Archive for the ‘Wait a Minute!’ Category
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October 17th, 2023
Wait a Minute!
Image credit: Barbara David
There has been a long research trail in deciphering what happens when Earth’s atmosphere is intruded by incoming, human-made space debris.
Much of this past research involved modeling and squeaking out potential and early warning sign findings.
Enter new rarefied research.
Unnatural dust
The just-issued results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), an investigation led by Dan Murphy, a researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is welcomed and cautionary news.
Image credit: NOAA
This investigative team of experts detected more than 20 elements in ratios that mirror those used in spacecraft alloys. They found that the mass of lithium, aluminum, copper and lead from spacecraft reentry far exceeded those metals found in “natural” cosmic dust.
Their appraisal flagged the fact that nearly 10% of large sulfuric acid particles — the particles that help protect and buffer the ozone layer — contained aluminum and other spacecraft metals.
Atmospherics
As part of NASA’s Airborne Science Program, NOAA’s Murphy and his group flew a WB-57 airplane to sample the atmosphere 11.8 miles (19 kilometers) above the ground in Alaska, where circumpolar clouds tend to form.
Purdue University’s Daniel Cziczo, professor and department head of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, is a member of that research group and subsequent report.
Chemical Science Laboratory’s Mike Lawler installs the PALMS (Particle Analysis by Laser Mass Spectrometry) instrument into the nose of the WB-57. Photo: Chelsea Thompson, NOAA
Atmospheric measurements were also made by Cziczo and his group from an ER-2 aircraft over the continental United States. By flying those instruments only the freshest, most undisturbed air is sampled.
“We are finding this human-made material in what we consider a pristine area of the atmosphere,” said Cziczo in a Purdue statement. “And if something is changing in the stratosphere — this stable region of the atmosphere — that deserves a closer look.”
Meteorite smoke
Over the years, one response to early thinking about human-made clutter “burning up” in the Earth’s atmosphere was flagging the load of meteoritic material already saturating our biosphere.
“Shooting stars streak through the atmosphere,” Cziczo said. “Often, the meteor burns up in the atmosphere and doesn’t even become a meteorite and reach the planet. So the material it was made from stays in the atmosphere in the form of ions. They form very hot gas, which starts to cool and condense as molecules and fall into the stratosphere. The molecules find each other and knit together and form what we call meteorite smoke.”
Falcon 9 booster topped with sixty Starlink satellites.
Credit: SpaceX
Chemical fingerprint
Purdue’s Cziczo adds, however, that scientists recently started noticing that the chemical fingerprint of these meteoritic particles was starting to change.
That prompted researchers to ask: ‘Well, what changed?’ because meteorite composition hasn’t changed. But the number of spacecraft has, Cziczo responds.
According to the published paper: “The space industry has entered an era of rapid growth. With tens of thousands of small satellites planned for low Earth orbit, that increased mass will be divided into many more reentry events. Given that 10% of stratospheric particles now contain enhanced aluminum, with many more reentry events, it is likely that in the next few decades, the percentage of stratospheric sulfuric acid particles that contain aluminum and other metals from satellite reentry will be comparable to the roughly 50% that now contain meteoric metals.”
What next?
As pointed out in the Purdue statement, there’s an estimate floating about that as many as 50,000 more satellites may reach orbit by 2030.
Space debris plunges to Earth, burning its way through the atmosphere.
Image credit: The Aerospace Corporation
The NOAA research team calculates that in the next few decades, up to half of stratospheric sulfuric acid particles would contain metals from reentry.
But what impact that could have on the atmosphere, the ozone layer and life on Earth is yet to be evaluated.
“Changes to the atmosphere can be difficult to study and complex to understand,” Cziczo said. “But what this research shows us is that the impact of human occupation and human spaceflight on the planet may be significant — perhaps more significant than we have yet imagined. Understanding our planet is one of the most urgent research priorities there is.”
This newly published research in PNAS – found at: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2313374120 — was supported by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate funding and NOAA’s Earth’s Radiation Budget Initiative and NOAA’s Chemical Sciences Laboratory. This work also involved NASA grant money, as well as grant money from the UK Natural Environment Research Council.
