Archive for the ‘Wait a Minute!’ Category
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February 13th, 2023
Image credit: USNI NewsFor the past week or so, the public has been witness to an aerial assault of sorts, flying objects that are, for the most part, labeled as unidentified, take on different shapes and sizes, are shot down with recovered pieces being analyzed, even “back engineered” to cough up the goods as to where they come from and what they are doing drifting about in our atmospheric firmament.
Image credit: Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies
For the past week or so, the public has been witness to an aerial assault of sorts, flying objects that are, for the most part, tagged as unidentified, take on different shapes and sizes, are shot down with recovered pieces being studied, even “back engineered” to cough up the goods as to where they come from and what they are doing drifting about in our atmospheric firmament.
The language and grammar whirlpool about these lofty incursions should give rise to more reflection about Unidentified Flying Objects as well as the new nomenclature, Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon, or UAP for short.
The on-going reveal regarding these sky-high visitations means what to the UAP/UFO community?
Are there any lessons learned from these incidents and takeaways from pilot descriptions of the objects?
UAP have been reported by Navy pilots unlike anything they have ever witnessed.
Image credit: Enigma Labs/Lt. Cmdr. Alex Dietrich
There are those that will surely portray these new close-encounters as part of an ultra-classified government plan to prepare the citizenry for “full-disclosure.” That is, yep, Earth is on the receiving end of stopover vessels from the vastness beyond sight, sound, and dimension of mind.
But just how much shadow, how much substance, are we dealing with here?
Eyewitness accounts
A leading doubting Thomas and nemesis of all the uptick in UFO and UAP uproar is Mick West, a writer, skeptical investigator and a former video game programmer.
“The varied pilot reports we’ve seen in the media illustrate how difficult it is to get information about encounters with slow-moving objects from eyewitness accounts,” West told Inside Outer Space.
“The difficulty of judging the speed of an object without knowing its distance is greatly compounded in an encounter with unfamiliar balloons where the pilots do not know how big they are,” West says.
West points to both congressional testimony and the recent output and on-going work of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the newly established All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).
Released in January, the ODNI’s 2022 Annual Report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena is available at:
https://www.odni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Unclassified-2022-Annual-Report-UAP.pdf
Low information zone
Balloons are a common source of pilot reports of UFOs/UAPs, says West.
A wayward balloon is a likely explanation for the “GoFast” UFO video, released in 2018, which seems to show an object moving at high speed over the ocean, but actually shows a much slower object, West adds.
GOFAST
Credit: DOD/U.S. Navy/Inside Outer Space screengrab
UFO reports emerge because of a lack of information, West continues, existing in the so-called “Low Information Zone” or LIZ – the set of conditions where an object is just too far away, small, fast, blurred, or out of focus to determine exactly what it is.
“NORAD’s radar has always had a significant LIZ, where radar returns of low quality, or that resembled birds, balloons, or other airborne clutter, have been filtered out as distractions to the primary mission of detecting incoming conventional aircraft and missiles,” West says.
Expensive, dangerous shoot downs
“The furor over the large Chinese balloon has prompted NORAD to modify or eliminate the filters to attempt to better capture similar incursions,” West says. “This has resulted in low-information objects being selected from the LIZ for investigation. Many of these will be innocuous items, like stray balloons, potentially even of U.S. origin.”
Some items may be previously undetected adversary incursions, West concludes. “Disambiguating these will represent a significant challenge. Unfortunately, the perceived need to take rapid action will result in expensive and dangerous shoot-downs of a variety of objects based on limited information.”
Shown at Congressional hearing, Video 1 2021 flyby movie showing a purported UAP.
Credit: Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Aerial excitement
All the chatter related to balloon shoot downs and UAP talk has also caught the attention of noted UFO disbeliever Robert Sheaffer. He’s an author, freelance writer, and skeptical investigator of all manner of bogus claims.
The ongoing aerial excitement involving balloons means, either that the Chinese have just now dramatically increased their balloon-launching activities, or else that such balloons are no longer being ignored,” Sheaffer explains, “and it’s more likely the latter.”
Sheaffer points out that the pilots, and other official personnel, seem quite clueless about what is being seen.
As noted in one CNN report, there have been some pilots claiming to have seen no identifiable propulsion on the object. Those pilots could not explain how the object was staying in the air, despite its cruising at an altitude of 40,000 feet.
“An object that is lighter than air does not need ‘propulsion’ to remain aloft,” Sheaffer responds.
