December 4, 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.
- Telesat and MDA Space complete the preliminary design review of satellite for Telesat’s Lightspeed constellation
MDA has a contract to build 198.
- PSLV launch today delayed one day due to issue with payload
The payload is a European solar observation satellite. Engineers detected an issue with the propulsion system on the chronograph.
- China touts the launch capacity of its two new launchpads at its coastal Wenchang spaceport
According to the report, both combined can launch 32 times per year.
- Op-ed advocating greater independence from Air Force for Space Force
As always, government agencies grow beyond their original purpose.
- On this day in 1973 Pioneer 10 became the first spacecraft to fly past Jupiter
Why the tweet uses an artist’s rendition when actual images exist baffles me.
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.
- Telesat and MDA Space complete the preliminary design review of satellite for Telesat’s Lightspeed constellation
MDA has a contract to build 198.
- PSLV launch today delayed one day due to issue with payload
The payload is a European solar observation satellite. Engineers detected an issue with the propulsion system on the chronograph.
- China touts the launch capacity of its two new launchpads at its coastal Wenchang spaceport
According to the report, both combined can launch 32 times per year.
- Op-ed advocating greater independence from Air Force for Space Force
As always, government agencies grow beyond their original purpose.
- On this day in 1973 Pioneer 10 became the first spacecraft to fly past Jupiter
Why the tweet uses an artist’s rendition when actual images exist baffles me.
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
Space Force does indeed need out from under the thumbs of the USAF and the USN–both are pilots unions who made sure space advocates ranked below the janitor at the Pentagon.
Dwayne Day’s writings show that.
The USN is only partly a pilots union – the submariners are at least as powerful as the pilots – but it has no major influence where Space Force is concerned.
But Space Force certainly does need to get out from under USAF. And it needs, above all else, to become a fighting service branch instead of just a bunch of phone operators (satcom) and multi-spectral voyeurs (elint, sigint and surveillance). USSF needs to gin up a megaconstellation of VLEO anti-missile satellites and other space-based non-nuclear weaponry that can keep our remaining consequential nation-state opponents in check until they expire of natural causes. Fortunately, that seems, at long last, to be on Pres. Trump’s to-do list. And it fits very well into DecDef-designate Pete Hegseth’s mantra of “lethality, lethality, lethality.”
“As always, government agencies grow beyond their original purpose.”
On November 19th the Seattle area had a windstorm the experts dramatically called a “bomb cyclone”. Afterwards all kinds of trees were down and 3/4 million people were without power, some for a week.
After seeing the government’s response to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina it was interesting to watch the total absence of the government here in Seattle. The trees were removed and power restored by crews hired by the power company. The governor and mayors were not on the news giving updates. Police were completely MIA, I didn’t see a single one. No cones or saw horses with flashing lights were put up in all the intersections the stop lights were dead. Driver’s actually handled it well taking turns doing 4-way-stops at all the intersections.
It left me with the idea that after Trump’s election the government at all levels will no longer do their job out of spite. I think simply reorganizing government agencies and firing a few bad apples is no longer an option. There has to be massive down sizings.
A funny headline in the aftermath:
“Seattle EV Drivers Panic for Charging Stations After Bomb Cyclone”
https://americafirstreport.com/seattle-ev-drivers-panic-for-charging-stations-after-bomb-cyclone/
James Street: If major downsizing does not occur during this Trump administration, then America as a free nation is doomed. This is the last chance to clean house, and if Trump and his appointees merely rearrange deck chairs, then no further chance will come again.
Read today’s Business Insider about F-35, we both might have been wrong on that one–but Mr. Eagleson is right overall.
I’m torn–I understand the F-35 served Israel well –but a space strike capability ignores the farther distance to Iran.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Cuts have to be done in some areas–but spaceflight in America has ALWAYS been underfunded.
China isn’t making that mistake.
Fawlty Towers
“Don’t Mention the War…”
https://youtu.be/7xnNhzgcWTk
4:23
As of 19 June 2024, there were more than 10,000 active satellites; the first time that has happened. Interesting to note that 2/3rds belong to Starlink.
https://spacewatch.global/2024/06/look-up-space-reports-more-than-10000-active-satellites-in-orbit/