Bottom line – more work to be done. What next? And how best to perform those studies?
Bottom line (2) – watch this space.
Taking the fall. Space hardware dives into Earth’s atmosphere with some fragments making their way to the ground.
Image credit: ESA/D.Ducros
Posted in 
Wait a minute!
Image credit: Barbara David
Utah Test and Training Range – Exciting times here as I watched the OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule make its safe and sound touchdown at this remote military outpost.
Taking nothing away from this huge step in asteroid research, there are a couple of items of note to keep an eye on.
In-space images show that the OSIRIS-REx mission successfully placed the spacecraft’s sample collector head into its Sample Return Capsule.
Image credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin
OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule is seen shortly after touching down in the desert, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023, at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.
Image credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
Keeping samples safe
With the prospect of an October 1st government shutdown still looming, there is concern about the impact on NASA’s handling of the just-returned freight from Bennu and the scientific integrity of the samples.
“We want to make sure that these samples are safe,” said Lori Glaze, Director of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate’s Planetary Science Division.
“These are incredibly valuable samples and we’re working through our normal processes for how we make sure that we achieve that,” Glaze told Inside Outer Space. “NASA will make sure they are kept safe,” she emphasized.
Pre-launch image shows parachute installation in the OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule.
Image credit: Lockheed Martin
Technical hiccups?
There may have been some technical hiccups in the capsule’s speedy and red-hot descent through Earth’s atmosphere, said Tim Priser, Lockheed Martin’s chief engineer for deep space exploration.
The aerospace firm is builder of not only the novel air filter-like Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM), but the return capsule and the spacecraft itself.
Specifically, the capsule’s drogue chute deployment may have been an issue prior to a far-higher and earlier-than-expected main parachute unfurling.
Sequence of events
“Some things in our sequence may or may not have behaved itself exactly the way we expected it to but the subsequent things in the sequence made up for the fact,” Priser said in a post-landing press event.
Not-to-plan parachute sequence.
Image credit: University of Arizona/Heather Roper
“At the end of the day when that main chute deployed it basically corrected any of the sins that may have happened ahead of it,” Priser said.
Engineers will reconstruct the sequence of events that occurred during the return capsule’s dive through Earth’s atmosphere to its full-stop, “soft as a dove,” touchdown in Utah, said Priser.
One of the advantages of landing at the Utah Test and Training Range, Priser added, is the ground and aerial imagery capability used to monitor the capsule’s sky-rocketing re-entry.
“You have your data. You have your models. You have your observations and you’ve got to put all those pieces together so you reconstruct what happened,” Priser told Inside Outer Space.
Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx’s principal investigator from the University of Arizona holds a mock up of the asteroid collection device.
Image credit: Barbara David
Image credit: Barbara David
NOTE: Late Thursday NASA re-released a UAP press release, sharing the name of the NASA UAP Director.
According to the statement: “While NASA still is evaluating the report and assessing the independent study team’s findings and recommendations, the agency is committed to contributing to the federal government’s unified UAP effort by appointing Mark McInerney director of UAP research.”
McInerney previously served as NASA’s liaison to the Department of Defense covering limited UAP activities for the agency.
Per NASA, in the director role, McInerney will centralize communications, resources, and data analytical capabilities to establish a robust database for the evaluation of future UAP.
McInerney will also leverage NASA’s expertise in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and space-based observation tools to support and enhance the broader government initiative on UAP.
Since 1996, McInerney served various positions at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; and the National Hurricane Center.
Transparency
Of all the revelations today from a NASA-released study of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) by an “independent” study group was keeping the identity of its new UAP Research Director under wraps.
“We will not give his name out,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate.
Meanwhile, NASA leader, Bill Nelson said the NASA UAP Research Director would work on the implementation of the agency’s vision for UAP research, like using NASA’s expertise to work with other agencies to analyze UAP, making use of artificial intelligence and machine learning “to search the skies for anomalies.”
