In a few years, as part of the Artemis Program, NASA will send the “first woman and first person of color” to the lunar surface. This will be the first time astronauts have set foot on the Moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. This will be followed by the creation of permanent infrastructure that will allow for regular missions to the surface (once a year) and a “sustained program of lunar exploration and development.” This will require spacecraft making regular trips between the Earth and Moon to deliver crews, vehicles, and payloads. In a recent NASA-supported study, a team of researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign investigated a new method of sending spacecraft to the Moon. It is known as “multimode propulsion,” a method that integrates a high-thrust chemical mode and a low-thrust electric mode – while using the same propellant. This system has several advantages over other forms of propulsion, not the least of which include being lighter and more cost-effective. With a little luck, NASA could rely on multimode propulsion-equipped spacecraft to achieve many of its Artemis objectives. The paper describing their investigation, “Indirect optimal control techniques for multimode propulsion mission design,” was recently published in Acta Astronautica. The research was led by Bryan C. Cline, a doctoral student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He was joined by fellow aerospace engineer and PhD Candidate Alex Pascarella, and Robyn M. Woollands and Joshua L. Rovey – an assistant professor and professor with the Grainger College of Engineering (Aerospace Engineering). Artist’s impression of the ESA LISA Pathfinder mission. Credit: ESA–C.Carreau To break it down, a multimode thruster relies on a single chemical monopropellant – like hydrazine or Advanced Spacecraft Energetic Non-Toxic (ASCENT) propellant – to power chemical thrusters and an electrospray thruster (aka. colloid thruster). The latter element relies on a process known as electrospray ionization (ESI), where charged liquid droplets are produced and accelerated by a static electric field. Electrospray thrusters were first used in space aboard the ESA’s LISA Pathfinder mission to demonstrate disturbance reduction. By developing a system that relies on both that can switch as needed, satellites will be able to perform propulsive manuevers using less propellant (aka. minimum-fuel transfers). As Cline said in a Grainger College of Engineering press release: “Multimode propulsion systems also expand the performance envelope. We describe them as flexible and adaptable. I can choose a high-thrust chemical mode to get someplace fast and a low-thrust electrospray to make smaller maneuvers to stay in the desired orbit. Having multiple modes available has the potential to reduce fuel consumption or reduce time to complete your mission objective.” The team’s investigation follows a similar study conducted by Cline and researchers from NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center and the aerospace advisory company Space Exploration Engineering, LLC. In a separate paper, “Lunar SmallSat Missions with Chemical-Electrospray Multimode Propulsion,” they considered the advantages of multimode propulsion against all-chemical and all-electric approaches for four design reference missions (DRMs) provided by NASA. For this latest investigation, Cline and his colleagues used a standard 12-unit CubeSat to execute these four mission profiles. .Earth–Mars minimum-fuel trajectory when the CubeSat is coasting, as well as in mode 1-low thrust and mode 2-high thrust. Credit: UIU-C “We showed for the first time the feasibility of using multimode propulsion in NASA-relevant lunar missions, particularly with CubeSats,” said Cline. “Other studies used arbitrary problems, which is a great starting point. Ours is the first high-fidelity analysis of multimode mission design for NASA-relevant lunar missions.” Multimode propulsion is similar in some respects to hybrid propulsion, where two propulsion systems are combined to achieve optimal thrust. A good example of this (though still unrealized) is bimodal nuclear propulsion, where a spacecraft relies on a nuclear-thermal propulsion (NTP) and nuclear-electric propulsion (NEC) system. While an NTP system relies on a nuclear reactor to heat hydrogen or deuterium propellant and can achieve a high rate of acceleration (delta-v), an NEC system uses the reactor to power an ion engine that offers a consistent level of thrust. A key advantage multimode propulsion has over a hybrid system is a drastic reduction in the dry mass of the spacecraft. Whereas hybrid propulsion systems require two different propellants (and hence, two separate fuel tanks), bimodal propulsion requires only one. This not only saves on the mass and volume of the spacecraft, but makes them cheaper to launch. “I can choose to use high-thrust at any time and low-thrust at any time, and it doesn’t matter what I did in the past,” said Cline. “With a hybrid system, when one tank is empty, I can’t choose that option.” To complete each of the design reference missions for this project, the team made all decisions manually – i.e., when to use high-thrust and