March 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.
- Starlab’s space station design passes its preliminary design review in collaboration with NASA
The company says it is now starting full development, but the list of things it plans to do in the next year look more like prep work at relatively low cost while it waits to see if it will win the big contract from NASA.
- Astronomers use Webb to detect features of free-floating object 20 light years away that could be super-Jupiter exoplanet or a brown dwarf
The uncertainty of science.
- On this day in 1959 Pioneer 4 launched attempting (and failing) to do a close fly-by of the Moon
It was however the first American spacecraft to achieve solar orbit. It also provided more detail on the Van Allen radiation belts that circle the Earth.
Readers!
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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.
- Starlab’s space station design passes its preliminary design review in collaboration with NASA
The company says it is now starting full development, but the list of things it plans to do in the next year look more like prep work at relatively low cost while it waits to see if it will win the big contract from NASA.
- Astronomers use Webb to detect features of free-floating object 20 light years away that could be super-Jupiter exoplanet or a brown dwarf
The uncertainty of science.
- On this day in 1959 Pioneer 4 launched attempting (and failing) to do a close fly-by of the Moon
It was however the first American spacecraft to achieve solar orbit. It also provided more detail on the Van Allen radiation belts that circle the Earth.
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.
“Time And Space” (1959)
JPL/NASA
The Story of Pioneer 4
https://youtu.be/oo3i50jmkcY
27:17
Yeah, it does kinda read that way.
Disappointing given how hard they have been working to build up European relationships and interest in the station. But I guess they think they still need a NASA contract to close the business case.
Whatever Isaacman does, I think Commercial LEO Destrinations is something that he needs to get sorted out, quickly. They can’t wait until next year on this. But the station developers need to be looking harder at lining up as much non-NASA business as possible in the meanwhile.
“The company says it is now starting full development, but the list of things it plans to do in the next year look more like prep work at relatively low cost …”
The purpose of a preliminary design review (PDR) is to confirm that the basic design meets requirements while likely staying on budget and on schedule. After the PDR, detailed design begins in earnest. The majority of the manufacturing comes after the critical design review, which confirms the design remains sound and the manufacturing, integration, and test will likely stay on budget and on schedule.
This confirms to me that Starlab space station is not moving very fast, but if they are being methodical and can remain adequately funded, they should be able to launch their space station, and if they can find enough business after the other space stations have taken the early customers, then they should do well. I hope I didn’t add too many “ifs” in that last sentence. Being first is not necessarily the most important, but making it right definitely is important.
“… while it waits to see if it will win the big contract from NASA.”
Oh, geez. Does this mean that Starlab, and maybe the other space stations, could or would stop work if they are not recipients of NASA’s next level of contract? I’m not as worried about Vast, because they are in business solely for their space stations, but Sierra Space, Blue Origin, and Boeing have their other spacecraft businesses to keep them going, so Orbital Reef has that risk.
Lockheed Martin, Airbus, Northrop Grumman, and Mitsubishi (Voyager Space’s (nee Nanoracks) partners on Starlab) likewise have plenty of other business, although Voyager Space could be in deep trouble if their partners abandon them for losing the next NASA contract.
Axiom also does not seem to have a large business plan without their space station, so they may be committed with or without the next NASA contract to help fund them. I suppose they could continue to be the company that interacts between the space stations and the customers, as it does for NASA and ISS, but that is not another space station but is merely the same work they perform now.
___________________
Richard M,
I think you are right. The space station developers need to line up as much business commitments as possible. With or without NASA, they are going to need it.
I worry that there will not be sufficient commercial manned transportation to the space stations. If there are only five manned Dragons, then there is limited availability to the space stations. If Starliner comes online for commercial use (seeming unlikely, at this point — NASA really screwed them hard, last year), then there could be enough. I certainly hope that a manned Dream Chaser is developed in time to cover the gaps for the three remaining Commercial Low-Earth-Orbit Destinations (CLD) stations and Vast’s non-CLD station. Europe may develop its own manned spacecraft, and that could help. Would India use its own GaganYaan manned spacecraft (unmanned test flight later this year) for these American space station destinations? If Russia does not successfully host its own space station (the plan is to use its part of ISS as an independent station), then perhaps its Soyuz spacecraft will be available for a couple of “commercial” missions each year.
A manned Starship could do a similar job, flying to orbit to act as a platform to do the same work as a space station, but it would not be a real space station and may not do well in contributing to NASA’s desire to continue a constant manned presence in space, once ISS is retired. Starship could also take people to these space stations, but its mass would be relatively stressful on the stations.
NASA has not done well in preparing for any of their next phases of manned spaceflight. They thought they had the post-lunar-landings Apollo Applications Program, which was the only time they had a well thought out next phase, but Congress and President Nixon did not agree that space was a productive destination. Too bad that commercial space companies had been discouraged, because they could have proved the government wrong, as they are doing these days. There is a demand for commercial manned space exploration, but NASA did a poor job of preparing for it.
No, even Vast needs a big NASA contract if they are going to build Haven-2. Max Haot said as much not long ago. “If we want to create this amazing future, we need to exist. To exist, we need to be profitable. So, to be profitable, we believe we need NASA as an anchor customer.”
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2025/02/vast-interview-2025/
Now, the Haven-1 station, they are paying for that out of pocket, and I gather they have some customers paid up for short stays on it. That’s their application, if you will, for the NASA competition. So they are covered on Haven-1. But Haven-2 will cost a lot more money.
The story of Apollo Applications is an interesting one, and even now, I am not sure it has been told well or in depth — at least, not in one place.
David Portree has taken the position that Apollo Applications was effectively killed well before Nixon ever took office. He argues (with some good evidence) that what actually killed Apollo Applications was the Apollo 1 fire. “After the fire, NASA came under close scrutiny and was found wanting. Congress could not “punish” the agency by cutting the Apollo Program budget – to do so would have endangered achievement of President Kennedy’s geopolitical goal of a man on the moon by 1970, the goal for which the AS-204 astronauts had given their lives – but it could express its displeasure by cutting programs meant to give NASA a post-Apollo future. The agency’s FY 1968 appropriation was slashed to $4.59 billion, with AAP receiving only $122 million.”
LBJ had requested $455 million for Apollo Applications. This gutting effectively stopped almost all Apollo Applications planning in 1967. In the end, of course, NASA was able to salvage the Skylab program out of its ruins, but that was only a shell of what it was supposed to be.
https://www.wired.com/2012/08/before-the-fire/