A few weeks ago we had a story (third item) about a piece of space jetsam that attempted to return peacefully to Earth, but found a Florida family’s roof roughly in the way. The 700-gram cylinder of Inconel was all that remained of a 2,360 kg battery pack jettisoned from the ISS in 2021, with the rest likely turning into air pollution, just as NASA planned. But the remaining part was a ‘Golden BB’ that managed to smash through the roof and cause quite a bit of damage. At the time it happened, the Otero family was just looking to NASA to cover the cost of repairs, but now they want a little more attention. A lawsuit filed by their attorney seeks $80,000 to cover the cost of repairs, as well as compensation for the “stress and impact” of the event. This also appears to be about setting a precedent, as the Space Liability Convention, an agreement to which the US is a party, requires the space agency to pay for damages if the debris caused damage in another country. The Oteros believe the SLC should also apply to U.S. properties, and while we understand their point, we urge them not to hold their breath. We guess something like that had to happen eventually, and somehow we’re not surprised to see “Florida Man” in the headlines.
There was some buzz this week surrounding the publication of a study into the safety of autonomous vehicles compared to their meat-driven counterparts. The headlines of the articles discussing this varied wildly and hilariously, from autonomous vehicles that can only drive in straight lines to AVs that are safer than human-driven cars, period. As always, you have to look beyond the headlines to get a sense of what’s really going on, or perhaps even have the courage to read the primary literature. From our reading of the abstract, the story seems to be more nuanced. According to an analysis of crashes involving 35,000 human-driven vehicles and 2,100 vehicles with some level of automation, AVs with SAE Level 4 automation had fewer accidents across the board than those without any automation. Importantly, the accidents that Level 4 vehicles do experience are more likely to occur when the vehicle is making a turn just before the accident, or during low visibility conditions such as sunrise or sunset. The study also compares level 4 automation with level 2 automation, which offers driver assistance systems such as lane keeping assistance and adaptive cruise control. This shows that level 2 automation performs better on clear roads than level 4, but performs less well in rain and in almost all other driving situations.
There’s a strange story coming out of New York about a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) enforcement action that seems a bit shady. This is a General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) repeater system used by the New York State GMRS Alliance. GMRS is a kind of “ham radio lite” system — no testing is required for a license, you just pay a fee — that uses the UHF band. Repeaters are allowed, but only under specific rules, and that seems to be where things went wrong for the club. The repeater system they used was a linked system, connecting geographically remote repeaters stretching from the far western part of the state near Buffalo all the way to Utica. It’s the link that seems to have made the FCC’s hair stand on end, and understandably so, as it appears to violate the GMRS rules in Section 95. But it’s the method of notification that seems questionable here, as the the repeater’s administrator was contacted by email. That’s not typical behavior for the FCC, which typically sends enforcement notices by certified mail, or simply skips the newspaper altogether and rings your doorbell. People seem to think this is all fake news, and it may be, but then again the email could have just been an informal warning before a formal notification. Either way, it’s bad news for the GMRS fans in upstate New York who used this system to stay in touch along Interstate 90, a long and lonely stretch of road we know all too well.
Third time’s the charm? We’ll see when sunspot region AR3723 (born AR3697 born AR3664) makes a historic third pass around the sun and may bring Earth back into view. The region made quite a splash in May on its first passage across the solar disk with a series of X-class flares that produced stunning auroras over nearly all of North America. Passage number two saw the renamed region pass through more or less silently, although it did launch an M-class flare on June 23 that caused radio blackouts across most of the North Atlantic basin. When AR3723 emerges from behind the eastern edge of the Sun, it will be a much smaller version of its former Carrington-level glory and will likely gain multiple designations thanks to fragmentation while hanging from the back. But it could still pack a punch, and even if this particular region doesn’t have much power left, it certainly looks like the sun still has plenty of surprises in store for the rest of solar cycle 25.
Someone created a version of Conway’s Game of Life where all you have to do is check boxes. That’s very cool and you should definitely try it.
And finally, we’ve been doing an unexpected amount of DIY car repairs lately, which means we’re spending a lot of time hunting for parts. This is something we didn’t expect to see at a national retailer, but we’d love to find a use for. If it ever comes back in stock, we might just buy one.