Month: November 2024

Space News for November 2024. 

The last time I discussed the latest events taking place in humanity’s exploration of space, see my post of 31 August 2024, NASA had made the decision that the Boeing Starliner capsule would be brought back to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) unmanned and that Starliner’s crew of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore would remain aboard the ISS until February when they would return aboard Space X’s crew 9 capsule.

The Starliner capsule managed to deliver its crew of two astronauts to the International Space Station but its continuing problems forced NASA to bring it back to Earth unmanned while its crew have to wait to return to Earth next February. (Credit: Texas A&M Today – Texas A&M University)

The empty Starliner capsule succeeded in landing on the 7th of September in New Mexico marking the first time that a man-capable US space capsule has ever landed on solid land rather than in the water. The voyage home from the ISS also marked the first issue-free space operation that Starliner has ever completed. Even though the Starliner astronauts Williams and Wilmore would have been safe in returning on Starliner NASA is convinced that they made the safe choice given all of the problems the Boeing space craft had seen during its mission.

In the end Starliner did land safely but with all of the problems it’s had for years the question is, will it ever begin regular service? (Credit: NASA)

The second part of NASA’s rescue plan followed shortly thereafter when on the 27th of September a Space X Dragon capsule was launched into orbit. This mission, designated as Crew 9 was originally intended to carry four astronauts to the ISS for a regular six-month tour of duty. Now that the mission had been changed to include the rescue of the Starliner crew however only two astronauts, NASA’s Nick Hague along with Russia’s Alexander Gorbunov rode the Falcon 9 rocket into space.

Launch of the Space X Crew 9 mission to the ISS. Originally this flight was expected to carry four astronauts. In order to bring back the Starliner crew however the mission took off with only two astronauts aboard. (Credit: Orlando Sentinel)

Once Crew 9 successfully reached the ISS the Crew 8 astronauts, who were originally scheduled to return to Earth back in August, were relieved and could return home. However, the weather around Florida has been so terrible, two hurricanes along with just a lot of more normal bad weather, that Crew 8 were unable to return to Earth until the early morning hours of the 25th of October, adding an extra two months to the crew’s planned six month tour aboard the ISS.

After an extended stay on the ISS the Space X Crew 8 capsule and crew returned to Earth. However, one crew member showed signs of some medical problems, NASA is being very tight lipped about what problems, and so the entire crew spent their first night back in hospital. They all appear to be fine now! (Credit: YouTube)

All told the problems caused by Starliner’s malfunctions have caused Williams and Wilmore to spend eight months in orbit instead of their planned one week. The Crew 8 astronauts spent an two extra months aboard the ISS while the two astronauts originally assigned to the Crew 9 mission will have to wait for another mission before they get to go to the ISS. The fact that NASA has handled all of these mix-ups and schedule rearrangements so well is a tribute to the space agency’s expertise and the way that travel to and from Low Earth Orbit (LOE) has become routine.

Along with routine crew rotations, supplies aboard the ISS are being constantly maintained by unmanned cargo spacecraft like this Cygnus capsule. (Credit: Wikipedia)

Because of Starliner’s problems NASA has also decided that the Boeing spacecraft will not be used for either of the scheduled ISS crew missions in 2025. Space X’s Dragon will now conduct both the Crew 10 mission in February of 2025 and the Crew 11 mission in July. NASA is still in the process of studying Starliner’s performance and will decide if another Crew Flight Test is needed before the capsule is cleared for regular duty.

Not the kind of headlines that an agency like NASA wants to make. NASA is almost certainly going to want a thorough analysis of Starliner’s problems and at least another Crew Fight Test before clearing Starliner for regular duty. How long that will take, and remember the ISS is going to be de-orbited in 2030, is anybody’s guess! (Credit: The Autopian)

Even as the whole drama of how to bring the Starliner astronauts back to Earth was playing out Space X succeeded in completing another private space mission. The Polaris Dawn mission was funded and commanded by billionaire Jared Isaacman who also paid for Space X’s first private space mission, designated as Inspiration 4, back in September of 2021.

