April 26, 2016 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold.
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Embedded below the fold.
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Embedded below the fold.
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My appearance on the Space Show yesterday is now available as a podcast. I strongly recommend people listen to it, especially the first hour. During that section I compared at length the cost and practicality of the Falcon Heavy with SLS/Orion, and noted how badly Congress and Presidents from both parties have served the American people these past twenty years in mismanaging our aerospace industry.
David Livingston called it a rant, and criticized me for it during the show, but I think the time has come for more Americans to rage in horror at the foolishness and possible corruption of our elected leaders in Washington.
Embedded below the fold. I like John’s title for this podcast: “Bad Money, Big Space. Thrifty Space X Rolls Along”.
By the way, on Monday evening I will be doing another two hour appearance on the Space Show, with the podcast available there.
Embedded below the fold. We talked about SpaceX’s new spaceport in Texas, its upcoming launch schedule, the prepwork on its recovered first stage. We also talked about dinosaurs, and how the theory that they were killed by an asteroid is decidedly uncertain.
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Tonight’s podcast is embedded below the fold. Lots of ULA discussion, as well as Russian court battles.
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Twenty minutes of fun, talking first about the new American space industry, about to burst out to settle the solar system, then followed with a segment on the increasingly sad state of the Russian space program, run by top-down centralized rule from Moscow, with a failing economy that is very strapped for cash. The embed of the podcast is below the fold.
Tonight’s podcast, embedded below the fold, was aptly titled by John Batchelor “Big Space Delays and Delays and Delays the SLS.” Unfortunately I didn’t have time this time to outline the cost differences between SLS/Orion and commercial space. Next time!
The podcast from the John Batchelor Show last night is embedded below the fold.
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The podcast is embedded below the fold. Batchelor labeled this appearance as “Commercial Space Is a Jobs Program for Florida”.
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Even as I am appearing on Coast to Coast, John Batchelor has just posted the podcast for my appearance tonight on his show, embedded below the fold.
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Embedded below the fold. Lots of science today, including a discussion of the status of the Thirty Meter Telescope and the hunt for a new location outside of Hawaii.
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Today’s podcast of my appearance on the John Batchelor Show is embedded below the fold. Russia, North and South Korea, China, and of course American commercial were on the agenda.
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Podcast embedded below the fold. Tonight we talked prime numbers, among other things.
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Tonight’s podcast from the John Batchelor Show is embedded below the fold. Lots of good stuff, including my most recent take on SLS/Orion.
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Embedded below the fold. I would dub this podcast an updated summary of what I in 2005 called the new colonial movement.
We are at the dawn of a new colonial age. The growing space competition between nations is in many ways very reminiscent of the 19th century competition between the European powers to colonize Africa and the South Pacific. In the 1800s, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom aggressively competed to carve up the undeveloped world. The result was foreign-run colonies controlling most of the Third World, for both good and ill, for almost a century.
Today, a new list of nations – India, China, Japan, Russia, Europe and the United States — are throwing their resources at space exploration in much the same way. Their goal, unstated but indisputable, is similar to the colonial powers of the 19th century: to obtain future domination over unclaimed territories in space.
This quest will, like the previous colonial efforts, be a long, complex and difficult historical process. Just as the colonial movement dominated much of 19th century politics and history, the growing desire by nations today to settle and control the solar system is also likely to dominate human history for centuries to come. The significant difference, however, is there are no aborigine peoples in space. The colonization of the solar system offers the hope of oppressing no one while bringing benefits to everyone who does it.
Last night’s podcast is embedded below the fold. This time we spent a good amount of time discussing the smart way Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk publicity their brands.
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Embed below the fold. Entitled “The Wear and Tear of Zero Gravity” by John Batchelor.
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The embed is below the fold. I especially like John’s description for this podcast: “Space X Scrubbing. China Space Thieving. Russian Space Failing.”
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Below the fold. John gave me enough time to give a good and clear description of how gravity wave detectors work.
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The podcast of my appearance tonight on the John Batchelor Show is below the fold. Some of the topics: Falcon 9 static test, Starliner drop test, SpaceShipTwo SUV tow from a hanger. Which do you think is the least exciting?
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Below the fold is the podcast from my Friday appearance on the John Batchelor Show. The main topic was the bureaucratic turf war between the FAA and NTSB about how the new commercial space industry should be supervised. (O joy!).
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Below the fold is my podcast with John Batchelor tonight. Subjects: India in space and on the ground, SpaceX, the writing on the walls of the Apollo 11 capsule, Philae, SuperEarths, gravitational waves, and Pluto.
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The podcast for my appearance with John Batchelor tonight, Thursday, is below the fold. The main two topics discussed were the discovery of gravitational waves by LIGO and on how there is absolutely no chance NASA will reach Mars in the near future, no matter what the agency claims.
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Below the fold is the podcast of my appearance Tuesday on the John Batchelor Show. Some topics: The next SpaceX launch, North Korea, the unrealistic NASA claims of a mission to Mars, and NASA’s new desire to censor religion (coming from an agency whose astronauts have read from the Old Testament while orbiting the Moon).
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I think John Batchelor’s own description of what I talked about on this podcast, which is embedded below the fold, says it all: “Commercial space lifts off while big space stalls.” Plus I outlined some good stuff about the various planetary missions that are presently ongoing.
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Below the fold is Tuesday’s podcast of my appearance on the John Batchelor show. In addition to discussing Falcon Heavy, Ariane 6, and the question of rocket re-usability, I also lambasted the glacially slow pace of NASA’s Orion project, producing four capsules for a mere $17 billion in only 19 years! And speaking of glaciers, I also noted in the science segment the stonewalling at NOAA that prevents scientists from analyzing the rational behind their “adjustments” to their climate data, all of which cool the past and warm the present.
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Below the fold is the podcast of my appearance on last night’s John Batchelor show. We talked about the Blue Origin flight last week, as well as the progress being made by SpaceX. I also discussed the lack of progress of Orion, while costing the taxpayers a lot of money.
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Below the fold is Thursday’s Batchelor podcast. This time the focus was mostly on science, including a discussion of the data tampering of climate data that I think is going on in NOAA and NASA.
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Below the fold is the podcast of my appearance on the John Batchelor Show today, Tuesday. It was fun comparing the recent successes of private space compared to the big space programs of the U.S., Russia, and China. I also made reference to this essay I wrote after watching Elon Musk first announce in 2011 his plans to vertically land the first stage of his Falcon 9 rocket. Took him only five years to do it.
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Below the fold is the podcast for my appearance tonight on the John Batchelor Show. Among a number of topics, we discussed the new contract awards by NASA to various commercial companies, the lack of any missions for SLS, and the approach towards space exploration by several Presidential candidates.
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