November 11, 2025 Zimmerman/Space Show appearance
David Livingston has now uploaded the audio of my appearance on the Space Show earlier this week on November 11, 2025.
You can download the audio of the program here.
To watch the zoom broadcast, go here.
The most important point I made during this show was at the beginning, as described by David Livingston’s summary of the show:
During the program Bob made some predictions about the future of space exploration. Zimmerman claimed that SpaceX, rather than NASA, is currently the most effective American space program. He predicted that in two years, everyone would recognize SpaceX’s dominance. Zimmerman also suggested that NASA’s role should become less significant, with its focus shifting to supporting private space endeavors rather than leading space exploration efforts.
I was actually more blunt. I said that SpaceX is the American space program right now, and that SpaceX doesn’t need NASA or the U.S. government in any way to carry it out, as it is entirely funded from Starlink revenues. I also predicted that NASA and its Artemis program is now irrelevant, though no one yet realizes it.
I added that this is going to be one of my many predictions that everyone will claim they made, two years hence. I’m making it now. I am quite willing to bet I will be right.
Everyone should take a listen. You will find the discussion afterward most revealing.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
David Livingston has now uploaded the audio of my appearance on the Space Show earlier this week on November 11, 2025.
You can download the audio of the program here.
To watch the zoom broadcast, go here.
The most important point I made during this show was at the beginning, as described by David Livingston’s summary of the show:
During the program Bob made some predictions about the future of space exploration. Zimmerman claimed that SpaceX, rather than NASA, is currently the most effective American space program. He predicted that in two years, everyone would recognize SpaceX’s dominance. Zimmerman also suggested that NASA’s role should become less significant, with its focus shifting to supporting private space endeavors rather than leading space exploration efforts.
I was actually more blunt. I said that SpaceX is the American space program right now, and that SpaceX doesn’t need NASA or the U.S. government in any way to carry it out, as it is entirely funded from Starlink revenues. I also predicted that NASA and its Artemis program is now irrelevant, though no one yet realizes it.
I added that this is going to be one of my many predictions that everyone will claim they made, two years hence. I’m making it now. I am quite willing to bet I will be right.
Everyone should take a listen. You will find the discussion afterward most revealing.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
Great Cat-furniture!
wayne: Though she literally never moved during the entire show, that black blob on the nearer cat bed is Molly. At 13+, she prefers to sleep 23 hours a day, at a minimum.
I had to lock the kitten Jazz out of the room because she would have made herself a problem during the show. Too much energy.
Just downloaded the zoom video, will watch later.
By pure happenstance, we always had black cats. One of which was fond of sleeping in a copy-paper box-top, on top of my document scanner. She generally ignored the printer, but the fax-machine freaked her out and she was pleased when it disappeared.
Downloaded it too, hope to have time Sat & Sun morning.
SpaceX may be dominate now, but they still have a lot of ironing out with the ship. After Musk became political, we’ll be lucky if SpaceX isn’t nationalized or the space industry equivalent of debanked, cancelled, and swatted when the left has power again. They have no shame and are not afraid to wield and abuse power. SpaceX may have a revenue stream, but they can be hurt in many ways.
I think Dr. Livingston is using AI to generate the summaries now. It does a pretty good job.
That’s what it is best for…folks who can’t afford an artist.
Space Daily uses a lot of older art…which is good.
The slog between the 1990’s to the 2010s was pretty dismal. Enough to ruin magazine covers but not hyper-real either.
I look over first-time-watching/movie-reaction videos on occasion where some commenters wonder why Star Trek II looks better than Picard era films.
Seeing Carpenter’s THE THING destroy these youths is especially wonderful.
The real threat is that I don’t know what’s real anymore.
Zelig, Forest Gump was bad enough.
Someone asked, on the show, where are all the customers? Someone else said that SpaceX hadn’t dropped the price of launch much (Transporter being $6,000 per kilogram).
SpaceX brought down the price of a launch to low Earth orbit from around $10,000 per pound ($20,000 per kilogram) to around $2,000 or so per pound. The Pegasus smallsat launches were far more than that, around $50,000 or more per pound ($100,000 per kilogram).
So, which comes first, the capability (supply) or the demand? These days, the launch companies are supplying plenty of capability and the customers are showing up to fill that supply.
In the mid 1900s, the only customers in space were the Geostationary communication satellite companies, with new low Earth orbit (LEO) communication companies about to come online. The space industry said that if the price of launch to LEO dropped to around $2,000 per pound, then new customers would rush to launch into space. It did and they did!
We see it all the time with each of SpaceX’s Transporter launches, putting hoards of commercial small satellites into orbit at the rate of hundreds per year. We see it in the dozens of Rocket Lab launches. We saw it with every Virgin Orbit launch. We see it with the other small launch companies that are starting up. When the prices lowered, the business came as promised.
Larger satellites are being launched, too. Varda is putting up returnable manufacturing capsules. Boeing is working on a manned capsule and SpaceX has their own manned capsule that already has flown several non-NASA customers, most were non-government customers.
The price has dropped and the customers have come.
Vast has yet to launch its demonstration commercial space station, but they already have had national space agencies expressing interest, including Uzbekistan.
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/uzbekistan-signs-deal-to-possibly-fly-astronauts-on-vasts-haven-1-space-station/
The supply is showing up, and the demand is quickly following.
SpaceX is mentioned so much, because it is doing so many things in so many areas — including new things and impossible things — and doing them often. It is still the go-to company to launch things, so any time a new space project comes into a discussion, SpaceX is mentioned as a possible launch company. It is contemporary America’s space program for this very reason. The other companies are hard to talk about as much, because they are not expanding their businesses as fast and aren’t in the news as often. We don’t talk as much about NASA, anymore, but we have a difficult time not talking about SpaceX when we talk space.
On the other hand, Blue Origin’s New Glenn could have been discussed more, on the show, and probably would have been had it launched beforehand.
As for thinking that data centers in space are impossible: The trick to doing the impossible is to go around the impossible part. Find what cannot be done about it, and then find or innovate a different way to get the same or similar result. I know I make it sound easy, but that is how we got the Golden Gate Bridge, the Panama Canal, and Apollo 11 (and Apollo 13), among other miracles of engineering and technology.
So, which comes first, the capability (supply) or the demand?
The military asked for a new service, and Rocket Lab came up with a new rocket configuration to launch the HASTE missions.
I don’t think that overall there is now a “which came first,” but I am convinced that that reduced launch prices encouraged companies to increase the demand for those low-cost services.