Thursday, June 29, 2023

"These samples to the best scientists in the world. To the best laboratories."


Starts at 2:35. Really 11:50. The first stuff is just confirmation of budget. He says they got it. 

This is about the Mars sample return mission. Which is the whole point of the Perseverance mission. Helicopters and "fossils" are all they ever talk about; but Percy is really about radiometric dating. The clog in the Mars pipeline is that the 'resolution' has gotten good enough that law of superposition dating isn't accurate enough. This truly is a snag blocking many research paths. Percy went to a silty buffet table of eroded materiel, some fraction will be radiogenic. So it was a no-lose location. Any samples were going to represent uphill outcrop, fractionally as well as materially, such as zircons. Now a great diversity of samples is sitting waiting to get picked up; while NASA is having a budget crisis. Percy is wasted if Sample Return doesn't happen. This is the actual staff saying all lights look green, and what they are anticipating. 


Saturday, June 24, 2023

 

This is an academic resource; not entertainment in the strictest sense. 


However, the topic is one of the darkest in all academia. The eradication of Mesoamerican history. One would think North American Archeology would have a lot more to say on the subject than they actually do. It's truly, the most heinous atrocity humanity is known to have done. And very little follow-up has happened. That's why this book is a big deal. It doesn't have big reveals in it. It has starting steps. Steps that should have been taken long ago, but the expedition starts here.

Friday, June 23, 2023

 "How you get to do your dream job everyday?"


Von Karmen Lectures suck since about five years ago. You can see them evolving, but they are rarely informative anymore. This one has a strong feel of JPL jerking themselves off, while in the current environment JPL is under fire in the planetary community for budgetary epic-fails. So to that end this one happens to be informative! If only to prove the cynical point.  

Sunday, June 18, 2023

 "33 minutes is much bigger than 7 minutes."


Starts near 3:00. DART worked great. Flying colors. But planetary scientists must extract all the information they can. Keep in mind there will be a probe called Hera that will get "after" pictures. This panel presentation is what can be figured out with just "before" and "during" information. 

  • Pic at 8:30 high res mosaic of Dimorphos surface. Official map of a world. Landmarks are centered where DART hit and rearranged everything.
  • 17:00, the impact image, with radiant debris. Cool dust gap ballistic effect.
  • 21:40. Splatter flick.
  • 26:50. Land observation slideshow.
  • Q&A at 30:00

Saturday, June 10, 2023

"The idea here is to test the human transportation system"-David Kring


Starts at 6:40. Artemis 2 approaches. It will be a flyby. This is more prelude to Artemis 3, than 2. That will be the next landing. Much of this video is comparisons of scale. It's more of a mission teaser than anything, but it's a well informed teaser.

  • Slide at 11:50. Speaker highlights and implies more than he says. Because the lunar south pole is a crater basin, it is exploitable as an eternal cold-trap. 
  • 19:15. Previous slides are meant to impress us with topography, but this slide illustrates a point. This intersection of ridgelines, or some other, will decide the ratio of uphill walking to downhill for astronauts. So it's a downplayed big deal. This guy seems to downplay often, intending wit. Probably better teaching for in-person grad-students who are sick of your shit, rather than closed-caption.
  • 33:30. He keeps understating things but does a good job of teasing background potential. Lunar selfies will be amazebalz.
  • 47:45 The south pole will have rock much older than Apollo samples. Likely older-than-Earth-surface rock.
There is jagged pall among planetary scientists right now. Intense frustration of budgetary stuff. Looking to Artemis sooths it a little. These Artemis missions are vital, and time sensitive since they are supporting the private sector. No progress can come too soon.

Friday, June 2, 2023

"A much more complicated and dire situation than the community realizes."
2023 State of NASA conference from LPSC.

 This is a conference, covering budget and mission status for the fiscal year. Meaning the 2023 plan for every active and scheduled probe. All of them. Major timestamps below.

  • Veritas at 10:10
  • Percy at 12:35
  • Psyche at 14:00
  • Clipper at 15:00
  • Juice at 16:00
  • Artemis at 19:15
  • Q&A at 37:20 Note that SueS is the first to protest.

  "Best case scenario to be modeled." -Peter Jenniskens This is mostly a storybook slideshow. So it's pretty entertaining, but...