April 23, 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.
- Firefly wins Air Force contract to develop ceramic-based nozzles for upper stages
The concept is expected to lower the weight and speed production of nozzles.
- China touts what it calls a “Lunar Soil Brick Machine” for using lunar materials to make bricks
Jay notes that “Astroport Space Technologies out of Belgium has been doing this for over a year. Looks like another Chinese theft.”
- Trump administration urges other nations to stop doing business with China’s pseudo-satellite companies
Not surprisingly, the government is worried that China uses these deals to steal sensitive technology.
- Bloomberg reports (behind a paywall) that Amazon is having production problems producing Kuiper satellites
It seems that “faulty components and a complex design” are making assembly line production difficult. If this story has any truth, than Amazon’s ability to meet its FCC license requirement of having 1,600 satellites in orbit by mid-2026 is increasingly unlikely. It also might explain why ULA has not seemed to be in a hurry to get these satellites off the ground.
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.
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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.
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.
- Firefly wins Air Force contract to develop ceramic-based nozzles for upper stages
The concept is expected to lower the weight and speed production of nozzles.
- China touts what it calls a “Lunar Soil Brick Machine” for using lunar materials to make bricks
Jay notes that “Astroport Space Technologies out of Belgium has been doing this for over a year. Looks like another Chinese theft.”
- Trump administration urges other nations to stop doing business with China’s pseudo-satellite companies
Not surprisingly, the government is worried that China uses these deals to steal sensitive technology.
- Bloomberg reports (behind a paywall) that Amazon is having production problems producing Kuiper satellites
It seems that “faulty components and a complex design” are making assembly line production difficult. If this story has any truth, than Amazon’s ability to meet its FCC license requirement of having 1,600 satellites in orbit by mid-2026 is increasingly unlikely. It also might explain why ULA has not seemed to be in a hurry to get these satellites off the ground.
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.
Kuiper: Immensely complex and high risk!
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Hey that’s not a Cybertruck pulling the Raptor 3 engine.
The Kuiper team are the guys Elon fired a few years back for slow-rolling Starlink – a move that is looking better and better as time goes by.
Something unrelated but space related:
Is gravity really gravity?
A new take on gravity with a quantum twist – is dark matter in trouble?
Don’t know if this theory will go anywhere but it’s good to see physicists thinking outside the box:
https://www.advancedsciencenews.com/new-theory-suggests-gravity-is-not-a-fundamental-force/
Jeff Foust’s new article on Starliner and ASAP is every bit as depressingly predictable as we’ve come to expect:
https://spacenews.com/boeing-reports-progress-on-containing-starliner-costs/
Mitch S.,
I think we’re already overdue for anti-grav Deloreans and Mr. Fusions to run them. But it’s good to see that the physicists are still in there swinging.
Richard M,
Well, that’s just what the news is. Can’t blame ‘ole Jeff for reporting the news accurately. I agree that the whole Boeing/Starliner soap opera is seriously lacking in any news for which even a shaky grin is appropriate. Reasons for laughter and the turning of handsprings, I think, will continue to elude us utterly. So it goes.
To Mitch
This looks to be a follow on of John Wheeler’s geometrodynamics.
Some other articles:
“Einstein’s dream of a unified field theory accomplished?” April 10, 2025
“Electromagnetism is a property of spacetime itself” July 23, 2021
“Study proposes combining continuum mechanics with Einstein field equations.” July 24, 2023 …Piotr Ogonowski
All from phys.org
Wheeler wrote about “geon holes” in one book…some talk about “charge without charge” and “mass without mass.”
Jeff Wright,
Robert A. Heinlein’s classic story ‘Magic, Inc.’ posited that modern physicists were actually mages. “Geon holes” and other such terminology does make it seem that modern physicists are, indeed, mages and are looking to invent new language with which to compose new spells.
Even more the case with operating systems…
Karswell’s curses or Kurzweil’s coding—it all comes down to casting the runes.