December 3, 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 touts final testing of its first Shooting Star cargo capsule, set to launch on Tenacity, its first Dream Chaser reusable mini-shuttle
The first launch is years behind schedule. The company notes however that the next two Shooting Star capsules are now under construction. All will bring cargo up to orbit but then be disposed of when its Dream Chaser returns.
- Scientists claim, with only a little data, that Venus was always too dry to support life
The result is interesting, but if you take this seriously I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you real cheap.
- Scientists create map of known gravitational waves
This result, like the one just above, is about as certain and solid as liquid water, which is why neither was a full post on Behind the Black. The mainstream press might go ga-ga over both, but neither is very significant.
- Burst water pipe will prevent scientists from accessing data from Solar Dynamics Observatory for “an extended length of time”
The data is still being downloaded and archived, so nothing is expected to be lost.
- European Space Agency (ESA) puts out a call for a study to explore the development of a reusable super heavy-lift rocket
Another non-story that didn’t deserve more than a quick link. Note the lack of urgency. This is “call” for a “study” to “explore” the “options” for development. Hell will freeze over before ESA starts construction.
- The Commercial Space Federation (CSF) that acts as a political lobbyist for the commercial space industry announces a major restructuring
Maybe this change will make it possible for this generally ineffective organization to finally pack some clout in DC.
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 touts final testing of its first Shooting Star cargo capsule, set to launch on Tenacity, its first Dream Chaser reusable mini-shuttle
The first launch is years behind schedule. The company notes however that the next two Shooting Star capsules are now under construction. All will bring cargo up to orbit but then be disposed of when its Dream Chaser returns.
- Scientists claim, with only a little data, that Venus was always too dry to support life
The result is interesting, but if you take this seriously I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you real cheap.
- Scientists create map of known gravitational waves
This result, like the one just above, is about as certain and solid as liquid water, which is why neither was a full post on Behind the Black. The mainstream press might go ga-ga over both, but neither is very significant.
- Burst water pipe will prevent scientists from accessing data from Solar Dynamics Observatory for “an extended length of time”
The data is still being downloaded and archived, so nothing is expected to be lost.
- European Space Agency (ESA) puts out a call for a study to explore the development of a reusable super heavy-lift rocket
Another non-story that didn’t deserve more than a quick link. Note the lack of urgency. This is “call” for a “study” to “explore” the “options” for development. Hell will freeze over before ESA starts construction.
- The Commercial Space Federation (CSF) that acts as a political lobbyist for the commercial space industry announces a major restructuring
Maybe this change will make it possible for this generally ineffective organization to finally pack some clout in DC.
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
https://www.lifeinnorway.net/hell-norway/
Check the weather forecast for this Saturday.
Blair-
I was not aware of Hell, Norway.
In Michigan, we also have Hell, Christmas, and Paradise.
Currently, it’s colder than Hell in both Paradise and Christmas.
https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/hell/48169/weather-forecast/2211114
Blair & wayne,
As a Michigander by birth, I have long been familiar with Hell, MI but will also confess to ignorance of the existence of a “sister city” in Norway. Considering the percentage of my hometown’s population that was of Norwegian extraction I must count myself considerably chagrined on that score.
Re: Commercial Space Federation
The renaming and reorganization both seem to be good steps toward raising the CSF’s profile in Congress but what is really going to do that is its establishment of a PAC. Nothing draws the Congresscritters quite so much as the smell of money.
Re: European noise about Reusable Super Heavy Lift rockets
According to the linked story, the call for proposals has been published, then withdrawn, in different versions twice in as many months. More of the typical European dithering and bureaucratic foot-shooting it seems.
Also noteworthy was the reported restriction on responses to only firms HQ’d in Belgium, Switzerland, France, Spain and Italy. The latter three all have launch vehicle builders, to be sure, but the first two do not – at least not to my knowledge. And the omission of Germany from the list – which has several launch vehicle companies – can only be regarded as passing strange.
Dick Eagleson–
You might like this guy, he does history videos of Michigan
https://www.youtube.com/@RestlessViking/videos
Wow. I can hardly believe this. But it seems to be legitimate. Jared Isaacman is President-elect Trump’s choice for the next NASA administrator, per a post on Trump’s Truth Social account.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113595378122687080
Greg Autry: “Congratulations to @rookisaacman, being selected by Donald Trump as NASA Administrator. I had an amazing fireside chat with Jared last year. He is exactly what the agency needs!”
No reaction from Elon yet, but you have to think that he had a *considerable* input into this decision.
Richard M: This is BIG news indeed. Isaacman is already running his own private space program, using SpaceX rockets and capsules, with a desire as well to fly a privately funded repair mission to Hubble. He will certainly not be enthused about SLS, and will without doubt force major changes within NASA.
I will be posting this as a full post.
Jared just tweeted out a statement a few seconds ago:
https://x.com/rookisaacman/status/1864346915183157636
From the Space News article (unfortunately, a word-for-word reprint of their customer’s press release) about the The Commercial Space Federation (CSF):
The CSF also favors competition and fixed-price contracts.
This matches Robert’s Capitalism in Space philosophy ( https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/capitalism-in-space-private-enterprise-and-competition-reshape-the-global-aerospace-launch-industry/ ). We would expect commercial space companies to favor this philosophy, but the fixed-price contract concept deviates from the standard operating procedure (SOP) that the government has been using over the past three-quarters of a century. Companies working to the “cost-plus” SOP have done very well, but the rest of America has suffered from a high cost of space exploration and a slow development in space, and non-governmental space exploration and development has been almost completely locked out.
Over the past two decades, there has been a movement toward the less expensive fixed-price contracts, and the results have been threefold. 1) Lower launch costs with launch companies around the world scrambling to offer the lowest cost to orbit. 2) an expansion to hundreds of companies competing to get into the space business. 3) new benefits for the populace of the Earth that governments were never willing to offer.
When the World Wide Web was new and the decision had been made to allow commerce to happen over the network (yes, there was a brief controversy over that subject), someone pointed out that the internet industry had expanded to more than just the companies that manufactured and operated the equipment that makes up the internet. It also included the companies that did business over the internet. They were internet businesses. Examples include Amazon, E-Bay, and Pay Pal. These companies are part of the internet industry, independent of the internet infrastructure and yet completely dependent upon the internet infrastructure.
This could happen in the commercial space industry. Companies may soon develop that do not launch rockets, operate spacecraft, or build the hardware that accomplishes these actions, and yet these companies, independent of the space hardware, may be just as depended upon the space hardware as Amazon depends upon the internet’s hardware.
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wayne wrote: “In Michigan, we also have Hell, Christmas, and Paradise.”
California had a Paradise, too, but it had burned down in a forest fire.
California was a paradise, but it was burned down in a Democrat fire.
Will Jared be beaten down in DC to the point where his enthusiasm is eaten alive?
”Companies may soon develop that do not launch rockets, operate spacecraft, or build the hardware that accomplishes these actions, and yet these companies, independent of the space hardware, may be just as depended upon the space hardware as Amazon depends upon the internet’s hardware.”
We call these companies “cable companies.” They’ve been around since the 1970s.
That doesn’t invalidate your overall point. It just points out that the trend has been building for quite a long time.