November 1, 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.
- Sierra Space claims it is in the final steps to getting its LIFE inflatable module approved by NASA
This module will be about the only thing in the Orbital Reef station that is moving forward aggressively.
- Interview with NASA’s deputy manager supervising SpaceX’s contract for building the manned lunar lander based on Starship
Essentially, he outlines why a fixed-price contract and letting the company run the show, makes things happen. It also appears his office is doing things right.
- NASA’s corrupt and useless safety panel scolds SpaceX for not being perfect
This panel should have been disbanded years ago, when it claimed fueling the Falcon 9 with crew on board would be more dangerous. It is all politics, and it actually knows very little about modern rocketry.
- ULA’s Vulcan rocket wins 2024 Dr. Wernher von Braun spaceflight Trophy Award
This is essentially a participation award for a big contractor in the Huntsville area.
- Chinese pseudo-company claims it will build a rocket which will land using its own chopstick tower, and do it by ’26 at the latest
All they have right now is a short video animation essentially redrawing the actual Superheavy landing SpaceX did last month, plus about $14 million in funding.
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.
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.
- Sierra Space claims it is in the final steps to getting its LIFE inflatable module approved by NASA
This module will be about the only thing in the Orbital Reef station that is moving forward aggressively.
- Interview with NASA’s deputy manager supervising SpaceX’s contract for building the manned lunar lander based on Starship
Essentially, he outlines why a fixed-price contract and letting the company run the show, makes things happen. It also appears his office is doing things right.
- NASA’s corrupt and useless safety panel scolds SpaceX for not being perfect
This panel should have been disbanded years ago, when it claimed fueling the Falcon 9 with crew on board would be more dangerous. It is all politics, and it actually knows very little about modern rocketry.
- ULA’s Vulcan rocket wins 2024 Dr. Wernher von Braun spaceflight Trophy Award
This is essentially a participation award for a big contractor in the Huntsville area.
- Chinese pseudo-company claims it will build a rocket which will land using its own chopstick tower, and do it by ’26 at the latest
All they have right now is a short video animation essentially redrawing the actual Superheavy landing SpaceX did last month, plus about $14 million in funding.
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.
“P’Nut the Squirrel’s grieving owner says he was treated like a ‘terrorist’ in 5-hour raid by NY state”
“The state claimed it had to euthanize both animals Friday so that they could be tested for rabies — because the squirrel sunk its teeth into the hand of an official during the disturbing raid.”
https://nypost.com/2024/11/02/us-news/caretaker-of-peanut-the-squirrelreeling-over-five-hour-raid-of-his-house/
***
“Elon Musk @elonmusk
President @realDonaldTrump will save the squirrels
RIP P’Nut”
8:44 AM · Nov 2, 2024
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1852738470017700051
***
“I have information to lead to arrest of Hillary Clinton”
– P’Nut the Squirrel
https://t.ly/MvwPn
I don’t know that ASAP is “corrupt” just because astronauts don’t want to ride something without an escape tower.
Jeff Wright,
ASAP didn’t have anything to say about escape towers. Neither Crew Dragon nor Starliner have escape towers. Escape towers, in any case, have always been problematical – they get discarded part way through the booster phase of ascent and so provide no protection for booster issues that develop past the point of discard and no protection at all for any serious issue with a 2nd stage.
Astronauts have refused to fly on certain spacecraft, but not for reasons related to a lack of escape towers. Doug Hurley, for example, refused to have anything to do with Starliner but was happy to fly the first manned mission of Crew Dragon.
James-
Thanks for bringing up the State ordered squirrel-murder.
I live in Michigan, we have a lot of squirrels. They get killed accidentally.
What we don’t do here is send out 8-man hit teams, to intentionally kill them.
What, is going on in NYC?
Man In The High Castle
Nazi-American Police
https://youtu.be/TFM2xZ7dytk
2:09
“I can’t even remember what we were fighting for…”
November 9, 1989
Jesus Jones
“Right Here, Right Now”
https://youtu.be/GYPBt4fZOUI
(3:17)
“I was alive and I waited for this.
Right here, right now.
There is no other place I want to be,
Right here, right now.
Watching the world wake up from history.”
Just an aside: Homer Hickam is recovering from cancer surgery, but he’s not letting that slow him down online!
_____
Moi in 1993 to NASA: Let’s go back to the moon. Here, I’ve finished a study on how to do it with the goal of building a permanent outpost there like our South Pole Station.
NASA: No.
Moi in 1999: Let’s go back to the moon. Here, I’ve written a popular techno-thriller about it that everyone loves. They’ll love you all the more now if you say you’re going.
NASA: No.
Moi in 2019: Let’s go back to the moon. Here, VP Pence, is why.
Pence: OK. By any means necessary by 2024. Oh, and we need to have a person of color and a woman to land, too.
Moi in 2019: Um, OK, if that’s important.
Pence: It is.
Moi in 2019 to NASA: Don’t forget. By any means necessary by 2024.
NASA: Well, OK. Here’s our plan. We will build an underpowered but very expensive rocket we are afraid even to give a name to but we’ll call the SLS and then, at the same time, build a space station we’ll call Gateway in a lunar halo orbit – never mind how hard it was just to build one in earth orbit – and once it’s built and operational and stuff, SLS will struggle up to it with an old tin can called Orion which will hang around until a giant rocket called Starship can be refueled in space and soar up to get our astros (one poc, one woman, one tbd) and deposit them tail first on the moon, let them get out for awhile, then jump back up to Gateway, get back into the tincan Orion, and scoot back to Earth. What do you think about that?
Moi in 2024: You didn’t make the deadline.
NASA: Did you really think we would?
Moi in 2024: Not after I saw your Rube Goldberg [naughty word] plan!
https://x.com/realhomerhickam/status/1853501895819854027