August 16, 2019 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
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The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Great show, as always, Bob.
It really is hard to judge just what Sierra Nevada has been up to, since they put so little out in the public domain. In this respect, they’re more like Blue Origin than SpaceX. Granted, the first mission is not until 2021, so it’s not like there was a high urgency for it when the contract was announced in 2016 – in the way, say, there was for CRS back in 2008-10, when NASA was feeling the heat of the end of Shuttle operations and desperately needed Cargo Dragon and Cygnus to get operational as quickly as possible.
It’s also true that developing Dream Chaser (which was on most accounts farther away from operational capability than either Dragon or Starliner were when the crew downselect was done in 2014) required some considerable work to develop into a cargo vehicle (especially that expendable cargo module), so it may be hasty to assume they’re behind schedule. Then again, it is the rare space vehicle that DOESN’T experience development delays, so…
I hope they can meet the schedule, because it’s a nifty vehicle with a lot of potential and different capabilities from the other crew and cargo vehicles on the market now. I’d love to see it fly.