Nelson repeatedly opined that NASA will do its UAP work “transparently” and evoked the mantra of “scientific process.”
I guess you need to bring your own Windex when you spot-clean those windows of transparency?
For more information, go to:
Wait a minute!
Image credit: Barbara David
Just in case you didn’t notice.
The U.S. State Department is embracing the concept of an “International Lunar Year” – coordinating programs around a one-to-two-year celebration of the study and exploration of the Moon later in the decade.
“As multiple nations and commercial entities plan a near-term return to the Moon on an unprecedented scale, now is the right time to consider planning an International Lunar Year,” a State Department website adds.
Earth’s Moon is a destination point for renewed human exploration. Image credit: NASA
“A sustained program might combine elements of public outreach and scientific collaboration to fashion a vibrant interdisciplinary and multilateral effort, demonstrating how lunar exploration can be responsible, peaceful, and sustainable, as we begin to establish an enduring presence at the Moon.”
Indeed, such a celebration was put forth in a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Cislunar Science & Technology Strategy Cislunar Science & Technology Strategy released in 2022.
Photo taking during Chang’e-5 surface sampling.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Sample swaps
One avenue to explore is activating Moon sample swaps.
For instance, China has now opened access to the Chang’e-5 returned lunar samples to the international scientific community. That “get up and go” set of samples was rocketed to Earth back in mid-December 2020.
The haul from the Moon added up to roughly 61 ounces of lunar collectibles, including a core sample.
Chinese President Xi Jinping inspects Chang’e-5 lunar sample return capsule.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Chang’e-5 was the first lunar sample-return mission since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 in 1976, making China the third country to return lunar samples after the United States and the former Soviet Union.
The Moon looms large in China’s space exploration plans over the next several years, and shooting to our home planet additional lunar samples is on their agenda.
Meanwhile, the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) has outlined opportunities and set the rules for future management of international cooperation in lunar samples and scientific data. Proposals will be reviewed every six months.
For full details, go to the CNSA website at:
https://www.cnsa.gov.cn/english/n6465652/n6465653/c10086003/content.html
Moonwalking geologist, Apollo 17’s Jack Schmitt.
Credit: NASA
Diplomatic gestures
In retro-reflective mode, understanding the Moon has been revolutionized through the study of samples collected between 1969 and 1976 by the six Apollo human landing missions, along with three Luna missions carried out by the former Soviet Union.
“The legacy of the bilateral exchange of lunar samples as diplomatic gestures of goodwill transcends generations of lunar scientists,” explains a paper presented at a Lunar Exploration Analysis Group gathering back in 2021.
“As we enter this new golden era of lunar exploration, the U.S. and other nations must recognize the lasting legacy and benefit of the Apollo-Luna sample exchange program of the 1970s and explore new opportunities to share returned samples in the future,” the paper explains, led by planetary scientist, Jessica Barnes at the University of Arizona.
Image credit: NASA
Current restrictions
So what next?
A recent gathering of the Extraterrestrial Materials Analysis Group (ExMAG) made note of access to China’s Chang’e lunar samples.
ExMAG is a community-based, interdisciplinary group that offers a forum for discussion and analysis of matters concerning the collection, curation, and analysis of extraterrestrial samples, including planning future sample return missions
A member gathering of ExMAG earlier this month noted that China has now opened access to the Chang’e-5 returned lunar samples to the international scientific community.
“ExMAG appreciates NASA’s efforts to pursue avenues of sample sharing with China and their Chang’E samples, though we recognize this is not possible under current restrictions,” an ExMAG finding explains.
Image credit: NASA
Bilateral exchange
“ExMAG understands that sample loans made via this mechanism are considered bilateral agreements, which are prohibited for U.S. Government-funded researchers,” with the group recommending that U.S. Government-funded researchers who are interested in working on Chang’e-5 sample “form or join research teams with researchers in other nations who can request the samples for joint work.”
Credit: White House
Bottom line: Given the White House/U.S. State Department moves on an International Lunar Year perhaps there’s a window opening to find avenues for U.S.-China Moon sample cooperation?