low-thrust. As a result, the trajectories weren’t optimal. This led Cline to develop an algorithm after completing the project that automatically selects which mode would lead to an optimal trajectory. This allowed Cline and his team to solve a simple two-dimensional transfer between Earth and Mars and a three-dimensional transfer to geostationary orbit that minimizes fuel consumption. As Cline explained: “This was an entirely different beast where the focus was on the development of the method, rather than the specific results shown in the paper. We developed the first indirect optimal control technique specifically for multimode mission design. As a result, we can develop transfers that obey the laws of physics while achieving a specific objective such as minimizing fuel consumption or transfer time.” “We showed the method works on a mission that’s relevant to the scientific community. Now you can use it to solve all kinds of mission design problems. The math is agnostic to the specific mission. And because the method utilizes variational calculus, what we call an indirect optimal control technique, it guarantees that you’ll get at least a locally optimal solution.” Artist rendering of an Artemis astronaut exploring the Moon’s surface during a future mission. Credit: NASA The research is part of a project led by Professor Rovey and a multi-institutional team known as the Joint Advanced Propulsion Institute (JANUS). Their work is funded by NASA as part of a new Space and Technology Research Institute (STRI) initiative. Rovey is responsible for leading the Diagnostics and Fundamental Studies team, along with Dr. John D. Williams, a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the Director of the Electric Propulsion & Plasma Engineering Laboratory at Colorado State University (CSU). As Cline indicated, their work into multimode propulsion could revolutionize how small spacecraft travel between Earth and the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies: “It’s an emerging technology because it’s still being developed on the hardware side. It’s enabling in that we can accomplish all kinds of missions we wouldn’t be able to do without it. And it’s enhancing because if you’ve got a given mission concept, you can do more with multimode propulsion. You’ve got more flexibility. You’ve got more adaptability. “I think this is an exciting time to work on multimode propulsion, both from a hardware perspective, but also from a mission design perspective. We’re developing tools and techniques to take this technology from something we test in the basement of Talbot Lab and turn it into something that can have a real impact on the space community.” Further ReadingL University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Acta Astronautica The post Multimode Propulsion Could Revolutionize How We Launch Things to Space appeared first on Universe Today.

31st Oct 2024 - MICHAEL JACKSON: Jailed For Protecting His Daughter From The Jab on Relentless 31st October 2024 Episode 81. "I am a Saskatchewan father fighting for justice in a country that has none. In the fall of 2021, I withheld my 7 year old daughter, Sarah, from her mother and went into hiding to prevent her from being vaccinated. I was arrested, denied bail, thrown in a supermax jail for a year, tried twice on the same charge, and found guilty both times. I am currently awaiting sentencing, and most importantly, the Courts of Saskatchewan have denied me and Sarah to speak since my arrest almost 3 years ago." Michael Jackson. UTL COMMENT:- Good this Guy showed basic (and RARE these days!!!) Common Decency and Did the Right Thing for His Daughter.... WITH THANKS TO CAFE LOCKED OUT. https://rumble.com/c/Cafelockedout Follow Michael on X: https://x.com/Godsoffense Support Michael: https://www.givesendgo.com/GD8CK?utm_source=sharelink&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=GD8CK Courage Is The Cure relies on your support to continue. If you have the means, please support or become a member of Courage Is The Cure here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/couragethecure Follow Courage Is The Cure on: YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm-QF5yLj7f00QxX8SZosbQ Relentless Interviews on rumble https://rumble.com/c/CourageIsTheCure Morning Rise Episodes on rumble https://rumble.com/c/c-5167796 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/courageisthecure/ Twitter https://twitter.com/RobynRJS Instagram https://www.instagram.com/courageisthecure/ Prerecorded 31st October 2024 Streamed 31st October 2024

Do not lack in knowledge. The information you seek is out there. Be vigilant. A Christian motivational video that aims to leave you blessed, inspired and encouraged as well as strengthening your prayer life and daily walk with God. As you listen to this daily devotional video may Jesus Christ light up your life! ►An original video created by Grace for Purpose and delivered by our team speakers. Our faith based content aims to bring biblical teachings to life! Our team aims to produce content that is focused on the scriptures, encouraging prayers, and insightful teachings For any inquiries, contact us: teamg4p@gmail.com Source: Grace for Purpose on YouTube.

