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Here’s another instance of a teachers’ union imposing its political values on students.  And course it comes from Portland, Oregon. You have to remember that teachers’ unions don’t exist for the benefit of the students, but for the teachers themselves. As the Daily Signal reported in 2011:

As former American Federation of Teachers president Al Shanker infamously quipped: “When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.”

And here we have a paradigmatic case of where interests of teachers and students don’t coincide, or rather, when teachers appear so “progressive” that their unions urge teachers to propagandize students in favor of Palestine.  The two articles below documenting this are both conservative—the National Review and The City Journal—but just check the sources and judge for yourself. Christopher Rufo, for example, is widely demonized, but mainly because he’s a Republican who advised Ron DeSantis. In fact, I think his exposing DEI stuff and showing its weaknesses have been salubrious. And so is this exposé. But again, read and judge.

I have to emphasize that these are lesson plans made by the Portland Association of Teachers, and it’s not clear whether any of this material has yet been foisted on students.

Click on the two headlines below to read, or check out this series of tweets by Rufo documenting the teaching material.

From the National Review, by Ryan Mills:

And the City Journal piece by Rufo:

From the National Review Piece:

Jewish leaders and concerned parents in Portland, Oregon are accusing the local teachers’ union of indoctrinating students with anti-Israel messages and engaging in one-sided, pro-Palestinian activism as the war in Gaza continues to rage.

The 32-page guide, “Know Your Rights! Teaching & Organizing for Palestine within Portland Public Schools,” was published last month by the Oregon Educators for Palestine in collaboration with the teachers’ union. It offers legal advice to educators “teaching about the genocide in Palestine,” and advice on how to teach about the ongoing conflict.

The fact that parents and Jewish leaders say that the teachers’ union is actually “indoctrinating students” implies that this material is being taught, but it’s not clear. However, the guide seems to have disappeared, as the link above goes nowhere. Never mind; you can find the link below.

There’s more:

The teaching guide does not mention that Gaza is governed by Hamas, which the U.S. designated as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. And critics note that while it focuses on the plight of Palestinians, it makes no mention of Hamas’ terrorist attack on October 7, which killed about 1,200 innocent people, mostly Israeli civilians, and led to the war.

The guide accuses Israel of engaging in “settler colonialism” and says that the “Zionist settler colonization of Palestine has been widely compared to settler colonialism in the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and elsewhere.”

. . .For younger students, the guide recommends lessons, books, and videos from various far-left education outfits, including Woke Kindergarten, the Palestinian Feminist Collective, and Social Justice Books. It includes a visual guide titled “So You Made it to a Protest!” and “Lil Comrade Convos,” which urges young kids to discuss “power.”

Older students are directed to lessons on “Renewable Energy in occupied Palestine,” “Unions,” “Genocide of Palestinians,” “Queer Voices From the Fight For Palestine Liberation,” and “No Freedom Without Reproductive Freedom for Palestinian Women.”

What can you say except “Oy vey!” (if you’re a Zionist). But Rufo has more evidence in a working link and some tweets, so I’ll quote the second article as well. And the link in the first sentence, to the “Teach Palestine” resources, is working, though I don’t see how to download it.

I have obtained a collection of publicly accessible documents produced by the Portland Association of Teachers, an affiliate of the state teachers’ union that encourages its more than 4,500 members to “Teach Palestine!” (The union did not respond to a request for comment.)

The lesson plans are steeped in radicalism, and they begin teaching the principles of “decolonization” to students as young as four and five years old. For prekindergarten kids, the union promotes a workbook from the Palestinian Feminist Collective, which tells the story of a fictional Palestinian boy named Handala. “When I was only ten years old, I had to flee my home in Palestine,” the boy tells readers. “A group of bullies called Zionists wanted our land so they stole it by force and hurt many people.” Students are encouraged to come up with a slogan that they can chant at a protest and complete a maze so that Handala can “get back home to Palestine”—represented as a map of Israel.

Other pre-K resources include a video that repeats left-wing mantras, including “I feel safe when there are no police,” and a slideshow that glorifies the Palestinian intifada, or violent resistance against Israel. The recommended resource list also includes a “sensory guide for kids” on attending protests. It teaches children what they might see, hear, taste, touch, and smell at protests, and promotes photographs of slogans such as “Abolish Prisons” and “From the River to the Sea.”

In kindergarten through second grade, the ideologies intensify. The teachers’ union recommends a lesson, “Art and Action for Palestine,” that teaches students that Israel, like America, is an oppressor. The objective is to “connect histories of settler colonialism from Palestine to the United States” and to “celebrate Palestinian culture and resistance throughout history and in the present, with a focus on Palestinian children’s resistance.”