FLIR
Credit: DOD/U.S. Navy/Inside Outer Space screengrab
GIMBAL/“Tic Tac”
Credit: DOD/U.S. Navy
“In recent years the Chinese have developed small inflatable drones that could possibly account for some sightings,” Sheaffer adds.
Effects of perspective
Similar in view to West, the question of “balloons” is relevant to the UAP video release of the so-called “go fast” object, Sheaffer points out, which may well be a balloon that drifted out over the ocean.
“That object is indeed ‘going fast’ with respect to the camera — perhaps 400 miles per hour — but relative to the ground, it is almost stationary,” Sheaffer says. “The aircraft is passing the object at a high rate of speed, which makes the object appear to be moving rapidly in the opposite direction.”
The fact that Navy pilots did not realize this, says Sheaffer suggests that those pilots don’t understand simple effects of perspective. “And the fact that the Pentagon’s ‘UAP experts’ failed to realize what was happening demonstrates their complete incompetence in such matters,” he feels.
As for the other two publicly released videos — called the Tic Tac and the Gimbal – “they are probably the infrared signatures of distant jet aircraft, and have nothing to do with balloons,” Sheaffer concludes.
Credit: Piplsay
Posted in 
Image credit: NASA
Years ago I wrote a story for AIAA’s Aerospace America magazine.
In my view, the reasons and revelations that haunt me to this day about the tragedy are far from being revealed. I covered the loss of the crew for Space.com at the time, reporting on the investigation from my perspective as I attended a number of the “hearings” on the disaster from Houston, Texas.
To this day, the entire calamity — and how it could have been prevented — has never been fully reported.
Adding to my own views regarding the loss of Columbia and crew was a visit to Kennedy Space Center. I saw first-hand recovered, twisted, and scared wreckage of the vehicle.
I cried.
There are truths out there yet to be revealed.
Meanwhile, take a read of my story – and remember Columbia and the seven-person crew:
Wait a Minute!
Wait a Minute!
An old, two-ton + spacecraft made its uncontrolled and fiery nose dive into the Earth’s atmosphere over the Bering Sea – off the coast of Alaska, near the Aleutian Islands.
NASA and the US Department of Defense report that the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite, ERBS for short, reentered Earth’s atmosphere at 11:04 p.m. EST on Sunday, Jan. 8th.
ERBS deployment from space shuttle.
Image credit: NASA
Most of the 5,400-pound satellite was expected to “burn up” in its high-speed plunge through the atmosphere. Prior to its fall, NASA noted that some components of the satellite were considered likely to survive the reentry.
Deployed from the space shuttle Challenger on Oct. 5, 1984, the ERBS spacecraft was flown to measure the Earth’s radiative energy budget and measure stratospheric constituents, including ozone.
Image credit: The Aerospace Corporation/CORDS
Willy-nilly
The willy-nilly nature of the demise of the nearly 2.5-ton ERBS did trigger worries.
Due to the uncontrolled nature of the spacecraft’s demise, exactly where the craft was to auger in created a stir in Korea. ERBS predicted trajectory and possible reentry time took it across the Korean Peninsula.
“High Alert” – Seoul Incheon Airport
Image credit: CC BY-SA 2.0/Wikimedia
That being the case, the Korean Ministry of Science and Ministry of Knowledge Economy (ICT, Postal and Future Planning) had issued messages asking residents to stay inside and for Korean people to remain vigilant about satellite leftovers that might reach the ground.
According to local media reports, several airports, including Incheon International Airport, did for a short period of time suspend flights due to the prospect of incoming debris passing through Korean Peninsula airspace. Overall all, according to The Korea Times, 29 flights were delayed in the region, including 18 departures and 11 arrivals.
Wait a Minute!
A recent item caught my eye.
Late last month, the ocean-going cruise ship – Viking Orion – was not permitted to pull into dock in Australia.
Over 800 ocean goers have been stranded offshore for nearly a week due to “biofoul” – a condition in which marine growth, a fungus, was carried on the Viking Orion’s hull.
An Australian fisheries department labeled it a “potentially harmful” fungus. The worry was that by introducing this invasive species into a new habitat, that organism could hamper the local biological species thriving in the area.
Image credit: Viking Cruises
Ship-shape steps have been taken by Viking Cruises, although it’s not clear when passengers will set foot back on land.
But more to the point – a space exploration point of view about hauling back samples from Mars.
