Extreme Science: Launching Sounding Rockets From The Arctic

Extreme Science: Launching Sounding Rockets from The Arctic

This winter, our scientists and engineers traveled to the world’s northernmost civilian town to launch rockets equipped with cutting-edge scientific instruments.

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This is the beginning of a 14-month-long campaign to study a particular region of Earth’s magnetic field — which means launching near the poles. What’s it like to launch a science rocket in these extreme conditions?

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Our planet is protected by a natural magnetic field that deflects most of the particles that flow out from the Sun — the solar wind — away from our atmosphere. But near the north and south poles, two oddities in Earth’s magnetic field funnel these solar particles directly into our atmosphere. These regions are the polar cusps, and it turns out they’re the ideal spot for studying how our atmosphere interacts with space.

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The scientists of the Grand Challenge Initiative — Cusp are using sounding rockets to do their research. Sounding rockets are suborbital rockets that launch to a few hundred miles in altitude, spending a few minutes in space before falling back to Earth. That means sounding rockets can carry sensitive instruments above our atmosphere to study the Sun, other stars and even distant galaxies.

They also fly directly through some of the most interesting regions of Earth’s atmosphere, and that’s what scientists are taking advantage of for their Grand Challenge experiments.

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One of the ideal rocket ranges for cusp science is in Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, off the coast of Norway and within the Arctic circle. Because of its far northward position, each morning Svalbard passes directly under Earth’s magnetic cusp.

But launching in this extreme, remote environment puts another set of challenges on the mission teams. These launches need to happen during the winter, when Svalbard experiences 24/7 darkness because of Earth’s axial tilt. The launch teams can go months without seeing the Sun.

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Like for all rocket launches, the science teams have to wait for the right weather conditions to launch. Because they’re studying upper atmospheric processes, some of these teams also have to wait for other science conditions, like active auroras. Auroras are created when charged particles collide with Earth’s atmosphere — often triggered by solar storms or changes in the solar wind — and they’re related to many of the upper-atmospheric processes that scientists want to study near the magnetic cusp.

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But even before launch, the extreme conditions make launching rockets a tricky business — it’s so cold that the rockets must be encased in styrofoam before launch to protect them from the low temperatures and potential precipitation.

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When all is finally ready, an alarm sounds throughout the town of Ny-Ålesund to alert residents to the impending launch. And then it’s up, up and away! This photo shows the launch of the twin VISIONS-2 sounding rockets on Dec. 7, 2018 from Ny-Ålesund.

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These rockets are designed to break up during flight — so after launch comes clean-up. The launch teams track where debris lands so that they can retrieve the pieces later.

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The next launch of the Grand Challenge Initiative is AZURE, launching from Andøya Space Center in Norway in March 2019.

 For even more about what it’s like to launch science rockets in extreme conditions, check out one scientist’s notes from the field: https://go.nasa.gov/2QzyjR4

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For updates on the Grand Challenge Initiative and other sounding rocket flights, visit nasa.gov/soundingrockets or follow along with NASA Wallops and NASA heliophysics on Twitter and Facebook.

@NASA_Wallops | NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility | @NASASun | NASA Sun Science

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7 years ago
INTERNAL_PLEASURE//

INTERNAL_PLEASURE//

Day 514

6 months ago
The As A Jews Of The IRI

the As a Jews of the IRI

NOVEMBER 25, 2024

WHAT IS AN "AS A JEW"?

“As a Jew” is a tongue-in-cheek term Jews use to describe fellow Jews who weaponize their Jewish identities to excuse, minimize, justify, or deny antisemitism.

As in, “As a Jew, this is not antisemitic because so and so…”

WHAT IS THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC?

The Islamic Republic is the fundamentalist Islamist, ultra-conservative, warmongering regime that has been ruling Iran -- and oppressing its population -- with an iron fist since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Many Iranians call the Islamic Regime an “occupying force” because it is culturally foreign to Iran.

