March 27, 2025 Quick space linksCourtesy 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.
- Rocket startup Interstellar touts is rocket engine, powered by “liquid biomethane, a renewable fuel”
Jay looked up “biomethane,” and discovered it is manufactured using manure.
- China touts a toy model display showing the future for its Wencheng coastal spaceport
The model shows more than a dozen launchpads, packed close together. We shall see what the future really brings.
- ESA confirms that its very successful Gaia spacecraft has gone silent and has been shut down
Over its decade-long mission it precisely measured the distances to more than a billion objects in the Milky Way, revolutionizing astronomy most significantly.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
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. 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.
- Rocket startup Interstellar touts is rocket engine, powered by “liquid biomethane, a renewable fuel”
Jay looked up “biomethane,” and discovered it is manufactured using manure.
- China touts a toy model display showing the future for its Wencheng coastal spaceport
The model shows more than a dozen launchpads, packed close together. We shall see what the future really brings.
- ESA confirms that its very successful Gaia spacecraft has gone silent and has been shut down
Over its decade-long mission it precisely measured the distances to more than a billion objects in the Milky Way, revolutionizing astronomy most significantly.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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
That made me laugh, “Bio-Methane”, CH4 identical to regular methane from deep in the earth or from the sun. I guess manure is as good of source as any biodegradable material.
Fun fact, 95% of methane from cow feed is generated as it rots on the ground after it leaves the cow. (Not in the cow)(The cow burp’s is mostly “air” swallowed from chewing it’s cud into foam) methane from manure becomes a valuable source of carbon dioxide when tilled into the ground as fertilizer for crops.
And then the company I work for buys those crops and turns it into bio fuel, a substitute for diesel fuel, so it may feel good about itself while it reduces the food supply driving up prices. They can’t remove all the water from biofuel as a cost saving measure, just as they don’t remove all the water from alcohol when it’s added to gasoline at a 10% mixture. I haven’t checked in a while, but 100 proof alcohol means for every 20 gallons of gas, you get a gallon of alcohol and a gallon of water which is not a fuel.
I suspect that’s what’s happening with my equipment because now I’m fueling 2000 gallons a day instead of 1000 per day. The “woke” mind virus still infests corporations across the country.
If Interstellar expects plaudits from the woke greenies for their manure-powered rocket engine I fear they will be disappointed. The woke greenies want to get rid of cows too. In the future, we’re all supposed to own nothing, live in pods, eat only bugs and be happy.
That’s one reason I loved the little Sojourner rover–since it had solar panels up top–no one noticed the radioactive Warm Electronics Box within.