June 5, 2018 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Same episode posted twice here. I heard the other one at John Batchelor.
So they brag about “international cooperation” with the LOP-G. This is the danger with lousy space advocacy. It is unfortunately a standard argument that space flight improves international cooperation (since the Apollo-Soyuz docking). But that means that LOP-G is great even if it is nowhere doing nothing, because it delivers diplomacy! That’s the purpose of space flight, space advocates have argued, not space exploration.
Another self destructive argument is spin off effects. Right. So if we get better kitchen utensils by going to the Moon, then maybe we get to the Moon by investing in feminist studies? Feminism as a way to the Moon, space advocates say. At least that’s what their audience hear.
Diplomacy, space unrelated spin offs, high paying jobs. All threr right. What’s wrong with the LOP-G, politicians wonder after having listened to space advocates.
Localfluff: Thank you. The first podcast has been corrected.
Reusing the fairing for F9 seems long winded with parachutes, cold gas thrusters, guidance system and two special ships. I wonder if the motive, rather than saving on the costs of the current fairing, is to develop much more advanced fairings. If it is reusable one can make it more expensive to provide better protection for the valuable payload, saving costs and time for the customers. Maybe a spacecraft suspended in the fairing could be isolated from vibrations.
LOP-G is unnecessary for going back to the Moon, as Robert stated. Robert Zubrin — known for his advocacy of going to Mars in a direct and inexpensive way — has a suggestion for going directly to the Moon.
http://spacenews.com/op-ed-moon-direct-how-to-build-a-moonbase-in-four-years/
Zubrin mentions polar peaks that always receive light, “where sunlight is accessible all the time, as well as permanently shadowed craters nearby where water ice has accumulated.”
However, as J Fincannon mentioned in another post a week ago, these are hypothetical at best and likely only receive light 90% of the time. I read a similar analysis of these “areas of eternal light,” too, that they receive light most but not all of the time. This is still much better than 1/2 the time, and other than that, Zubrin’s case seems feasible — and it does not use a lunar space station as a way point.
http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/may-29-2018-zimmerman-batchelor-podcast/#comment-1053520
Perhaps in the far distant future a way point lunar space station will be useful for refueling and allowing for a lighter lunar landing shuttle along with a larger low-Earth-orbit to lunar-orbit shuttle with sleeping quarters and other amenities for the longer voyage, but for the next couple of decades we are unlikely to use a lunar way station to get to or from the Moon.
As always Zubrin goes for the most minimal doable mission to the Moon, which is great as a kind of reference for realistic missions. He wants to set up infrastructure so that astronauts can go to the Moon and back with a single F9 and Lunar refueling. But launching a second F9 would be easily motivated to improve everything.