February 7, 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.
- BE-4 engine rolled out for installation on ULA’s next Vulcan rocket
Jay writes, “Rumor is that there are only five BE4 engines built after the last two were used.” If so, there will be serious shortage once ULA starts launching Vulcans at the rate it plans, twice a month.
- Webb detects two exoplanets orbiting two different white dwarfs
Neither detection is as yet confirmed.
- Russian proposal to fly a “Kosmoplan space plane (a kind of BOR-4/Fat Spiral) for the future Russian space station”
This is essentially their version of Dream Chaser. It is also nothing more than a powerpoint presentation. Based on past Russian performance, the odds of it getting built are slim to none.
- Japanese lunar lander company Ispace unveils its micro-rover
It is named Resilience, and will fly on their second lunar landing mission, Hakuto-R2.
- Six years ago today the Falcon Heavy launched successfully
My 2018 post on that launch can be read here.
- Today in 1984 astronaut Bruce McCandless performed the first untethered spacewalk using a jetpack
While neat, NASA found the jetpack impractical and abandoned it. It was simpler to do ordinary tethered spacewalks then deal with the jetpack’s added weight and complexity
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 the past two weeks has the 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 refuses 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.
- BE-4 engine rolled out for installation on ULA’s next Vulcan rocket
Jay writes, “Rumor is that there are only five BE4 engines built after the last two were used.” If so, there will be serious shortage once ULA starts launching Vulcans at the rate it plans, twice a month.
- Webb detects two exoplanets orbiting two different white dwarfs
Neither detection is as yet confirmed.
- Russian proposal to fly a “Kosmoplan space plane (a kind of BOR-4/Fat Spiral) for the future Russian space station”
This is essentially their version of Dream Chaser. It is also nothing more than a powerpoint presentation. Based on past Russian performance, the odds of it getting built are slim to none.
- Japanese lunar lander company Ispace unveils its micro-rover
It is named Resilience, and will fly on their second lunar landing mission, Hakuto-R2.
- Six years ago today the Falcon Heavy launched successfully
My 2018 post on that launch can be read here.
- Today in 1984 astronaut Bruce McCandless performed the first untethered spacewalk using a jetpack
While neat, NASA found the jetpack impractical and abandoned it. It was simpler to do ordinary tethered spacewalks then deal with the jetpack’s added weight and complexity
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 the past two weeks has the 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 refuses 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.
The Russians couldn’t even get Kliper built—snd that long before current sanctions.