December 27, 2024 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.
- Chart showing total mass put in orbit in 2024 by various companies and nations
Not surprisingly, SpaceX has launched more mass than everyone else combined.
- Air & Space touts the navigational work done by Jim Lovell during Apollo 8 in 1968
For most of the mission, Lovell’s work was merely a back-up to calculations provided by ground computers and plugged into the capsule computer for use with its inertial measuring unit (IMU). Only once was Lovell’s navigation necessary, when he accidentally rebooted the IMU so it thought it was on the launchpad, not on its way back to Earth. To reprogram it he had to do his sextant sightings and enter those numbers into the computer.
- On this day in 1984 the Martian meteorite that scientists later claimed carried evidence of microscopic life was collected on the Antarctica ice cap
Other scientists later challenged the claim, and today it is generally dismissed.
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.
- Chart showing total mass put in orbit in 2024 by various companies and nations
Not surprisingly, SpaceX has launched more mass than everyone else combined.
- Air & Space touts the navigational work done by Jim Lovell during Apollo 8 in 1968
For most of the mission, Lovell’s work was merely a back-up to calculations provided by ground computers and plugged into the capsule computer for use with its inertial measuring unit (IMU). Only once was Lovell’s navigation necessary, when he accidentally rebooted the IMU so it thought it was on the launchpad, not on its way back to Earth. To reprogram it he had to do his sextant sightings and enter those numbers into the computer.
- On this day in 1984 the Martian meteorite that scientists later claimed carried evidence of microscopic life was collected on the Antarctica ice cap
Other scientists later challenged the claim, and today it is generally dismissed.
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
Just to clarify: That was just the graph of the upmass in the third quarter of 2024.
BryceTech does these little reports every quarter. Great stuff! Completely free to download. Worth bookmarking their page.
https://brycetech.com/briefing
But for each of the first three quarters this year, you can see that SpaceX has been consistently launching 9 to 10 times as much as the rest of the world put together.
What will happen in 2025? Elon wants to launch 180 times. OTOH, New Glenn, Ariane 6, Vulcan, MLV, and Neutron are coming online in 2025, along with Zhuque-3 and Hyperbola-3 in China….but on the gripping hand, Starship may actually start launching Starlinks this year. All we can be sure of is that 2025’s aggregate stats will shatter 2024’s.
Starship reconsidered?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81ggL_SH3wY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTiM7dVp-wU
Today we had another brainburst from Elon on X. It’s hard to know if this is worth a dedicated discussion here (it’s already happening in the usual places where SpaceX gets discussed). But, nonetheless….
Link: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1873473857337856157
People here know I’m an enthusiast for everything SpaceX does, and intensely bullish on their future. But given all the boxes that have to be checked to make a crewed flyby of Mars possible, I think this is another case of an Elon stretch goal to drive his teams more intensely, with the usual SpaceX motto being the real likely outcome: “At SpaceX we specialize at converting the impossible to late.” They’ll get there, but it’s gonna take a little longer. And that’ll still be a gazillion years fewer and a gazillion dollars fewer than it would take NASA itself to ever do it.
But it’s welcome to hear that he feels so confident about licking the heat shield issue soon.