According to Iranian-American policy analyst Karim Sadjapour, the three ideological pillars of the Iranian regime are “compulsory hijab, death to America, and death to Israel.”

After the Islamic Republic came into power, over 80% of Iran’s ancient Jewish population fled the country. Today, the 8,500 Jews still living in Iran are subject to second-class citizenship and are constantly under the suspicion of the regime, for which they must tread carefully, never openly criticizing the regime’s implementation of Sharia Law.

THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC IS A GENOCIDAL THREAT TO JEWS

Given the Islamic Republic’s commitment to the “destruction of Israel” -- where around half of the world’s Jews live -- it has spent decades establishing proxy terrorist militias around the Jewish state. Among the Islamic Republic’s proxies are Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ansar Allah, and its most important proxy, Hezbollah.

But the Islamic Republic’s targeting of Jews extends far, far beyond the Jewish state. In other words, no, the Islamic Republic isn’t merely “anti-Zionist.”

The Islamic Republic has planned and carried out terrorist attacks and massacres of Jews everywhere from Thailand to Kenya.

The Islamic Republic’s deadliest attack on Jews in the Diaspora was the 1994 bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA), a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which took 85 innocent lives. Before the October 7 Hamas massacre, which killed 1,200 Israelis, predominantly civilians -- another attack that was planned and funded by the Islamic Republic -- the AMIA bombing was the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

The Islamic Republic has repeatedly dabbled with Holocaust denial. The Islamic Republic’s leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has consistently talked about the Holocaust’s “exaggerated numbers.” Most infamously, in 2006, the Islamic Republic hosted an international Holocaust denial conference in Tehran.

THE TRIED AND TRUE PROPAGANDA PLAYBOOK

Though the Islamic Republic government is deeply conservative, it started exploiting the well-intentioned progressive types to accomplish its nefarious goals before it even came into power.

The rule of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, was characterized by the most horrific human rights violations. He was no liberal and no progressive. He was not anti-imperialist either, hoping to establish an empire of his own. In fact, he believed that “establishing the Islamic state world-wide belong(s) to the great goals of the revolution.” He spoke of conquering the whole world under the banner of Islam: “Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled and incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world.”

In 1964, the then Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, exiled Khomeini and banned his books. As such, the vast majority of the Iranian population was unfamiliar with his more extremist beliefs. While in exile in France, Khomeini downplayed his fundamentalism, presenting himself to the west merely as a fierce opponent of American neo-imperialism and influence in Iran. It was in this manner, for example, that he was able to manipulate Iranian leftists to join him under his banner. In reality, Khomeini despised leftism, and soon after he came to power, many left-wing organizations had to flee Iran. Others were executed.

Nothing illustrates this more clearly than the saga of the mandatory hijab. During the Iranian Revolution, many Iranian women wore the hijab as a symbol of opposition to the Shah’s policies of westernization. Soon after Khomeini came to power, the hijab was made mandatory. Shocked, liberal and leftist women took to the streets; they had not expected the hijab to become mandatory. In response, Khomeini quickly began suppressing and eliminating all leftist and liberal political groups, figures, and parties, and to this day, hijab remains mandatory in Iran, and women who refuse to wear it face arrest, torture, and even death.

WHAT IS NIAC?

The National Iranian American Council, or NIAC, is the de-facto lobby of the Islamic Republic in the United States. In other words, they lobby on behalf of the Islamic Republic, its policies, and its interests.  

Just as Ruhollah Khomeini did in days past, NIAC has spent years latching onto “progressive” Jewish groups to pursue their nefarious interests...and shield the Islamic Republic from accusations of antisemitism.

The As A Jews Of The IRI
The As A Jews Of The IRI

Of course the Islamic Republic wants to disarm Israel...because their open goal is to destroy the Jewish state. They couldn’t care less about the suffering of anyone in Gaza.

The As A Jews Of The IRI

To the left is Rabbi Abby Chava Stein, who is a member of the “Jewish” Voice for “Peace” rabbinical council. Here she is meeting with the current president of the Islamic Republic.

