May 10, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Rocket Lab is selling the helicopter it had planned to use to catch Electron 1st stages
Their decision to reuse the stages after quickly pulling them from the water made the helicopter extraneous.
- China claims completion of an in-orbit experiment on liquid metal thermal management on its space station
I honestly don’t know what this means. Have they used some form of liquid metal to manage the station’s temperature? Or have they figured out a way to control and manage liquid metals in weightlessness?
- Several solar storms are expected to hit Earth in the next few days
I make two predictions: 1) Nothing of significance will happen, though we will have great auroras. 2) Some news outlets will write a story with some variation of this headline: “Were we lucky to dodge a solar disaster this time?”
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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.
- Rocket Lab is selling the helicopter it had planned to use to catch Electron 1st stages
Their decision to reuse the stages after quickly pulling them from the water made the helicopter extraneous.
- China claims completion of an in-orbit experiment on liquid metal thermal management on its space station
I honestly don’t know what this means. Have they used some form of liquid metal to manage the station’s temperature? Or have they figured out a way to control and manage liquid metals in weightlessness?
- Several solar storms are expected to hit Earth in the next few days
I make two predictions: 1) Nothing of significance will happen, though we will have great auroras. 2) Some news outlets will write a story with some variation of this headline: “Were we lucky to dodge a solar disaster this time?”
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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.
Maybe the Chinese are laying the groundwork for Thorium reactors in space, that would be a huge leap for power and propulsion.
The news of the century?
Experimental realization of negative mass.
“Hybrid exciton-polariton particles surprise with negative mass:”
https://phys.org/news/2023-05-hybrid-excitonpolariton-particles-negative-mass.html. by FLEET.
The Age of Dispersion Engineering begins.
Are increasing solar storms caused by SUVs
Another possibility is that the Chinese are considering mercury as propellant.
This is not a good idea in Earth orbit but once outside the planetary well, it should be fine.
David Ross,
I wondered that too if it was Mercury, or using the heat for molten sodium, or gallium. I do not know if this is for a reactor or just looking for a way to replace a radiator on station.