Short Takes – 4-18-25

NASA safety panel warns of increasing risks to ISS operations. SpaceNews.com article. Pull quote: “The station is dealing with several other issues, such as keeping sufficient spare parts for life support systems and delays with cargo resupply vehicles. That latter concern involves both the delays in the first flight of Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser vehicle, now expected no earlier than late summer. and Northrop Grumman scrapping its NG-22 Cygnus mission to the ISS, which was scheduled to launch in June, because of damage to the spacecraft incurred during shipping.”

The world’s biggest space-based radar will measure Earth’s forests from orbit. TechnologyReview.com article. Pull quote: “This is why for the Biomass mission ESA went with P-band radar. P-band radio waves, which are about 10 times longer in wavelength, can see bigger branches and the trunks of trees, where most of their mass is stored. But fitting a P-band radar system on a satellite isn’t easy. The first problem is the size.”

Trump’s War on Measurement Means Losing Data on Drug Use, Maternal Mortality, Climate Change and More. ProPublica.org article. Pull quote: “Reaction to those (DOGE) cuts has focused understandably on the hundreds of thousands of civil servants who have lost their jobs or are on the verge of doing so and the harm that millions of people could suffer as a result of the shuttering of aid programs. Overlooked amid the turmoil is the fact that many of DOGE’s cuts have been targeted at a very specific aspect of the federal government: its collection and sharing of data. In agency after agency, the government is losing its capacity to measure how American society is functioning, making it much harder for elected officials or others to gauge the nature and scale of the problems we are facing and the effectiveness of solutions being deployed against them.”

Travel Guidance. WHMurray.blogspot.com blog post. Pull quote: “I am leaving the country in May and returning in June. All of my data is already in the cloud, mostly for device independence.  Just before returning,  I plan to erase the clients from my phone and tablet.  It will be simple enough to reinstall them from the app store after I clear customs.”

Video shows doctor with measles treating kids. RFK Jr later praised him as an ‘extraordinary’ healer. APNews.com article. Pull quote: “Measles is most contagious for about four days before and four days after the rash appears and is one of the world's most contagious diseases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Doctors and public health experts said Edwards' decision to go into the clinic put children, their parents and their community at risk because he could have spread it to others. They said there was no scenario in which Edwards' conduct would be reasonable.”

Moon-orbiting Gateway space station's habitat module arrives in the US (photos). Space.com article. Pull quote: “NASA calls the [Italian supplied] HALO module a "core component" of Gateway. Aside from providing astronaut living quarters, the module will offer a range of utilities like command and control, power distribution, communications and tracking. It will also enable research, supporting internal and external science payloads.”

A mysterious, 100-year solar cycle may have just restarted — and it could mean decades of dangerous space weather. LiveScience.com article. Pull quote: “The inner belt's proton flux decreases when solar activity increases because of interactions with Earth's upper atmosphere, which swells as it soaks up more solar radiation. On the flip side, the proton flux increases as solar activity decreases.”