The lesson suggests that teachers should gather the kindergarteners into a circle and teach them a history of Palestine: “75 years ago, a lot of decision makers around the world decided to take away Palestinian land to make a country called Israel. Israel would be a country where rules were mostly fair for Jewish people with White skin,” the lesson reads. “There’s a BIG word for when Indigenous land gets taken away to make a country, that’s called settler colonialism.”

Before snack time, the teacher is encouraged to share “keffiyehs, flags, and protest signs” with the children, and have them create their own agitprop material, with slogans such as “FREE PALESTINE, LET GAZA LIVE, [and] PALESTINE WILL BE FREE.” The intention, according to the lesson, is to move students toward “taking collective action in support of Palestinian liberation.”

I can’t stop quoting!

. . . .The recommended curriculum also includes a pamphlet titled “All Out for Palestine.” The pamphlet is explicitly political, with a sub-headline blaring in all capital letters: “STOP THE GENOCIDE! END U.S. AID TO IRSAEL! [sic] FREE PALESTINE!” The authors denounce “Zionism’s long genocidal war on Palestinian life” and encourage students to support “boycott, divestment, and sanctions” policies against Israel.

You can peruse the teaching guide, and I’ll put up a few tweets by Rufo demonstrating what’s in it. It starts with lessons from kindergarten through grade 2 (roughly ages 5-7).

In pre-kindergarten, teachers are encouraged to read from a workbook by the Palestinian Feminist Collective, which blames “a group of bullies called Zionists” who “stole [Palestinian] land by force and hurt many people.” pic.twitter.com/7tpUtzgJLT

— Christopher F. Rufo (@realchrisrufo) June 5, 2024

Before snack time, the teacher is encouraged to share “keffiyehs, flags, and protest signs” with the children, and have them create their own agitprop material, with slogans such as “FREE PALESTINE, LET GAZA LIVE, [and] PALESTINE WILL BE FREE.” pic.twitter.com/8kuTTJnlVY

— Christopher F. Rufo (@realchrisrufo) June 5, 2024

Finally, the hardcore ideology. The curriculum encourages students to chant in support of Palestinian martyrs and suggests that violence against Israel is justified: “Resistance is justified when people are occupied!” “We salute all our martyrs!”; “No peace on stolen land!” pic.twitter.com/Y0am6SRNco

— Christopher F. Rufo (@realchrisrufo) June 5, 2024

Here’s one I found from high school plans; click to read the whole lesson plan:

What the hell is going on here? This is blatant political propagandizing of the type that UNRWA foists on kids in Gaza, but it’s in AMERICA. Of course whether you consider Portland “America” is a matter of taste these days, but I don’t think any parent save someone blatantly pro-Hamas would want their kids fed one-sided propaganda these days. Particularly Jewish parents!

All I can say is that the parents of Portland should nip this nonsense in the bud, pronto.

Teachers’ unions of course have often taken stands inimical to the well-being of their charges: they are notoriously loath to fire teachers who are incompetent or even drunk, they are often pro-DEI, and they pushed schools to close down during the pandemic, a move that now, I think, is seen as deeply unwise, having set children’s education back by a long spell without really conferring much benefit to health.  And this post is one more example of how a teachers’ union, apparently besotted by Palestine and rife with anti-Zionism, is not teaching but propagandizing.

 

h/t: Luana, Rosemary

A genetic analysis of ancient horses reveals that breeding techniques developed by people in the Pontic-Caspian steppes enabled the rapid spread of horse-powered travel

The UK government has set limits on the capabilities of quantum computers that can be exported from the country and has declined to explain these limits on the grounds of national security. Experts say this make no sense

SpaceX's Starship has been to orbit and back in its fourth flight test, with both rocket stages soft landing in the ocean, though parts of the spacecraft appeared to be damaged during descent

I signed up as a Harvard Alum (you have to prove it with dates and degrees, and they look it up!), just so I could get stuff like this. It’s a letter from the interim President (Claudine Gay has not yet been replaced) as well as the interim Provost and 18 deans, affirming that Harvard, joining a handful of other universities, has officially adopted the institutional neutrality policy confected by a working committee (see here for the earlier committee report).

It’s time for the the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) to start making a list of schools that have adopted institutional neutrality, a policy first started by the University of Chicago’s Kalven Report in 1967)—just as FIRE has a list of 108 universities that have adopted some version of Chicago’s principles of free expression.  As I always say, both institutional neutrality and First-Amendment-style free speech are mutually supportive in ensuring an atmosphere that permits and encourages free speech on campus. And the more schools that sign on, the more schools that will be willing to sign on.

Here’s the announcement I got via email:

it was also signed by 18 deans, but I won’t list their names as it’s not that important.

