April 15, 2025 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
- Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft completes suborbital all-female tourist flight
The press is giving this flight lots of coverage because of the nature of the crew, but in terms of the future of space, this suborbital flight is less than trivial in importance.
- Australian rocket startup Gilmour touts its satellite platform for satellite companies
Meanwhile, the company’s first launch on March 15, 2025 never happened, and the company remains very tight-lipped about the situation.
- On this day in 1970 the Apollo 13 crew improvised a system for using the carbon dioxide filters from its crippled command module in its lunar module lifeboat
The fix involved “bags, a flight plan card, some hoses, and a lot of duct tape.”
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. 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.
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
- Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft completes suborbital all-female tourist flight
The press is giving this flight lots of coverage because of the nature of the crew, but in terms of the future of space, this suborbital flight is less than trivial in importance.
- Australian rocket startup Gilmour touts its satellite platform for satellite companies
Meanwhile, the company’s first launch on March 15, 2025 never happened, and the company remains very tight-lipped about the situation.
- On this day in 1970 the Apollo 13 crew improvised a system for using the carbon dioxide filters from its crippled command module in its lunar module lifeboat
The fix involved “bags, a flight plan card, some hoses, and a lot of duct tape.”
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. 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.
Blue Origin’s New Sheppard flight (4/14) was both amusing and touching. Maybe the one thing we can get out of it was a rather pure reaction of a team representing half of humanity, possibly untrained and genuine. Though the crew were mostly in showbiz and that has its own severe biases.
I think the chatter and screams in the background throughout the flight shared with the viewer a certain thrill of their brief adventure. Can’t say much about the post-flight. I tuned out.
I thought the New Shepard flight was quite inspiring. Did it move the engineering forward? No. Did it inspire a lot of people to consider space as an option? Certainly. If we really want to open space to everyone, then everyone must go – no matter the order it happens in. The janitor, the teacher, the singer, the engineer, the artist, and the dreamer all have a place in this puzzle. So far 721 people have touched space. For 60 plus years, that is pathetic. We need to send that many (or more) in a month. It will take time but we’ll get there. Unless the space community’s vitriol scares them off (Twitter/X/Threads/Blue Sky have been horrible).