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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. 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. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
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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.


Blue Origin reveals its orbital rocket

The competition heats up: Blue Origin today unveiled the orbital rocket it plans to launch before 2020, dubbed New Glenn.

Named in honor of John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, New Glenn is based around two variants – a two stage and a three stage launch vehicle – and a reusable booster stage. No information has been released as to where the booster stage will land, although it is believed Blue Origin is evaluating the option of an “ocean-going platform,” per planning documentation associated with the launch site. “Building, flying, landing, and re-flying New Shepard has taught us so much about how to design for practical, operable reusability. And New Glenn incorporates all of those learnings,” Mr. Bezos added.

Mr. Bezos added that the two-stage New Glenn is 270 feet tall, and its second stage is powered by a single vacuum-optimized BE-4 engine (the BE-4U). The 3-stage New Glenn is 313 feet tall. A single vacuum-optimized BE-3 engine, burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, powers its third stage. The booster and the second stage are identical in both variants. The three-stage variant – with its high specific impulse hydrogen upper stage – is capable of flying demanding beyond-LEO missions.

The rocket will be quite large and comparable more to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy than its Falcon 9, indicating that the competition is not only forcing companies to lower their prices, it is forcing new designs to be larger and have more capacity.

Genesis cover

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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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

9 comments

  • Andrew_W

    I like Rand’s take: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ SLS

    http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=65458

    The sooner SLS is killed the better.

  • Frank

    The disruptive competition will be good for SpaceX and the future of spaceflight. Not good for those that rely on government pork and political deals.

    Bring it on.

  • Edward

    New Shepard for their suborbital rocket, now New Glenn for their orbital rocket. I think we can figure out what they will call their moon rocket.

    Unfortunately, I have been unable to find the mass that it can take to LEO and to GEO transfer orbit. Those are the kinds of interesting details that future customers will be interested in.

  • Localfluff

    Maybe it will not take at all as much payload to orbit as a Saturn V although it is as large. Size could be used to make a simpler, cheaper and safer design. Reusability allows for a new design philosophy. It doesn’t necessarily cost more to launch a heavier rocket if it comes back.

  • Alex

    Edward: No masses were published yet by Mr. Bezos, but the launch thrust, which is about 1,750 metric tons. From this value a launch mass between 1,400 and 1,500 metric tons should follow. Mr. Zubrin calculated yesterday a LEO payload of 70 metric tons and of 20 tons to Mars (3 stage version). My guess for the payload to LEO is smaller (in range of 50 tons) due to effects of first stage reuse.

  • Alex

    Localfluff: I agree, it could be that first stage of New Glenn is built much more robust as that from Falcon 9.

  • D K Rögnvald Williams

    Seems like many players are wanting to get into the heavy launch business. Is there sufficient demand?

  • Edward

    D K Rögnvald Williams,
    If the price to get into space drops enough, there may be a tremendous demand to put heavy payloads (astronauts, space stations or habitats, moon missions, planetary probes, etc.) into space, and it looks like SpaceX — and perhaps Blue Origin — will be the major low-cost launch companies.

    On the other hand, there is (finally) a trend toward smaller satellites and a large number of companies planning to launch those smaller satellites on small, inexpensive launchers.

  • Frank

    Jeff Bezos on competing against Musk and other commercial companies:

    “Competition is super healthy…Great industries are never made by single companies. And space is really big. There is room for a lot of winners…At Blue Origin, our biggest opponent is gravity.

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