Press TV is a propaganda arm of the Islamic Republic.

THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC AND THE NETUREI KARTA

The As A Jews Of The IRI

You probably recognize these guys, present at pretty much every pro-Palestine protest in New York City. They are the Neturei Karta. The Neturei Karta is a Hasidic Jewish sect with about 1,000-5,000 members. They are religious anti-Zionists, rejecting political Zionism on the religious basis that they believe no Jewish state should be founded prior to the arrival of the Messiah. While some other Jewish branches, such as the Satmar, hold this position, only the Neturei Karta have gone so far as to establish close relationships with those who wish Israeli Jews dead...particularly with the Islamic Republic.

In 2005, after then-Islamic Republic president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for the ethnic cleansing of Israeli Jews to Germany or Austria, the Neturei Karta issued a statement defending Ahmadinejad.  

In 2006, the Neturei Karta attended a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran. For this, the Satmar, who are also religious anti-Zionists, condemned the Neturei Karta, calling on Jews worldwide to “to keep away from [the Neturei Karta] and condemn their actions.” The Satmar (along with Chabad, who are not anti-Zionist) also issued a cherem (i.e. censure; almost like the Jewish version of excommunication) against the Neturei Karta.

THE OLDEST TRICK IN THE BOOK

How do you deflect legitimate accusations of genocidal antisemitism? You “befriend” Jews, of course. As in: “how could I be antisemitic?! Look at all these Jews who support me!” Three historical examples:

(1) Leading up to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the United States Olympic Committee was under tremendous pressure to boycott the Games, given Nazi Germany’s horrific treatment of Jews. The head of the US Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage, was a Nazi sympathizer, who convinced Germany to allow one German Jewish athlete to compete to give the impression that Jews in Germany were being treated fairly. In other words, the Nazis needed a token Jew. They proceeded to select a Jewish fencer, Helene Mayer, to the German Olympic team. Mayer placed second and gave the Nazi salute on the podium.

(2) In the 1920s, the Soviet Union shut down virtually all Jewish cultural, social, and religious institutions using a Jewish group, the Yevsektsiya, as a cover. According to historian of Soviet history Richard Pipes, “In time, every Jewish cultural and social organization came under assault.” The fact that the Yevsektsiya was “Jewish” was central to its purpose. After all, the Soviet regime couldn’t be accused of antisemitism when those shutting down all Jewish cultural and spiritual life were Jews themselves.

(3) Likewise, in the early 1950s, notorious Soviet dictator Josef Stalin conceived a plan for the mass deportation of Soviet Jewry to prison camps, all under the guise of “anti-Zionism.” Though the plan never ultimately came to pass, given Stalin’s sudden death, Stalin had made preparations to publish a letter to be signed by Soviet Jews “denouncing” Zionism and Zionist Jews. In the letter, Stalin’s “anti-Zionist Jews” would then urge the Soviet state to “take action” against the traitorous Zionist Jews. Jews would be deported en masse to the Ural Mountains, where MGB would instigate discord between Jewish leaders. Later, they would kill the “elites” in the camps, and maybe even follow with the rest of the Jewish population.

For a full bibliography of my sources, please head over to my Instagram and  Patreon. 

rootsmetals

I’ve had my differences with J Street over the years but seeing them shill for the Islamic Republic was disappointing tbh…I expect nothing less of JVP and IfNotNow, but I (stupidly?) thought J Street was better than that 🤷🏻‍♀️

7 years ago
桜が満開

桜が満開

1 year ago
Hello Guys, 

Hello guys, 

the purpose of this post is to provide you with easy access to every post which debunks a major subject of the Palestinian narrative. Enjoy. 

