December 7, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Chinese pseudo-company Orienspace readies its Gravity-1 rocket for launch
The company says it will launch this month. Though the image makes the rocket seem as big as SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, it actually more closely resembles the most powerful version India’s GSLV rocket. Makes me wonder if the design was stolen.
- Robert Zubrin op-ed says NASA should abandon its Mars sample return mission, use the money for many other missions
Zubrin is of course right. It is also the same thing I have said now for almost fifteen years, not only about Mars Sample Return but about Webb and the Roman Space Telescopes. NASA’s big flagship science projects are consistently run badly, wasting a lot money that could be far better spent.
No one in Congress ever listens to me. I wonder if they will listen to Zubrin. We can only hope.
- The ice that fills Korolev Crater on Mars
A very cool image from Europe’s Mars Express orbiter. As noted at the tweet, “This crater on Mars is 3 times the area of Greater London and its filled with ice almost 2 kilometers thick.” Korolev is located at 73 degrees north latitude, where the Martian surface appears covered by ice sheets.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
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Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Chinese pseudo-company Orienspace readies its Gravity-1 rocket for launch
The company says it will launch this month. Though the image makes the rocket seem as big as SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, it actually more closely resembles the most powerful version India’s GSLV rocket. Makes me wonder if the design was stolen.
- Robert Zubrin op-ed says NASA should abandon its Mars sample return mission, use the money for many other missions
Zubrin is of course right. It is also the same thing I have said now for almost fifteen years, not only about Mars Sample Return but about Webb and the Roman Space Telescopes. NASA’s big flagship science projects are consistently run badly, wasting a lot money that could be far better spent.
No one in Congress ever listens to me. I wonder if they will listen to Zubrin. We can only hope.
- The ice that fills Korolev Crater on Mars
A very cool image from Europe’s Mars Express orbiter. As noted at the tweet, “This crater on Mars is 3 times the area of Greater London and its filled with ice almost 2 kilometers thick.” Korolev is located at 73 degrees north latitude, where the Martian surface appears covered by ice sheets.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Can you imagine how much commercial off the shelf (COTS) lab equipment you could get to Mars on a single one-way Starship mission? Even the robotics could be mostly COTS from an Amazon warehouse or something. And you could send serious earth moving and drilling robots.
Not the million dollar toys that break down so easily.
When everyone bashed MSFC they cheered.
Now that Pasadena pork is questioned…
“He quit preachin’ now he’s a-meddling!”
“No one in Congress ever listens to me.”
“No one ever listens to Zathras. Quite mad, they say. It is good that Zathras does not mind. He’s even grown to like it. Oh yes.”
Zathras Babylon5 ‘War Without End: Part Two’ 1996
Casey Handmer is on the same beat (as of 10 November).