October 16, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who also deserves a hat tip for the Hubble budget story earlier today, that I had missed.
- Russia plan to modernize Gagarin launchpad has failed; now proposed as a museum
This will be a museum few will visit, because of Russia’s strict security controls at its space facilities.
- Two of the twelve satellites launched on Europe’s Vega rocket on October 9th failed to deploy, and burned up in the atmosphere
This failure says extremly bad things about the European manufacturer, SAB Aerospace, which built it for the Italian company Avio, which had its contract with Arianespace, which is the commercial arm of the European Space Agency. It also raises more questions about the entire governmental way of doing things in Europe.
- Five days before the Gaganyaan launch abort test, an image of the capsule being assembled
If this test goes well, India will be very close to completing its full checklist necessary prior to the actual manned mission.
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
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who also deserves a hat tip for the Hubble budget story earlier today, that I had missed.
- Russia plan to modernize Gagarin launchpad has failed; now proposed as a museum
This will be a museum few will visit, because of Russia’s strict security controls at its space facilities.
- Two of the twelve satellites launched on Europe’s Vega rocket on October 9th failed to deploy, and burned up in the atmosphere
This failure says extremly bad things about the European manufacturer, SAB Aerospace, which built it for the Italian company Avio, which had its contract with Arianespace, which is the commercial arm of the European Space Agency. It also raises more questions about the entire governmental way of doing things in Europe.
- Five days before the Gaganyaan launch abort test, an image of the capsule being assembled
If this test goes well, India will be very close to completing its full checklist necessary prior to the actual manned mission.
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
The notional Gagarin museum – should it ever materialize – might become easy for most of the world to visit, but not Russians. Baikonur is located in Kazakhstan and the Kazaks have been leasing its use to Russia since the Soviet collapse. But Russia is behind on lease payments and the Kazakhs appear to running out of patience. With Russian military losses in Ukraine rendering the Russia bear increasingly toothless, one can expect all the now-independent nations that were formerly part of the Soviet imperium to pay less and less deference to Moscow. The Kazaks would be wise to complete the museum on their own as it could be a significant tourism draw in a nation that has few others.
Who cares? Gagarin ejected from his capsule before it landed, violating FAI rules which clearly state that a pilot must remain with their craft to qualify for a flight. He didn‘t trust Russian equipment, so he doesn‘t get the prize!
There’s a new article up today from Eric Berger about SpaceX and the FAA, and I suspect it is the sort of thing that you will find to be worthy of its own special blog post rather than a Quick Links, Bob.
And, I say this (as you know) as a guy who has been trying to cut the FAA some slack in the comboxes here in recent weeks. I think this is a noteworthy and disturbing development. Maybe there *are* people of good will at FAA, and maybe, even so, it is still a [deleted] that is slowing commercial development of space, to say nothing of NASA’s program of record!
In a remarkably frank discussion this week, several senior SpaceX officials spoke with Ars Technica on background about how working with the Federal Aviation Administration has slowed down the company’s progress not just on development of the Starship program, but on innovations with the Falcon 9 and Dragon programs as well.
The SpaceX officials said they want to be clear that the FAA is doing a reasonably good job with the resources it has, and that everyone supports the mission of safe spaceflight. However, they said, the FAA needs significantly more people working in its licensing department and should be encouraged to prioritize missions of national importance.
In recent months, according to SpaceX, its programs have had to compete with one another for reviews at the FAA. This has significantly slowed down the Starship program and put development of a Human Landing System for NASA’s Artemis program at risk. Inefficient regulation, the officials said, is decreasing American competitiveness as space programs in China and elsewhere around the world rise.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/10/citing-slow-starship-reviews-spacex-urges-faa-to-double-licensing-staff/
Who cares? Gagarin ejected from his capsule before it landed, violating FAI rules which clearly state that a pilot must remain with their craft to qualify for a flight. He didn‘t trust Russian equipment, so he doesn‘t get the prize!
Eh, I think this would be excessively pedantic. And more to the point, pretty much everyone at NASA has always thought as much, once it was clear what had actually happened. Gagarin went to orbit; he came back alive; the FAI rules were a little excessive about EDL requirements. Loathe the system that sent Gagarin up there, but give him (and the engineers behind him) the credit they deserve.
Richard M: Your first comment about the Ars Technica article went to moderation because you included an obscenity that — though partly disguised — was disguised in a way that it would be immediately be recognized. Using two ** to replace a curse word doesn’t cut it with me. I have deleted it but warn you, such language is not tolerated.