Perhaps it’s time to provide some new Moonwalking legs to build upon the legacy of bilateral exchange?
Your views are welcomed!
For more information on this topic, go to these resources:
U.S. State Department Plans “International Lunar Year”
https://www.leonarddavid.com/u-s-state-department-plans-international-lunar-year/
White House Report: Cislunar Strategy
https://www.leonarddavid.com/white-house-report-cislunar-strategy/
Wait a minute!
Image credit: Barbara David
The European Space Agency performed an assisted/semi-controlled descent of its retired Aeolus, a wind profiling spacecraft lofted into Earth orbit in 2018.
Mission scientists and engineers took on the tricky task of targeting a remote stretch of the Atlantic Ocean for the plunge to Earth of Aeolus. A key aspect of assisted reentry is that for any spacecraft leftovers believed to survive the plunge, those bits and pieces would fall into a remote area.
Image credit: ESA
ESA confirmed that Aeolus reentered Earth’s atmosphere on July 28 above Antarctica, also verified by the U.S. Space Command.
The “adios to Aeolus” action underscores a novel approach for the safe return of active satellites that were never designed for controlled reentry.
Image credit: ESA
Windage
But “above Antarctica” versus the Atlantic Ocean caught my eye. Sounds like something didn’t go as planned?
“In an assisted re-entry you have to accept inaccuracies along the desired target coordinates and we required that it was maximum +\- half orbit centered in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean,” responded Tommaso Parrinello, ESA Aeolus mission manager, a target zone that was called a corridor.
Aeolus reentered over Antarctica on July 28. ESA’s Space Debris Office, based on U.S. Space Command tracking and ESA’s own data acquired during Aeolus’s last orbits, this map has been produced showing the assessed location of Aeolus’s disintegration in the atmosphere and where any surviving fragments may have fallen. Image credit: ESA
“We re-entered within less than a quarter of an orbit. Better than expected,” Parrinello told Inside Outer Space. It took almost a year to develop the assisted re-entry or semi-controlled concept, he said, designing the best corridor of re-entry, changing the satellite configuration, and designing the timeline, along with check and more checks via simulation.
Assisted living and reentry for Aeolus spacecraft. Image credit: ESA/J. Mai
As for the price tag of the Aeolus assisted re-entry, “the funds were within the foreseen operation costs…there is not a figure to give,” Parrinello said.
Minimize risk
“With the growing number of objects being launched into space, we certainly expect that many will re-enter over time, so I think ESA’s efforts to develop and test an assisted controlled re-entry is important to minimize the risk to human life on or near the surface,” said T.S. Kelso of CelesTrak, an analytical group that keeps a sharp eye on Earth-circling objects.
Similar in view is Darren McKnight, a senior technical fellow for LeoLabs.
“This is significant for several reasons,” McKnight said. “First, it is critical for everyone to note that sometimes the act of reducing orbital collision risk comes at the cost of risk to aviation and ground impacts. The U.S. has a self-imposed threshold of 1/10,000 chance of ground casualty from a reentry but that is not accepted worldwide.”
Taking the fall. Space hardware dives into Earth’s atmosphere with some fragments making their way to the ground.
Image credit: ESA/D.Ducros
McKnight said that it is laudable to see others minimizing this re-entry risk. He added that this spacecraft was not designed to do these maneuvers yet performed them admirably.
Continual innovation
“Much of the positive space safety behavior over the last few years has been by systems not designed to perform that way. The continual innovation by many has been impressive,” McKnight told Inside Outer Space.
Lastly, McKnight said that “active debris removal is a complex, but greatly needed operation to improve the state of the debris environment in low Earth orbit and it requires several steps: identify, rendezvous, grapple, de-tumble, and de-orbit safely. This exercise builds confidence in the ability to do the last critical stage of safe de-orbiting of large spacecraft.”
