November 22, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who with I wish everyone a great Thanksgiving tomorrow.
- China touts concept for two-stage to orbit reusable space plane
Cute looking, but right now nothing more than engineering by PowerPoint.
- Chinese pseudo-company shows off video of separation test of its large fairing
The fairing will be used on a launch scheduled for December.
- Commercial lunar rover startup announces eight payload customers for 2026 mission
The company, Astrolab, has a contract to fly on SpaceX’s Starship to the Moon. The customers have contracts with Astrolab equaling $160 million. Everything involved however is extremely tentative and in the early development stages, even the lunar landing version of Starship.
- South Korea camera catches North Korean launch, showing 1st stage separation and its apparent destruction immediately thereafter
The video, part of a meteor-survey project, suggests the North Koreans might have purposely destroyed that first stage so that the South Korean military could not recover it, as was done after the May failed launch.
- Blue Origin shows off the now welded first stage tanks of its New Glenn rocket
It is assumed these are for the first launch, whenever that might be. Since there are no workers on the factory floor, Jay speculates it was taken after hours. I wonder, since this lack of activity has been seen in every such picture of this rocket assembly operation. I really wonder how many people even work there.
- Jeff Bezos sells off $240 million more Amazon shares
Though the reporters on the CNBC video at the link speculate this money is for Blue Origin, there is no evidence of this. In fact, recently Bezos has appeared to donate almost all his stock sale cash to leftist political charities, not Blue Origin.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
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
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who with I wish everyone a great Thanksgiving tomorrow.
- China touts concept for two-stage to orbit reusable space plane
Cute looking, but right now nothing more than engineering by PowerPoint.
- Chinese pseudo-company shows off video of separation test of its large fairing
The fairing will be used on a launch scheduled for December.
- Commercial lunar rover startup announces eight payload customers for 2026 mission
The company, Astrolab, has a contract to fly on SpaceX’s Starship to the Moon. The customers have contracts with Astrolab equaling $160 million. Everything involved however is extremely tentative and in the early development stages, even the lunar landing version of Starship.
- South Korea camera catches North Korean launch, showing 1st stage separation and its apparent destruction immediately thereafter
The video, part of a meteor-survey project, suggests the North Koreans might have purposely destroyed that first stage so that the South Korean military could not recover it, as was done after the May failed launch.
- Blue Origin shows off the now welded first stage tanks of its New Glenn rocket
It is assumed these are for the first launch, whenever that might be. Since there are no workers on the factory floor, Jay speculates it was taken after hours. I wonder, since this lack of activity has been seen in every such picture of this rocket assembly operation. I really wonder how many people even work there.
- Jeff Bezos sells off $240 million more Amazon shares
Though the reporters on the CNBC video at the link speculate this money is for Blue Origin, there is no evidence of this. In fact, recently Bezos has appeared to donate almost all his stock sale cash to leftist political charities, not Blue Origin.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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
The China TSTO isn’t showing
Jeff Wright: The link works, shows their computer concept graphic.
It doesn‘t work on my old flip-phone, either. I just get a large “X” in the middle of the screen. BtB is one of the few web sites that still supports older equipment!
David M. Cook: That X tells us the problem is at X. For some reason your flip phone it is stalling as it tries to load.
X under Elon Musk is interesting. About five months ago there was a major upgrade of html code, that made a lot of webpages using that code unreadable by the older version of Firefox that I prefer. While many websites still whine at me that my “browser is out of date you must upgrade”, X instead fixed the problem. For the first few months I needed to use Brave to view X posts. About a month ago X suddenly worked again on my old version of Firefox.
I predict that with time, X will work again on your flip phone.
Some other ideas of interest
Lightcell power generator
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=59844.0
ISEP
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=59812.msg2543983#msg2543983
Thoughts on the recent Starship flight
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=59871.700
Looks like the DY-100
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/11/optimized-nuclear-thermal-rocket-for-45-days-to-mars.html
It may be quite some time before Starship itself can carry astronauts….but I could see SLS launching this unmanned:
http://www.frassanito.com/work/strategic.html
(Second image)—with an insertion stage supplied by SuperHeavy (no tiles).
Crew transfers via Dragon…lander by Blue Origin.
Starkicker is shed…lander docks in its place.
Biconic craft returns similar to this:
http://www.astronautix.com/m/mtkva.html