January 14, 2025 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.
- Leftist media makes hay because Quantas had to reschedule flights to South Africa due to potential Starship landings in Indian Ocean
The link goes to The Guardian, but Reuters picked this up as well. There is no story here, but these leftists are trying to gin it up to damage SpaceX and Musk. So what Quantas might have to reschedule a flight or two once every several months? This isn’t an unreasonable burden. In fact, I wonder why the airline didn’t simple re-route the flights to avoid the splashdown zone.
- Axiom touts its progress in 2024 and expected achievements in 2025 in building its space station
Nothing new, merely pr to convince us all is well. It could be. We shall see.
- Today in 2004 the European probe Huygens landed softly on Saturn’s moon Titan
The probe obtained some great data, but the real achievement was the landing itself. For Europe’s engineers it was a stellar accomplishment.
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. 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.
- Leftist media makes hay because Quantas had to reschedule flights to South Africa due to potential Starship landings in Indian Ocean
The link goes to The Guardian, but Reuters picked this up as well. There is no story here, but these leftists are trying to gin it up to damage SpaceX and Musk. So what Quantas might have to reschedule a flight or two once every several months? This isn’t an unreasonable burden. In fact, I wonder why the airline didn’t simple re-route the flights to avoid the splashdown zone.
- Axiom touts its progress in 2024 and expected achievements in 2025 in building its space station
Nothing new, merely pr to convince us all is well. It could be. We shall see.
- Today in 2004 the European probe Huygens landed softly on Saturn’s moon Titan
The probe obtained some great data, but the real achievement was the landing itself. For Europe’s engineers it was a stellar accomplishment.
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.
I was once asked to change altitude because the 747 with the shuttle on top was passing under us. Awesome day watching that combination of birds cruise by. Giving way for that was an honor and a privilege.
”So what Quantas might have to reschedule a flight or two once every several months?”
It’s not once every several months. It’s every single day for five inconsistent hours a day.
”I wonder why the airline didn’t simple re-route the flights to avoid the splashdown zone.”
The splashdown zone is 300 miles wide and 6,000 miles long, extending from southwest of Africa around the tip and across the Indian Ocean to just southwest of Indonesia. Avoiding it would add thousands of miles and many hours to each trip, all of it over open ocean.
”This isn’t an unreasonable burden.”
Yes it is. SpaceX has essentially drawn a line across the Indian Ocean that is illegal for ships and planes to cross. I’m surprised they haven’t gotten pushback before this.
“Yes it is. SpaceX has essentially drawn a line across the Indian Ocean that is illegal for ships and planes to cross. I’m surprised they haven’t gotten pushback before this.”
Perhaps it hasn’t because people at Quantas know this will be a *re-entry* event, in a Flight Test program that will have few or no repetitions after this flight??? The continuing flights are scheduled to be orbital.
The simple fact is that the Grauniad and its fellows on the Left will piss in Elon’s soup at any opportunity to make their subscribers in Britain happy. Their university crowd is quite as lacking in intellectual diversity as ours, and just as desirous of displacing the land-holding old rulers of Britain with degree-holders as are our university denizens. Those who devalue the university degree system as much as Musk does will always be their target.