The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a state court ruling that allowed for the counting of certain provisional ballots, in a major setback for the state GOP and Republican National Committee just four days before the election. The Republican National Committee and the state GOP filed an emergency appeal to the nation's top court last week seeking to temporarily halt a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that ordered the state to count voters whose provisional ballots had been incorrectly filled out...

In The Tulsa King, you meet Dwight Manfredi, a no-nonsense New York mafia capo fresh outta prison and exiled to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he’s tasked with setting up shop for his boss. Season 1 thrusts Dwight into the Wild West of small-town crime, where he recruits an unlikely crew and starts ruffling feathers—both local and back home.      The post Tulsa King (season 1 ) first appeared on Worth it or Woke.

The beginning of the big time. The post “Great way to start the show”: The disturbing concert that made Genesis superstars first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

We all know that there are a large number of conservatives and Republicans who entertain grave doubts about returning Donald Trump to the White House. Apart from their consternation about his volatile, sometimes nasty, personal decorum and the frequent undignified remarks (whether in person or via X), Trump has caused many of those who should be his supporters to be turned off by many of his policy-related statements.  The millions of Americans whose political values are given voice by the Heritage Foundation must be dismayed at Trump’s repeated disavowals of Project 2025. Trump has been treating that conservative wish list like political kryptonite. (Memo to Heritage: Remember the wisdom of 1994’s Contract with America, which focused on a small number of issues that enjoyed at least 60 percent support among the electorate. By overreaching and asking for what seems like everything, you gave the Left too much ammunition.)  Trump certainly isn’t campaigning in a way that free-market conservatives are comfortable with. While one could make allowances for countering a hostile Chinese leadership with targeted tariffs, a widespread use of tariffs will curb domestic economic growth, save some American jobs at the expense of other American jobs, and result in higher consumer prices. As for the federal budget, we know from Trump’s first term in office that reining in the deficit and taking a strong stand for fiscal responsibility is a political battle that he has chosen not to fight. Remember, the federal deficit rose during the Trump presidency, even before the arrival of COVID, and when he had a Republican-controlled Congress. He also readily gave Nancy Pelosi a budget-busting deal. Trump’s talk about raising or eliminating the SALT tax deduction (which gives a tax break to wealthy Americans in high-tax states) or abolishing the current tax on Social Security payments is disconcerting. Both proposals would, if enacted, add to federal deficits even as the federal budget careens out of control. On foreign policy, Trump is causing anxiety among conservatives with his glib comments about ending the Russian–Ukraine war with a snap of his fingers. Unfortunately, he declines to tell us what that means in practice. Does he believe in the moral rightness of America’s use of military force to defend the rights and borders of sovereign nations? That was the motive and goal of our Greatest Generation’s efforts in World War II. It was also the conservatism of Ronald Reagan, who believed that we — the good guys — should win and the bad guys should lose. (For the record, I opposed the neoconservatives in regard to Iraq and Afghanistan, so please don’t pin that label on me.) Yes, our European allies in NATO should contribute more, but we should not appease the murderous Putin by cavalierly carving up Ukraine to placate him.  The problem for conservatives and Republicans who are uncomfortable with Trump’s policies is: Do you really think Kamala Harris is an acceptable alternative? This is a woman who cast the tie-breaking vote that passed some of the worst legislation in American history. She was fully onboard with Joe Biden’s disastrous policies. She says she supports small businesses, but, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, solicited bail money to release the thugs who looted and burned small businesses. This is the desperate demagogue who is resorting to tired and absurd class-warfare rhetoric in the latter days of her presidential campaign.  