Tech. Sgt. Ronald Dunn, 729th Airlift Squadron loadmaster, guides a Mongolian driver in August 2011. Dunn was part of a crew from March Air Reserve Base, Calif., who were assigned to a mission to retrieve space debris that fell to Earth. The parts were identified as expended rocket parts from an Air Force rocket launched into space nearly a decade prior. Image credit: U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Linda Welz
Responsible behavior
Aeolus had a dry mass of 2,425 pounds (1,100 kilograms) and the most critical removal sequences, McKnight said, will be performed on objects over 1,000 kilograms.
“It should be noted that any spacecraft above 500 to 800 kilograms in mass is likely to have sufficient debris survive re-entry as to warrant controlled reentry to meet the 1/10,000 threshold for ground casualty,” said McKnight. There are currently nearly 800 rocket bodies and over 300 non-operational payloads in low Earth orbit with a mass over 1,000 kg, he pointed out.
“This demonstration showed how individual responsible behavior can contribute to the growing space safety expertise highlighting that space safety does not have to be debilitating for space operators,” McKnight concluded.
Detrimental effects
On the other hand, there remains the issue of rubbish from spacecraft falling out of orbit having harmful effects on global atmospheric chemistry.
The atmospheric layers from the ground up to the boundary with space, showing natural phenomena, human inputs and resultant impacts. These human inputs impact the troposphere (by enhancing climate change), the stratosphere (through ozone loss from multiple causes), the mesosphere (by influencing metal chemistry and accumulation and increasing noctilucent clouds), and the thermosphere (by likely causing contraction which will impact orbiting satellites).
Image credit: Jamie D. Shutler, et al.
Some experts are concerned that the growing scale and pace of space activities may lead to new unforeseen impacts on the environment and climate. Furthermore, what appears required is improved monitoring of the situation, as well as regulation to create an environmentally sustainable space industry.
These are observations from recent research on atmospheric impacts of the space industry led by Jamie Shutler, associate professor of Earth observation in the Center for Geography and Environmental Science, College of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Exeter, Cornwall.
Full impact, not known
As for the outcome from assisted re-entry, like that done with ESA’s Aeolus satellite, it’s a tough call, Shutler told Inside Outer Space.
“It’s good that agencies are now starting to consider the environmental aspects of these technologies and how previous standard approaches are not sustainable,” Shutler said, such as shifting satellites to a graveyard orbit or just leaving the satellite in its original orbit to slowly de-orbit.
“But equally, de-orbiting for burn-up in the atmosphere and with roughly 20 percent of the satellite landing in the ocean is not sustainable or environmentally good,” Shutler said. “The satellite components don’t just vanish, they instead get re-distributed throughout the atmosphere and the full impacts are not known.”
Ozone loss
For example, Shutler added, satellites are mainly made up of aluminum and we know that aluminum in the upper atmosphere can promote ozone loss. “Whilst being claimed to be ‘harmlessly falling in the ocean’, it’s still littering in the ocean on which we rely for food, and for regulating our weather and climate.”
Earth orbit is a junkyard of human-made space clutter.
Credit: Space Junk 3D, LLC. Melrae Pictures
Shutler said the ESA effort is a step in the right direction, “but only if this is the start of greater efforts by all agencies and private organizations to question and reduce the environmental impact of space activities.”
Sustainable space?
In Shutler’s view, greater efforts need to be made, for example, in controlling the overall quantity of satellites in orbit, like sharing resources efficiently, rather than large scale duplication, as we see now with commercial activities. Also needed is reducing the quantity of aluminum within those satellites, “and showing greater consideration for the atmosphere, the ocean and whole of Earth’s environment, instead of just protecting the land, whilst simultaneously considering everywhere else as being acceptable for littering.”
Shutler’s bottom line: “Overall I would hope that the approach of simply de-orbiting all satellites is not the future. Much more needs to be done to address the problem, and recognizing this wider issue, as it seems is being done by ESA…a good first step. But despite the social media tagging, we have a long way to go before we have anything close to ‘sustainable space.’”
A main propellant tank of the second stage of a Delta 2 launch vehicle landed near Georgetown, Texas in January 1997.
