Keith Palmer's Multi-Purpose Journal

When I checked the Astronomy Picture of the Day yesterday morning, I saw an image from a probe approaching the moon. One of my first thoughts was that I must not be keeping up with space missions as well as I could to be sort of surprised at the impending landing, even if the probe had taken a lot longer to approach the moon than the “three days” I’m familiar with. (If someone was to explain a longer coast out means a given rocket can deliver more mass to the moon, I suppose I’d accept that.) I was also thinking, though, of a number of other recent moon probes that didn’t manage soft (or at least upright) landings.

Even if I’d missed or forgotten initial news of the mission, I did at least see an announcement the next morning in my RSS reader, and it was a report of a successful touchdown. Still uncertain about what might happen afterwards I managed to look up an official mission site, and one of the pictures there included the shadow of a probe standing on its landing legs. With apparent proof one of these new-type missions has worked out at last, I went on to ponder the suggestion it’s only supposed to work through the lunar day and not last out the fourteen Earth days of a frigid lunar night.

Returning the Starliner space capsule to Earth at last but without anyone on board hadn’t seemed a vote of confidence, and I did keep track of the leadup to its scheduled night landing. When I’d got up the next morning, though, the capsule itself had parachuted down to the desert. There were no noticeable comments in the short trip-back updates provided about more trouble with the thrusters. The pictures that had piled up of the capsule attached to the space station had got me thinking the thrusters that came back to Earth had been covered up in flight in somewhat the same way as video coverage of space shuttle launches had shown white covers tearing off the rear thrusters as the main engines ignited, and the thrusters that had caused problems in the first place had been jettisoned to burn up on reentry. Just how many more crew capsules will be launched by SpaceX before another Starliner gets off the ground seems the question now.

When, a little while ago, I got around at last to signing out something new from one of my library’s ebook lending services I was hit with error messages. After a little while I sorted out that my library card had to be renewed every so often; having let it expire does pretty much seem a reproach. It was easy enough to have it renewed by going to the closest branch, though, and there I started signing out books in print again. Checking one familiar section I came across a book called Shuttle, Houston by Paul Dye, identified on the cover as “NASA’s longest-serving flight director.”
( It’s interesting on the ground too )

It turned out that I first saw via Tumblr news of the Starliner space capsule with astronauts on board blasting off for the space station. Up until that moment I just might have been thinking more of reports the fourth test launch of SpaceX’s largest rocket could happen real soon, but I’d at least been aware of the slow advance of this alternative for sending people into orbit. The malfunctions of previous test flights without people on board provoked snide comments about Boeing being responsible for the capsule, and the Crew Dragon is now carrying “private crews,” but I am willing to hope this test flight gets to the space station all right.

After the second “Starship” rocket got further into space than the first had I have recollections of seeing comments a third test flight could be happening soon. However, I don’t recall how long ago I saw them. In any case, I thought to check the “Universe Today” site today (which I don’t do on a schedule), and happened on an item the SpaceX rocket had launched again, and this time its upper stage had gone into orbit without blowing up right after its engines shut down. However, contact with it was lost during re-entry, which is a different bad sign from before. “Iteration” has to be brought up, along with there having been less time between the second and third tests than between the first and the second, but the whole issue with “let’s not appear too enthusiastic about SpaceX” is still much on my mind.

When the Japanese lunar probe SLIM touched down on the moon with its solar cells not facing the sun (the awkward position it wound up in wasn’t clear at first) and had to be powered down before altogether discharging its battery, there were some comments about how sunlight might eventually reach the cells. I have to admit to supposing this was something I’d have to wait for and see. This morning, though, a report did reach me the probe had managed to power up again. There had been comments at the time of landing SLIM wasn’t expected to work after the long lunar day of its landing ended with its components cooling down over the just as long lunar night, but some of that day can now be put to use.

In taking an other look at a “space and astronomy news” site I frequent, I noticed a picture of Jupiter’s moon Io from the Juno space probe and looked in on the article. Aware that Io is deep down in Jupiter’s dangerous radiation belts, I had the impression the mission is taking more chances as it goes longer; at the same time, I had the impression the camera has lasted longer than it had been expected to. In looking up further information about the camera (including explanations of why its images sometimes look more peculiar than the picture of Io did, being built up one strip at a time), though, I did notice comments it is starting to show signs of wear.

After looking at that article I decided to look at another one mentioning the Ingenuity mini-helicopter has now managed sixty-nine flights on Mars. News of a fiftieth flight had impressed me a number of months ago; as I’d said before, I guess I’d had the impression starting off the little solar panel atop the helicopter’s rotors was only good for stretching out an initial charge from the much larger power supply of the Perseverance rover. I can suppose the longevity of these two missions is a matter of “care taken during construction.”