About the Hamas massacre, and the current Israeli-Gaza war:

1. All documented evidence (so far) of the Hamas massacre on October 7th: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1720536075817398620?t=FWXyYS5JoODZuCfC0xV0cA&s=19

2. The "Israel has killed its' own people" conspiracy: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1742678536681300267?t=-famAhuZaSNsKR8m6ZY-0w&s=19

3. The Hannibal Directive conspiracy: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1739289302071185757?t=VaSEQTmqFyAmAbaAUiHdsw&s=19

4. The "Israel harvests organs from Palestinians in Gaza" conspiracy: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1740493490457362488?t=I-oHWCQSMPa5p0X9EShVBg&s=19

5. Hamas has always been exploiting hospitals in Gaza for military purposes: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1743249465782235381?t=FjFiQdkpmR2CEf1FWBshhA&s=19

6. The "IDF shooting at Palestinians in Gaza" propaganda videos: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1750277607650685205?t=J2jzW4yek5yJrKN9blL7Kg&s=19

7. What the international law really says about the current war in Gaza: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1743024536302350349?t=WEMi9Wimlf2GNYVQZ_hLow&s=19

8. Hamas are faking their numbers of casualties: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1744119191475540176?t=0fAuQuL3H3GP5UrNFhJ7RQ&s=19

9. Palestinian teachers affiliated with Hamas: https://x.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1748071720647332286?t=4y4Pb8hagaZHqrgBxs9XuQ&s=08

10. Palestinian journalists are actually terrorists: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1745561440717504520?t=bdE7MWcPa4RuoJfcSR7QUw&s=19

Who really radicalizes their children: 

11. The "Israeli children holding guns" propaganda: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1746081709009821729?t=p7QuekhTipTbfFLYQT6rZA&s=19

12. The child-martyrdom cult of the Palestinian Authority: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1737978763428737268

13. Palestinian children are trained to become terrorists: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1749881558889066565?t=ncU8PZrFgfXy70qa8SF2Ig&s=19

The Palestinian Authority has the same purpose as Hamas:

14. The "10 Point Program" of the Palestinian Authority: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1749143735965794708?t=BENgP47EeaEZGZqqmTWqgA&s=19

15. How Arafat lied to the entire world during the Oslo Accords: https://x.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1747387464925212728?t=SLLsUVLbcBzE-VjcwxTsTg&s=08

16. How the Palestinian Authority funds terrorism: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1748385300559069372?t=L-3UeHJcK65kJEUwq-BoYw&s=19

17. What the charters of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority actually say: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1750624196219060256?t=EKGEgU68hvcMXdyU3vf59g&s=19

The "Israeli Occupation" propaganda: 

18. There is no "Israeli Occupation" according to the international law: https://x.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1733969873024225660?t=9IeggCxUiiIEQkU79LY9_w&s=08

19. Arab Muslims were massacring Jews since 1920, it didn't start in 1947: https://x.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1743753558992814150?t=rwjYcba57rLpFY-XCklhlw&s=08

20. The original "Palestinians" are Jews: https://x.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1741936249479352806?t=g10cgm_Zg7jFunI8nkHnRA&s=08

21. Gaza isn't a concentration camp: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1739590303533658372?t=0omGX8JLA5k-xY479kdGqw&s=19

22. What Happened after the Israeli pull-out from Gaza in 2005: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1741574620896022711?t=AXKMHkGjxPi2MaI9BQBzsA&s=19

23. "The Jews came to Palestine as refugees" narrative: https://x.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1747224380361396574?t=TILCTBJyBYfFqOoMRiyd2g&s=08

24. Israel isn't an apartheid state: https://x.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1747893184154226800?t=cN8vb30yL1q53NxXQpMYuQ&s=08

25. Israel isn't an apartheid state 2: https://x.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1746653096980209724?t=y_th6LgBZmTC6MGqEpIjmw&s=08

26. Israel isn't an apartheid state 3: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1740078451535630719?t=piKK-35XdbLocqCjBDGXSg&s=19

27. UNRWA is an international scam, and are aiding terrorists: https://twitter.com/shlomo_fishman/status/1744840770941551014?t=AKJHGqG18Jxk3-9pfE_QZQ&s=19

Any future posts I find important, will be also added here. Thanks a lot for your support.