Image credit: NASA Orbital Debris Program Office
Re-entry regime
Also noting the Aeolus outcome is Aaron Boley, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of British Columbia in Canada.
“It is positive to see the ESA using available spacecraft capabilities to reduce the risks of lethal re-entry debris, instead of leaving the re-entry outcome entirely to chance,” said
For large satellites in orbit that were never designed to conduct controlled re-entries, assisted/semi-controlled re-entries are a step in the right direction, Boley told Inside Outer Space.
“It should nonetheless be recognized, while things went well in this case, that such maneuvers are not a controlled re-entry and still carry substantial re-entry time uncertainties. Not all large spacecraft in orbit will be capable of such a semi-controlled re-entry, either,” Boley pointed out.
Image credit: Johan Swanepoel/Adobe Stock via RAND
Moving forward, Boley said that states and operators need to work together to develop a controlled re-entry regime for new satellites and launch vehicles in an effort to limit the risks of re-entry debris to people on the ground, at sea, and in airplanes in flight.
“Such a regime would include requirements for controlled re-entries, and in circumstances where a controlled re-entry is not feasible, the requirements would include risk reduction measures as part of the satellite design,” said Boley.
Wait a minute!
Image credit: Barbara David
Image credit: NASA
Image credit: NASA
Image credit: NASA
Image credit: NASA
Image credit: Barbara David
Wait a minute – here we go again!
Next week, the House Oversight Committee’s National Security Subcommittee in Congress will hold a hearing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or UAP.
The July 26 hearing is titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency.”
Image credit: Yannick Peings, Marik von Rennenkampff/AIAA
Firsthand accounts
According to a statement the subcommittee hearing “will explore firsthand accounts of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) and assess the federal government’s transparency and accountability regarding UAPs’ possible threats to U.S. national security.”
A key effort of the hearing is to bring transparency to the issue of UAPs.
“The Pentagon and Washington bureaucrats have kept this information hidden for decades, and we’re finally going to shed some light on it. We’re bringing in credible witnesses who can provide public testimony because the American people deserve the truth. We’re done with the cover-ups,” said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.).
Show and tell time
Hearing witnesses are:
- Ryan Graves, Executive Director, Americans for Safe Aerospace
- Retired Commander David Fravor, Former Commanding Officer, Black Aces Squadron, U.S. Navy
- David Grusch, Former National Reconnaissance Office officer and representative, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Task Force, Department of Defense
Grusch has recently claimed, citing unnamed officials, that the U.S. has retrieved “intact and partially intact” vehicles of non-human origin and that the U.S. federal government maintains a hush-hush recovery program that has stashed away exotic spacecraft, even dead pilots.
Shown at Congressional hearing, Video 1 2021 flyby movie showing a purported UAP.
Credit: Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee/Inside Outer Space screengrab
American public: in the dark
In 2022, at the direction of Congress, the Department of Defense created the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) to investigate UAP reports.
According to the statement, the federal government spends millions of dollars examining UAPs yet refuses to be forthcoming with the American people as it continues to declassify certain videos and studies on various UAP incidents with little clarity on the subject’s origins.”
“The status quo on the part of the U.S. government has been to leave the American public in the dark regarding information about UAPs, refuse to answer questions posed by whistleblowers, avoid the concerns Americans have about the possible threats UAPs pose to our national security and public safety, and default to extreme and unnecessary over-classification,” said Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.).
UAP have been reported by Navy pilots unlike anything they have ever witnessed.
Image credit: Enigma Labs/Lt. Cmdr. Alex Dietrich
Lawmaker Luna added: “If the last few months have taught me anything, it is that this is an issue that matters to Americans. It also impacts the transparency and accountability our government is supposed to grant to the people who it serves. I look forward to bringing this topic to light.”
Image credit: Statista
Solve this mystery
“My goal is to share my experience, but also elevate the voices of other pilots who are seeing UAP every day and deserve answers,” said Ryan Graves in a Americans for Safe Aerospace statement. More than 30 commercial aircrew and military UAP witnesses have approached the Americans for Safe Aerospace, he said, and the group is working to help share their reports with Congress and the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office.