Over the past few days I started noticing reports another “Starship” rocket had been assembled by SpaceX and might be close to launch. Not that long after the first test launch in April had gone awry, I’d seen some explanations why. While I’ve wondered since then if maybe I’d just seen preliminary and unofficial speculation, the recent report did mention a water deluge system had now been installed to keep the patched-up concrete at the base of an otherwise impressive launch tower from being cratered again and pounding the thirty-three rocket engines doing that cratering with debris.

There were more reports of an impending launch first thing this morning. For a moment I wondered if I’d missed it, and then I sorted out the time zone difference and managed to tune into a live stream. The SpaceX employees seemed almost as enthusiastic as before, but the smoke at the base of the tower wasn’t grey this time and all the engines stayed on until a tidy shutdown at staging. At that point everything did seem to be working, except that the first stage exploded mere moments after the second had separated. That meant it had done only as much as the possibly far more expensive Space Launch System first stage, but I did remind myself SpaceX does “iterate” towards its grandest claims of recovery and reuse. I kept watching a last speck of light in the sky until the second stage engines cut out, then headed off to get ready for other things, supposing I’d check back later on its coast around the Earth to ditch in the Pacific.

When I did get back, though, I wound up finding reports the second stage also seems to have blown up not that long after separation. I did wonder how much longer it’ll take for one of these rockets to do everything it’s supposed to. With the non-space company SpaceX keeps having become that much more unsettling, the temptation might be unfortunate to wonder if, just maybe, being able to build several “Starships” in the time a single Space Launch System rocket comes together might become “necessary.”

Things have been up and down this weekend. As it started, my RSS reader provided a link to Bluesky invitation codes. I’ve seen people on Twitter offering them, and having stopped putting links there to my posts here I’ve at least been conscious of that “escape route.” However, I’d been inclined to wonder just where there, if anywhere, I might have the presence to convert into “I’d like to ask for a code.” Of course, this new account might amount to “a few more years in one more place.” As far back as the days of Usenet, I have kept wondering about joining message boards and online services as their best days are passing.

In my first moments on Bluesky, though, I saw reports the Right Stuf online anime store is fading into history just as the “Funimation” brand name disappeared from Blu-Rays in favour of Crunchyroll (on what few discs are getting made in these past months, anyway). The immediate negative reactions about “a big company owning all the pieces of anime distribution over here” were depressing for being understandable. I am sort of stuck with the thoughts that “‘competition’ is said to be good, and yet sometimes ‘victory’ results” and “is another problem that Right Stuf had already been predominant?” Maybe my own thoughts about “obscurity equals worth” had been intermittent; maybe I still have a dangerous awareness of the underhanded escape routes a few were fulminating about.

While trying to grapple those thoughts into some sort of shape, I at least noticed an update a capsule loaded with asteroid pebbles had returned to Earth (with the probe that had collected those samples having changed its course again so it wouldn’t run into Earth as well). Remembering a previous sample-return mission where the parachute hadn’t opened, I was glad to see things appear to have worked this time. That’s at least coming up through coming down.

Happening to go a bit further afield at work this morning, I overheard some coworkers I know tuning into a live stream and thought “wait, the SpaceX ‘Starship’ rocket turned around already after that scrubbed launch a few days ago?” When I looked at the screen, the rocket was high in the sky, but I hope it’s not “rewriting memories” to recall a sense of something not being quite right. Then, the rocket exploded in mid-air.

I have to admit my reactions weren’t overdone one way or another as my coworkers, who didn’t seem “shocked” or “horrified” themselves, scrolled back in the livestream to the moment of launch. It did seem obvious several of the many engines in the first stage were shutting down in the midst of flight; I just recalled what I’d heard about the Soviet N1 rocket and supposed it was fortunate everything hadn’t cut out at once. The more obvious problem seemed that the second stage didn’t separate, although the rocket turning end over end appeared to have started properly but then gone awry.

What I kept thinking was that had the first Space Launch System launch gone wrong in a similar way there’d have been calls for blood. That rocket might have taken a long time to get put together for the sake of being expended, but it had flown the first time. I can recall preliminary comments that “if the first Falcon Heavy doesn’t destroy its historic repurposed launch pad, it’ll be a success,” but it had pulled off its stunt. I suppose it’s just a matter of things only related to SpaceX that has me thinking “I have no problems indeed with this company not being successful at everything compared to government agency efforts.”