Launch of the Polaris dawn private space mission. (Credit: CNN)

That first trip into space for Isaacman was just four days in LOE enjoying zero gravity without trying to do anything too dangerous. The Polaris Dawn mission however was more daring with the Dragon capsule reaching a higher altitude in space than any human had gone since the days of Apollo’s flights to the Moon. At the planned height of about 1,400 kilometers the Polaris Dawn astronauts were well within the Van Allen radiation belts, not a good place to stay.

Jared Isaacman performing the first ever private spacewalk. In addition to this feat the Polaris Dawn mission also took human beings further from our planet than anyone has gone since the days of Apollo. (Credit: NASASpaceflight.com)

Later on in the mission Isaacman along with Space X engineer Sarah Gillis succeeded in carrying out the first ever private spacewalk when the Dragon’s crew compartment was depressurized and the docking hatch was opened while all four crewpersons were wearing their spacesuits. Once Isaacman and Gillis had taken turns stepping outside of the hatch it was closed and the cabin repressurized. With the success of this space walk Space X has gained yet another space capability, another feather in their cap.

Once the term ‘Feather in your Cap’ literally signified the number of enemies you had killed in battle. Today however it has the less violent meaning of a successful achievement or acquiring a new skill. (Credit: Edward S. Curtis)

Then, on October 13th Space X took an even bigger step forward with the fifth test launch of their huge Starship launch system, the largest, most powerful rocket ever built. With each test flight the 122 meter tall Starship has made significant progress. In the forth test flight for example the booster stage succeeded in coming down at the exact intended place off the coast of Texas, although no attempt was made to recover it. Meanwhile for the first time the second stage reached orbital velocity although it then broke up upon trying to reenter the atmosphere.

The fifth test launch of Space X’s massive Starship rocket, the most powerful launch system ever built. (Credit: CNN)

For the fifth test the plans were even more ambitious with an attempt to catch the first stage booster in a pair of mechanical arms that have been christened ‘chopsticks’. For the second stage an attempt at a controlled reentry was made at a designated point in the Indian Ocean, although again no attempt was made to recover the second stage this time. The sight of the massive booster stage returning to its launch pad, stabilizing itself in space and then being grabbed by those chopsticks was something I’d never expected to see and certainly ushers in a new era of space flight. Think about it, if a rocket that large can be reused the possibility now exists of launching huge amounts of equipment into LOE where it can be used to build large space stations and spaceships for going to the Moon or beyond. The next test flight for Starship is already being prepared and this time Space X will attempt to recover both stages.

The first stage of Starship being captured by the same launch tower it had taken off from just minutes before. The reusability of Starship is a key to being able to reduce the cost spaceflight in general. This was an astonishing achievement. (Credit: CNBC)

I guess that’s all we have time for in this post, not that there hasn’t been a lot of other space news. Several robotic probes have been in the news as well but their stories will have to wait for my next post. So stay tuned.

Archaeology News for September 2024: More Evidence that Stone Age People were very Sophisticated in some ways. 

The Neolithic Period, or New Stone Age was that time in Prehistory when we humans first began the transition from hunter gatherer clans to agricultural societies. It was also the time therefore when some peoples settled down to live in permanent ‘villages’ instead of living as nomads moving from place to place with the seasons as the local resources ripened.

The Neolithic or new stone age was a time of tremendous change as humans first began to grow crops, domesticate animals and live in settled communities. (Credit: SciTechDaily)

And once humans began to live permanently in one place they could begin to build, not just villages in which to live but also monuments to honour their gods or record some important event. It is well known from anthropology that by building such monuments those people were also saying ‘This is our Land!” In this post I will be talking about several of such Neolithic structures and as usual I will start with the oldest first and then move forward in time.

