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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.