Click to read the pdf:

Here are a few quotes from what now seems to be Harvard’s official policy. This is the raison d’être for the statement:

Accordingly, the university has a responsibility to speak out to protect and promote its core function. Its leaders must communicate the value of the university’s central activities. They must defend the university’s autonomy and academic freedom when threatened – if, for example, outside forces seek to determine what students the university can admit, what subjects it can teach, or which research it supports. And they must speak out on issues directly relevant to the university’s operation.

The university and its leaders should not, however, issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function.

. . . First, the integrity and credibility of the institution are compromised when the university speaks officially on matters outside its institutional area of expertise. Faculty members, speaking for themselves, have expertise in their respective domains of knowledge, and they may often speak about what they know. In so doing, however, they do not speak for the university. The university’s leaders are hired for their skill in leading an institution of higher education, not their expertise in public affairs. When speaking in their official roles, therefore, they should restrict themselves to matters within their area of institutional expertise and responsibility: the running of a university.

Second, if the university and its leaders become accustomed to issuing official statements about matters beyond the core function of the university, they will inevitably come under intense pressure to do so from multiple, competing sides on nearly every imaginable issue of the day. This is the reality of contemporary public life in an era of social media and political polarization. Those pressures, coming from inside and outside the university, will distract energy and attention from the university’s essential purpose. The university is not a government, tasked with engaging the full range of foreign and domestic policy issues, and its leaders are not, and must not be, selected for their personal political beliefs.

Third, if the university adopts an official position on an issue beyond its core function, it will be understood to side with one perspective or another on that issue. Given the diversity of viewpoints within the university, choosing a side, or appearing to do so can undermine the inclusivity of the university community. It may make it more difficult for some members of the community to express their views when they differ from the university’s official position. The best way for the university to acknowledge pressing public events is by redoubling intellectual engagement through classes, conferences, scholarship, and teaching that draw on the expert knowledge of its faculty.

Good stuff! They even add something that we had to modify in our own Kalven report: “departments, centers, and programs” should remain institutionally neutral as well as statements from the top administration (presidents, provosts, deans, etc.).

I have only two beefs, and they’re minor. Here’s the first one:

The most compassionate course of action is therefore not to issue official statements of empathy. Instead, the university should continue and expand the efforts of its pastoral arms in the different schools and residential houses to support affected community members. It must dedicate resources to training staff most directly in contact with affected community members. These concrete actions should prove, in the end, more effective and meaningful than public statements.

This is a bit ambiguous in that it raises the issue of “which pastoral arms should be extended”?  Who, exactly, are the “affected community members”? In the case of the war in Gaza, for example, should both Jewish and pro-Palestinian students be supported as two different groups? Do they get equal support? What about others disturbed by the conflict? There are multiple sides on every debatable issue.

It would be better simply to say, “You might be affected by this circumstance, and if you are, you can find help here,” listing the various therapy or helping groups. This is what we did when Chicago issued its statement about the war. And that way the pastoral support goes out to everyone, without anybody needing to decide who the affected groups are.

An even smaller beef (not even a filet mignon) is this:

Let us be clear: the university is not a neutral institution. It values open inquiry, expertise, and diverse points of view, for these are the means through which it pursues truth. The policy of speaking officially only on matters directly related to the university’s core function, not beyond, serves those values. It should enable the university to endure and flourish, providing its unique public good even – and especially – in times of intense public controversy

Well, the university is indeed (or should be) a neutral institution on matters of ideology, politics, and morality that don’t bear on the workings of the school.  The “pursuit of truth” might, at a stretch, be conceived as a “value,” but it’s really the purpose of a university.  I’m not sure why Harvard wrote this, though it appears to have done so to set it apart from Chicago, criticizing us because Chicago doesn’t explicitly admit that we really aren’t institutionally neutral (“we’re Harvard and we are better”). But I don’t really care. What’s important is that this is a good, workable policy of institutional NEUTRALITY, and, given that it’s at Harvard, it should prompt other schools to adopt similar policies.

Here’s the head of Chicago’s Kalven Report committee, law professor Harry Kalven:

The Maroon, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Collagen is an expensive protein supplement - nothing more.

The post Collagen Supplementation: Hype and Hope first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

(After Shelley):

I am Ozy, Pig of Pigs
Look on my tusks, ye mighty, and despair!

All the photos come from reader Rosemary, who is also mentioned below.

Ozymandias (“Ozy” for short) is a common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus) who lives in South Africa. But there’s nothing “common” about him. He has personality, arrogance, and above all, size (reader Rosemary describes him as a “truck with tusks”).  He’s getting up there in age, and has a bit of a limp, but he’s dominant and all the other pigs avoid him. I help contribute to his well-being.