Extraterrestrial goodies
Now in the works is the multi-nation, multi-billion dollar Mars Sample Return (MSR) campaign – a “cache and carry” project for the 2030’s to haul to Earth select specimens of Red Planet soil, rock and atmosphere.
Newly revised Mars Sample Return campaign makes use of a set of machines, including use of helicopters, to collect Martian soil, rock and atmospheric specimens for return to Earth.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The plan is for the Mars samples – roughly a pound of extraterrestrial goodies — to be plopped into the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR) in west-central Utah.
The MSR campaign team is developing specific transportation, storage, and curation protocols for the Mars samples, including transportation from the UTTR point of recovery to the yet-to-be-determined site of an MSR sample receiving facility.
Public comment
For its part, NASA recently posted for public comment a draft MSR “Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement” or PEIS for short. A 45-day public comment period began on November 4, 2022 and ended on December 19, 2022.
Proposed Utah landing zone (red ellipse) for the Mars sample return mission.
Image credit: NASA
As a result, the PEIS spurred nearly 75 comments.
There’s a mixed bag of support for rocketing back Mars collectibles to our planetary home, and a goodly number of those comments urged not bringing samples back to our home base before testing or studying them on Mars itself.
Others responded by being supportive of using an off-Earth lab, perhaps on the International Space Station, to use “protocols similar to ones described in the Andromeda Strain, minus the nuclear device.”
Another comment remarks: “The arrogance of scientists thinking their containment system is unbreakable reminds me of how the Titanic was supposedly unsinkable. The difference is that at least the Titanic had some lifeboats when it sank; the Earth has none.”
The Andromeda Strain – the 1971 movie, but how real for a 21st century return to Earth of Mars samples?
Credit: Universal Pictures
Miniscule risk
On the other hand, there were those supportive of the MSR endeavor.
“Risk is so small it is not worth it to go about this in a different way that wouldn’t be incredibly expensive. The entire point of this mission is to get the samples back to our state of the art labs, not some makeshift lab in LEO or cis-lunar space,” wrote one commenter.
“I am good with the miniscule risk in the name of science,” continued the person’s remark, “for anything to go wrong there would A) need to be dangerous live pathogens B) could interact with us and C) need to get through all containment protocols. The chances of all that happening is one tick above zero, we have found no life on Mars so the idea these samples would contain dangerous life that can infect species from another planet (Earth) is a bit absurd. Let’s go get them!”
Image credit: NASA/PEIS
Ongoing work
Chiming in on the draft environmental impact statement is the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
“Based on the review of the draft PEIS, EPA did not identify significant environmental concerns to be addressed in the Final EIS,” the December 7, 2022 EPA comment explains.
However, the EPA does note that the draft PEIS references in multiple places that studies regarding burnup/breakup, atmospheric release, contingency planning, and the possibility that Mars material will be distributed outside of the landing site radius are ongoing, and actions to recover MSR Earth Entry System (EES) fragments, if it is damaged upon reentry and landing, are still being worked.
Perseverance rover deposits select rock and soil samples in sealed tubes on Mars’s surface for future missions to retrieve and bring back to Earth for detailed study.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Ship-to-shore signal?
In summary, observes the EPA, more work is to be done.
“We welcome the opportunity to discuss appropriate response authorities with NASA and are available to assist with additional information if required,” the EPA communiqué to NASA concludes.
In the meantime, NASA’s Perseverance rover is busy at work on Mars, scouting about for primo samples that are being cached for eventual pick-up and delivery to Earth-situated labs for intensive scientific inquiry.
Harkening back to the good ship Viking Orion, one wonders whether there’s a strong ship-to-shore signal.
What’s your view?
For more information on the Mars Sample Return and environmental impact comments/studies, go to:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nepa-mars-sample-return-campaign/
Wait a Minute!
Space hardware tumbling out of orbit may lead to new unforeseen impacts on the environment and climate.
Due to the growing scale and pace of launch activities what is needed is better monitoring of the situation, as well as regulation to create an environmentally sustainable space industry.
Space debris plunges to Earth, burning its way through the atmosphere.
Image credit: The Aerospace Corporation
For more details, go to my SpaceNews story – “Studies flag environmental impact of reentry” – at:
https://spacenews.com/studies-flag-environmental-impact-of-reentry/
While NASA deservedly notes that the Space Launch System-boosted Orion spacecraft’s Artemis 1 mission is “exceeding performance expectation,” there is also an irksome development.
