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Russia and China launch satellites

Two launches today in Russia and China.

First China used its Long March 2C rocket to launch a “remote sensing satellite” into orbit. No other information about the satellite was released. Nor was any information about whether the rocket’s first stage landed near habitable areas.

Next Russia used its Proton rocket to launch a classified satellite, likely a military surveillance satellite, into orbit. Like China Russia launches from an interior spaceport, with its first stage falling “in Karaganda Region of Kazakhstan,” with the second stage landing in drop zones in Russia. Russia, which has been doing this regularly for more than a half century, has always done a good job either avoiding habitable areas with the first stage crash, or keeping such stories out of the international press.

The 2023 launch race:

16 SpaceX
9 China
4 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Japan
1 India

American private enterprise still leads China 17 to 9 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 17 to 15. SpaceX alone is now tied with the entire world, including all other American companies, 16 all.

Genesis cover

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 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

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