Right now it’s mating season, and so Ozy is trying to mate with as many females as he can. He’s clearly serially monogamous, and in two of the photos below hyou can see him napping next to his temporary girlfriend, Mabel.  I suspect that many of the genes in his area are derived from Ozy.

Many people think that warthogs are ugly, but I don’t think any animals are ugly, and I see warthogs as beautiful:

The warts under his eye are obvious. Males have two on each side, while females have one.

These tusks, which are enlarged teeth, can do considerable damage! (He has four.)

Ozy having a snooze with Mabel.  He won’t let any of the other hogs near him when he’s eating or near his boo.  At other times he will tolerate other pigs, male or female, except for two males (“J. R.” and “Nelson”) who are close to him in size.

Ozy, Mabel, and a subadult female:

Here from Wikipedia is the skull of a male warthog. Note the four tusks, which are very sharp. They’re used for both digging (the animals are herbivorous grazers and often dig up roots), and defense.

Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

SpaceX is getting ready to launch its massive Starship rocket today - watch the livestream of the event here

This evening, Thursday June 6th at 6:30 pm, I’ll be joined at the Boston Public Library by Sarah Demers, professor at Yale and member of the ATLAS experiment, and Katrina Miller, Ph.D. in neutrino physics and writer for, among other publications, the New York Times. We’ll serve on a panel entitled “Particle Physics: Where the Universe and Humanity Collide”, talking about the future of particle physics and about how we got into physics in the first place. This event, intended for the general public, is part of the international scientific meeting that I’m attending this week, the 12th annual Large Hadron Collider Physics conference. I hope to see some of you there!

Thirty-four years is a long time for a telescope. Yet, that is how long the veteran workhorse of NASA’s space telescope fleet has been operating. Admittedly, Hubble was served by several repair missions during the space shuttle era. Still, the system has been floating in the void and taking some of humanity’s most breathtaking pictures ever captured since April 24th, 1990. But now, time seems to be finally catching up with it, as NASA plans to limit some of its operations to ensure its continued life, starting with gyroscopes. 

Hubble has six gyroscopes, which are intended to help it orient in the right direction and ensure it stays oriented in that direction while it takes the extremely long-exposure, detailed images it is famous for. The six gyroscopes currently installed replaced six older ones during the final shuttle servicing mission in 2009. As one of the few moving components on Hubble, lasting 15 years without maintenance is pretty impressive.

That being said, not all of them lasted that long – only three are operational at this point, with the other three having failed at some point over the last 15 years. And on May 24th, the telescope was sent into safe mode by another failed gyro. This isn’t the first time that particular problem has happened either. Previous errors caused by the same gyro have caused Hubble to go into safe mode multiple times over the past few months. While engineers can reset it, the same problem repeatedly happening means it will probably continue.

Scott Manley explains how the gyros work on Hubble, and how the engineers plan to keep them working.
Credit – Scott Manley YouTube Channel

The problem is that the gyro is “saturating,” meaning that the sensor that shows its speed is maxing out even when the gyro itself isn’t moving near that speed. Since the spacecraft slewing at maximum speed could cause potential issues, the safe thing to do when reading a maximum speed on a gyro is to go into “safe mode” and ensure the spacecraft doesn’t wildly swing in one direction.

Operating in that mode makes sense, especially if the sensor readings are correct, but they make it almost impossible to move accurately if sensor readings aren’t correct. Given the previous efforts by Hubble’s engineering team to fix the problem, it appears at least one of the three remaining gyros is effectively inoperable from now on. So, the team now has a choice.

They could continue to operate with two gyros, or they could only use one and alternate which one they are using to not cause undue wear and tear on whichever one is selected for service first. According to a press release from the agency, operating with two gyros is effectively the same as operating with one, whereas operating with three had significant advantages in terms of speed and accuracy. So, the engineering team has decided that Hubble will operate in one gyro mode from now on.

Fraser discusses some of Hubble’s most iconic images – it’s set of Deep Fields.

This isn’t the first time it’s done so—Hubble effectively operated in one-gryo mode for a short time back in 2008 when the previous set of gyros was failing. It also operated in two-gyro mode from 2005 to 2009, when all the original gyros were replaced. So it is certainly possible, but what impact will it have?

It will take longer to lock on to targets, which is hardly surprising given the telescope’s age, but detrimental if it was hoping to catch transient events such as a supernova. It also won’t be able to track any moving objects that are closer than Mars, such as the occasional comet or asteroid. Typically, those types of objects weren’t the focal point of Hubble’s observations anyway. While Hubble will indeed have to slow down, its support team believes it can continue operations through at least the rest of this decade in this new mode.