Deployed from the Space Launch System’s (SLS) adapter after its November 16 launch, a barrage of CubeSats – 10 of them – were released to space. These small, creative packages of technology, a mixture of U.S. and international spacecraft, were sent outward from a ring attached to the SLS upper stage.
NASA’s Space Launch System rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft launches on the Artemis I flight test. Image credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
Varied set of duties
The CubeSats are built to carry out a varied set of duties. For example, solar sailing to an asteroid, thruster testing, reconnoitering the Moon for ice, to even plopping down on the lunar landscape.
Not only are these innovative CubeSats constructed for achieving great things, each demanded loads of team time and resources. Meanwhile, they collectively represent a pushing of the boundaries to showcase what CubeSats can pull off.
The CubeSat family ready for launch inside adapter.
Image credit: NASA/Cory Huston
Telemetry terror
All that said it’s disappointing to hear that a number of the CubeSats have run into trouble, perhaps 50 percent of them.
Mike Sarafin, Artemis I mission manager, said in a recent briefing that ArgoMoon, BioSentinel, Equuleus, LunaH-Map and OMOTENASHI “are on a path to success.”
Meanwhile, the other five — LunIR, Lunar IceCube, NEA Scout, CuSP and Team Miles — “either have encountered technical issues post-deploy or have had intermittent communications or, in one case, did not acquire a signal with the communication asset that they had planned,” Sarafin added.
NASA’s NEA Scout’s large deployable solar sail.
Credit: NASA
For sure, telemetry terror has reared its ugly head.
Timed release
In a NASA blog, the space agency explained that all 10 CubeSats were successfully deployed via timer from the SLS adapter.
Japan’s OMOTENASHI lunar lander.
Credit: JAXA/NASA
“The CubeSats’ individual missions are separate from Artemis I,” the blog states. “The small satellites, each about the size of a shoebox, are inherently high-risk, high-reward and the teams are in various stages of mission operations or troubleshooting in some cases.”
LunIR
Image credit: Lockheed Martin
Viewing the CubeSats as “inherently high-risk” caught my eye. Why so? There are plenty of CubeSats successfully circling the Earth; companies have been formed based on constellations of shoebox-sized CubeSats.
Then there are CubeSats like NASA’s CAPSTONE, while troubled en route, it has now successfully settled into near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) operations around the Moon. And you can’t forget the twin Mars Cube One (MarCO) spacecraft zooming by the Red Planet in November 2018.
Linkage, root cause?
One wonders if there’s need for a “mishap board” to investigate if there’s any linkage or root cause between the problems encountered by the SLS-dispatched CubeSats?
Image credit: NASA/Morehead State University
Could the gaggle of hiccups and gotchas be sparked by hurricane and technical delays in getting SLS off-the-ground, or how long the CubeSats were attached inside the SLS adapter, or battery charging issues. There could be an “or…agami” of nested troubles.
Seemingly, some sort of post-mortem might be in order here – ostensibly of value to not only NASA but the pioneering CubeSat community too. That group of people put a lot of blood, sweat, tears, time, dedication and dollars into forging a bold avenue for deep space exploration.
Let’s try and shelve “inherently high risk” (sounds like “sure to fail”) and substitute a more pro-phrase term that evokes at least a hint of possible cutting-edge triumph.
Is this a teachable moment for all involved?
This is an opinion piece by Leonard David. Responses welcomed.
Credit: NASA
OTV-6 outfitted with service module.
Image credit: Staff Sgt. Adam Shanks
That fresh from Earth orbit X-37B space plane was outfitted for the first time with a service module, released from the craft prior to its landing after 908 days of flight.
The Boeing-built space plane set a new long-duration record –- with this latest flight, dubbed Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-6) — surpassing the program’s previous record of 780 days.
“Since the X-37B’s first launch in 2010, it has shattered records and provided our nation with an unrivaled capability to rapidly test and integrate new space technologies,” said Jim Chilton, senior vice president, Boeing Space and Launch.
“With the service module added, this was the most we’ve ever carried to orbit on the X-37B and we’re proud to have been able to prove out this new and flexible capability for the government and its industry partners,” Chilton added.
