February 15, 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.
This will be Jay’s last quick space links post until March 11th, as he is off to the Solomon Islands as part of a ham radio DX expedition. For those other hams who want to try to make contact with him during this expedition, the call sign is H40WA.
Note too that posting has been light today because of software issue that prevents me from uploading images. I hope it will be fixed momentarily.
- Intuitive Machines Odysseus lunar lander is in good shape on its way to the Moon
Arrival is now in seven days.
- Launch by India of its GSLV rocket carrying Insat satellite two days away
Launch time will be on February 17, 2023 at 4:04 am (Pacific).
- Europe’s Euclid orbiting space telescope now operational and is beginning its survey of billions of galaxies
Astronomers hope the data will help solve the mystery of both dark energy and dark matter.
- On this date in 1990, Voyager-1 looked back and took a picture of Earth as seen from the outer edge of the solar system
Environmentalists dubbed this “The pale blue dot image.”
- On this date in 1973 Pioneer 10 became the first human spacecraft to pass through the asteroid belt
It would fly past Jupiter in December 1973, and operate until 1997 on its journey outward beyond the solar system.
- On this date in 1564 Galileo Galilei was born
He invented the telescope, discovered the Galilean moons of Jupiter, and proved that Copernicus was right, the Sun is the center of the solar system.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
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.
This will be Jay’s last quick space links post until March 11th, as he is off to the Solomon Islands as part of a ham radio DX expedition. For those other hams who want to try to make contact with him during this expedition, the call sign is H40WA.
Note too that posting has been light today because of software issue that prevents me from uploading images. I hope it will be fixed momentarily.
- Intuitive Machines Odysseus lunar lander is in good shape on its way to the Moon
Arrival is now in seven days.
- Launch by India of its GSLV rocket carrying Insat satellite two days away
Launch time will be on February 17, 2023 at 4:04 am (Pacific).
- Europe’s Euclid orbiting space telescope now operational and is beginning its survey of billions of galaxies
Astronomers hope the data will help solve the mystery of both dark energy and dark matter.
- On this date in 1990, Voyager-1 looked back and took a picture of Earth as seen from the outer edge of the solar system
Environmentalists dubbed this “The pale blue dot image.”
- On this date in 1973 Pioneer 10 became the first human spacecraft to pass through the asteroid belt
It would fly past Jupiter in December 1973, and operate until 1997 on its journey outward beyond the solar system.
- On this date in 1564 Galileo Galilei was born
He invented the telescope, discovered the Galilean moons of Jupiter, and proved that Copernicus was right, the Sun is the center of the solar system.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
“He invented the telescope,”
Galileo didn’t invent the telescope, but he was the first to point one at the sky (or at least the first to record what he saw).
I remember seeing the Pale Blue Dot image when it was first released. That was such a mind-blowing change. Someday I hoped to look back at Earth that way myself. Alas, the space industry did not advance as I had hoped. Perhaps someday someone will look out at Earth from that great distance and wonder what it moust have felt like to be stuck on a mote suspended in a sunbeam.
Joe – “Alas, the space industry did not advance as I had hoped.”
You got that right.. Just this morning having a “Where’s my flying car?!” moment myself!
Anti-matter again…a new process to make make 20 grams per year?
https://www.sciencealert.com/antimatter-could-unlock-a-radical-new-future-of-interstellar-travel