Perhaps the best known of the monolithic structures built during the neolithic is Stonehenge in England. We’re still arguing over what it was used for! (Credit: English Heritage)

Göbekli Tepe is in fact considered to be the oldest stone structure known to archaeology, see my post of July 5th 2017. The site is located in southern Turkey and has been dated to more than 11,000 years ago; the name by the way means ‘Potbelly Hill’ in Turkish.  The site consists of a series of oval stone walls with large ‘T’ shaped pillars inside the ovals. Both the pillars and some of the walls are covered by carvings, many of the carvings are those of local animals while others appear to be abstract symbols. The site is undergoing almost constant excavation and it is expected that many more discoveries are waiting to be unearthed.

Some of the structures unearthed at Göbekli Tepe, the oldest known ‘temple’ discovered by science. Archaeologists are certain that much remains to still be discovered. (Credit: Wikipedia)

The motive behind the building of Göbekli Tepe is of course unknown after all these thousands of years but that hasn’t stopped archaeologists from trying out various theories. The temple like layout of the site certainly suggests that it could have been used as a place of worship, perhaps the animals craved into stone were sacred totems of some sort. Another possibility is that the structures were built as a calendar, that is some way the pillars and carvings could be used to keep track of the seasons. In an agricultural society being able to know when to plant and when to harvest is of the greatest importance.

This is the calendar used by the ancient Mayans. Their calendar was so accurate that even the Aztecs many centuries later still used it! (Credit: Jake Jackson’s These Fantastic Worlds)

A new study in the journal Time and Mind by archaeologists from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland has developed evidence supporting the idea of Göbekli Tepe being a calendar. At the same time the paper further suggests that the building of the site was a response to an astronomical event that occurred a thousand years before the earliest known part of Göbekli Tepe was built. This event occurred sometime around 10,800 BCE when an asteroid or comet fragment is known from geological evidence to have struck the island of Greenland triggering a worldwide ‘mini-ice age’. This drastic change in the climate is thought to have contributed to the extinction of large fauna such as the Wooly Mammoth and Saber Toothed Tiger.

The extinction of large ice age animals like the Wholly Mammoth is currently being thought to have been caused by an asteroid strike similar to the one that killed the dinosaurs only smaller and just 12,800 years ago. (Credit: The Irish Sun)

The evidence for Göbekli Tepe being a calendar comes from an interpretation ‘V’ shaped carvings on pillar 43 in the largest enclosure. The V shaped carvings appear to be arranged to record a lunar month of 29 or 30 days, below the V’s are squares that appear to represent the number of lunar months in a year plus another 10 V’s to make up for the extra time needed to get to 364 days. Finally there is a bird like figure with a V around its neck that the paper asserts represents the summer solstice bringing the total number of days to 365, the right number of days for a year. Using the carvings on the pillar could allow the ancient people of Göbekli Tepe to keep track of both the lunar months and a solar year.

The calendar carved into Göbekli Tepe. By repeating each cycle in turn all of the days of a year could be kept track of. (Credit: Sci.News)

The evidence for Göbekli Tepe being a record of the comet strike was found at the top of the same pillar which according to the article depicts a meteor swarm emanating from the constellations of Aquarius and Pisces. That is the location in the sky that is thought to be where the comet strike came from. According to Dr. Martin Sweatman, co-author of the study, “This event might have triggered civilization by initiating a new religion and by motivating developments in agriculture to cope with the cold climate.” In any case the event must have had a profound effect of people throughout the world and could well have inspired the people of Göbekli Tepe to try to record it somehow.

The top part of the same pillar, the so-called ‘Three Handbags’ is thought to record the destruction caused by the asteroid strike in 12,800 years ago. I have to admit that’s a bit of a stretch for me! (Credit: The New York Times)

While we’re on the subject of ancient stone monuments there’s some news about the best known such structure, Stonehenge. Back in my post of 30 December 2023, I discussed how recent research had revealed that one of the most important of the so-called ‘bluestones’ at Stonehenge, the altar stone, was chemically so different from the other bluestones that it could not have come from the same quarry in Wales as the other bluestones did. So the hunt was on to find the place of origin for the altar stone.

