To read this post please scroll down.

 

Readers!

 

It is now July, time once again to celebrate the start of this webpage in 2010 with my annual July fund-raising campaign.

 

This year I celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black. During that time I have done more than 33,000 posts, mostly covering the global space industry and the related planetary and astronomical science that comes from it. Along the way I have also felt compelled as a free American citizen to regularly post my thoughts on the politics and culture of the time, partly because I think it is important for free Americans to do so, and partly because those politics and that culture have a direct impact on the future of our civilization and its on-going efforts to explore and eventually colonize the solar system.

 

You can’t understand one without understanding the other.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent independent analysis you don’t find elsewhere. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn’t influenced by donations by established companies or political movements. 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.


SpaceX attempting another Starship hop today

Capitalism in space: Engineers at SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility in Texas are today preparing the sixth Starship prototype for its first 150 meter hop, the second hop of a Starship prototype overall.

The launch window is anytime between 8 am and 8 pm (Central). I have embedded the livesteam below the fold if you wish to watch. Based on previous attempts, they will try for a morning launch before noon, and if there are issues they will recycle and try again in the afternoon.

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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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

6 comments

  • V-Man

    Success!

    That’s two different prototype doing a 150m hop almost perfectly (they still land a bit crooked). 20km jump next?

  • Diane Wilson

    I believe the 20km hop is planned for SN8, so probably not soon. (For anyone not following closely, SN7 was a pressure test vehicle, and SN7.1 is being prepped for a pressure test with the new steel alloy. These are test-to-destruction tank-only tests, not launchable prototypes.)

    I do expect SN5 to do another 150m hop before then. Elon said that he wanted to do more 150m hops to clean up the launch process, probably to minimize cleanup at the pad and also recycle faster for re-use. I think he said something about less than a day cycle time, but that might be a bit optimistic.

  • Diane Wilson

    This hop looked very clean – no flying debris, no ground fires. Liftoff seemed slower than SN5, which might be a throttle test, and might not.

  • sippin_bourbon

    Correct me if I am wrong, but this is going to have to get good enough to hop. land, and then hop again, yes?

    That must be the goal if one of the mission sets is to set down and return from the Moon and Mars.

  • Diane Wilson: There was a ground fire. See the image in my post reporting the flight.

  • Edward

    sippin_bourbon,
    You wrote: “i>Correct me if I am wrong, but this is going to have to get good enough to hop. land, and then hop again, yes? That must be the goal if one of the mission sets is to set down and return from the Moon and Mars.”

    Yes, an eventual goal, but no, not an immediate goal. My expectation is that they will start working on double hops after they are comfortable that they have the first hop working well. Just as it is more important to get Starship able to land before Superheavy can loft it into orbit, it is more important to get Super Heavy launching before it becomes necessary to relaunch after a landing. Boca Chica could be very busy next year.

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.

 

However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.

 

Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *