July 12, 2017 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
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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.
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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.
I’m sorry if I’m nitpicking. It’s much easier to do so on the keyboard than during a live radio interview. The smaller of the two orbiters is made in Japan by JAXA, I think they deserve honor for that. Their planetary missions are always very ambitious, often almost fail but are saved at least to some degree. They push the limits, not wasting too much on slack. I guess there’s a difference in organizational culture from NASA there.
It will have a much more eccentric orbit to measure the magnetic field near and far, which is a very puzzling phenomena at Mercury since its southern magnetic pole is way inside of the planet. And it has a relatively huge iron nickel core. Uranus has a weirdly misaligned magnetic field too, and will most likely get its own NASA flagship mission soon. This could be practically very important to understand since Earth’s magnetic field shifts abruptly sometimes. No one knows why.
So, first flyby of Mercury in October 2021, four years after launch, and then yearly flybys until entering orbit in December 2025.
AFAIK JAXA and ESA both developed heat reflecting coatings, which seems to have been a big item in the mission development. Could probably have been done faster and less wastefully if better coordinated. But everyone involved wants to play with the cool toys himself, so that’s the incentive.
3 years after launch in 2018 October. Easy to make mistakes. Ariane 5 so it will launch safely and on time.
While at it, I can add that they’ve finished the shake tests and are now unscrewing it all to check if something got damaged. Then there’s the electric tests and the heat test. They seem to have had to rebuild the lab for doing the heat test. The heat has really been a challenge. 10 times more sunlight than at Earth, and the heat reflected from Mercury seems to be the big difference from the further out orbiting MESSENGER mission.
A potential rover on the surface could maybe hide in eternally shadowed polar craters daytime, and move during the 132 days long night. By moving away from the approaching terminator it could maybe even be moving around all of the time. A rover is next if BeppiColumbo is successful.