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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. 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.

 

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Thales Alenia ships the orbit insertion module for the Mars sample return mission

Though the entire project remains in limbo at NASA and might be cancelled, the European aerospace company Thales Alenia this week completed construction of the orbit insertion module for the Mars sample return mission that will place the orbiter — also built by European companies — in Mars orbit and will eventually bring the samples back to Earth.

On 28 July, Thales Alenia Space announced that the module had passed its test campaign with “excellent results.” According to the update, the company had packed and shipped the Orbit Insertion Module from its Turin facilities to Airbus in Stevenage a few days earlier. The delivery marks a key milestone in the development of the Mars Return Orbiter.

The broader Earth Return Orbiter project passed a key milestone in July 2024 with the completion of the Platform Critical Design Review. This review confirmed the performance, quality, and reliability of the mission’s systems. With its successful conclusion, Airbus advanced to full spacecraft development, including the integration and testing of its various components, among them the Orbit Insertion Module.

Under the project’s present very complex design, NASA is supposed to provide the ascent rocket and capsule to bring the samples to Europe’s return orbiter. At the moment it is unclear who will build this, or even if it will ever get built. Thus, Europe might be building a very expensive Mars orbiter with no clear mission.

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 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

4 comments

  • Jeff Wright

    Perhaps this and Janus could be repurposed as asteroid or comet probes on short notice just in case another transient event takes place.

    Congress looks to want to save MSR, but having craft intercept the next interstellar object is more worthwhile….Mars and those samples aren’t going anywhere.

  • Richard M

    I remain firm in my hope that the NASA/ESA Mars Sample Return is cancelled. But I have to think there will be some opportunity for Thales Alenia’s orbit insertion module to find a use for a mission at Mars. Perhaps even a commercial mission?

  • Jeff Wright

    This is the first time we have had de facto probes at the ready.

    Oumuamua needs an RTG, but if we find another interstellar object, we might have a chance with these solar powered craft.

  • Jeff Wright

    Mass fraction for all propulsive descent… 2.5% ?
    https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=18387.msg686023#msg686023

    A counter-intuitive observation
    https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=18387.msg581936#msg581936

    See the posts below that for other ideas

    Now Starship is to have high-thrust…and Musk simply wants to use exhaust as a heat shield…but is Starship as good as Shuttle SERV for that?

    With SuperHeavy, you see something like Mach cones forming….ight Starship need lots more nozzles for Mars.

    There has never been a rocket designed for retropropulsion, just regular streamlining and hoping the exhaust plume doesn’t bifurcate.

    The hexanitrogen… maybe it can eliminate the need for heat shields.

    Imagine I build a rocket like the Cosmostrator, or the Ark Rocket from SKY CAPTAIN.

    The core bottom has the payload…a bullet nose…but engines on Valier pods–think Osprey or quad rotor drones

    On return, the pods can’t in such a way as to form a plume best for slowing. The pods have TPS…the rest of the rocket doesn’t.

    Do-able?

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