Luckily, it is no longer alone in its role as the workhorse space telescope. The James Webb Space Telescope has far surpassed its observational capabilities; the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope, due to launch in 2027, will contribute additional functionality to make up for Hubble’s slowing pace. Hubble itself will always have a place in astronomy nerds’ hearts. Its Deep Field image is my favorite picture and sparked my love for astronomy as a kid. And I’m not alone – NASA recently rejected billionaire Jared Isaacman’s plan to service the aging telescope as part of a series of Dragon capsule missions. But even without additional help from the ground, Hubble hopefully still has a long, fruitful life ahead of it when it continues its science operations in mid-June.

Learn More:
NASA – NASA to Change How It Points Hubble Space Telescope
UT – Hubble Pauses its Science Again
UT – The Venerable Hubble Space Telescope Keeps Delivering
UT – Hubble Sees a Brand New Triple Star System

Lead Image:
This image of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope was taken on May 19, 2009, after deployment during Servicing Mission 4.
Credit – NASA

The post It’s Time for Hardworking Hubble to Slow Down a Little appeared first on Universe Today.

People who had higher levels of xylitol in their blood were more likely to have a heart attack or stroke within the next three years, with lab experiments suggesting the sweetener promotes blood clotting

Industry is responsible for 23% of carbon emissions, close to the amount of electricity production (25%) and transportation (28%). We talk a lot about transportation and energy, but industrial carbon is a harder nut to crack. Also, the 23% is direct carbon release from industrial processes, if you include the energy used by industry the contribution is 30%. Industry and manufacturing is increasing at a steady rate worldwide, and by some estimates we could be seeing a 90% increase in CO2 release from industry by 2050. This could wipe out any gains we make in the energy and transportation sectors.

The two largest contributors to direct industrial carbon release are steel and cement. Cement production is responsible for about 8% of CO2 emissions, about a third of industrial release. Another third is from steel. So these two industries are a ripe target for reducing carbon emissions. To put the carbon footprint into perspective, if cement production were a country, it would be the third largest emitter after the USA and China.

The world produces 4.4 billion tons of concrete each year (cement is a main ingredient in concrete). This is excepted to increase to 5.5 billion tons by 2050. Some type of cement has been used by people for about 12,000 years, with the first concrete dating to about 800 BC. The Romans perfected concrete, and built an empire out of it. Today cement and concrete are essential building materials for our modern world.

About half of the CO2 from cement production comes from the following chemical reaction – CaCO3 + heat → CaO + CO2. CaCO3 is limestone, and the CaO is what is known as clinker, a main ingredient in cement. The other half of CO2 emissions comes from the energy necessary to heat the limestone to drive the reaction. Some of that CO2 is then absorbed back by concrete, but that takes decades. There are lots of proposals for how to reduce the carbon footprint of cement and concrete, or even eliminate it. The main barrier is that any such process needs to be done on a massive scale – able to make 4.4 billion tons per year and growing.

One proposal is to recycle old concrete. In this process the old concrete is crushed into a powder. That powder is then used as flux in the recycling of steel. When the ash is then collected from that steel production, it can be quickly cooled and hardened into clinker, which can be used to make fresh cement. At least this allows for a completely circular process for the recycling of old concrete. It also uses an existing industrial process of recycling steel. In order for this process to be truly green, however, the steel mills would have to use electric furnaces powered by green energy. There was about 360 million tons of concrete debris created in 2015, so that can take a chunk out of new concrete production – but this is obviously not a solution by itself (about 9% of concrete production).

Some proposals involve reducing the energy demands of cement production, mostly by using electricity in replace of heat. This can produce so-called room temperature cement. And again – if the power for the electricity comes from low CO2 sources, this can be a huge advantage. This same approach, by the way, has also been proposed for steel making – using electricity instead of heat generated by fossil fuel.

There are also many alternative cement recipes proposed. From what I can see these come in two basic flavors. The first adds ingredients to concrete to make the resulting concrete stronger and lighter. Perhaps the best option here, in terms of resulting physical properties, is carbon nanofibers, or graphene. This makes for strong and durable concrete, which means we can use less of it. In one study, “The resulting concrete was 25% lighter than concrete made with a normal aggregate, and showed a 32% increase in toughness, 33% in peak strain, and 21% in compressive strength.” So if we can use 30% or so less concrete, depending on the application, that right there reduces the carbon footprint of cement by 30%. This also has the added benefit of reducing the use of sand in concrete, which is increasingly becoming a limited resource.

The other type of concrete alternative replaces the clinker in the original cement. One proposal is to replace clinker from limestone with other materials, such as coal ash. This takes an existing waste stream and uses it to replace cement, up to 80% of it. This could be a good option for the next decade or two, but I hope that we will phase out coal power as quickly as possible, so this should not be a long term solution. But in the meantime, it can be one of many solutions.

