December 7, 2023 Quick space linksCourtesy 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.
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.
- 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.
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
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).