Boundaries of experimentation
Adding his voice to the utility of the space plane’s add-on module, Lt. Col. Joseph Fritschen, Department of Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office’s X-37B Program Director:
OTV-6 – On the ground at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Image credit: Staff Sgt. Adam Shanks
“The X-37B continues to push the boundaries of experimentation, enabled by an elite government and industry team behind the scenes,” said Fritschen. “The ability to conduct on-orbit experiments and bring them home safely for in-depth analysis on the ground has proven valuable for the Department of the Air Force and scientific community. The addition of the service module on OTV-6 allowed us to host more experiments than ever before.”
Ring toss
The service module is a ring attached to the rear of the vehicle expanding the number of experiments that can be hosted during a mission. That hardware was left in space prior to the space plane’s dive back to Earth on November 12th.
The first X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle waits in the encapsulation cell of the Evolved Expendable Launch vehicle on April 5, 2010 at the Astrotech facility in Titusville, Fla.
Credit: U.S. Air Force
Whether or not experiments within that service module remain active is an unknown.
In the coming weeks, the service module will be disposed of in accordance with “best practices” – seemingly indicating a propulsive push to purposely de-orbit the module in a controlled way.
On this point, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said: “The deliberate manner in which we conduct onorbit operations-to include the service module disposal-speaks to the United States’ commitment to safe and responsible space practices, particularly as the issue of growing orbital debris threatens to impact global space operations.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. Space Force has issued a first-time-seen image of the hefty-looking service module, pre-liftoff back in May 2020.
Credit: Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU)
I was delighted to take part in This Week In Space podcast: Episode 36 —NASA is finally tackling UFOS.
This topic and others were addressed by space journalists Rod Pyle, Tariq Malik and myself, offering a number of opinions about UFOs and today’s sky-high extraterrestrial expression: Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP).
NASA study
One subject area tackled: how and why is NASA looking into UFO phenomenon with a new $100,000 study that will run into mid-2023?
GIMBAL/“Tic Tac”
Credit: DOD/U.S. Navy/Inside Outer Space screengrab
With a panel of experts, including scientists, astronauts (and yes, at least one space reporter), NASA has been charged with using its considerable expertise in the quest to understand what exactly UFOs (now called UAPs) might be all about.
Wait a Minute!
Deep dive
Are they extraterrestrial visitors?
Time travelers?
Earthly foreign agents?
Swamp gas (no, we don’t buy that one either)?
Give a listen to the podcast and join us as we deep dive into the possibility of extraterrestrial emissaries.
Go to: https://www.space.com/this-week-in-space-podcast-twit
Wait a Minute!
Note: “Wait a Minute!” is the first of a series of stories written to flag issues of concern, consternation, and constant aggravation.
Around and around it goes, where it ends up is anybody’s guess.
China’s “forget me not” Long March 5B core booster weighs an estimated 22.5-metric tons. That’s about the size of a 10-story building.
That core stage is a circling-the-Earth leftover associated with the recent launch of the third and final experiment module of China’s Tiangong Space Station, Mengtian.
Level of risk
“The uncertainty of where the large debris will ultimately land presents a level of risk to human safety and property damage that is well above commonly accepted thresholds,” explains The Aerospace Corporation and its Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies (CORDS).
CORDS as is the U.S. military and a global network of satellite watchers are actively tracking the CZ-5B rocket body. And for good reason.
Notes The Aerospace Corporation, similar uncontrolled reentries of Long March rockets occurred in 2020, 2021 and most recently in July 2022 – of which, two resulted in large debris landing near populated areas.
Predicted Reentry Time: November 5, 2022 04:51 UTC ± 14 hours.
Predicted Reentry Time 05 Nov 2022 04:51 UTC ± 14 hours.
Yellow Icon – location of object at midpoint of reentry window
Blue Line – ground track uncertainty prior to middle of the reentry window (ticks at 5-minute intervals)
Yellow Line – ground track uncertainty after middle of the reentry window (ticks at 5-minute intervals)
Pink Icon (if applicable) – vicinity of eyewitness sighting or recovered debris.
Credit: The Aerospace Corporation/CORDS
Precautionary preparation
“Over 88 percent of the world’s population lives under the reentry’s potential debris footprint. Factors such as the rocket core’s uncontrolled manner of descent and its size, which is too large to entirely burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere, collectively present risks high enough that require additional precautionary preparation around the world,” adds The Aerospace Corporation.
China’s Long March 5B core stage is predicted for a November 5th return to Earth: latest predictions at The Aerospace Corporation’s CORDS site are available here at:
https://aerospace.org/reentries/cz-5b-rb-id-54217