Another approach is to inject CO2 into the concrete mixture when it is being made, instead of waiting decades for it to slowly absorb CO2. This potentially could create carbon neutral concrete.

The problem with all of these approaches, which all seem to work, is getting them up to industrial scale at a competitive cost. Of course, if any of these methods produced cheaper concrete at scale, then problem solved. But that is not the case. We can keep looking for a cheaper alternative, but it may be difficult to get cheaper than a process we have been doing for hundreds of years with an existing infrastructure. One approach is to consider the externalized cost of the carbon footprint of the cement industry. We could charge them for that cost by pricing carbon, making low carbon alternatives price competitive. Economists generally agree this is the best solution, but pricing carbon is a political heavy lift. Another approach is to subsidize the lower carbon but more expensive alternatives in some way. If this ultimately reduced climate change this is a good investment for public funds.

The post Let’s Talk About Cement first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

New books from Adrian Tchaikovsky and the late Michael Crichton (with James Patterson) are among the great new sci-fi novels out this month

The Dutch police force is already using a remotely controlled Spot robot dog made by Boston Dynamics to examine drug labs in raids, and now it wants to make the robot fully autonomous

The burgeoning use of wood as a building material is a path to more sustainable construction, and it may have psychological benefits too, finds Graham Lawton

A pair of Chinese taikonauts have completed an eight-hour spacewalk repairing damage to the Tiangong Chinese Space Station’s solar panels. It’s believed the damage was caused by tiny pieces of space debris, which impacted the solar wings and degraded their function. They performed a first repair spacewalk in December 2023 and completed the repairs with their second trip outside in March 2024. The Shenzhou 17 crew were the sixth group living in Tiangong and were relieved by the Shenzhou-18 team in late April.

The Shenzhou-18 mission, launched prior to the conclusion of Shenzhou-17, will last approximately six months. The crew, consisting of Ye Guangfu, Li Cong, and Li Guangsu, launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center aboard a Long March 2F rocket at 20h59 Beijing Time. Their spacecraft docked with the station’s Tianhe core module approximately six and a half hours after liftoff. On May 28, 2024, Ye Guangfu and Li Guangsu executed China’s longest spacewalk to date, lasting eight and a half hours, installing a space debris protection device on the station.

Senior Colonel Tang Hongbo and Lieutenant Colonel Jiang Xinlin completed nearly eight hours of extravehicular activity to repair damage to the Tianhe core module’s solar wings caused by impacts from tiny space debris. Lieutenant Colonel Tang Shengjie provided internal support throughout the operation, which marked the first instance of such a repair by Chinese taikonauts. This event, the 15th spacewalk conducted by Chinese astronauts, underscores the critical nature of maintaining the station’s integrity and safety. These operations are complex, but vital and require precise coordination and planning between the astronauts and ground control.

Although the term “spacewalk” is commonly used, the official term for when an astronaut ventures outside a spacecraft is Extravehicular Activity (EVA). The definition of an EVA can vary depending on the country conducting the operation. For instance, Russian and Soviet spacecraft designates an EVA as any instance where a cosmonaut spends time in a vacuum while in a space suit, using specialized airlocks for this purpose. In contrast, the American definition requires at least the astronaut’s head to be outside the spacecraft. Regardless of the definition, an EVA involves leaving the protective environment of the spacecraft and entering outer space, the area outside of Earth’s atmosphere. China made history as the third country to independently perform an Extravehicular Activity (EVA) on September 27, 2008, during the Shenzhou-7 mission. During this mission, Chinese taikonaut Zhai Zhigang completed a 22-minute spacewalk, fully exiting the spacecraft while wearing the Chinese-developed Feitian space suit. Taikonaut Liu Boming, dressed in the Russian-derived Orlan space suit, assisted Zhai by standing by at the airlock and straddling the portal.

The vacuum of space presents significant dangers due to its near complete lack of gas pressure. On Earth, our atmosphere, a mix of nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen gases, exerts a pressure of about 101 kilopascals at sea level, which our bodies are accustomed to. In space, however, the absence of pressure means that without a proper space suit, the air in an astronaut’s lungs would rapidly escape, and gases in body fluids would expand, causing severe internal damage. Additionally, astronauts face extreme temperatures, with sunlit objects reaching over 248 degrees Fahrenheit (120 degrees Celsius) and shaded areas dropping below negative 212 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 100 degrees Celsius). Furthermore, radiation from the sun, ultraviolet rays, and tiny meteoroids pose additional hazards.

To mitigate these risks, space suits are designed to maintain life support in the vacuum of space while allowing for sufficient mobility to perform tasks. These suits are essential for EVAs, providing the necessary protection against the harsh conditions of outer space. This advanced technology enables astronauts like those from the Shenzhou-17 crew to conduct critical repair operations and scientific experiments, ensuring the continued functionality and safety of missions aboard the Tiangong space station.

