BACK TO VENUS

                     From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):

        DAY  USA  WORLD   Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9    1093     4732         1185        246       82

July    22     1205     7128         1293      1120     572

Aug    12     1504     6556        1242        835     130

Sept     9     1208      6222       1136       1168       82

Oct     21     1225      6849         571        703       85

Nov    25      2304    12025        620        518      118

Dec    30      3880    14748       1224       299      465

Jan     14       4142     15512        1151        189      712              

Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398

Mar     2        1989      9490        1726       110      194

April   6          906     11787         4211       631       37

May    4         853     13667         3025     3786      59 

June   1         287    10637         2346      3205       95

 July   7          251      8440        1595        817       411

Aug    4          656    10120        1118         532      423 

Sept   1        1480    10470          703        505      235

          8        1700      9836          250        339     253

        14        1934      9001          709        281      300

        22       2228     9326           839        279      124

        27         689     5376            218         181      164 

        28       1836     7924            818        375      201

Summary:  As expected, the new deaths figure had small declines.  Clearly the U.S. and World reveal the familiar trend shown when the wave hits a peak and begins to drop.

If you're so unlucky, or an idiotic anti-vaxer, to contract COVID-19, get seriously ill and suffer from acute respiratory distress, you could be intubated:

How would you like to be so incapacitated for a week or so in that condition, hoping you will survive?  It would be a whole lot easier to get vaccinated.  Also consider also your family, friends and co-workers.

On the global warming front:

Greta Thunberg Attacks Leaders’ ‘Blah, Blah, Blah’

The future is drowning in “empty words.” The young climate activist mocked world leaders’ efforts to tackle climate change at the Youth4Climate meeting in Milan yesterday, saying, “This is not about some expensive politically correct dream of bunny hugging, or ‘build back better,’ blah blah blah, green economy.” Politicians are “shamelessly congratulating themselves,” Thunberg added, while “emissions are still rising.” About 400 youth activists from 200 nations are forging a statement ahead of November’s COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, where world leaders will aim to draft a new agreement pledging to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. (Sources: AFP, The Hill)

The September issue of Scientific American was entitled, BACK TO VENUS.  Finally, after almost 30 years, NASA apparently is sending two missions to Venus.  To quote:

• A turning point came in June, when NASA announced its latest choices for new interplanetary missions as part of its Discovery exploration program. The space agency had considered four missions: one to visit a moon of Neptune, another to rendezvous with a Jovian moon, and two, named DAVINCI+ and VERITAS, each independently aiming for a return to Venus.
• To the shock of Venus researchers, NASA...selected both VERITAS and DAVINCI+ for flight. The two complementary missions are designed to study the planet’s bygone habitability. For the first time in three decades, NASA had chosen to go back to Venus—not once but twice.

• 
  That was not it:  Just a week after NASA’s eagerly anticipated announcement, the European Space Agency declared that EnVision, an orbiter that would carry out scientific surveys of select parts of the planet (Venus), would be joining the party.

• 
  Venus’s thick, suffocating atmosphere is about 95 percent carbon dioxide. Its cloud layers are packed with sulfuric acid—enough to chew through skin, bone and metal in moments. If you stood on the surface, you would escape the corrosive acid rain, but only because rain down there is impossible: the ground bakes at more than 900 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to broil any astronaut or robot. If you were miraculously heat-resistant, you would still have to contend with a surface pressure that is about 90 times that on Earth, making the experience like being a mile or more underwater. No matter which part of the planet you visited, you would die a quick but agonizing death.

A few interesting facts about Venus:

• Earth is only slightly larger than Venus.
• The only planet named after a female god.
• All the planets are named after Roman gods, except for Earth, although there is an association with Gaea, mother and wife of Uranus.  The Romans borrowed from the Greeks.
• At the atmospheric elevation of around 30 miles, the temperature and pressure can be close to that of Earth.

• 
  At its nearest we can be as close as 38 million miles apart.  The Moon is around 0.24 million miles from Earth.
• Venus very slowly rotates in the opposite direction as Earth, with one day being 243 Earth days long.

• 
  There is not much tilt (Earth's is 23 degrees), so not much of seasons.
• Has no moons.
• Has no rings.
• Has a hotter surface than Mercury.
• Has a mountain taller than Mt. Everest.

