April 5, 2018 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
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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.
One niggle on the SLS/Orion boondoggle discussion (which does indeed capture well the insanity of the program’s organizational structure) as it relates to Constellation…
It’s true that, on all evidence, Obama was motivated to kill off this particular Bush legacy. But that said, Mike Griffin handed him some big caliber weapons with which to terminate it. Stacked or not, the Augustine Commission did not have to resort to skullduggery to conclude that Constellation was way behind schedule and way over budget, even *before* it had begun any real development on its two most expensive components, the Ares V and the Altair lander.
Unfortunately, Constellation was replaced by a worse program. Atlas V was to have its (three not four) main engines on the side of the fuel tank. Like they were on the Shuttle, saving reconstruction of the launch pad, and maybe simplifying the rest of the rocket by using a familiar set of three main engines, and of course lower the engine costs by 25%. And launching the crew separately on a single solid booster with upper stage, Ares I. Now they will mix crew and cargo, not making the most out of the solid boosters (Russia flies its liquid former Energia boosters as individual launchers), and they’ve skipped the Lunar lander and with it any meaningful use of SLS+Orion for human space flight (other than launching a Skylab style space station, but no one talks about that, SLS+Orion is otherwise too expensive and risky for LEO).
What did the Augustine committee actually recommend, going forward? Hardly this!