“It is encouraging to see Congress taking UAP witnesses seriously,” Graves added. “For too long stigma has clouded transparency on this topic, and I am encouraged by the continued pressure from elected officials to solve this mystery.”
The July 26 hearing begins at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time, open to the public and live-streamed online at:
Image credit: Congressional Record/Inside Outer Space screengrab
UAP disclosure act
On July 13, in the Congressional Record of the U.S. Senate, a “UAP Disclosure Act of 2023” calls for public disclosure of all Federal, State, and local government, commercial industry, academic, and private sector endeavors that have collected, exploited, or used reverse engineer technologies of unknown origin or examined biological evidence of living or deceased non-human intelligence that pre-dates the date of the enactment of this Act.
The term ‘‘non-human intelligence’’ means, according to the Act, any sentient intelligent non-human lifeform regardless of nature or ultimate origin that may be presumed responsible for unidentified anomalous phenomena or of which the Federal Government has become aware.
Up close and personal! Scene from Earth vs. the Flying Saucers circa 1956.
Credit: Columbia Pictures
Object observables
In addition, the Act says that the term ‘‘unidentified anomalous phenomena’’ includes what were previously described as flying discs; flying saucers; unidentified aerial phenomena; unidentified flying objects (UFOs); and unidentified submerged objects (USOs).
The Act also stated that UAP are differentiated from both attributed and temporarily non-attributed objects by one or more of the following observables:
- Instantaneous acceleration absent apparent inertia.
- Hypersonic velocity absent a thermal signature and sonic shockwave.
- Transmedium (such as space-to-ground and air-to-undersea) travel.
- Positive lift contrary to known aerodynamic principles.
- Multispectral signature control.
- Physical or invasive biological effects to close observers and the environment.
To take a look at details of the UAP Disclosure Act of 2023, go to:
https://www.congress.gov/118/crec/2023/07/13/169/120/CREC-2023-07-13-pt1-PgS2953.pdf
Image credit: Barbara David
Wait a minute!
Perhaps it is a case of re-inventing the wheel?
The European Space Agency (ESA) has been busy testing the Lunar Equipment Support Assembly (LESA).
The idea is to develop wheeled carriers to assist Artemis astronauts during moonwalks – a way to transport equipment and tools.
Image credit: ESA/Novespace
Recently tested is the LESA-NEST (Near-by Equipment Support Trolley), making use of parabolic flight in an aircraft to mimic the Moon’s one-sixth gravity.
In pre-flight training, Alan Shepard tries out the MET cart.
Image credit: NASA/Apollo Lunar Surface Journal
Rickshaw trouble
This ESA work may have all the makings of an Apollo 14 mission replay from 1971, one that served up deep dust and dubious results.
Apollo 14’s Modular Equipment Transporter (MET) was a two-wheeled, hand-pulled vehicle that was used as an equipment hauling device on traverses across the lunar surface.
Drawing credit: NASA/Apollo Lunar Surface Journal
The MET earned the nickname by astronauts as the “the rickshaw”. It was hauled about by using a pulling bar in the front.
Field testing! Alan Shepard tries out MET cart.
Image credit: NASA/Apollo Lunar Surface Journal
But at one point, the MET was carried by both Apollo 14 moonwalkers – Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell. The MET was termed “adequate,” with Shepard and Mitchell disappointed by its performance. It was too difficult to pull the MET through the rough lunar terrain.
So big wheel (s) keep on turnin’…I’m thinking “carte blanche,” maybe even cart before the horse – but it’s Friday.
Apollo 14’s Alan Shepard next to Modular Equipment Transporter (MET)
Image credit: NASA
Wait a minute!
Image credit: Barbara David
Perhaps there’s a new sidebar to looking for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon (UAP)?
That topic keeps me up and night, armed with my telescopes, binoculars and other “all seeing” instruments.
UAP, Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), crashed or still in the air flying saucers, alien visits…on and on!
This morning, in my daytime off-hours of sky patrolling, I’ve taken a read of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2024.