The Altar Stone at Stonehenge on the left. Chemically different from the other ‘Bluestones’ at Stonehenge scientists have been searching from the location from where it came. (Credit: CNN)

Now a Ph.D. student in geology from Curtin University in Australia named Anthony Clarke has announced that he has traced the altar stone back to its source in northern Scotland. According to Mr. Clarke, who grew up in Wales not far from the quarry where the other bluestones came from, the altar stone is chemically identical to sedimentary rocks from the Orcadian basin nearly 700 kilometers from Stonehenge in northern Scotland.

If Mister Clarke is correct then the Altar Stone came from the very northern tip of Scotland. This image shows a land route the stone could have taken but a sea route is also possible. (Credit: The US Sun)

So after having solved the mystery of where the altar stone came from we now have to figure out how it got to Stonehenge, and why was a rock from so far away used there anyway. The terrain in northern Scotland is rather rugged even today so the 5,000 kilogram stone was probably brought by water, still a difficult undertaking in a culture that had not yet invented the wheel.

The neolithic period is also the time when people first began to build boats for fishing and trade. Was the Altar Stone brought from Scotland on such a boat? By land or sea, it would have been a difficult undertaking. (Credit: Ancient Pages)

As to the question of why a stone from so far away was incorporated into Stonehenge, that is something we will probably never know for certain. Neither we will know for certain the reasons for the building of Göbekli Tepe. We can learn much from the ancient rocks left to us by our remote ancestors but their motives may remain hidden for the rest of time.

Movie Review: Conclave. 

O’k, I know the movie ‘Conclave’ can scarcely be considered a Science Fiction movie but let’s just agree that history is a science and the ancient traditions and ceremony connected to the election of a Pope is certainly historical. Anyway, I haven’t reviewed a movie in a while and ‘Conclave’ was a very interesting movie, well worthy of a review.

Poster for movie ‘Conclave’. (Credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve already given away the basic plot, the Pope in Rome has died, he’d had heart problems for some time so it doesn’t come as a shock. In order to elect a new Pope the College of Cardinals must be summoned. The task of making the arrangements for the Conclave falls to two men, the Dean of the College, Thomas Cardinal Lawrence, played by Ralph Fiennes, along with Archbishop Wozniak as papal Camerlengo, played by Jacek Koman. By ancient tradition all of the Cardinals are sequestered during their deliberations and the Dean of the College runs the Conclave from the inside while the Camerlengo makes sure that the outside world does not intrude on the work of the Conclave.

The Roman Catholic Church is still basically run like a feudal state with Archbishops who have enormous power over their bishopric. Select archbishops are designated as Cardinals with the special privilege of electing a new Pope. The Pope then chooses the archbishops and Cardinals. (Credit: Catholic Review)

Half the fun of the movie is seeing in detail all of the traditions and ceremony that surround the election of the head of the Roman Catholic Church. Throughout the film great care is taken in every little detail of the process by which a new pontiff is chosen along with highlighting the beautiful, sumptuous locations, the actual voting itself is carried out in the Sistine Chapel surrounded by Michelangelo’s artwork.

The actual election of a new Pope takes place in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel which doesn’t look so special from the outside. (Credit: Through Eternity Tours)
But which on the inside boasts some of the most celebrated artwork in the entire world, courtesy of Michealangelo. (Credit: Kenzly)

At the same time we also get to see something of the church’s darker side, particularly in respect to women. Throughout the first third of the movie we constantly see nuns working in the background, preparing the guest rooms, setting the tables, cooking the food. During this time no woman speaks however, not even Sister Agnes the Mother Superior of the Nuns, played by Isabella Rossellini. The women do all of the work while the men do all of the talking.

