NASA awards contract for satellite refueling mission
NASA has awarded Space Systems/Loral a contract for building Restore-L, a robot refueling mission designed by the Goddard Space Flight Center team that ran the Hubble shuttle repair missions as well as the recent robotic demo repair tests on ISS.
The brains behind this mission is 80-year-old Frank Cepollina, who headed those Hubble shuttle missions and has been pushing for satellite repair since the 1980s. He is still going strong. As he said to me during one of my interviews for several articles I have written about him, “One of the things that’s driven me is this concept of stretching your capital assets for as long as you can to get every dollar of return you can possible get from it. The American taxpayers have paid for those assets. We should use them.”
If only we had more such Americans working in the federal government.
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.
NASA has awarded Space Systems/Loral a contract for building Restore-L, a robot refueling mission designed by the Goddard Space Flight Center team that ran the Hubble shuttle repair missions as well as the recent robotic demo repair tests on ISS.
The brains behind this mission is 80-year-old Frank Cepollina, who headed those Hubble shuttle missions and has been pushing for satellite repair since the 1980s. He is still going strong. As he said to me during one of my interviews for several articles I have written about him, “One of the things that’s driven me is this concept of stretching your capital assets for as long as you can to get every dollar of return you can possible get from it. The American taxpayers have paid for those assets. We should use them.”
If only we had more such Americans working in the federal government.
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.
Thanks Mr. Z!
>I LIKE this guy!
>>very nice backgrounder:
Frank Cepollina “Maniac Lecture,”
August 28, 2015
https://youtu.be/5xFdKSZNLYE
“Frank Cepollina, 2003 National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee, presented a “Maniac” lecture entitled “Servicing and NASA.” Frank gave a rundown of his career in servicing spacecraft going back to 1970 and talked about the future of servicing and scientific missions working together in the future
I’d be totally remiss, if I didn’t go slightly tangential & strongly shill for this nice video presentation:
“The Hubble Space Telescope and the Visionaries Who Built It”
Robert Zimmerman WGBH Forum
https://youtu.be/5mNJAf83YTs
(1:24:20)
Wayne: This was the first time I gave this talk on Hubble, and to my mind I did a poor job. The talk was too long, and not as focused as it should be.
Mr. Z–
Everything needs an initial test-run.
:)
I consume a lot of this type of material, and it’s not “bad,” at all!
Your C-Span BookTV segment, for the Apollo-8 book, was when I first put a name to a face.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?116703-1/genesis-story-apollo-8
(come on folks– there’s only “83 views” on C-span for this gem. Let’s drive that up to 200 before the end of the day!)
Totally tangential– are you aware you have an Internet Movie Data-Base page entry? (I swear, I have seen some of those movies before!)
> It links to a website/address, that doesn’t exist anymore. Correct that, and Google will catch it on their next re-indexing & web-crawl. Could net you some more traffic.
(Google & Bing, btw, confuse you with Bob Dylan & George Zimmerman.)
IMDB page is here:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0956780/
(it links to a Bell Atlantic URL)
Wayne: The IMDB page entry was something Diane edited about a decade ago. We haven’t looked at it since. I should update it. Or you could, I think. In fact, if you can, it is better to have someone else do it.
You have my deepest sympathies if you have seen some of the movies I worked on.
HA!
>As long as you’re not responsible for “Plan 9 from Outer Space!”
Yes, the IMDB page is crowd-editable. I’ll see what I can do…but, if someone more knowledgeable, could take on that task, I would appreciate it.
Still working on getting you assigned as the “Roving Science Correspondent,” for Crowder.
[I think I found a promising in, “friend-of-a-friend-of-a-guy” type-thing, but it’s all about getting the information in front of a decision-maker.]
I digress terribly….
Psycho Charger
“Grave Robbers from Outer Space”
https://youtu.be/q56vPty96-Y
(3:38)
(The genre is called “Psychobilly Punk,” it’s an acquired taste.)