Something caught my eye in the NDAA called “Moving Target Indicator Programs” of the Department of Defense.
I haven’t paid much attention to this topic, but maybe I should.
UAP have been reported by Navy pilots unlike anything they have ever witnessed.
Image credit: Enigma Labs/Lt. Cmdr. Alex Dietrich
Working group grope
Words of tactical intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, along with tasking, collection, processing, exploitation, and dissemination of data collected by moving target indicator systems – lots of lingo attached to whatever moving targets the Act is embracing.
The Act calls for the Secretary of Defense to establish a working group, to be known as the ‘‘Moving Target Indicator Working Group.” Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Space Force members are to be assigned to the working group.
“Not less frequently than biannually, the working group shall provide to the congressional defense committees a briefing on the status of any moving target indicator programs being developed,” the Act notes.
Image credit: Statista
Bottom line
Being the obsessive “Googleier,” I revved up the search engine for Moving Target Indicator Programs – lots of chat about radar techniques to find moving objects, like an aircraft, and filter out unmoving ones.
There are also advocates calling for a space-based, ground moving target indicator capability.
Whatever all this adds up to, the need for day/night, all-weather detection and tracking of ground and maritime targets for the warfighter is one bottom line, maybe a bottomless pit of uses.
Image credit: C-SPAN/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Synchronize efforts
Back in July 2022, the U.S. Department of Defense announced the establishment of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, longhand for AARO.
“The mission of the AARO will be to synchronize efforts across the Department of Defense, and with other U.S. federal departments and agencies, to detect, identify and attribute objects of interest in, on or near military installations, operating areas, training areas, special use airspace and other areas of interest, and, as necessary, to mitigate any associated threats to safety of operations and national security. This includes anomalous, unidentified space, airborne, submerged and transmedium objects.”
Image credit: Yannick Peings, Marik von Rennenkampff/AIAA
One wonders whether there’s some prospect for synchronizing UAP study with the call for moving target indicator programs?
As George Harrison of the Fab Four wrote: “Something in the way she moves” most certainly not noting the wheels of government bureaucracy. But on the other hand, “You stick around now it may show…I don’t know, I don’t know.”
And if you have read this far…blame the coffee.
This morning I accidentally mixed Colombian and French Roast.
Wait a Minute.
Image credit: Barbara David
If you have been abducted in space and time by the increasing government and public interest in Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) – rightly or wrongly now dubbed Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon (UAP) – tighten your seat belts and secure those tray tables as they need to be in an upright and locked position during takeoff and landing.
The scene is the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. On Monday, June 12, “Disclosure 2.0” was convened by Steven Greer, founder of the Disclosure Project.
Image credit: Disclosure Project/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Greer presented “definitive evidence” of illegal and unacknowledged black budget projects related to UFO/UAP operations in Washington D.C.
Whistleblowers, legal action
The event featured whistleblowers, locations of illegally operated UFO projects and corporations – and that’s not all.
Image credit: Disclosure Project/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Plans for a civilian initiated RICO (Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization) lawsuit against illegal military and corporate projects was announced and outlined. A newly formed Disclosure legal team is comprised of pro bono attorneys, legal professionals, and law students from a broad range of expertise and backgrounds to join in on this effort.
The Disclosure Project Legal Team for UFO Disclosure is focused on achieving widespread acknowledgment of UFOs, UAPs, and advanced energy technologies for solving the global climate crisis.
Spotlighted were the legal implications of filing a RICO lawsuit on behalf of those wronged by the actions of the “corrupt entities that have been controlling the UFO issue.”
Artwork of up-close encounter – a Fort Irwin incident based on “Top Secret military Witness.”
Image credit: Disclosure Project
Bumpy ride
During the event, some of the cataloged 119 crash/retrieval events of extraterrestrial vehicles were summarized and presented.
If the truth is out there…it’s going to be a bumpy ride to excavate reality when it comes to ET, close encounters of whatever kind, and sorting out purported government hanky-panky on this subject.
For the video of the National Press Club-held event, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/live/zDY7t6HihCw?feature=share
Let me know what you think!
