December 7, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Chinese pseudo-company Orienspace readies its Gravity-1 rocket for launch
The company says it will launch this month. Though the image makes the rocket seem as big as SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, it actually more closely resembles the most powerful version India’s GSLV rocket. Makes me wonder if the design was stolen.
- Robert Zubrin op-ed says NASA should abandon its Mars sample return mission, use the money for many other missions
Zubrin is of course right. It is also the same thing I have said now for almost fifteen years, not only about Mars Sample Return but about Webb and the Roman Space Telescopes. NASA’s big flagship science projects are consistently run badly, wasting a lot money that could be far better spent.
No one in Congress ever listens to me. I wonder if they will listen to Zubrin. We can only hope.
- The ice that fills Korolev Crater on Mars
A very cool image from Europe’s Mars Express orbiter. As noted at the tweet, “This crater on Mars is 3 times the area of Greater London and its filled with ice almost 2 kilometers thick.” Korolev is located at 73 degrees north latitude, where the Martian surface appears covered by ice sheets.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either. IMPORTANT! If you donate enough to get a book, please email me separately to tell me which book you want and the address to mail it to.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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 or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
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.
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Chinese pseudo-company Orienspace readies its Gravity-1 rocket for launch
The company says it will launch this month. Though the image makes the rocket seem as big as SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, it actually more closely resembles the most powerful version India’s GSLV rocket. Makes me wonder if the design was stolen.
- Robert Zubrin op-ed says NASA should abandon its Mars sample return mission, use the money for many other missions
Zubrin is of course right. It is also the same thing I have said now for almost fifteen years, not only about Mars Sample Return but about Webb and the Roman Space Telescopes. NASA’s big flagship science projects are consistently run badly, wasting a lot money that could be far better spent.
No one in Congress ever listens to me. I wonder if they will listen to Zubrin. We can only hope.
- The ice that fills Korolev Crater on Mars
A very cool image from Europe’s Mars Express orbiter. As noted at the tweet, “This crater on Mars is 3 times the area of Greater London and its filled with ice almost 2 kilometers thick.” Korolev is located at 73 degrees north latitude, where the Martian surface appears covered by ice sheets.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either. IMPORTANT! If you donate enough to get a book, please email me separately to tell me which book you want and the address to mail it to.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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 or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
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.
Can you imagine how much commercial off the shelf (COTS) lab equipment you could get to Mars on a single one-way Starship mission? Even the robotics could be mostly COTS from an Amazon warehouse or something. And you could send serious earth moving and drilling robots.
Not the million dollar toys that break down so easily.
When everyone bashed MSFC they cheered.
Now that Pasadena pork is questioned…
“He quit preachin’ now he’s a-meddling!”
“No one in Congress ever listens to me.”
“No one ever listens to Zathras. Quite mad, they say. It is good that Zathras does not mind. He’s even grown to like it. Oh yes.”
Zathras Babylon5 ‘War Without End: Part Two’ 1996
Casey Handmer is on the same beat (as of 10 November).