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Readers!

 

It is now July, time once again to celebrate the start of this webpage in 2010 with my annual July fund-raising campaign.

 

This year I celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black. During that time I have done more than 33,000 posts, mostly covering the global space industry and the related planetary and astronomical science that comes from it. Along the way I have also felt compelled as a free American citizen to regularly post my thoughts on the politics and culture of the time, partly because I think it is important for free Americans to do so, and partly because those politics and that culture have a direct impact on the future of our civilization and its on-going efforts to explore and eventually colonize the solar system.

 

You can’t understand one without understanding the other.

 

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December 2, 2022 Quick space links

Courtesy of Jay, BtB’s intrepid stringer, trolling Tweeter so we don’t have to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Major management organization at Astra
  • According to CEO Chris Kemp, the reorganization has four engineering and manufacturing managers reporting directly to him, reducing a layer of management. Of the four managers involved, two once worked at Blue Origin, one at SpaceX, and one at Google.

Genesis cover

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

9 comments

  • john hare

    Did I read the thing wrong on the BE-4? I read a test firing a week but not building one per week.

  • john hare: I noted that you had to scroll down and read the tread. In response to questions Bruno suggests this.

  • siriusactuary

    There does not appear to be a link on the JAXA article.

  • siriusactuary: Sorry about that. Link now added.

  • John hare

    Reading the times on the replies, it appears that the question was asked 2 December and answer was to a different question on 1 December. Not normally reading Twitter, perhaps I misunderstood the comment method there.

  • john hare: I admit to my own willful ignorance of Twitter and its ways. However, at the link that Jay provided, when I posted, if you scrolled down to the most recent previous tweets in the thread, Bruno was asked was Blue Origin producing an engine a week and he responded yes. Jay himself interpreted it that way, saying so when he sent me the link.

    It is possible that by the time you looked, Twitter had moved on, and this exchange was no longer visible. I unfortunately am not the one to ask. I will ask Jay to clarify.

  • Jay

    John Hare,
    Mr.Bruno’s comment was implying that they, B.O., were building one BE-4 a week since they were testing a BE-4 every week. The B.O. factory in Kent, is not producing an engine a week. A lot of people on other forums were also commenting on that post.

  • Edward

    Jay and John hare,
    It will be a couple of years or so before Blue Origin will need to build fifty engines each year, but I would not be surprised that these early engines are continuing to undergo extensive testing before delivery.

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