April 2, 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.
- Rocket Lab touts the qualification of the upper stage of its new Neutron rocket
They are still targeting a first launch this year.
- On this day in 1960 the first weather satellite, Tiros-1, was launched
Took the first weather images from space, reshaping how weather would be forecast for the rest of history.
- On this day in 1968 “2001: A Space Odyssey” premiered at the Uptown Theater in Washington, DC
While many still rave about this film, and I myself literally had a mind-blowing experience watching it for the first time (without any drugs in my system), the movie has not aged well. Each time I watch it my opinion of it as a film goes down.
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.
- Rocket Lab touts the qualification of the upper stage of its new Neutron rocket
They are still targeting a first launch this year.
- On this day in 1960 the first weather satellite, Tiros-1, was launched
Took the first weather images from space, reshaping how weather would be forecast for the rest of history.
- On this day in 1968 “2001: A Space Odyssey” premiered at the Uptown Theater in Washington, DC
While many still rave about this film, and I myself literally had a mind-blowing experience watching it for the first time (without any drugs in my system), the movie has not aged well. Each time I watch it my opinion of it as a film goes down.
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.
Guess what? We have a confirmation hearing date!
It’s April 9.
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2025/4/nomination-hearing_66_2
“U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, will convene a nominations hearing for Jared Isaacman, nominee to be Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and Olivia Trusty, nominee to be a Member of the Federal Communications Commission, at 10:00 AM EST on Wednesday, April 9, 2025. ”
This is actually a little sooner than I expected.
Robert wrote: “[2001: A Space Odyssey] has not aged well. Each time I watch it my opinion of it as a film goes down.”
This is not surprising. For its length, it is one of the slowest films ever released. The short film Bambi Meets Godzilla, released a year later, is slower and has almost as much dialog and plot.
Director Sir Alfred Hitchcock (although he was knighted after making his last film) sometimes used slow pacing and lack of action to help build suspense, such as the five minutes before his famous biplane scene. However, after the Odyssey and Bambi films, directors have been reluctant to allow a slow pace in their films, cutting out all kinds of scenes and acting performances for pacing reasons.
Another thing that ages Odyssey is the small amount of progress we, in reality, made in space after man first walked on the Moon. We will have to see how well commercial space fares thirty years after it gets its own first man on the Moon.
Who was it here on BTB that, a couple of weeks ago, pointed out that Odyssey imagined a commercialized space industry? It looks like that film got that concept correct. Government space: Odyssey pacing. Commercial space: Casablanca pacing.
Tiros Experimental Weather Satellite
“Operation Weather Watch”
Astro-Electronic Products Division, RCA.
https://youtu.be/EEQnAfo_XIA
(14:05)
Science fiction films set in the future almost always overestimate the rate of progress (or in dystopian cases, decay). I hate to ever hold that against a sci-fi-film.
I still think a lot of 2001 holds up very well, but it’s so unconventional as a dramatic property that it’s always been a challenge to critique. And this only intensifies once the rush of that first experience ebbs and you start thinking about what it’s actually doing — and not doing. It can hardly be said to be *dramatic* at all, because it doesn’t have a conventional plot as we normally understand it, and its characters are so undeveloped that they hardly even matter. There’s barely 5,000 words of script dialogue. It’s almost more of a tone poem.
I often wonder if its real fate is at risk for being a historical road marker — more important for how it changed the medium and the genre than its actual ability to engage in the way it was intended. I think about how how young Gen Z friends I know think about Fritz Lang’s Metropolis or Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner when they first see them. They can appreciate the craft and beauty, but they do not have the impact they originally did; these films’ fingerprints are all over so much cinematic work (all of ’em with even greater technology at their disposal) in the years since that it’s hard to appreciate the great leap they made. And maybe it’s easier for them to notice the weak or — shall I say — underdeveloped aspects.
But 2001 certainly is important in that way: It was what made *serious* science fiction possible, thanks to its major advances in film-making craft, its realism, and the big ideas it tried to engage. But maybe when a door is opened, it’s what lies in the room beyond that ends up being more interesting than the door itself.
Perhaps part of what makes 2001 less compelling is that so many things that were incredibly futuristic predictions are now everyday experiences. To name some: communications satellites, video calls, real-time computer graphics for guidance and navigation, computer tablets for watching video, conversational and game playing computers, even governmental coverups. What was a compelling spectacle decades ago now is close to reality or even less impressive than what we have. I can’t wait for commercial space to catch up and go beyond the film’s vision.
All: My criticism of “2001” is entirely related to film-making. The film is simply not that good, in terms of story or character development. It has its moments, and yes, as Richard M notes, it is in many ways a tone poem. It however has not aged well, and that has nothing to do with how well or poorly it predicted the future.
Note that NASA plays a very small part in the film. Kubrick envisioned the future being built in space by private enterprise. He was right, but it didn’t happen by 2001 because America decided in the last half of the 20th century to adopt a top-down government approach. Thus, in 2001 there were no big circular space stations, no lunar bases, no routine commercial flights into space with stewardesses.
That is coming now however. The future is very bright for those who are young now.
A key objective for Stanley Kubrick was making a piece of art that was beautiful and arresting to look at and listen to. And in that respect, I think….he really succeeded. (In fact, I would argue that the only other Kubrick movie that succeeds so well in this way was BARRY LYNDON.) The sets and props he built, how he framed the shots, the classical music works and how he used them to soundtrack it, its artful use of silence…I think all of that really holds up. We have far better filmmaking technology now, but Kubrick’s effects hold up surprisingly well for the most part.
On every other level, there has always been room for thoughtful criticism of 2001 as a film. I certainly grok the idea that the issues critics have identified ever since 1968 become more apparent on repeated viewings, once you get past the *beauty* of the thing.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Bunnytails Reacts, First Time watching
https://youtu.be/j94cAmomb7o
1:06:27
I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I’ve gotta crow about my father, who was instrumental in the concept and development of TIROS and its successors. He took me to the launch of Tiros I – from what I remember it was quite impressive.
Those were really the days of “space shots” – After the launch, they didn’t know if it made orbit until the ground station somewhere near Africa picked up the signal.
2001: the blandness of the bureaucrats and astronauts was an intentional contrast to the apes. The specific example I read was the contrast between the plastic wrapped sandwiches in the moon-shuttle vs the raw meat of the apes.
They NAILED Large Language Models. It is INSANE to me how the most unrealistic feature of the movie came true literally and exactly as they had it.
I actually loved 2010 much better.
Leonov inspired the Earth Force ships from Babylon 5.
Robert Zimmerman,
Sorry for starting the prediction criticism, but I wanted to make the same point that you made about commercial space doing better at advancing us in space than the government did.
I think that Kubrick’s special effects are holding up fairly well, but I do not think the lack of character development was ever a good idea. Perhaps the best developed character is the inventor of the club. I had to read the book in order to understand most of the rest of the movie, which does not speak well of the screenplay.