January 17, 2024 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Impulse plans high-powered orbital tug
The company, whose CEO is Tom Mueller who at SpaceX designed the Merlin engine, intends the tug to function as an add-on upper stage to rockets like the Falcon 9, capable of making it almost as powerful as a Falcon Heavy.
- This month marks the 20th anniversary of the landing on Mars of the rovers Spirit and Opportunity
Both were supposed to last only 90 days. Both lasted years instead.
- New Horizons’ principal investigator Alan Stern tweets a memorial to Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of the planet Pluto who died this day in 1997
Stern notes that a tiny sample of Tombaugh’s ashes are on New Horizons as it flies outward past Pluto and beyond.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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.
- Impulse plans high-powered orbital tug
The company, whose CEO is Tom Mueller who at SpaceX designed the Merlin engine, intends the tug to function as an add-on upper stage to rockets like the Falcon 9, capable of making it almost as powerful as a Falcon Heavy.
- This month marks the 20th anniversary of the landing on Mars of the rovers Spirit and Opportunity
Both were supposed to last only 90 days. Both lasted years instead.
- New Horizons’ principal investigator Alan Stern tweets a memorial to Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of the planet Pluto who died this day in 1997
Stern notes that a tiny sample of Tombaugh’s ashes are on New Horizons as it flies outward past Pluto and beyond.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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 or subscription:
4. 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.
Lori Garver made an appearance here recently
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4725/1
I thought I saw her last Halloween
https://archive.org/details/444409main_ACD10-0061-104
Fitting
But I would have used hypergolics
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aopdD9Cu-So