May 20, 2024 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.
- Georgia governor signs law dissolving Camden spaceport plan
The spaceport had been dead due to a voter referendum, but this seals the deal.
- PLD team working with French Space Agency in French Guiana, planning future launches
The Spanish company plans to launch its orbital Miura-5 rocket from there. France, which owns and now runs the spaceport, apparently wants to open it to other independent European companies.
- Another instrument installed on Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander
The launch is presently targeting a launch this year.
- China’s Long March 2D launch today tested grid fins on first stage
This apparently was the third such test, aimed at simply narrowing the crash sites for these stages, not recovering the stages.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to 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.
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 five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
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.
- Georgia governor signs law dissolving Camden spaceport plan
The spaceport had been dead due to a voter referendum, but this seals the deal.
- PLD team working with French Space Agency in French Guiana, planning future launches
The Spanish company plans to launch its orbital Miura-5 rocket from there. France, which owns and now runs the spaceport, apparently wants to open it to other independent European companies.
- Another instrument installed on Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander
The launch is presently targeting a launch this year.
- China’s Long March 2D launch today tested grid fins on first stage
This apparently was the third such test, aimed at simply narrowing the crash sites for these stages, not recovering the stages.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to 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.
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 five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
As long as this is an open thread for space-related topics, I urge everyone to check out Tory Bruno’s Twitter feed. He has photos of stacks of Atlas V first stages, Centaur III upper stages (for Atlas V), and Centaur V upper stages (for Vulcan). In addition, he has a photo of both BE-4s integrated on the next Vulcan (for the Cert-2 mission) and has stated that the first engine for the next Vulcan (for USSF-106) has been installed and the second engine has passed ATP and is being boxed up for shipment.
It sounds like they really are just waiting for payloads right now.
mkent: As much as I have criticized Blue Origin over the past five years, I am increasingly encouraged by the positive change that seems to have come over the company since Bob Smith left last fall. I truly hope it is able to deliver on the 100+ engines that both ULA and itself need in the next few years.
Re: LM 2D grid fins. China, being a socialist state, does not need to save money on launches. Nor do they need to provide a lower price to their customers, because they have no customers. Socialism does not lend itself to advancing technology, unless they can steal from a nearby capitalist state as the Soviet Union did for many years.
What will it take to launch the 3,236 satellites required for the Kuiper project? Can Blue Origin launch all of them on their own in the time frame per the licensing?
To David Cook,
It was precisely the backwardness of Soviet atomics and electronics that allowed the (then) mammoth R-7 to begin the space race in earnest.
They had no fear of size and didn’t have profit-seeking Boeing suits slowing them down.
It must also be allowed that early Soviets were Cosmists/futurists…wishing to expand the noosphere, unlike today’s Greens who want us all in caves.
Libertarian theology is self contradictory in teaching fear of an all pervasive government that is also supposed to be incompetent
DJ: If you do a search on this website for “Kuiper” “ULA” you will find that Amazon has launch contracts with ULA, Blue Origin, and Arianespace. It also signed a deal for I think two launches with SpaceX, just to discount a shareholder lawsuit for not doing so.