribbean, Asian and African countries would also often send Our Heroes to places like East Germany and the Soviet Union… where Our Heroes would tangle with commies. Not Nazis or emperors or magical wizard realms, but the bad guys who were actually there. So why does “Jack Ryan” swap out the actual bad guys in Venezuela with not just fictional ones but 180-degree-off-axis bad guys? Really only one reason springs to mind as being at all realistic: the writers want to use the humanitarian disaster that is Venezuela, but they still like the ideology that produced it. You can’t show the electorate that the policies pushed by Bernie and AOC will lead to Americans being forced to eat their pets; do that, and Bad Orange Man might get re-elected!

So, yeah, I guess I can scratch “Ryan” off my “must watch” list.

 Posted by at 2:17 pm
Jan 092020
 

Air Force Displays Model Of Exotic And Potentially Revolutionary Hybrid Electric Airlifter

The propulsion system may be efficient, but it has the appearance of not being a particularly stealthy one, which makes for a schizophrenic contrast with the clearly stealthified fuselage. Amusingly, if you look closely the USAF insignia on the wings of the model are *deeply* engraved.

 

 Posted by at 6:56 pm
Jan 092020
 

Oh ye gods…

Can You Locate Iran? Few Voters Can.

This. This right here. This is *exactly* why I do not support efforts to make voting easier or to legally mandate that everyone vote. Because not everyone is either smart enough or educated well enough for their vote to be *worth* counting. If you guessed that Iraq is actually Iran… well, you’re wrong, but I guess not too far wrong. But if you guessed Romania or freakin’ *England* or the got-damned middle of the Med is Iran… sit down, shut up, don’t vote.

But it gets worse:

Australia? Kansas? The mid-Atlantic ridge??? This, gentlemen, is how Bernie and AOC gets elected.

 Posted by at 1:02 am