Shlomo Fishman

@shlomo_fishman

1 year ago

The Proper Objectives of the Campaign in Gaza

At this moment, the IDF is poised to begin a ground invasion of Gaza. The objectives of the campaign, however, have not been spelled out with sufficient clarity by the political echelon, other than by saying that Hamas will be eliminated as a military threat and sovereign power in Gaza. The following are my ideas of appropriate short and long-term goals for the IDF.

The first and highest-priority objective must be the restoration of Israel’s honor and power of deterrence in the Middle East. This is the part that is the most difficult to understand for the West, particularly by the elites in the US and Europe, but it is an existential condition for the survival of our state. A person or a nation without honor will not live long in this region. What was done to us, what we allowed to be done to us, was so shameful that today we stand naked, a target for anyone who wants to kill us, to invade our country, to take our property, to defile our women, to enslave our children.

You can say that this point of view is atavistic and uncivilized, and perhaps it is when compared to the (supposedly) morally evolved West, but we live in the Middle East, not in Europe or America.* The law here is not the post-1945 international law of the West, it is a code that has evolved in the harsh conditions of the region over millennia. It has been impossible until now for our own Israeli elites to internalize this, but one hopes that the viciousness of the attack on us – the worst since the founding of the state and the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust – will shake them out of their dream of living in a villa in the jungle.

So what does this imply for the IDF’s short-term objectives? I see it this way: all important Hamas leaders, wherever they are, and every commander, soldier, and civilian that took part in the terrorist attack should be killed. Not “brought to justice,” not captured and tried for war crimes, not imprisoned. Killed. Overall Gazan casualties will need to reach a level of ten times more than the number of Israelis murdered and violated. There are other important objectives for the invasion, like the rescue of hostages and the destruction of weapons and military infrastructure, but the recovery of honor – revenge, if you insist – must be top priority. Only thus can the appropriate message be sent to all the players in the region, and the rest of the world.

The long-term objective must be to ensure that this cannot happen again. And from a strategic standpoint, that implies that Israel must either implement a military occupation capable of controlling the population and preventing the rise of a new terrorist regime, or she must force a change in the population to one that will not become a threat. Most of our leadership believes that an occupation is untenable. It would tie down a large part of our army, be very expensive, and provide a focus for continued terrorism and insurrections. But at the same time they shrink from the alternative.

Population transfer is anathema to the West, despite the fact that they’ve done it countless times in the past. But the tribal nature of humans implies that it is often an absolute condition for peace. Antagonistic tribes must be separated by natural barriers that make predation difficult or impossible. The Gaza Envelope – the location of the Israeli communities next door to Gaza – is not viable for Jews unless the hostile Arab population is removed or somehow prevented from attacking them. Israel built a barrier above and below the ground at a cost of a billion dollars. Sophisticated sensors above ground and hundreds of tons of concrete below were intended to provide a sense of safety to the people on the Israeli side. But like all Maginot lines, simple and inexpensive ways were found to bypass it, and Hamas brought death and destruction to the Jewish farmers who had trusted their leaders to protect them.

Some of our leadership seems to believe that we can sail peacefully between the Scylla of occupation and the Charybdis of transfer. The Americans are promising that they will help us bribe the Palestinian Authority to take control and that will solve the problem. The foolishness (or malevolence) of this plan is so obvious that only the most deluded or corrupt Israeli could accept it. As if the murderous Fatah would be a better neighbor than the murderous Hamas!

No Jew will return to live in the Gaza envelope while Gaza remains populated by Arabs. Not one. Are we prepared to give up the Negev? That is, in essence, what the Americans are asking in return for their ammunition and diplomatic support.

On Friday I explained that Israel should force the major part of the Gazan population into the Sinai, where they will become the responsibility of the international community, which created the problem in the first place. The area should be secured by the development of Jewish settlements, and ultimately become a part of Israel. And for the sake of justice, land in Gaza and financial aid should be provided to the descendants of those Jews who were so cruelly expelled from their homes there in 2005.

Abu Yehuda

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