Since 2021, China has significantly advanced its space capabilities by conducting numerous extravehicular activities, each lasting several hours. These EVAs have been crucial for the construction and maintenance of the Tiangong space station.

During their time on the station, the Shenzhou-17 crew continued with planned space science experiments, technical tests, planned maintenance, and the installation of extravehicular payloads. Their tenure concluded with a handover to the incoming Shenzhou- 18 crew, ensuring the continuous operation of the Tiangong space station.

The recent repair and continued maintenance operations by both crews not only demonstrate China’s growing expertise in manned spaceflight but also highlight the collaborative and technical challenges of sustaining life and functionality in the harsh environment of space. The Tiangong space station is an important platform for research and technological advancement. The dedication of the Shenzhou crews, and the ongoing operational improvements in orbit pave the way for long term and sustained human activities far beyond our atmosphere.

The post Chinese Astronauts Just Repaired Space Debris Damage Outside the Station appeared first on Universe Today.

After many delays and two scrubbed launch attempts, Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner successfully launched earlier today! The Crewed Flight Test (CFT) took off from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, at 10:52 a.m. EDT (07:52 PDT) atop a ULA Atlas V rocket. For this mission, the capsule is carrying two NASA astronauts: Barry “Butch” Wilmore (commander) and Sunita “Suni” Williams (pilot). They are expected to reach the International Space Station (ISS) at 12:15 p.m. EDT (09:15 a.m. PDT) on Thursday, June 6th.

Assuming all goes to plan, this mission will effectively validate the Starliner as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP). Then, we can expect it to make regular deliveries of cargo and crew to the ISS alongside SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. This mission is the second time the Starliner has flown to the ISS and the third flight test overall. During the first test flight (OFT-1), which took place back in December 2019, the Starliner launched successfully but failed to make it to the ISS. After making 61 corrective actions recommended by NASA, another attempt was made (OFT-2) on May 22nd, 2022.

#Starliner ascends to the heavens!

Congratulations to @NASA, @BoeingSpace, and @ulalaunch. Today's launch is a milestone achievement for the future of spaceflight.

Butch and Suni—safe travels through the stars. See you back home.
pic.twitter.com/FYRzx7q4tN

— Bill Nelson (@SenBillNelson) June 5, 2024

Though two of the spacecraft’s thrusters failed during the flight, the spacecraft managed to reach the ISS and delivered 227 kg (500 lbs) of cargo. After nearly two years of delays, another attempt was made on June 1st, but the launch was scrubbed 3 minutes and 50 seconds before liftoff due to a faulty power supply. But, as they say, the third time is the charm! The launch was followed by a NASA news conference at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, beginning at 12:30 a.m. EDT (09:30 a.m. PDT), which NASA live-streamed via NASA+, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

The conference was chaired by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, Associate Administrator Ken Bowersox and Deputy Associate Administrator Joel Montalbano (NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate), Manager Steve Stitch and Mark Nappi (the manager and VP and program manager of CCP), and ULA president and CEO Tory Bruno. You can check out the recap here:

NASA+ will also cover the Starliner‘s approach to the ISS, starting at 09:15 a.m. EDT (06:15 PDT) on June 6th.

Further Reading: NASA

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The European Space Agency has retired its Ariane 5 rocket, and all eyes are on its next generation, Ariane 6. The rocket’s pieces have been arriving at the Kourou facility in French Guiana and are now assembled.  ESA has now announced they’ll attempt a test launch on July 9th and hope to complete a second flight before the end of 2024. This new heavy-life rocket has a re-ignitable upper stage, allowing it to launch multiple payloads into different orbits.

“Ariane 6 marks a new era of autonomous, versatile European space travel,” said ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher, who announced the launch data at the Innovation and Leadership in Aerospace (ILA) Berlin Air Show on June 5, 2024. “This powerful rocket is the culmination of many years of dedication and ingenuity from thousands across Europe and, as it launches, it will re-establish Europe’s independent access to space. … I would like to thank the teams on the ground for their tireless hard work, teamwork and dedication in this last stretch of the inaugural launch campaign. Ariane 6 is Europe’s rocket for the needs of today, adaptable to our future ambitions.”

An overview of Europe’s new rocket, Ariane 6. Credit: ESA.

Ariane 6 has been in the works since the early 2010s to be a replacement the workhorse Ariane 5, which is no longer in production. Ariane 5’s first successful launch was in 1998, and since then has sent 109 spacecraft on their way, including the first ATV Jules Verne to the International Space Station and the James Webb Space Telescope to the second LaGrange point 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from Earth.

