July 20, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, helps make sure nothing gets missed.
- A reminder that today is the anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing
Just remember, Americans made it point to “come in peace for all mankind.”
- ESA touts its proposed Argonaut lunar lander, to be launched by its Ariane-6 rocket
No launch date revealed, and in fact, few hard details. This is PR. Jay has doubts it will ever launch, and I tend to agree.
- Video of the Kuaizhou-1A launch today
For some reason the tweet includes a picture of cars parked near the rocket, as if it is also a car commercial. Jay also adds this interesting drone photo of the launch, taken from above.
- NASA project to develop lunar fission power systems faces uncertain future
The politics at NASA and in Congress make funding this project difficult, if not impossible. As Jay notes, “They are gun shy politically on this subject. How many times have they started a ‘NERVA Study’ and just moved the money over to another project?”
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows 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. 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. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally 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.
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, helps make sure nothing gets missed.
- A reminder that today is the anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing
Just remember, Americans made it point to “come in peace for all mankind.”
- ESA touts its proposed Argonaut lunar lander, to be launched by its Ariane-6 rocket
No launch date revealed, and in fact, few hard details. This is PR. Jay has doubts it will ever launch, and I tend to agree.
- Video of the Kuaizhou-1A launch today
For some reason the tweet includes a picture of cars parked near the rocket, as if it is also a car commercial. Jay also adds this interesting drone photo of the launch, taken from above.
- NASA project to develop lunar fission power systems faces uncertain future
The politics at NASA and in Congress make funding this project difficult, if not impossible. As Jay notes, “They are gun shy politically on this subject. How many times have they started a ‘NERVA Study’ and just moved the money over to another project?”
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows 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. 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. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally 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.
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.
Today is the anniversary of the moon landing. The first time a human being set foot on another planet. I hope we go back soon.
On July 20th, 1969, At 10:56 p.m. EDT, American astronaut Neil Armstrong, 240,000 miles from Earth, spoke these words to more than a billion people listening at home: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” Stepping off the lunar landing module Eagle, Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon.
Fission power in space should be easy in two steps. Step 1, secure your heavy lift capability from SpaceX. Step 2, obtain a reactor from https://navalnuclearlab.energy.gov/bettis-atomic-power-laboratory/
The company that makes that SS50 long range source programable rocket with mobile launcher must also make the cars, and they’re advertising.
Love that drone photo…looks like cotton candy
From the Space News lunar fission power article:
This project has aspects that compete with each other? That does not seem like a well thought out project. So, if power on the Moon has to compete with other aspects of this supposedly sustainable program, then we have to wonder what Congress has in mind for its return to the Moon.
We can only launch SLS once a year, eventually, and without overnight power, our people can only spend a couple of weeks on the Moon. So, we are spending Apollo-, Shuttle-, and ISS-amounts of money, but we can only get a two-week visit once a year (4% occupancy)? It looks as though congress is sabotaging its own Artemis project the way it sabotaged the Apollo Applications Program, failed to fix the Space Shuttle project, and let the ISS project become so much less than we paid for (we were going to have twice the occupancy for the ISS and three times the science, but that went away to save 3% to 6% on the construction costs).
If commercial space were going to make a lunar base, I’m pretty sure that it would make sure it gets more use out of it than two weeks of the year. Otherwise, it would be a very expensive operation for the little that it returned.
When we let government be in charge of lunar missions, we only get what government wants — and maybe even not that much.
Edward,
Fortunately, the government isn’t going to be in charge of much having to do with human lunar missions for much longer. Within this decade, we should see the first U.S. private sector entity – SpaceX – achieve a completely reusable end-to-end capability to conduct human and cargo lunar missions at a vastly higher frequency – and vastly lower cost – than NASA. By around the end of the decade, we should see a second U.S. private sector entity – Blue Origin – achieve the same, albeit at a more modest, but still significant scale.
I agree with Jay and Bob that the Europeans are more likely to abandon, than proceed with, their notional Argonaut lunar lander. Still, the odds of their proceeding with it are considerably greater than that they will also proceed with design and production of an all-European human spaceflight vehicle that would also notionally launch on Ariane 6 or the also-notional Ariane Next.
But Argonaut does not appear to be reusable. I think any lunar base(s) established mainly by SpaceX and Blue Origin would not find having to deal with an accumulation of expendable landers a particularly attractive proposition. It could well be the considerably greater expense and complexity of rendering Argonaut reusable that dooms its undertaking as a project in the first place.
Dick Eagleson,
You wrote: “I think any lunar base(s) established mainly by SpaceX and Blue Origin would not find having to deal with an accumulation of expendable landers a particularly attractive proposition.”
I largely agree, but I think that such expendable landers would quickly be cannibalized for parts and materials for use at or inside these bases.