HEADLINE: SpaceX Starship Success, Private Space Dominance, and Government Inaction GUEST NAME: Bob Zimmerman SUMMARY: Bob Zimmerman describes SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy 11th test flight as "remarkable," highlighting successful booster reuse and contro

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

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4.5 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2025

⏱️ 5 minutes

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Summary

HEADLINE: SpaceX Starship Success, Private Space Dominance, and Government Inaction GUEST NAME: Bob Zimmerman SUMMARY: Bob Zimmerman describes SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy 11th test flight as "remarkable," highlighting successful booster reuse and controlled re-entry despite missing tiles. He asserts that private enterprise, like SpaceX, runs the "real American space program" aimed at Mars colonization, outpacing government efforts. In contrast, European projects like Callisto, proposed in 2015, demonstrate government "inaction." JPL is also laying off staff following the cancellation of the Mars sample return project, forcing organizations like Lowell Observatory to seek private funding.

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0:00.0	Building a coffee business?
0:01.9	Serving the best Americano in town is up to you.
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0:17.9	Visit sumup.co.uk to learn more.
0:24.0	This is CBS. Iron the World. I'm John Batchel. Behind the black, Bob Zimmerman is here.
0:29.2	A binary system that is super massive. What is a binary system, Bob?
0:34.3	Well, binary, of course, means two objects orbiting around each other. But in this particular
0:38.1	case, this is one of the most unusual binary systems in the entire universe that we know of.
0:44.4	It is two supermassive black holes orbiting each other three and a half billion light years away.
0:52.0	The central object is 18 billion solar masses. The smaller black hole is
0:59.1	150 million solar masses. It's called OJ 287. It's been known for about 20 years. And they
1:07.6	suspect that it was a binary because it would flare periodically.
1:13.3	And the flares were predictable.
1:15.8	And so they predicted flares.
1:17.5	And when those predictions turned out to be true, it confirmed this is a binary system.
1:22.5	Well, what the news here is that using radio telescopes on the ground, I'm sorry, using data from
1:29.7	orbiting radio telescope, a Russian radio telescope, no less, or in space, they have taken
1:37.0	the first images of this binary system.
1:40.3	I mean, it's a radio image.
	...

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