August 4, 2016 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold. I started with the Chinese and North Korean space programs, and ended up comparing them with the competitive and chaotic American system of private enterprise which is forcing down the cost of getting payloads into orbit while pushing the entire industry to greater innovation.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. 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:
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Embedded below the fold. I started with the Chinese and North Korean space programs, and ended up comparing them with the competitive and chaotic American system of private enterprise which is forcing down the cost of getting payloads into orbit while pushing the entire industry to greater innovation.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. 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.
There’s a telecon presentation (slides and sound file) from FISO this week.
http://spirit.as.utexas.edu/~fiso/archivelist.htm
It is held with guys from ATK, Boeing, Rocketdyne who build the SLS. You probably find some blogging material there.
What impresses me is that SLS seems to be happening for real with its Congress support. If I get it correctly, it is actually law now that NASA must use one SLS each for an orbiter and a lander to Europa. And SLS Block 1 can take 25 tons to Jupiter orbit after a five year flight time, they say, with one gravity assist of Earth. 50 tons in Jupiter orbit!? That’s more than the sum of everything ever sent to the outer Solar System. The economics of it aside, it looks as if there will be a yuuuge lander and a yuuuge orbiter at Europa only about ten years from now. Ten times a Cassini, ten times a Curiosity. The mass budget should really be enough to land a deep drill/melter there and kick up some samples (melt water sucked up through a tube) to an orbiter with tons of fuel to dock with it and bring it to Earth.
Big rockets are nice!
Localfluff,
Big rockets are nice, but the Europa probe that was proposed could have been launched on an existing rocket that costs about 1/10th the cost of an SLS — and would not have taken up a valuable SLS that would otherwise be available for a manned mission. The billions of extra dollars used to launch the Europa probe could be used for multiple other probes, meaning two or three unmanned explorations will not be funded because of the extra cost of the Europa launch, in addition to the unlaunched manned mission.
Rather than sending a larger payload, NASA is talking about reducing the travel time.
http://www.space.com/30082-nasa-sls-megarocket-planetary-missions.html
“Using SLS instead of currently available rockets would slash the probe’s journey to the Jupiter system from about eight years to less than three years … Mission team members are developing the Europa flyby craft to fit on a variety of different launch vehicles, including SLS.”
The article says, “‘This is one of those rare cases where time really is money,’ [John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate] said. ‘In that extra cruise time, you know, we have to maintain an engineering team and a science team and a spacecraft while it’s in cruise, even if we hibernate. And that’s something that also delays the science.'”
Although a faster travel time may have advantages, the number of other lost missions makes it seem not worth the advantages. Currently, engineering and science teams work on the next project while the current project is in transit. They stay productive. But if there is not enough money for the next project, then what do they do for three years?
Big rockets are only nice when they are properly used for projects that need big rockets. Otherwise they only waste valuable resources that would be better used productively.