June 5, 2018 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
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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.
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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:
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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.
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.
Same episode posted twice here. I heard the other one at John Batchelor.
So they brag about “international cooperation” with the LOP-G. This is the danger with lousy space advocacy. It is unfortunately a standard argument that space flight improves international cooperation (since the Apollo-Soyuz docking). But that means that LOP-G is great even if it is nowhere doing nothing, because it delivers diplomacy! That’s the purpose of space flight, space advocates have argued, not space exploration.
Another self destructive argument is spin off effects. Right. So if we get better kitchen utensils by going to the Moon, then maybe we get to the Moon by investing in feminist studies? Feminism as a way to the Moon, space advocates say. At least that’s what their audience hear.
Diplomacy, space unrelated spin offs, high paying jobs. All threr right. What’s wrong with the LOP-G, politicians wonder after having listened to space advocates.
Localfluff: Thank you. The first podcast has been corrected.
Reusing the fairing for F9 seems long winded with parachutes, cold gas thrusters, guidance system and two special ships. I wonder if the motive, rather than saving on the costs of the current fairing, is to develop much more advanced fairings. If it is reusable one can make it more expensive to provide better protection for the valuable payload, saving costs and time for the customers. Maybe a spacecraft suspended in the fairing could be isolated from vibrations.
LOP-G is unnecessary for going back to the Moon, as Robert stated. Robert Zubrin — known for his advocacy of going to Mars in a direct and inexpensive way — has a suggestion for going directly to the Moon.
http://spacenews.com/op-ed-moon-direct-how-to-build-a-moonbase-in-four-years/
Zubrin mentions polar peaks that always receive light, “where sunlight is accessible all the time, as well as permanently shadowed craters nearby where water ice has accumulated.”
However, as J Fincannon mentioned in another post a week ago, these are hypothetical at best and likely only receive light 90% of the time. I read a similar analysis of these “areas of eternal light,” too, that they receive light most but not all of the time. This is still much better than 1/2 the time, and other than that, Zubrin’s case seems feasible — and it does not use a lunar space station as a way point.
http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/may-29-2018-zimmerman-batchelor-podcast/#comment-1053520
Perhaps in the far distant future a way point lunar space station will be useful for refueling and allowing for a lighter lunar landing shuttle along with a larger low-Earth-orbit to lunar-orbit shuttle with sleeping quarters and other amenities for the longer voyage, but for the next couple of decades we are unlikely to use a lunar way station to get to or from the Moon.
As always Zubrin goes for the most minimal doable mission to the Moon, which is great as a kind of reference for realistic missions. He wants to set up infrastructure so that astronauts can go to the Moon and back with a single F9 and Lunar refueling. But launching a second F9 would be easily motivated to improve everything.