June 4, 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.
- New paper speculates alternative to the Big Bang
Fun stuff only a tiny bit different than fantasy. The author does however provide a nice summary of some of the basic problems with the Big Bang theory itself, problems that until recently it was generally considered inappropriate for any cosmologist to mention.
- Video of the launch and recovery of Space Epoch’s XZY-1 grasshopper rocket during its test flight May 29, 2025
As usual for these kinds of promo pieces, the video includes epic music.
- X user notes that China has not released a single picture of its Tianwen-2 asteroid probe, now on its way
Makes me wonder if the spacecraft looks too much like someone else’s (such as Osiris-Rex or Hayabusa-2), thus indicating its design was stolen, and China wants to hide this fact.
- Firefly touts the successful full duration static fire test of the Miranda engine it is developing for the first stages of both the Antares and Eclipse rockets
The video is quite impressive. This engines does appear powerful. Seven will be mounted at the base of Eclipse.
- Arsonists on trial in the UK for setting fire to a business supplying Starlink terminals to the Ukraine
The accused apparently were hired by the military Wagner Group that Russia used to pay to fight in the Ukraine.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. 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.
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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.
- New paper speculates alternative to the Big Bang
Fun stuff only a tiny bit different than fantasy. The author does however provide a nice summary of some of the basic problems with the Big Bang theory itself, problems that until recently it was generally considered inappropriate for any cosmologist to mention.
- Video of the launch and recovery of Space Epoch’s XZY-1 grasshopper rocket during its test flight May 29, 2025
As usual for these kinds of promo pieces, the video includes epic music.
- X user notes that China has not released a single picture of its Tianwen-2 asteroid probe, now on its way
Makes me wonder if the spacecraft looks too much like someone else’s (such as Osiris-Rex or Hayabusa-2), thus indicating its design was stolen, and China wants to hide this fact.
- Firefly touts the successful full duration static fire test of the Miranda engine it is developing for the first stages of both the Antares and Eclipse rockets
The video is quite impressive. This engines does appear powerful. Seven will be mounted at the base of Eclipse.
- Arsonists on trial in the UK for setting fire to a business supplying Starlink terminals to the Ukraine
The accused apparently were hired by the military Wagner Group that Russia used to pay to fight in the Ukraine.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. 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.
Either that, or, as one X user responding to that tweet suggested, “Most likely the spacecraft is based on a design used for military mission including the electrical propulsion system.”
Or, it could even be both!
The music over Space Epoch’s hop test video is epic alright. It’s Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. Hard to get more epic than that.
Firefly’s Miranda engine is quite impressive. It’s supposed to generate 230,000 lbf of thrust, about 20% more than a Merlin 1-D. It taps combustion chamber gas to drive its turbopumps. The upper exhaust plume is the one coming from the combustion chamber out of the main nozzle while the lower plume is the tapped-off gas from the combustion chamber after it has finished driving the pumps.
Dick Eagleson
In the Firefly video, why is the plume non-symmetrical wrt the ground. I assume some sort of “ground effect “ but this makes me ask why isn’t the test fixture higher ( probably would cost much more to have a heavy structure that high) or the ground removed?
I would expect the non-symmetrical output to be an issue…?
Thanks in advance for your explanation
Chris,
Speculation on my part but I suspect any asymmetry in plumes is due to acoustic “bounceback” from the incompressible ground that is not balanced from above because there is much less bounceback from the quite compressible air.