September 4, 2024 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
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The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
John Batchelor,
You asked: “Do [engineers] get excited when they have a problem like this? Is this like joy for them?”
First: John, thank you for the compliment. We are rarely thought of as the cool kids.
To answer the question, we are much happier when our plans work the first time. Robert is right about that. When they go the way of the proverbial mouse’s plans (awry), we are first upset, but then we once again must prove to Mother Nature that we are the Masters of the Universe. Is it a joy to beat Mother Nature? Yeah.
But she does not go gently into that good night. When ships sink too often, we build an unsinkable one. Of course, Mother Nature sends an iceberg our way in order to prove us wrong, so then we work out that problem too (e.g., sail farther south and ensure lifeboats for every person aboard).
When the thrusters on Starliner don’t produce the expected thrust, we figure out a workaround, which our fearful leaders ignore and demand a different workaround that exposes the astronauts to a condition in which they spend September 6th through September 24th, or so, without proper (meaning: “safe”) life boat seating. I wonder what kind of “iceberg” Mother Nature will send in the way of ISS during that time; she teaches her nasty lessons through “tough love.” Sometimes we survive to learn the lesson.
The engineers learned the lessons from the Titanic, but the “rocket scientist” politicians didn’t. The politicians still think that they can design successful rockets and space missions.*
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* What moron thinks that it is a good idea to fund a Perseverance rover to Mars to collect return samples and fund the return mission separately, to be (mis)designed later?** NASA knew enough to not do that two-thirds of a century ago, when designing a mission to send man to the Moon. Engineers prefer one mission that works, rather than two missions where the second one has to clean up the mess made by the first. Less desirable but more designable is two missions designed simultaneously and coordinated with each other so that they work together as a team, not separately where the second looks like a rescue mission.
** Come to think of it, there are some problems that we just do not enjoy solving. It’s one thing to solve a problem to advance man’s conquest of the universe, especially in easing our lives or overcoming the dangers of Mother Nature, but it is another when we have to fix some dummkopf’s political error that should never have been made in the first place.