Back to Scientific American:

• In 1996 Mars got a boost of interest when reputable scientists published a paper saying they had found microscopic fossils in a Martian meteorite that had fallen in Antarctica.
• I thought that was preposterous, but President Bill Clinton gave a White House speech on this finding and earmarked funds for Mars.
• While still controversial, this bit of information has mostly been proven to be false.
• However, people have tended to forget this ridiculous potential, and remember the outrageous but maybe part.

• 
  Somewhat similarly, last year, researchers reported they detected phosphine in the Venusian atmosphere.  This seemed significant, for the only way that compound could have gotten there was through biological life.
• Soon thereafter all three back to Venus projects were okayed.
• Then earlier this year, a different study suggested this was not phosphine, but sulfur dioxide, casting doubt on possible life.
• However, too late to cancel those two American Venus discovery projects, each to cost around half a billion dollars.  
• Launching planned for 2028 to 2030, which means you know what.  
• Want to guess what these projects will ultimately cost?

• 
  Perhaps the James Webb Space Telescope, which could finally be sent out on December 18, can serve as an example of how NASA operates.
• Began in 1996 with an initial budget of half a billion dollars.
• By 2009 the price rose to just under $5 billion.
• Looks like the price is now around $10 billion, 25 years after initiation.
• Then the operational costs for perhaps 10 years still needs to be added.
• 
  Quick facts:
• To be launched on a European Space Agency Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana.
• Will not replace Hubble, which will continue to operate.
• Will not be serviceable, for the James Webb will be placed at the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2, 940,000 miles away.  Why?  Hubble is only 340 miles up, and JR needs to be kept cool to measure heat from objects in universe.
• James Webb was NASA's second administrator and led the Apollo Project.
• Here is one write-up of what this telescope hopes to accomplish:

We have yet to observe the era of our universe’s history when galaxies began to form. We have a lot to learn about how galaxies got supermassive black holes in their centers, and we don't really know whether the black holes caused the galaxies to form or vice versa. We can't see inside dust clouds with high resolution, where stars and planets are being born nearby, but Webb will be able to do just that. We don't know how many planetary systems might be hospitable to life, but Webb could tell whether some Earth-like planets have enough water to have oceans. We don't know much about dark matter or dark energy, but we are expecting to learn more about where the dark matter is now, and we hope to learn the history of the acceleration of the universe that we attribute to dark energy. And then, there are the surprises we can't imagine! 

While it might seem like I am making fun of NASA and deprecating these billion dollar travails, the reality is that we should be able to afford certain high priority discovery opportunities at these rates.  

• Two years ago the cost of all Middle East wars since 2001 amounted to $6.4 trillion, or $6400 billion.  What have we gained?  
• A $10 billion NASA project amounts to 0.15%.  Another comparison is that, if you have $640 to spend on essentials, the equivalent of these $10 billion efforts would be $1.  

• 
  The two Biden budget bills gestating in Congress amount to $4.7 trillion, or $4700 billion dollars.  While Venus is not in those packages, surely our country can invest in these two On to Venus projects, for using that same comparison as above, the cost would be 10 cents for a $470 spending budget.
• 
  A final aside:
• Half-inch thick stack of hundred dollar bills amount to $10,000
• A billion dollars of $100 bills would weigh 11 tons.
• A stack of $100 bills equal to a billion dollars would be 67.9 miles high.
• A trillion dollars of $100 dollar bills would reach 67,866 miles into space.
• The International Space Station is only 254 miles away.
• The Moon is 239,900 miles away.

• Humanity could well someday use the resulting information to avoid The Venus Syndrome.

Incidentally, this is a special month for Venus-viewing:

• As almost always, next to the Moon, Venus is the brightest light in the sky, where it can now be seen near the western horizon immediately following sunset.
• As October progresses, Venus will get closer to the bright red giant star Antares (Lehuakona) in Maui's fishhook.
• On October 29 Venus will go furthest east, setting at 8:46PM.
• As Venus prepares to set in the west, Jupiter and Saturn can be seen high above in the south direction.  
• With only good binoculars you should be able to actually see Jupiter's largest moons, Ganymede, Callisto Europa and Io, as well as the rings of Saturn.

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Typhoon Mindulle was a super typhoon on September 26 at 165 MPH.  Then it weakened to 105 MPH the next day.  Over the next few days Mindulle has continued to strengthen, and is now up to 130 MPH.  However, the Japan Times indicated that this typhoon will turn right and only skirt Japan:

Almost a mirror image, Hurricane Sam in the Atlantic hit 150 MPH on September 26, and today is also at 130 MPH.  Like Mindulle, Sam will be sufficiently offshore of the USA to not be a threat.

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