November 1, 2024 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
- Sierra Space claims it is in the final steps to getting its LIFE inflatable module approved by NASA
This module will be about the only thing in the Orbital Reef station that is moving forward aggressively.
- Interview with NASA’s deputy manager supervising SpaceX’s contract for building the manned lunar lander based on Starship
Essentially, he outlines why a fixed-price contract and letting the company run the show, makes things happen. It also appears his office is doing things right.
- NASA’s corrupt and useless safety panel scolds SpaceX for not being perfect
This panel should have been disbanded years ago, when it claimed fueling the Falcon 9 with crew on board would be more dangerous. It is all politics, and it actually knows very little about modern rocketry.
- ULA’s Vulcan rocket wins 2024 Dr. Wernher von Braun spaceflight Trophy Award
This is essentially a participation award for a big contractor in the Huntsville area.
- Chinese pseudo-company claims it will build a rocket which will land using its own chopstick tower, and do it by ’26 at the latest
All they have right now is a short video animation essentially redrawing the actual Superheavy landing SpaceX did last month, plus about $14 million in funding.
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. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
- Sierra Space claims it is in the final steps to getting its LIFE inflatable module approved by NASA
This module will be about the only thing in the Orbital Reef station that is moving forward aggressively.
- Interview with NASA’s deputy manager supervising SpaceX’s contract for building the manned lunar lander based on Starship
Essentially, he outlines why a fixed-price contract and letting the company run the show, makes things happen. It also appears his office is doing things right.
- NASA’s corrupt and useless safety panel scolds SpaceX for not being perfect
This panel should have been disbanded years ago, when it claimed fueling the Falcon 9 with crew on board would be more dangerous. It is all politics, and it actually knows very little about modern rocketry.
- ULA’s Vulcan rocket wins 2024 Dr. Wernher von Braun spaceflight Trophy Award
This is essentially a participation award for a big contractor in the Huntsville area.
- Chinese pseudo-company claims it will build a rocket which will land using its own chopstick tower, and do it by ’26 at the latest
All they have right now is a short video animation essentially redrawing the actual Superheavy landing SpaceX did last month, plus about $14 million in funding.
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
“P’Nut the Squirrel’s grieving owner says he was treated like a ‘terrorist’ in 5-hour raid by NY state”
“The state claimed it had to euthanize both animals Friday so that they could be tested for rabies — because the squirrel sunk its teeth into the hand of an official during the disturbing raid.”
https://nypost.com/2024/11/02/us-news/caretaker-of-peanut-the-squirrelreeling-over-five-hour-raid-of-his-house/
***
“Elon Musk @elonmusk
President @realDonaldTrump will save the squirrels
RIP P’Nut”
8:44 AM · Nov 2, 2024
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1852738470017700051
***
“I have information to lead to arrest of Hillary Clinton”
– P’Nut the Squirrel
https://t.ly/MvwPn
I don’t know that ASAP is “corrupt” just because astronauts don’t want to ride something without an escape tower.
Jeff Wright,
ASAP didn’t have anything to say about escape towers. Neither Crew Dragon nor Starliner have escape towers. Escape towers, in any case, have always been problematical – they get discarded part way through the booster phase of ascent and so provide no protection for booster issues that develop past the point of discard and no protection at all for any serious issue with a 2nd stage.
Astronauts have refused to fly on certain spacecraft, but not for reasons related to a lack of escape towers. Doug Hurley, for example, refused to have anything to do with Starliner but was happy to fly the first manned mission of Crew Dragon.
James-
Thanks for bringing up the State ordered squirrel-murder.
I live in Michigan, we have a lot of squirrels. They get killed accidentally.
What we don’t do here is send out 8-man hit teams, to intentionally kill them.
What, is going on in NYC?
Man In The High Castle
Nazi-American Police
https://youtu.be/TFM2xZ7dytk
2:09
“I can’t even remember what we were fighting for…”
November 9, 1989
Jesus Jones
“Right Here, Right Now”
https://youtu.be/GYPBt4fZOUI
(3:17)
“I was alive and I waited for this.
Right here, right now.
There is no other place I want to be,
Right here, right now.
Watching the world wake up from history.”
Just an aside: Homer Hickam is recovering from cancer surgery, but he’s not letting that slow him down online!
_____
Moi in 1993 to NASA: Let’s go back to the moon. Here, I’ve finished a study on how to do it with the goal of building a permanent outpost there like our South Pole Station.
NASA: No.
Moi in 1999: Let’s go back to the moon. Here, I’ve written a popular techno-thriller about it that everyone loves. They’ll love you all the more now if you say you’re going.
NASA: No.
Moi in 2019: Let’s go back to the moon. Here, VP Pence, is why.
Pence: OK. By any means necessary by 2024. Oh, and we need to have a person of color and a woman to land, too.
Moi in 2019: Um, OK, if that’s important.
Pence: It is.
Moi in 2019 to NASA: Don’t forget. By any means necessary by 2024.
NASA: Well, OK. Here’s our plan. We will build an underpowered but very expensive rocket we are afraid even to give a name to but we’ll call the SLS and then, at the same time, build a space station we’ll call Gateway in a lunar halo orbit – never mind how hard it was just to build one in earth orbit – and once it’s built and operational and stuff, SLS will struggle up to it with an old tin can called Orion which will hang around until a giant rocket called Starship can be refueled in space and soar up to get our astros (one poc, one woman, one tbd) and deposit them tail first on the moon, let them get out for awhile, then jump back up to Gateway, get back into the tincan Orion, and scoot back to Earth. What do you think about that?
Moi in 2024: You didn’t make the deadline.
NASA: Did you really think we would?
Moi in 2024: Not after I saw your Rube Goldberg [naughty word] plan!
https://x.com/realhomerhickam/status/1853501895819854027