November 15, 2022 Quick space links
Note that I have embedded NASA’s live stream of the SLS countdown to a 1:04 am (Eastern) launch tonight here:
Watching the first SLS launch tonight
As I also noted before, I advise waiting until after midnight before watching. Before that everything will be either NASA blather or watching paint dry.
The following quick links are courtesy of Jay, BtB’s stringer.
- Sierra Space touts a ’23 inaugaral launch of Dream Chaser
The picture of Tenacity, the first Dream Chaser cargo spacecraft, is certainly encouraging.
- Europe to begin drop tests in ’23 of small scale prototypes of its own reusable unmanned mini-shuttle, dubbed Space Rider
This spacecraft is comparable in concept to Dream Chaser. It takes off on a rocket and lands on a runway. Its development however is far behind, with the first orbital flight not until the end of ’24, but probably much later. It is also intended for two month orbital missions only, not as a freighter for anyone’s space station.
- Space Perspective buys ship to use as an ocean launch platform for its high altitude balloons
The company claims the ship will give them greater flexibility on where and when to launch their stratospheric balloon flights.
- Today is the anniversary of the only flight of Buran, the Soviet Union’s version of a space shuttle
It completed only two orbits, landed safely, and never flew again. There is a short video at the link showing the liftoff.
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.
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3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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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.
Note that I have embedded NASA’s live stream of the SLS countdown to a 1:04 am (Eastern) launch tonight here:
Watching the first SLS launch tonight
As I also noted before, I advise waiting until after midnight before watching. Before that everything will be either NASA blather or watching paint dry.
The following quick links are courtesy of Jay, BtB’s stringer.
- Sierra Space touts a ’23 inaugaral launch of Dream Chaser
The picture of Tenacity, the first Dream Chaser cargo spacecraft, is certainly encouraging.
- Europe to begin drop tests in ’23 of small scale prototypes of its own reusable unmanned mini-shuttle, dubbed Space Rider
This spacecraft is comparable in concept to Dream Chaser. It takes off on a rocket and lands on a runway. Its development however is far behind, with the first orbital flight not until the end of ’24, but probably much later. It is also intended for two month orbital missions only, not as a freighter for anyone’s space station.
- Space Perspective buys ship to use as an ocean launch platform for its high altitude balloons
The company claims the ship will give them greater flexibility on where and when to launch their stratospheric balloon flights.
- Today is the anniversary of the only flight of Buran, the Soviet Union’s version of a space shuttle
It completed only two orbits, landed safely, and never flew again. There is a short video at the link showing the liftoff.
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.
Ref. Buran: “It completed only two orbits, landed safely, and never flew again.”
And ignominiously destroyed in 2002 when the hanger collapsed on it. I wanted to see Buran succeed, and give Shuttle a run, improving both.
Re Buran:
“It went up; it came down. But it had absolutely no scientific value.”
(Roald Sagdeyev, outgoing director of the Space Research Institute in Moscow, summing up the recent first flight of the Soviet space shuttle; quoted in Science, 23 Dec 1988, Vol. 242, p. 1639)
“It went up; it came down. But it had absolutely no scientific value.”
Wasn’t designed for scientific value. Engineering value, though, was not inconsequential.