January 12, 2022 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast

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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:

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January 12, 2022 8:24 pm Robert Zimmerman

Embedded below the fold in two parts.

To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, well worth your time, go here.

2 comments

BtB’s Original Mark
January 12, 2022 at 9:17 pm
Bob – It hit me how many SPACE developments are currently happening after listening through AudioBoom to your latest appearance on the John Batchelor Show – the current episodes covering Starlink, Ariane 6, Chinese Robot Arm, Roscosmos, Virgin, JWT, Perseverance, and the Chinese Moon Rover & Chang’e-5 lunar lander. I also wonder how many people heard you cover these many topics through the Batchelor podcasts, internet radio, and WOR 710 radio. Do you know?

For those who don’t follow Batchelor, in addition to podcasting & being part of iHeart internet radio, John Batchelor is on the legendary WOR 710 radio station with a listening audience in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The WOR 50,000 watt class radio station probably can reach millions.

Besides listening to Bob’s segments on Space, other topics Batchelor recently covered with guests include:
Kazakhstan
Ukraine / Russia / NATO
China
Omicron
Energy Crisis in Europe
Inflation

Many of these stories have an indirect effect on space exploration.
For example, for Kazakhstan, one of Russia’s spaceports is located in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. About two months ago Bob covered the story of the UAE providing funding towards a joint project with Russia & Kazakhstan to upgrade the oldest Soyuz launchpad at Baikonur. So now you know that at least some of your additional gasoline expenses are going towards space launches in Kazakhstan:)

In regards to Ukraine, as Bob has reported on Jan 1, if tensions between the US & Russia escalate high enough over the Ukraine crisis, this would most likely affect the US Russian joint operation of the ISS.

Moving on to the subject of China, Gordon G Chang is one of Batchelor’s China Experts. There are numerous economic, military, and political developments in China that will have some type of effect on the Chinese Space Program.

This goes to show that BtB Space stories just don’t exist in isolation, but are very much connected to Geopolitics, History, and the current Global Economic trends.

Given the above, here is another Heinlein quote to consider:

“A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.”

With respect to Heinlein, a current variant of that could be: “A generation which is ignorant of Geopolitics, History, Global Economics & Elites will screw up it’s Space Exploration”. I know – it’s not very snappy.
Jeff Wright
January 12, 2022 at 11:58 pm
Some items of interest from phys.org: “We conclude or I believe-rationality declined decades ago.” Duh…

“Study challenges evolutionary theory that DNA mutations are random.”

That ranks right up there with the Channeled Scablands as massive flood erosion after all.
Now, could this finding hurt Dawkins…but at the expense of helping rehabilitate Lysenko and epigenetics? Stay tuned!
Last but not least:
“New Study Calls Into Question Early Claims of COVID-19 ‘infodemic’ of Health Misinformation.”

Uh-huh!

January 12, 2022 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast

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