September 9, 2026 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, though today the links come from me and Nate P., as Jay was having issues with X. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
- Startup Besxar tests semi-conductor technology on Falcon 9 first stage
The goal was to test the ability of the technology to survive launch and the space environment. Because it flew on that first stage, it could be recovered afterward for review.
- Regulators in India approve rules that might eventually allow Starlink there
It seems the number of approvals required in India are endless. This process has been going on for several years, with no end in sight and no indication when Starlink will finally get an okay.
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
Navier Stokes solved?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eR2q8s4VB1w&pp=ygUQYWkgbmF2aWVyIHN0b2tlcw%3D%3D
It doesn’t look like a general solution has been achieved; more a narrow solution under very specific circumstances. As the presenter points out, there is still the question of whether the proof incorporates the assumption that the thing being proven is assumed to exist. I agree that the vitriol around this result is hard to understand. If someone handed an engineer anti-grav; I don’t think they’d be offended that someone else did it.
25 years ago today (Sep 10) XCOR mailed me a report on an airframe**. Then Sep 11 2001 changed things like investor attitudes before I received it. What a difference a day can make in attitudes and ultimately, results.
**Tiny paid study on a variable geometry concept for suborbital. Not viable and Jeff recommended a type of airframe somewhat similar to the Lynx they worked on later.
9/11 out the kibosh on a lot of things…people forgot about the Gary Condit/Levy scandal.
Engine block for a pump as I recall. Did ACES copycat?
XCOR had a piston pump for rocket engines. I tried to participate in one of the contests but couldn’t make a concept work.
The one they checked out for me was a variable geometry concept. For low speed and landing a strut braced wing as in the Cessna 152 lightplane types. For high speed the wing swings in with the strut fairing into the fuselage. The large taper turning the former trailing edge into a sharp leading edge for supersonic. Didn’t take long or cost much for them to bust the idea. Ideas are cheap, the skill is in the sorting so you don’t chase the bad at the cost of the feasible.
Here is where A.I. might be truly useful—in materials:
https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ai-constitutive-laws-solid-mechanics.html
Here the program can peer into what is do-able.