Ariane 6 is an expendable launch vehicle – not reusable like SpaceX’s rockets — that comes in two versions, with a modular design that can be customized: the rocket can use either two or four P120C strap-on boosters, depending on mission requirements. With the various designs, it can put a 4,500 kg payload into a geostationary transfer orbit or 10,300kg into low Earth orbit using the two boosters, and with four side boosters, it can launch 11,500 kg into a geostationary transfer orbit and 20,600kg into low Earth orbit. The re-ignitable upper stage allows for multiple satellites to launch on a single flight.

The Ariane 6 rocket test firing on its launch pad at the European Spaceport in French Guiana. Credit: ESA

Ariane 6 was developed at a cost of just under 4 billion euros ($3.9 billion) and was originally planned for its first launch in July 2020. However, the project has been hampered by several delays, including work-related issues during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The rocket has undergone several tests in the past few years, and in November of 2023, a full fueled Ariane 6 was tested on the launchpad, firing its engines for several minutes, simulating a flight to space.

“The announcement of the scheduled date for Ariane 6’s first flight puts us on the home stretch of the launch campaign and we are fully engaged in completing the very last steps,” said Martin Sion, CEO of ArianeGroup, the prime contractor of the Arian 6. “This flight will mark the culmination of years of development and testing by the teams at ArianeGroup and its partners across Europe. It will pave the way for commercial operations and a significant ramp-up over the next two years. Ariane 6 is a powerful, versatile and scalable launcher that will ensure Europe’s autonomous access to space.”

Part of the first Ariane 6 rocket inside the Vehicle Assembly Building, Kourou, French Guiana earlier in 2024. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Arianegroup.

At the Spaceport in French Guiana, various payloads have been integrated on Ariane 6’s payload carrier. One major milestone must be met before launch: a full wet dress rehearsal, which is having a fully fueled vehicle going through all the steps of a countdown, but not the actual ignition of the rocket engines. Once this activity has been completed, the Ariane 6 Task Force will provide an update, confirming the date for the inaugural flight.

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I have always wanted a 3D printer but never quite found a good enough reason to get one. Seeing that NASA are now 3D printing metal is even more tantalising than a plastic 3D printer. However, thinking about it, surely it is just a computer controlled soldering iron! I’m sure it’s far more advanced than that! Turns out that the first print really wasn’t much to right home about, just an s-curve deposited onto a metal plate! It does however prove and demonstrate the principle that a laser can liquify stainless steel and then deposit it precisely in a weightless environment. 

Arguably 3D printers have revolutionised manufacturing and prototyping industry.   The invention of them has been attributed to Chuck Hull who in 1983 but it’s more true to say he laid the foundations. Hull developed a technique known as stereolithography which involved creating 3D objects by curing thin layers of a photopolymer with UV light. The 3D printers that are commercially available came 5 years later in 1988.

NASA and ESA have been interested in 3D printing in space to make repair/improvement engineering far cheaper, sustainable and timely. Instead of waiting for parts to be shipped up to the ISS. To that end there has been a more conventional plastic 3D printer on board the ISS since 2014 because a 3D printed replacement is far simpler and more cost effective. Indeed ESA are trying to create a circular space economy to recycle materials already in orbit. It makes far more sense to repurpose existing materials in orbit – such as metal from old satellites – to make new tools or parts removing the need for rocket launches to transport them.

In November 2014, NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore installed a 3-D printer made by Made in Space in the Columbus laboratory’s Microgravity Science Glovebox on the International Space Station. Credit: NASA TV

The metal printer that is now on board the International Space Station employs stainless steel wire being fed onto the medium being printed upon. A high power laser which is a million times more powerful than a laser pointer then heats it up melting a small section. As the steel wire feeds into the melt pool it melts, adding to the metal, making it slightly raised. 

Unlike a 3D printer you may have (or I may be trying to justify) which you can control from your own computer, the printer on ISS is controlled entirely from the ground. The crew do have tasks however, they have to open a nitrogen and venting valve before the printing can start. I guess it’s almost the equivalent of putting the paper in your printer at home! 

The printer was developed by a team led by Airbus under the ESA Directorate of the Human and Robotic Exploration contract. It arrived on the ISS in January 2024 where the 180kg printer was installed in the ESA Columbus Module. 

The next step for the printer is to print four shapes that have been chosen for full-scale 3D printing. They will then be returned to Earth for analysis and comparison against reference prints already created in normal gravity. The teams hope to explore how microgravity impacts 3D printing. Two of the 3D printed parts will go to the Materials and Electrical Components Lab at ESTEC in Netherlands. The other two will go to the European Astronaut Centre at the Technical University of Denmark.

Source : First metal 3D printing on Space Station

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People who stop taking antidepressants may get mental and physical symptoms as their bodies adjust to the lack of medicines - now we know how common this is