For hundreds of years the Catholic Chruch has let women do most of the work while letting the men make all of the decisions. ‘Conclave’ illustrates this principle quite well. (Credit: Dialogue Express)

All the machinery of the Conclave is just background however, the melodrama of the movie comes with the Cardinals who are the leading candidates to be the next Pope. The leading Liberal is Aldo Cardinal Bellini, played by Stanley Tucci, who wants the church to become more tolerant of different sexual behaviors while giving women greater roles in the church hierarchy. At the other extreme is Goffredo Cardinal Tedesco, played by Sergio Castellitto, who still wants the mass to be said in Latin. In between are Joseph Cardinal Tremblay, played by John Lithgow and Joshua Cardinal Adeyemi, played by Lucian Msamati, a Nigerian Cardinal who wants the church to use its great wealth and power to help the people of the developing world. A last minute, and unexpected addition to the College of Cardinals is Vincent Cardinal Benitez, played by Carlos Diehz, who administers to those Catholics still living in Afghanistan. Benitez was secretly made a Cardinal by the deceased Pope because his life could have been in danger if knowledge of his appointment had become known to the Taliban who rule Afghanistan.

Ralph Fiennes as the Dean of the College of Cardinals talking with his favoured choice for Pope Cardinal Bellini, played by Stanley Tucci. Politicking like this is the backbone of ‘Conclave’ as the various candidates try to build support amongst the other Cardinals. (Credit: USA Today)

Throughout history the actual Conclave has been the setting for intrigue, political maneuvering and scandal and in the movie ‘Conclave’ there is plenty of all three. One leading contender is revealed to have had a sexual relationship with a nun thirty years earlier while a second candidate is found to have bribed several of the Cardinals to vote for him! Add to that a terrorist threat on the outside and there is certainly a lot to distract the cardinals from their task of electing a new Pope.

Terrorism has become part of the background of everyone living on Earth now, but let’s be honest, one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter. (Credit: Dreamstime)

And that’s part of the problem I have with ‘Conclave’ there’s a bit to much melodrama and it’s all a bit too broad, too simple. The writers try too hard to highlight every one of the conflicts going on in the church at present and wind up giving a simplified, cartoon version of each point of view. Of course this is a movie and the problems in a movie have to be simple enough so that they can be solved by the end of the film. The real Catholic Church has been wrestling with its real problems for almost two thousand years now, with no end in sight.

The Roman Catholic Church has been holding councils to resolve problems within the church ever since the Council of Nicaea in 325AD. In many ways such gatherings of church leaders to decide on one solution that everyone else has to follow has never really solved anything. (Credit: Text and Canon Institute)

Still ‘Conclave’ is a good movie, an important movie; for one thing the acting is superb, along with the costumes and set design. Basically everything that relates to a real conclave is carefully reproduced. So I recommend ‘Conclave’, with about a billion and a half Catholics in the world today its important to understand just how it is that their spiritual leader is chosen.

Book Review: ‘Arkhangelsk’ by Elizabeth H. Bonesteel. 

Around about the year 2200 humanity will once again be doing its level best to destroy itself. The environment is poisoned, civilization is in ruins and ideological wars are everywhere. It’s against this background that the starship, colony ship Arkhangelsk departs Earth on a mission to colonize the star system 974-33, a mission to try to save something of the human race. Arkhangelsk is one of those multi-generational ships whose original crew will never live to complete their 200 year long voyage, it will be up to their descendents to complete the mission by establishing a colony in system 974-33.

Interstellar ‘Arks’ like this one from Arthur C. Clarkes’ ‘Rendezvous with Rama’ are huge spaceships in which human beings will live for generations in order to be able to travel the enormous distances between the stars. Arriving at their destination the crew, all born on the ship during the journey, will colonize the planets circling another sun. (Credit: Medium)

That’s the history behind the novel ‘Arkhangelsk’ by author Elizabeth H. Bonesteel. As the story begins the people of the city of Novayarkha are the descendents of the crew of the Arkhangelsk. The city itself was built from the various sections of the starship Arkhangelsk, and with no contact with Earth for over 400 years the citizens of Novayarkha believe themselves to be the last remaining humans anywhere, and they are struggling to survive.