Let’s compare Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in six crucial areas: The deep state: In his presidential term, Trump proved to be an enemy of the deep state, repealing reams of regulatory overkill. By contrast, it is impossible to conceive of Harris opposing or limiting anything that the executive bureaucracies would do. Taxes: Trump showed a mature understanding of economics when he chopped the top corporate tax rate to 21 percent — a policy shift that boosted economic activity and resulted in handsome wage increases for millions of workers. Harris, on the other hand, is completely committed to the economically destructive dogma of raising taxes on corporations. Commander-in-chief: The world remains a very dangerous place, and with the growing cooperation between the new evil axis (Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea), it is becoming even more dangerous. Trump is tough. The man hates to lose. He also has backbone. How can one not be impressed by his spirited reaction of “Fight! Fight! Fight!” just a moment after he was shot? Despite his disconcerting rhetoric about admiring or respecting Vladimir Putin (rhetoric that I believe is manipulative and not sincere) the “Putins” of the world are not going to be able to intimidate Donald Trump. I can’t say the same thing about Kamala Harris, who seems to be just another version of Obama and Biden, repeatedly wimping out by making unilateral concessions to enemies out of a fear of offending them, weakening and demoralizing our military by prioritizing DEI over effectiveness, and pressuring Ukraine and Israel not to fight for victory. Trump hates to lose. Harris, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have the guts or backbone to stand up to aggressive thugs. Immigration: Harris was fully onboard with Team Biden’s open border and resettle-masses-of-illegal-immigrants into the U.S. policy. By contract, Trump has shown by actions as well as words that he loves his country enough to defend its borders and to uphold the principle that not every human being on the face of the earth has a right to live in our country. (Interestingly, in his recent Wall Street Journal interview, Trump showed a soft side, saying that his tough talk about not letting families reunite is done not because he really wants to separate families, but because such a message dissuades many people from trying to enter the country illegally.)  Climate change: Trump would spend far more government money than I would, but at least he draws the line at the whole climate change cabal. He refuses to impoverish our country by restricting the necessary production of fossil fuels. He rejects the socialistic redistribution-of-wealth scheme cooked up by the United Nations and supported by socialistic internationalists (such as domestic progressives like Kamala Harris) in the name of a supposed climate emergency that has actually been benign.  The Constitution. Harris is the current figurehead for a party that wants to deep-six the Constitution. She wants to destroy the independence of the Supreme Court, whether by imposing term limits, increasing the number of justices so that she can appoint anti-constitutional liberals, or neutering justices with bogus “ethics” persecutions. Her running mate has targeted the Electoral College that prevents, say, California, from allowing so many illegal votes that they outweigh the entire populations of the smaller states. She shares, with leaders of her party, including Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Tim Walz, a desire to scuttle the First Amendment and suppress what she calls “misinformation” (defined as beliefs that differ from Democratic orthodoxy). Trump, on the other hand, appointed three Supreme Court justices who uphold rather than try to dismantle the Constitution. This list could be longer, but herein have been mentioned a few major reasons why, despite his shortcomings, it makes more sense for Americans who aren’t progressive zombies to roll the dice and vote for Donald Trump rather than to stay home or even vote for a candidate who would flush America down the tubes.  RELATED: Kamala Harris Flunked the Job Interviews The Best Possible Outcome for Democrats: A Trump Win Harris and the Dems Have No Border Credibility The post Roll the Dice With Trump or Go Down the Tubes With Harris appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

