June 29, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Virgin Galactic completes its first commercial manned suborbital flight
My heart be still. Only two decades late, long after the big market has faded for suborbital tourism and shifted entirely to orbital flights.
- Firefly gets a launch contract from Lockheed Martin
This contract continues Lockheed Martin’s strong support for startup rocket companies, on top of its previous investments in Rocket Lab and ABL
- Europe’s Euclid cosmology space telescope ready for launch July 1, 2023 on SpaceX rocket
This is an example of a launch that SpaceX grabbed because Europe’s Ariane-6 rocket was delayed.
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Virgin Galactic completes its first commercial manned suborbital flight
My heart be still. Only two decades late, long after the big market has faded for suborbital tourism and shifted entirely to orbital flights.
- Firefly gets a launch contract from Lockheed Martin
This contract continues Lockheed Martin’s strong support for startup rocket companies, on top of its previous investments in Rocket Lab and ABL
- Europe’s Euclid cosmology space telescope ready for launch July 1, 2023 on SpaceX rocket
This is an example of a launch that SpaceX grabbed because Europe’s Ariane-6 rocket was delayed.
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
A decade late and 15km short. The X prize winner in 2004 went up to 100km.
Still the narrator in the tedious video used the term astronaut. But kudos for safety margins.
I see Twitter now forces you to sign in. Intentionally. It will really reduce the free flow of information. Intentionally.
One work around they haven’t closed yet is to simply replace twitter.com in the URL with nitter.net.
So in the Europe’s Euclid cosmology space telescope link
https://twitter.com/esa/status/1674385214963941377?cxt=HHwWgoC8seqezrwuAAAA
becomes
https://nitter.net/esa/status/1674385214963941377?cxt=HHwWgoC8seqezrwuAAAA
James Street: This decision by Twitter is unfortunate, as I am not a Twitter user and have no intention of signing up for it. I wonder if Jay will have more work arounds.
Interesting to me that one of the passengers, Italian Air Force Col. Walter Villadei, will be a passenger aboard a SpaceX Dragon flight to the ISS next year. So he will have the unique position, not seen since Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom to be a sub-orbital astronaut before he was an orbital astronaut.
Yes, you can quibble about if he is an astronaut now but 60+ years ago, he would have been an astronaut by anybodies measure.
Doubting Thomas wrote: “Yes, you can quibble about if he is an astronaut now but 60+ years ago, he would have been an astronaut by anybodies measure.”
NASA considers its astronauts to be astronauts as soon as they are hired or accepted into the program. They do not need to fly, because that is their job and it is their job title.
Theodore Freeman, Elliot See, Charles Bassett, Roger Chaffee, Clifton C. Williams, Robert Lawrence are NASA astronauts who died before they could fly into space. They are still astronauts.
Some of the crew of STS-51-L were on their first flight, which broke up at 15 km altitude, far below the Karman line and far below the 50-mile line considered to be space by the Americans. Who here would consider any of them to not be astronauts?
Cosmonauts Valentin Bondarenko and Sergei Vozovikov died before they could fly, and I’m sure the Soviets and Russians still consider them to be cosmonauts.
How about all the people around the world who have been selected to be their own nation’s astronauts, yet have not flown? Are they now or are they not astronauts by virtue of their jobs?
I don’t have a list of flights for Michael Alsbury, who died during a SpaceShipTwo test flight, but does anyone here consider him to not be an astronaut, whether or not he was on a flight that went into space?
So I don’t quibble about whether he is an astronaut. He is. So are his fellow astronauts aboard the SpaceShipTwo flight.
I am aware that NASA calls “the people who fly” by two terms. Candidate Astronauts for those in the 1 year training pipeline. Astronauts for those who have completed the 1 year program but have not flown. They have a silver NASA emblem. Astronauts who have flown are still called astronauts but they have a gold NASA emblem for their lapels or collars.
FWIW. I generally agree with you thinking on the subject.
Elon does a photobucket scouring of Twitter…and now wants in the MMA with Zuck.’
He’s going Howard Hughes on us.