Photo:  The Angara rocket family is a family of space-launched vehicles being developed by the Moscow-based Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center. The rockets are to put between 3,800 and 24,500 kg into low-Earth orbit and are intended, along with Soyuz-2 variants, to replace several existing launch vehicles.
The real Angara River — in this picture, the Upper Angara, which drains into the magical Lake Baikal — is shown from the BAM (Baikal-Amur Magistral) railway bridge across the Upper Angara near Novy Uoyan.
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, The Kudlow Report, CNBC; and Cumulus Media radio
 
Hour One
Tuesday 8 August 2017 / Hour 1, Block A:.  Steve Moore, Heritage, CNN, in re: Trump economy
Tuesday 8 August 2017 / Hour 1, Block B:   Steve Moore, Heritage, CNN, in re: Trump economy
Tuesday 8 August 2017 / Hour 1, Block C:   Robert Graboyes, Mercatus Center, in re:  ACA; Anthem Insurance left Nevada because the exchanges are in failure.
Tuesday 8 August 2017 / Hour 1, Block D:   Larry Kudlow, in re: the market.
 
Hour Two
Tuesday 8 August 2017 / Hour 2, Block A:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; author: Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin;  in re:   Steve Cohen returns from a trip to Russia, incl having spoken with aides to Pres Putin, and more normal people met on a brief cruise in the Black Sea.  Russians don't hate Americans; instead, are highly puzzled at why there’s so much antagonism in the US
. . .  Pres Trump is correct in saying that US relations with Russia are at a grave and dangerous low. Danger zones: the Baltics, Ukraine, Syria. Near-collapse of cooperative diplo relations
Tuesday 8 August 2017 / Hour 2, Block B:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord.   (2 of 4)
Tuesday 8 August 2017 / Hour 2, Block C:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord.   (3 of 4)
Tuesday 8 August 2017 / Hour 2, Block D:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord.   (4 of 4)
 
Hour Three
Tuesday 8 August 2017 / Hour 3, Block A:  Gregory Copley, Defense & Foreign Affairs; in re:  US and North Korea.    Whither relations?  Getting very interesting. Inching toward end-game.  China has managed to buy its way back into talks, US is getting closer to recognizing  DPRK’s strategic abilities – esp nuclear and delivery. DPRK waiting for US to say, OK, you’ve got capabilities like India’s and Pakistan’s; let’s sit and talk as grown-ups.   Until G W Bush, US refused to even to acknowledge that DPRK had nukes.  US: carrier battle groups, B1, THAAD, and UN sanctions as of last Saturday.  Chinese are happy because they’d been cut out of negotiating process between Trump and Kim Jong-eun, but now are back in the game.    South Korea may have to give up its unification plans, and thereby end the Korean War; then a railroad from South Korea through North Korea into Russia, thence across Russia to Europe.  [That does cut out China. --ed]  As DPRK deals directly with US, China isn't much necessary; not a good lead-up for Xi Jinping to XIX Party Congress in autumn.  The challenge for both Koreans is to be sure it doesn’t fall down in a heap; gradual normalization of North Korean population. Same in Iran: as long as it was wholly embargoed mullahs ere wholly in control. As it opens to the world, the citizens shift.
Tuesday 8 August 2017 / Hour 3, Block B:  Gregory Copley, Defense & Foreign Affairs; in re: Venezuela has been disintegrating for some time.  Maduro has put himself in trouble same way Erdogan has: stripped out most of the reliable military.  Cuba, China, much involved and watching closely.  Dominica [Apres Bondi, la terre.].  Starvation begins, with looting and black market everywhere. Maduro cares more about his job than about the country — same as Jimmy Carter.  Maduro wouldn't like the image of him in exile in China; eke Cuba or Iran.  Needs a Latin American country to offer him a safe haven.  Think of Charles Taylor in Liberia: he went into exile in Nigeria, but US had the promises of safe haven overturned and Taylor was taken to The Hague and tried. US must do something, as Venezuela is the test case where China is challenging it; US may have to [much increase] arms supplies to Venezuelan opposition.
Tuesday 8 August 2017 / Hour 3, Block C:   Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, and author, Capitalism in Space, in re:  Coming: possible long cooling cycle, till 2500 AD. / Object in Kuyper Belt: MU69.  Not round but seems to be oblong, 29 mi long? In low-gravity envt, objects take all sorts of shapes.  / Cassini and Rings of Saturn. In a gap between rings is a moon; rings also are not round. / Juno gives us glimpses of Jupiter. Mid-sized storm in northern high latitudes, on edge of chaotic polar latitudes.  Anticyclonic.  Mars: two functioning probes on Martian surface.  . . .  The robots are our scouts; we shouldn't let them have all the fun. --All right – Astronaut Zimmerman!
Tuesday 8 August 2017 / Hour 3, Block D: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, and author, Capitalism in Space, in re:  NASA, European Space Agency.  Ariane Space.     Delays, delays. BepiColombo is a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to the planet Mercury. The mission comprises two satellites to be launched together: the Mercury ... The two orbiters are planned to be launched together on an Ariane 5 launch vehicle in October 2018 ... / China built huge observatory to do real radioastronomy – but no astronomers in China are experienced enough to manage it. Thus have been advertising for a Westerner to run it, yet no taker.  The world’s first ghost telescope! / Vostochny: may ramp up Soyuz launches in 2018; working on Angara launches for the future. Huge boondoggle. / Vector, a tiny firm; good suborbital test launch. Rocket Lab and Lectron.  SpaceX, XES. 
 
Hour Four
Tuesday 8 August 2017 / Hour 4, Block A:  Stephen L. Moore,  The Battle for Hell's Island: How a Small Band of Carrier Dive-Bombers Helped Save Guadalcanal   Kraft, Wheeler Jewal, and (Collie): four young men make a pact: whoever among them survives the war will visit all the others’s families. 
Tuesday 8 August 2017 / Hour 4, Block B:  Stephen L. Moore,  The Battle for Hell's Island: How a Small Band of Carrier Dive-Bombers Helped Save Guadalcanal
Tuesday 8 August 2017 / Hour 4, Block C:  James M. Scott, Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor
Tuesday 8 August 2017 / Hour 4, Block D:  James M. Scott, Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor