March 21, 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.
- NASA’s SPHEREx space telescope ejects its dust cover
The telescope will compile a spectroscopic sky survey over its two-year prime mission.
- European Space Agency (ESA) releases a report outlining its overall strategy through 2040
Contains lots of typical bureaucratic blather. It actually means little, as the real strategies are presently being established by the individual European nations independent of this central bureaucracy. Rather than depend on ESA, the member nations are one-by-one encouraging private enterprise, not government projects. ESA is likely going to become a backwater in the next decade, and unnecessary after that.
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.
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Behind The Black
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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.
- NASA’s SPHEREx space telescope ejects its dust cover
The telescope will compile a spectroscopic sky survey over its two-year prime mission.
- European Space Agency (ESA) releases a report outlining its overall strategy through 2040
Contains lots of typical bureaucratic blather. It actually means little, as the real strategies are presently being established by the individual European nations independent of this central bureaucracy. Rather than depend on ESA, the member nations are one-by-one encouraging private enterprise, not government projects. ESA is likely going to become a backwater in the next decade, and unnecessary after that.
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.
“NASA’s Plutonium Problem”
Real Engineering (March 22, 2025)
https://youtu.be/geIhl_VE0IA
21:22
Hey Robert Zimmerman, you might want to look at this.
America needs an ‘all of the above’ space strategy
https://www.wnd.com/2025/03/america-needs-an-all-of-the-above-space-strategy/
Hi Wayne,
Just so you know, I am not yelling at you for that link. I did watch it, and I think the guy who made it is misinformed or it is clickbait. Some items are right and some are wrong. We have been producing Pu-238 in greater quantities since 2012. INL (Idaho National Laboratories) is cranking out close to a kilogram of the stuff a year. He talks about Oak Ridge and Los Alamos, but there are other sites as well in production here in the USA. We are making more and there is no shortage for RTGs on spacecraft. This information is not secret, all this data is available through DoE and INL publishes these numbers.
One other item he got wrong, the Dragonfly probe was not developed by JPL, it was APL at John Hopkins University. He talks about Juno, which is an old mission, and this shortage is old news that has been resolved.
@ Jay..
That video is an interesting watch non the less… I know that the US has ramped up production.. the narrator is obviously working with old data, and I didn’t even catch where Dragonfly is being developed, but as far as I could tell the physics, and the production techniques are all correct.
On a tangent, for a couple of decades now I have had an idea about leveraging the vast temperature difference between light and shade in the vacuum of space. Something along the lines of a fluid expanding in the sunlight, a one way valve, fluid contracting in the dark, and a small generator powered by the circulation. I’m pretty sure that as a fork lift driver I’m not the first to have contemplated the idea… Is there a fault in my reasoning? Or has this ever been tried?
Jay–
Great fill-in factoids.
I thought this issue had been dealt with as well.
I’m going to have to re-evaluate my opinion of these people….
Lee–
Sounds like a variation of a perpetual motion machine, but I’m just a psych major, so I just don’t know.
Hoping our engineering readers will weigh in on that!
Lee S — not a new idea, look up “Stirling engine”.
V-Man:
Thank you!
Talking about radio actives, nuclear fuel specifically.
I wish the US was allowed to re-cycle all of our old nuclear power plant fuel instead of just sticking it back underground.
And can someone answer why we could not use a closed system nuclear power plant like we do on submarines and ships on the Moon or Mars?
@V-Man,
I am aware of the Stirling engine, but have never put in the time to actually understand the device… I shall now… Thank you!
Lee-
Million videos on the Stirling engine on Youtube.
One of which informs me that; at the Maricopa Solar Power Plant (Arizona) they were using heat-engines powered by focused sunlight to generate electricity.
https://solarpaces.nrel.gov/project/maricopa-solar-project
(no longer in operation…)
interview with SpaceX engineer ( in this case, materials ). Very impressive guy.
https://youtu.be/H6FuUj1sPQA?si=RjPxDub_i-anacNH