If our nation’s top military and civilian leaders want to understand why military recruiting in the all-volunteer force is at an all-time low, they need only look in the mirror. Few young people want to be like them. The sight of former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley waddling out into the political arena this election season is unlikely to convince many teenagers to join up. In an insightful piece in the Wall Street Journal, Owen West and Kevin Wallsten explain how incompetent top-level leadership and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts are chasing away potential recruits, as well as the military’s historically best recruiters — veterans who have encouraged their kids and grandkids to follow in their footsteps. The decline of this kind of encouragement from senior veterans almost exactly parallels the decline in recruitment rates. Historically, 80 percent of recruits had a relative who had served. Today, 80 percent of veterans say they would not recommend military service under the present circumstances. This is not a coincidence. The Biden administration and its senior civilian and military leaders are in denial. They blame poor education, increasing juvenile drug abuse, and the sedentary lifestyle of the smartphone generation for reducing the pool of eligible recruits. The reality is that there are still plenty of high school athletes, young hunters, and farm kids out there who would otherwise join. Their parents and grandparents — I’m one of them — are either actively discouraging or just not encouraging them to enlist. Worse, the young people themselves see two decades of military failure culminating in the disgraceful rout in Kabul. They wonder if they want to be led by senior officers who spent 20 years fighting a war and not adapting their strategy to bring it to a successful conclusion.  Joe Biden holds that diversity is essential to success on the battlefield. That is not supported by military history. The army of the Persian Empire under Darius and Xerxes was the most incredibly diverse in history, but was trounced on the battlefield by homogenous Greek armies in two decisive battles. The Persian army was made up of drafted contingents from every nation in the empire — many of whom hated each other more than they hated the Greeks. Over a century later, Alexander the Great conquered the empire with an equally homogenous professional army. Likewise, the very diverse Austro-Hungarian army was a drag on its allies throughout World War I. In addition, DEI initiatives have made military promotions a joke. Who wants to join a military where you are likely to be passed over because a man wearing a dress, or someone less qualified but of a different ethnicity, will get promoted over you because they come from an underserved minority? In 2022, the Air Force mandated quotas based on race for officer promotions. But the administration’s policies have also eroded military service culture. Even the Marine Corps, once considered one of the world’s elite assault forces, has adopted a passive defensive mentality that is technology dependent. The Marines are making their recruiting quotas, barely, because their recruitment goals have gotten a lot smaller under the leadership of the Biden administration and two incompetent commandants. Both have actively encouraged the downsizing. (READ MORE: The Marine Corps Has Gone Off the Rails) The Biden administration has been laser focused on DEI at the expense of military readiness. If Kamala Harris becomes president, we can expect her administration to double down on DEI; she is, after all, the ultimate poster child for the movement. Unlike Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, she has never earned her national security chops. Potential recruits will likely not be unaware of the fact that the Biden administration has overseen an unbroken series of military and foreign policy disasters. I desperately want to support the armed services, but I cannot, in good conscience, encourage any young man or woman to serve under the likes of Kamala Harris and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.  Gary Anderson is a retired Marine Corps Colonel who served as a Special Advisor to the Deputy Secretary of Defense and as a civilian advisor in Iran and Afghanistan READ MORE from Gary Anderson: The Marine Corps Has Gone Off the Rails It’s Time to Fix Incompetence in the Pentagon What Will Replace the Marine Corps? Biden Has Allowed the Marine Corps to Become Irrelevant The post Wokeness Is Responsible for the Military Recruitment Crisis appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

by Pepe Escobar, Strategic Culture: We will need weeks, months, years to fully grasp the enormity of what took place in Kazan during the annual BRICS summit under the Russian presidency. For the moment let’s cherish arguably the most appropriate definition of BRICS as a laboratory of the future: this lab, against nearly insurmountable odds, is […]