What if we humans established bases or colonies on other planets and then destroyed ourselves back here on Earth? How would those last remaining humans react? (Credit: Lifehacker)

You see the only ‘habitable’ planet in system 974-33 is hardly a paradise. The atmosphere is too thin, and contains traces of poisonous gasses as well, while the planet’s surface is a mixture of rock and ice. Even worse, the planet’s thin atmosphere and weak magnetic field provide little shielding from cosmic radiation. Add to that the fact that the builders of Novayarkha needed the Arkhangelsk’s reactor to provide power for the city and they placed that reactor too close to the city, increasing the background radiation level.

An Ice World orbiting the star 974-33 is the setting of ‘Arkhangelsk’ by author Elizabeth H. Bonesteel. (Credit: Amazon)
Author Elizabeth H. Bonesteel. (Credit: Facebook)

It’s no wonder therefore that Novayarkha has both a high infant mortality rate and a high incidence of cancer. Another persistent problem is a high suicide rate; a lot of people seem to just walk away from the city to die in the ice. One last problem for the people of Novayarkha are the exiles, descendents of a group that rebelled when the city was being founded and who now occasionally raid Novayarkha to steal supplies. All in all the last remnants of humanity may not last too much longer themselves.

Everybody knows that nuclear reactors produce quite a bit of harmful radiation. So why did the inhabitants of Novayarkha put one in the middle of their city??? (Credit: Wikipedia)

Except the people of Novayarkha are not the last human beings in the Universe. Back on Earth people somehow managed to muddle through their difficulties and although not all of the problems have been solved humanity is once again pushing out, once more exploring the Universe. As the starship Hypatia enters system 974-33 both groups of humans are astonished to find each other, and are wary of how the other side will react.

Sometimes referred to as the ‘Last Pagan’ Hypatia of Alexandria was a mathematician and philosopher who was murdered by a mob of christians in the name of their god. (Credit: What is Social Studies?)

Hypatia is not a colony ship, rather her mission is to construct a faster than light (FTL) transceiver network in system 974-33 to assist other Earth vessels as they explore this sector of the galaxy. However Hypatia is not in very good shape either. As the starship was coming out of one of its hyperspatial jumps it collided with an asteroid killing most of her crew and destroying a good part of the ship.

Like the people of Novayarkha the crew of the Hypatia are in need of some help. Can these two groups work together for their mutual benefit? (Credit: X)

I’m certain that you can see plot here. Both groups of humans need each other but neither group really trusts the other, after all there’s been no contact between these two branches of humanity for over 400 years. The story is very much an allegory on how much more successful we humans are when we do work together.

Trust is always a key ingredient to working together. (Credit: LinkedIn)

There’s a darker undercurrent in ‘Arkhangelsk’ as well however for the city of Novayarkha holds sinister secrets, secrets that it’s authoritarian rulers would prefer to keep from their people. So another ethical problem illustrated in the novel is the struggle between the individual and society.

Finding the right balance between the rights of the Individual and the needs of Society has been a never-ending problem in Civilization. (Credit: Young Leaders for Legal Literacy Foundation)

I do have one problem with ‘Arkhangelsk’ and that is a problem I have nowadays with a lot of SF novels, too much filler. The modern publishing business seems to feel that novels have to be 400 or more pages in order to convince their customers that it’s worth paying $12-$20 dollars for a book. That means that an author has to add in a lot of stuff that isn’t important to the plot and really isn’t interesting. ‘Arkhangelsk’ suffers a bit from this problem as it could use a good editing to remove some of the less interesting material.

Edit, edit and then edit some more. Even the best novel can still use a little bit more editing! (Credit: BookBaby)

But ‘Arkhangelsk’ is interesting; it is a good take on the old theme of two very different cultures colliding, with all the conflicts and opportunities that entails. If you like those novels that tell stories about humanity traveling to and colonizing the stars you will enjoy, ‘Arkhangelsk’.