June 8, 2017 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
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.
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4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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c/o Robert Zimmerman
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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.
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.
Didn’t know where to put this:
https://www.livescience.com/59429-james-comey-freeze-moment.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20170609-ls
I have gotten emails from this site called “LiveScience” for awhile now, probably because I am signed up for news from Space.com
This week I opened the email and see the above article in the middle of several other science pieces. I don’t remember seeing something quite this blatant before, taking a topic like this and shoehorning it into a so-called science blog in order to get a political point across to the readers…… :-(
Needless to say, I looked for a way to unsubscribe, finding none I just marked it as Spam. Unbelievable.
Steve–
Skimmed that article your referenced, and it is unbelievable!
-Did a cursory search—these people have a staff of 350, and around 2 dozen different websites, with 20 million+ monthly-views.
Concerning the Gateway to nowhere, I think that the ISS was the last governmental HSF project that will ever be accomplished (except for China). Launching people on SLS/Orion will be too dangerous when there are well proven and much cheaper private launch alternatives. I think it will be politically impossible to spend $150,000,000,000 tax monies on another space station when there are much cheaper, much better private alternatives in operation much sooner. As an analogue, NASA used MIR in the 1990s because it was available. Catastrophic political mistakes like the horrible design flaw of putting a space station in cis-Lunar space will be avoided in the future.
LocalFluff wrote: “Catastrophic political mistakes like the horrible design flaw of putting a space station in cis-Lunar space will be avoided in the future.”
I don’t know about that. United Launch Alliance seems to think that cis-Lunar space stations could be a good idea, so horrible design flaw or not, in a few years they may give it a try, such as at the Earth-Moon L1 location.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt8bs8E6XOY (3 minutes: “CisLunar 2017”)
An EML1-station makes sense for exploring the Moon’s surface. A place to shift between the Earth=>station transfer spacecraft (voluminous for a 2-3 day trip) to the station=>Moon lander (minimal but with ascent/abort capacity). That would be a station that is crewed only temporarily on the way to and from the Moon’s surface. The Lunar surface base would have abort option to the station instead of all the way to Earth. And the station would have abort option quickly down to the surface base.
The Gateway to nowhere skips the Lunar surface entirely, and as a substitute for the ISS it is a downgrade that only will be crewed temporarily because of the radiation issue and the lack of immediate abort to Earth options. They have to add 3½ km/s delta-v to get from LEO to EML1. For Falcon 9 that means about 9 tons instead of 22 tons delivered. They need a launcher as large as Falcon Heavy in order to launch ISS sized 20 ton modules to EML1.
Lunar exploration should start with an intensive robotic campaign followed by a few shorter crewed missions, and then a Lunar surface base in the best site identified. An EML1 station would be a filial to the surface base. It’s not the thing to start with.
wayne said:
“…..Skimmed that article your referenced, and it is unbelievable!
-Did a cursory search—these people have a staff of 350, and around 2 dozen different websites, with 20 million+ monthly-views….”
Yes, they do have a wide reach, all the more reason this jumps out. I guess I have become used to seeing countless articles about AGW all screaming “SCIENCE!” to the point that my eyes just glaze over (and the louder the author screams “SCIENCE!”, the less likely there is any true science in the article…. LOL)
This one really caught my attention though. It doesn’t scream “SCIENCE!”, it screams “Trump Derangement Syndrome!”
And I know that it’s all around us now, I have several friends that are just crazy lately, but how the heck did this pass the smell test at any legitimate Science reporting site? Are they so deep into TDS that no-one there said “Hey, this is a Science Blog, not a Political Blog”
And there is no comment section, isn’t that convenient? LOL
Here’s the Author’s Bio:
As a senior writer for Live Science, Laura Geggel covers general science, including the environment and amazing animals. She has written for The New York Times, Scholastic, Popular Science and Spectrum, a site covering autism research. Laura grew up in Seattle and studied English literature and psychology at Washington University in St. Louis before completing her graduate degree in science writing at NYU. When not writing, you’ll find Laura playing Ultimate Frisbee. Follow Laura on Google+.
The perfect background for a modern Liberal……. spent her whole life in academic echo chambers….
LocalFluff,
You wrote: “An EML1 station would be a filial to the surface base. It’s not the thing to start with.”
I see your point, now. NASA’s idea for a cis-lunar station is similar to the SLS project: it is an expensive something to have, and it lacks a mission. That is a horrible idea.