February 3, 2023 Quick space links
Except for the first, all are courtesy of Jay, BtB’s stringer, who trolls Twitter so I don’t have to.
- Quub Emerges from Stealth Mode, Announces Two Air Force Contracts
Quub is the smallsat company created by long time BtB reader Joe Latrell, whose satellite work I featured previously here. The article at the link includes a detailed interview of Latrell.
- OneWeb gets $50 million deal with Canadian internet company Galaxy Broadband
This is how OneWeb will compete with Starlink. While Starlink sells its service directly to rural customers, OneWeb can sell its service to the internet providers that already exist on the ground, allowing them to expand and improve their business in those rural areas.
- The route China’s spy balloon took to get to the U.S.
This balloon suggests China is significantly ahead of the U.S. in developing this high altitude balloon technology.
- Russian engineers and designers to meet to assess the technical future of ISS
The assessment will apparently be entirely engineering in nature, and will tell the Putin government whether these engineers think ISS will be safe to occupy until 2028, or require leaving sooner. Regardless of what they determine, it is very unlikely Russia can launch its own replacement by 2028.
- Where do rockets launch from?
The global map at the link provides an excellent overview of present and future spaceports worldwide
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 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
Except for the first, all are courtesy of Jay, BtB’s stringer, who trolls Twitter so I don’t have to.
- Quub Emerges from Stealth Mode, Announces Two Air Force Contracts
Quub is the smallsat company created by long time BtB reader Joe Latrell, whose satellite work I featured previously here. The article at the link includes a detailed interview of Latrell.
- OneWeb gets $50 million deal with Canadian internet company Galaxy Broadband
This is how OneWeb will compete with Starlink. While Starlink sells its service directly to rural customers, OneWeb can sell its service to the internet providers that already exist on the ground, allowing them to expand and improve their business in those rural areas.
- The route China’s spy balloon took to get to the U.S.
This balloon suggests China is significantly ahead of the U.S. in developing this high altitude balloon technology.
- Russian engineers and designers to meet to assess the technical future of ISS
The assessment will apparently be entirely engineering in nature, and will tell the Putin government whether these engineers think ISS will be safe to occupy until 2028, or require leaving sooner. Regardless of what they determine, it is very unlikely Russia can launch its own replacement by 2028.
- Where do rockets launch from?
The global map at the link provides an excellent overview of present and future spaceports worldwide
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 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
Have we forgotten project LOON? They were able to maneuver their balloons quite easily (although slowly) at 60k feet by using freely available NOAA wind speed and direction data. Over a week’s time they maneuvered one from Washington state to Porto Rico after a hurricane and provided a communications link until ground systems came back on line. I think NOAA should put their data behind a pay wall and make China pay for it. What do you think?
I’d rather share it with China than lock the data up so that top men from the government control who gets access. Everybody knows the government is always forthcoming when it comes to what it knows!
Besides, it sounds like an example of locking the barn door after the horse escaped, but maybe those winds are more variable than I think.
It’s kind of a one-off, because now that we remember (Thanks! Jerry Greenwood) that this can be done, we will be on the lookout. One does wonder how the balloon got to Montana before anyone got curious. A great propaga . . . PR coup for the Peoples Republic. Want to impress the locals? “We defeated the US with a balloon! Hah, hah!”
Does this make sense to y’all. Looks legit, but I’m not knowledgable enough to discern.
https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1622014043950305280?s=20&t=4ZOln2B61txE1yQGxpA_nQ
Gary, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe (who I trust more than most) was on Maria Bartiromo yesterday and he thinks that it was a spy and surveillance operation by China and it was successful.
I’m suspicious, especially with the lack of info and nonsense our government is saying and doing about the balloon. In situations like this I always look at what the godless Chicom commies and our government are doing as a distraction to have us looking at their right hand while missing what they’re doing with their left hand.
Read Red State’s write-up about NORAD. I guess that was how Covid really spread. Match previous trajectories with the spread of Corona-also from the Northwest. But Bloomberg tried to say it was from a N25TH type Thunderhead Balloon from Aerostar…HBAL617 was it? Bankers want a strong China and a weak America…just like Bloomy wants to kill America’s SLS…using libertarian shills to do it.
More on the Chinese balloon.
On his show last night Tucker Carlson talked about the Chinese balloon. In this 9 minute video he discusses and gives examples where the lies of the government and mainstream media are unbelievable to the point they contradict themselves.
He concludes at 08:30 “So what is the real story here? Honestly we don’t know. The Pentagon ignored our many questions. Of course they did because they’re not going to transcribe them. So once again the people who owe you the truth are lying to you. So all we know tonight with certainty is that the Chinese military just flew an aircraft which reportedly contained explosives over the entire length of the United States and got away with it. That seems like a bad precedent.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSwV7li-duQ&t=1s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea-based_X-band_Radar
This thing is based in Alaska. It picks up a baseball 100 miles away. And it missed a balloon payload the size of a bus?
A few years ago the US came up with a LiDar system that measures wind speed in a 2 km radius for use on aircraft and for guiding weather balloons.
I know it has been tested several times for balloons in the US. Bu my Googla fu is week today.
China just stole the tech and used it to fly this balloon everyplace they want.
MXenes can absorb RF IIRC. China, our military and Greens and doctors want to thin our numbers.
Congrats, Joe. Wish Quub much success and hopefully we’ll hear about it at BtB occasionally, perhaps with some nice background info.