The profound life’s work of Richard Rodgers

12:30 pm

Sometimes in art there are times when culture, timing, talent, and teamwork combine to produce a magic that is eternal and beyond measure. For Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, that time occurred from 1943 to 1959, when these two men created a string of musicals so grand that each

would become not just familiar but universally beloved, played over and over again until the words and melodies had become meshed, it seemed, with one’s very existence. To have one’s complete score memorized by a whole population would, it would seem for a composer, to have been all that life has to offer.

This quote comes from Meryle Secrest’s fine 2001 biography of Richard Rodgers, Somewhere for me: a biography of Richard Rodgers. It tells a story of a man who from childhood was obsessed with writing music, who struggled for decades to write musicals where the music and song flowed naturally from the plot and characters, and who changed with time as time changed him. Outside of his music and his commitment to it, he was however a very normal man, with a marriage that at times was stormy but held together despite those storms.

But it is Rodgers’ best music — written for the lovely words of Oscar Hammerstein — for which we most remember him. I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, so I lived at a time when these Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals were being memorized by a whole population. As a child my parents subscribed to a musical record club, which sent them a new album every month. I would spend hours listening to the songs from Oklahoma, South Pacific, The Sound of Music, the King and I, and Carousel. And on television I got to see Julie Andrews in a live production of Cinderella.

In listening to these songs, I quickly realized, even as a child, that there was something deeply profound in those words and music, touching something deeper than mere beauty, a more fundamental but utterly inexplicable aspect of our existence. As I wrote in 2018 when I posted an evening pause of Juanita Hall singing Bali Ha’i from South Pacific,
» Read more

22 comments

Oman says it wants to sign the Artemis Accords

9:17 am

Middle East, showing Oman's proposed spaceport
The Middle East, showing the location of
Oman’s proposed spaceport at Duqm.

In a diplomatic meeting between Oman and U.S. state department in Oman, Oman officials announced their Sultan wants his country to sign the Artemis Accords.

The two sides discussed means of maximising the benefits of the Free Trade Agreement between the two countries and augmenting American investments in sectors of priority for the Sultanate of Oman. These sectors include the digital economy, technology and space, in addition to mining, logistics, aviation and infrastructure.

Cooperation in the fields of education and culture was also discussed, particularly educational programmes, academic and professional exchange and investment in research and innovation. The two sides further exchanged views and positions on a number of regional and international issues, emphasising the importance of backing efforts for peace, stability and development.

During the dialogue, the Omani side announced the Sultanate of Oman’s approval to join the ‘Artemis Accords’ for space exploration. A cooperation statement on the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America was also signed. [emphasis mine]

Much of this is diplomatic blather, meaning little. While I would expect the Trump administration welcome Oman as an Artemis Accord partner, in the talks related to the highlighted first paragraph above it likely demanded some concessions first. Free trade in Oman is going to require some protection for American technology.

For example, right now State Department rules make it difficult if not impossible to launch American satellites or rockets from Oman’s proposed spaceport in Duqm, rules imposed because Oman cannot be trusted. I expect the State Department is demanding total security control from U.S. entities on any launch before agreeing to an Oman Artemis Accord agreement.

0 comments

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 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

“AI isn’t getting smarter. We are getting dumber.”

2:20 pm

Link here. The point the op-ed makes is fundamental: AI cannot add anything to the information it has. It might be able to compile that information well, but its analysis is always going to be limited because it has no true creative spirit. It is merely a software program, albeit a very sophisticated one.

This quote from the essay will give you the sense:

Maybe you just use AI to clarify your thoughts. Turn the mottle of ideas in your head into coherent communicable paragraphs. It’s OK, you say, because you’re reviewing the results, and often editing the output. You’re ending up with exactly what you want to say, just in a form and style that’s better than any way you could have put it yourself.

But is what you end up with really your thoughts? And what if everyone started doing that?

Stripping the novelty and personality out of all communication; turning every one of our interactions into homogeneous robotic engagements? Every birthday greeting becomes akin to a printed hallmark card. Every eulogy turns into a stamp-card sentiment. Every email follows the auto-response template suggested by the browser.

We do this long enough and eventually we begin to lose the ability to communicate our inner thoughts to others. Our minds start to think in terms of LLM prompts. All I need is the gist of what I want to say, and the system fills in the blanks. [emphasis in original]

Comments are of course welcome. But please read the full essay before doing so.

29 comments

Conscious Choice cover

Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!

From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.

 

All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.

Dragonfly’s rotors complete testing

12:07 pm

According to a press release yesterday from the Applied Physics Lab (APL) in Maryland that is building the Dragonfly helicopter that is going to Saturn’s moon Titan, the rotors have completed the first round of testing, and are now about to undergo “fatigue and cryogenic trials under simulated Titan conditions.”

Over five weeks, from August into September, the team evaluated the performance of Dragonfly’s rotor system — which provides the lift for the lander to fly and enables it to maneuver — in Titan-like conditions, looking at aeromechanical performance factors such as stress on the rotor arms, and effects of vibration on the rotor blades and lander body. In late December, the team also wrapped up a set of aerodynamics tests on smaller-scale Dragonfly rotor models in the TDT [Transonic Dynamics Tunnel].

