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Readers!

 

My July fund-raising campaign to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black is now over. I want to thank all those who so generously donated or subscribed, especially those who have become regular supporters. I can't do this without your help. I also find it increasingly hard to express how much your support means to me. God bless you all!

 

The donations during this year's campaign were sadly less than previous years, but for this I blame myself. I am tired of begging for money, and so I put up the campaign announcement at the start of the month but had no desire to update it weekly to encourage more donations, as I have done in past years. This lack of begging likely contributed to the drop in donations.

 

No matter. I am here, and here I intend to stay. If you like what I do and have not yet donated or subscribed, please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. 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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May 1, 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.

  • Claiming budget uncertainty, NASA delays by a year deadline for relatively small astrophysics mission proposals
    There are budget uncertainties, but I have no doubt this decision is mostly aimed at ginning up opposition to any cuts at NASA at all. It’s an old NASA tactic: Threaten cuts in a broad indiscriminate manner to get Congress and the President to retreat from any cuts. Today’s specific decision tells me we really need a new hard-nosed administrator at NASA who won’t let lower management play these games. Whether Isaacman is that man however remains unknown.

Genesis cover

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

11 comments

  • Philbert Desenex

    Has anyone read anything about Starship and what must be an extensive rethink/ redesign effort?

  • Philbert Desenex: See this March report for a pessimistic update. More recent updates (which I can’t locate at the moment) say the test flight is targeting the end of this month.

  • David Eastman

    Second week of May is the current expected date for the next test. There are a lot of fixes and improvements in this one, but it’s by no means a major redesign. Part of the problem with the last flight is that they didn’t, because this is still V2 and they didn’t want to redesign ahead of the next version, which will indeed be extensively revised based on what they’re learning.

    It’s been rumored that unnamed “higher ups” were not amused that ITF 8 failed the same way 7 did, and were quite clear that 9 better not so do so.

  • Dick Eagleson

    Re-think and redesign have been, and will continue to be, everyday activities on the Starship project.

  • Ronaldus Magnus

    Static fire tests of two of its engines, both running above 100%!!!!!!!!

    I believe there are, about, oh, I don’t know, a million books, movies, and shows that stress “it is not advisable to run engines above 100%.”

    Oh, shoot. I just remembered. Sometimes they test to failure.

  • David Eastman

    Shuttle routinely ran at 108%. The orbiter came in heavier than designed, but the engines had the margin. It just meant that they needed to be worked over after every flight. Often “100%” is just the design target, and has very little to do with what the engine is actually capable of. A lot of military airplanes, they had settings for “max power”, and “max military power”, which was basically “yeah, this is fine, but you better have a reason for it, because your crew chief is going to be very mad at you when you land.”

  • Richard M

    Ain’t no sunk cost fallacies at SpaceX.

  • James Street

    The Wall Street Journal @WSJ
    “Frustrated by Boeing’s massive delays in delivering a new Air Force One, President Trump has commissioned a smaller defense contractor to ready an interim presidential plane by year’s end”
    From wsj.com
    6:33 PM · May 1, 2025
    https://x.com/WSJ/status/1918116561480466763

    More info
    “President Trump Tired of Waiting, Air Force One Revamp”
    https://100percentfedup.com/president-trump-tired-waiting-air-force-one-revamp/

  • Edward

    David Eastman wrote: “Shuttle routinely ran at 108%. The orbiter came in heavier than designed, but the engines had the margin.

    The Shuttle would run higher than “rated” thrust. NASA is big on derating its hardware, so 108% was not necessarily higher than the tested thrust. And, yes, running the engines that high did seem to create a higher maintenance cost.

  • Jeff Wright

    New book coming about for-profit spaceflight
    https://link.springer.com/book/9783031894138

    By one of the regulars at the Secret Projects Forum

    In other news—a polymer that is self healing on a large scale is proffered:

    https://phys.org/news/2025-05-polymer-quality-scale.html

  • Jeff Wright

    I am worried about Starship

    SuperHeavy static tests seem fine—perhaps having many engines so close acts as reinforcements.

    A smaller number of engines more widely spaced allows damaging harmonics?

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

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