Short Takes – 3-3-25

Birds documenting the Anthropocene: Stratigraphy of plastic in urban bird nests. ESAJournals.OnlineLibrary.Wiley.com journal article. Pull quote: “The common coot is a wetland bird that in The Netherlands originally built its nests of plant materials which rapidly decay, so coots normally construct a new nest every year (Gadsby, 1978; Jedlikowski & Polak, 2019). However, as plastics and other artificial, more durable materials are used for nest construction, new behavior, namely, the reuse of nests from previous years, may appear. This, in turn, may create a history of multiple years of nest use, reuse, and reconstruction to be studied using the stratigraphy of dateable plastic debris in the nest.”

NASA Science Touches Down on Moon Aboard Firefly Aerospace Lander. NASA.gov blog post. Pull quote: “Over the next couple hours, Blue Ghost will perform surface commissioning with health checks on each subsystem. Once completed, the lander will be ready to perform its payload operations and science demonstrations. Over the next 24 hours, Blue Ghost will deploy its surface access arm with the Electrodynamic Dust Shield and Lunar PlanetVac, calibrate the top deck gimbal to support the Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager, and enable operations for Radiation Tolerant Computer, Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies and the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment.”

Private lunar lander Blue Ghost aces moon touchdown with a special delivery for NASA. TheHill.com article. Pull quote: “Launched in mid-January from Florida, the lander carried 10 experiments to the moon for NASA. The space agency paid $101 million for the delivery, plus $44 million for the science and tech on board. It’s the third mission under NASA’s commercial lunar delivery program, intended to ignite a lunar economy of competing private businesses while scouting around before astronauts show up later this decade.”

Firefly’s picture-perfect Moon landing shows the way for lunar exploration. ArsTechnica.com article. Pull quote: “"There’s no digging, no mechanical arm to wear out requiring servicing or replacement—it functions like a vacuum cleaner," said Dennis Harris, who manages the PlanetVac payload for NASA, in a statement. "The technology on this CLPS payload could benefit the search for water, helium, and other resources and provide a clearer picture of in situ materials available to NASA and its partners for fabricating lunar habitats and launch pads, expanding scientific knowledge and the practical exploration of the solar system every step of the way."”

The International Space Station May Need More Microbes to Keep Astronauts Healthy. ScientificAmerican.com article. Pull quote: “In this spacefaring future, we might have to intentionally take some of our old microbial partners with us, nurturing them while still keeping less desirable microorganisms in check. Instead of chemical disinfectants, which can drive antimicrobial resistance, the authors suggest that future research can focus on probiotic-based sanitation, which introduces harmless bacteria to outcompete the potentially harmful ones.”

DOE Removes Barriers to the Use of LNG as a Marine Fuel with Order to JAX LNG. Energy.gov article. Pull quote: “By issuing an Order on Rehearing, DOE is modifying an order originally issued in December 2024. The modified order clarifies that DOE is withdrawing the exercise of its jurisdiction under the Natural Gas Act (NGA) for ship-to-ship transfers of LNG for marine fuel use at a U.S. port, in U.S. waters, or in international waters. The only bunkering-related activity that will continue to be considered an export is when there are ship-to-ship transfers of U.S. LNG when the receiving ship is located in the territorial sea of a foreign country, including foreign ports. DOE has left unchanged its authorization to JAX to export LNG via ISO container.”

SpaceX scrubs Starship launch. SpaceNews.com article. Pull quote: “That hold did take place, and while the hosts of the SpaceX launch webcast stated that the booster issue appeared to be resolved, there was another, unspecified issue with the Starship upper stage. Several minutes later the countdown resumed, only to stop a few seconds later and recycled to the T-40 second mark.”