This quote about the manufacture of the rotors however stood out the most:

Pennington and team cut Dragonfly’s first rotors on Nov. 1, 2024. They refined the process as they went: starting with waterjet paring of 1,000-pound aluminum blocks, followed by rough machining, cover fitting, vent-hole drilling, and hole-threading. After an inspection, the parts were cleaned, sent out for welding, and returned for final finishing.

“We didn’t have time or materials to make test parts or extras, so every cut had to be right the first time,” Pennington said, adding that the team also had to find special tools and equipment to accommodate some material changes and design tweaks. [emphasis mine]

In other words, this is another hardware-poor NASA project. What they build is what they have. No time or money for testing of prototypes.

This mission is really pushing the envelope, possibly more than any NASA planetary probe in a half century. I just hope they get it right.

3 comments

Russia delays launch of its own “Starlink” constellation

9:33 am

I’m shocked, shocked! According to news reports in Russia yesterday, Roscosmos has now delayed the initial launches for its own copycat “Starlink” constellation because the production of the satellites has fallen behind schedule.

In September 2025, Roscosmos head Dmitry Bakanov promised that by the end of 2025, the first 300 satellites would begin to be deployed in orbit as part of the Rassvet project. They are supposed to become “an analogue of the Starlink system” and provide “access to the internet at any geographical point.”

According to the publication, the postponement of the launch of the first 16 devices until 2026 may be due to the fact that the required number of satellites has not yet been assembled.

The project is being run by a Bureau 1440, supposedly a private Russian commercial company that is providing two thirds of the $5.7 billion budget, with the Russian government picking up the difference. It claims it will begin launching this year and have 318 satellites in orbit by 2028.

Wanna bet? Russia has not been able to complete any space project on time in decades, and even when its projects do finally launch, each routinely has had serious technical and quality control issues.

16 comments

Leaving Earth cover

Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.

If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.

 
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke

ESA awards startup Rocket Factory Augsburg a two-launch contract

9:23 am

Screen capture of test failure
Screen capture from video of the RFA-1
test failure in August 2024. Note the flame
shooting out sideways.

The European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday awarded the German rocket startup Rocket Factory Augsburg a two-launch contract under its “Flight Ticket Initiative”, designed to encourage the development of a commercial independent European launch market.

With these signatures between ESA and Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), two more missions will be launched with the RFA One rocket from Saxavord Spaceport in the UK as part of the Flight Ticket Initiative. ESA and the European Commission have thus once again placed their trust in RFA as a future launch service provider.

…The Lurbat mission will fly a collection of demonstrator technologies and is developed by Added Value Solutions based in Spain. … A second mission will see the launch of two CubeSats developed under ESA contract by the Spanish company Indra Space. The CubeSats will hold five experiments selected by the European Commission through the Horizon Europe IOD/IOV call for Expression of Interest

Rocket Factory also has a launch contract with the German government. However it needs to first complete the first launch of its RFA-1 rocket. That launch was originally supposed to occur in 2024 but was canceled when the rocket’s first stage was destroyed during a static fire test on its Saxavord launchpad that year.

Since then the company has released little information about the rocket’s status. According to this news report today, it hopes to finally do that test launch this year. It better do it soon, as there is a slew of other European rocket companies that intend to do the same.

And then of course there is the question of the Saxavord spaceport and the red tape that has crippled all the spaceports in Great Britain. Both Saxavord and Rocket Factory have previously gotten their launch licenses from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), but it is unclear if those licenses remain valid, especially after the static fire explosion. Based on its past behavior, the CAA could have pulled the licenses, and is now reviewing the whole thing.

If so, it might take years for both to get an approval again. In fact, this might very well be the reason Rocket Factory didn’t launch in 2025.

0 comments

January 23, 2026 Quick space links

2:45 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. 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.

1 comment

Blue Origin to reuse first stage on next New Glenn flight

9:48 am

New Glenn first stage after landing
The New Glenn first stage after landing
in November.

In a sign that Blue Origin’s CEO David Limp is beginning to reshape the previously slow culture of the company, it announced yesterday that its next New Glenn launch, set for no earlier than late Feburary, will reuse the first stage that the company successfully landed on the last New Glenn flight in November 2025.

If this launch takes place as scheduled, it will mean Blue Origin was also able to inspect, refurbish as necessary, and prepare that used first stage in a little over three months. While not as fast as SpaceX is now doing with its Falcon 9 first stages, it is still remarkably fast, considering it is the first booster Blue Origin has recovered. SpaceX didn’t attempt its first reuse of a recovered first stage for a little more than a year after its first successful landing.

Of course, SpaceX was breaking new ground, so more caution and engineering work was needed. Blue Origin has the advantage of almost a decade of experience to draw upon. Nonetheless, Blue Origin’s decision to reuse so quickly is still impressive. It suggests its engineering behind New Glenn is very robust.

Limp still has work to do, however, to get Blue Origin operating with the speed matching SpaceX. This third launch of New Glenn will place an AST SpaceMobile Bluebird satellite into orbit, because the original payload, Blue Origin’s unmanned Blue Moon MK1 lunar lander, wasn’t ready as planned, and is still undergoing final ground check-ups.

8 comments
1 … 60 61 62 63 64 … 2,927