August 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.
- Intuitive Machines submits its lunar rover proposal for manned missions to the Moon
Why am I not surprised that it has a high profile, higher than other proposals?
- New Glenn team just finished aft module tests of 1st stage for its second New Glenn launch
It appears this is the system that deploys the legs. Launch is scheduled for September 29, 2025.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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.
- Intuitive Machines submits its lunar rover proposal for manned missions to the Moon
Why am I not surprised that it has a high profile, higher than other proposals?
- New Glenn team just finished aft module tests of 1st stage for its second New Glenn launch
It appears this is the system that deploys the legs. Launch is scheduled for September 29, 2025.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
Just get one of Jay Leno’s suffragette electric cars that looked like phone booths.
This annoying bit of news is, unfortunately worth flagging:
https://www.expressnews.com/business/article/spacex-starship-test-flight-starbase-texas-launch-20819326.php
So, basically, they plan to show up with over 50 boats during Starship Flight 10 to force a range violation and delay the launch over ‘environmental concerns’. And the local Mexican government has given them the green light to try.
And if they succeed in entering the restricted area, SpaceX will be forced to cancel the launch.
Send in the Coast Guard, Mr. President. With prejudice.
I have a copy of the official notice, if anyone wants to see it.
Richard M: Can you email me that official notice? You should still have my email address, but if not, look in the tip jar for it.
Sending it now!
Let me know if you don’t get it.
Richard M: Got it. Posted. Thank you!
Robert Zimmerman,
The New Glenn link gives me a “Hmm…this page doesn’t exist. Try searching for something else.” error.
“Why am I not surprised that it has a high profile, higher than other proposals?”
Ouch! Guess you still wouldn’t trust them to design a table or a bar stool.
Maybe NASA should have them do independent testing. Perhaps give a prototype to the folks at the Matt’s Off Road Recovery channel.
Regarding Blue Origin, I think we may be heading to an interesting junction in private space history.
If BO succeeds in September they will be able to join ULA and Arianespace in bragging that they have an operational big rocket taking paying customers to space while SpaceX is still blowing up Starship/SH prototypes (I’m politely leaving out F9 and FH).
But what happens to that lead when SpaceX gets Starship/SH sorted out?
Ariane 6 and Vulcan aren’t reusable so they are doomed to be niche players at best.
And BO? In pursuing the strategy of building /blowing up/redesigning prototypes, SpaceX has created an infrastructure of manufacturing and launch facilities that will allow them to pump out and launch rockets at a pace and cost per unit I can’t imagine BO being able to compete with. Bezos has to see this, I wonder what he plans to do.
Dick Eagleson: Link fixed. Try again.
To Mitch,
To answer your question as to what would Bezos do?—the answer is…nothing.
He isn’t a REAL space advocate…that is just one of his hobbies that didn’t require plastic surgery.
Bubbles gets his attention.
Me—-if I somehow got ahold of Bezos fortune—-it would ALL go to spaceflight.
I’d hire an actor to be CEO and I’d be security—or the janitor sweeping up….who never goes home.
That way. I could stand over them without distraction. I have gone many days without real sleep in the past…I could do it again—though I’d likely fall over dead like Glushko did after he saw Energiya fly.
The real propellant of rockets—is blood, and will.
Robert Zimmerman,
Link works now. Thanks.
Mitch S.,
Can’t disagree with any of your analysis. I would only add that Amazon’s seemingly anemic production rate for Kuiper sats might keep both Vulcan and Ariane 6 flying for several years longer than I earlier expected, though at reduced cadences in each year of operation. Ironically, Amazon’s seeming inability to make sats anywhere near fast enough to get more than a fraction of its first half of the Kuiper constellation up by July 2026 may yet earn it a deadline extension from the FCC without necessarily needing to redirect any of its launches to SpaceX beyond the three already contracted for. Ironic.
Mitch S.,
You are right about the junction in space history, but this will be the second one. The first was when Falcon became reusable, leading to more than 100 annual launches and large communication constellations. How long will it take Blue Origin or ULA to reach that many annual launches? How much less time would it take if their launch numbers were combined?
Rocket lab could conceivably reach that cadence in the next few years with Electron, and maybe a decade or so with Neutron, but Neutron may also be competing with Starship, making it susceptible to the junction in commercial space history.
I suspect that Starship will not become a monopoly in the market, just as the Falcons have not. It is good to have and keep competitors in any industry, but those competitors must catch up with (and preferably exceed) the industry leader. From other sources and threads, it sounds as though ULA has admitted that its attempt at reusability went the wrong direction, and they will try to reuse the entire booster, next time. Will Blue Origin soon make their own version of Starship?
If the first junction in private space history brought us large communication constellations, what will this next one bring us? SpaceX says it will lead to the colonization of Mars. I’m sure we will get far more, too. If SpaceX concentrates on Mars, will Blue Origin concentrate on the Moon? Who will concentrate on taking advantage of the Lagrange points (regions, in reality)? With commercial space working on expanding commerce in space, what will NASA’s role be?
Bezos should have put money into payloads to go atop SpaceX rockets….he says he wants to industrialize space….I don’t believe that, however.