Image (Credit): NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. (NASA)
“It is hard to imagine people arguing down there, not to mention fighting. It looks so peaceful… so calm down on earth. From space, there are no borders that you can see. We are lucky to live on such a planet and we should not take it for granted. After my space experience, I am a lot more tolerant of people and opinions, of everything.”
-A 2007 statement by NASA astronaut Suni Williams, who announced her retirement from the agency earlier today. Although she spend 27 years with NASA, she will probably be best remembered for her Boeing Starliner flight to the International Space Station in 2024 that was supposed to last one week but became nine months instead. It was a replay of Gilligan’s Island in space. Her fellow astronaut on that troubled flight, Butch Wilmore, retired from NASA last August.
There was a time when Stonehenge was believed to be a kind of “Neolithic computer.” Archaeology has since corrected that misconception. Today, the evidence points strongly in another direction: to an arid hill in the Casma Valley on Peru’s northern coast, about 200 miles north of Lima.There stands Chankillo, a complex built around 250 B.C.E., considered the earliest known solar observatory in the Americas and the clearest known example of a monument designed to track the sun’s position throughout the entire year, according to a study in Science. Modest in appearance and largely absent from tourist posters and classic postcards, Chankillo has renewed attention as archaeologists report preliminary findings from ongoing excavations.
With a space station medical evacuation safely completed, NASA is focused on two challenging missions proceeding in parallel: launching four astronauts on a flight around the moon, at the same time as the agency is planning to send four replacement astronauts to the International Space Station...The Artemis 2 mission and Crew 12’s planned space station flight present a unique challenge for NASA. The agency has not managed two piloted spacecraft at the same time since a pair of two-man Gemini capsules tested rendezvous procedures in low-Earth orbit in 1965. The agency has never flown a deep space mission amid another launch to Earth orbit.
One of the most vivid portraits of “reborn” black hole activity – likened to the eruption of a “cosmic volcano” spreading almost one million light-years across space – has been captured in a gigantic radio galaxy. The dramatic scene was uncovered when astronomers spotted the supermassive black hole at the heart of J1007+3540 restarting its jet emission after nearly 100 million years of silence.
Note: Please ignore the previous posting for today about the Apollo 17 mission. It’s a good story, but I will need to retell it at another time (that is, on December 19th).
“As an astronaut, I believe our current technology may not have solutions for critical situations we are bound to face moving away from low Earth orbit, and this incident illustrates exactly that. NASA needs to address some urgent and sometimes uncomfortable questions. For example, should a doctor always be on the crew? Should a spaceship heading to Mars have high-tech medical capabilities and facilities — not just a ‘med kit’? A kit consisting of only medications, saline solution, a defibrillator and a few basic instruments places a crew at a serious disadvantage if things really go south.”
-Statement for former NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson in a Washington Post editorial published after this week’s return of four crew members who needed to be evacuated from the International Space Station due to a medical emergency. Had the health issue occurred six months into a trip to Mars the circumstances would have been dire without sufficient health resources. This is more evidence that acquiring the necessary hardware for space travel may be the easy part compared to the software, also known as humans.
Image (Credit): NASA astronaut Mike Fincke as he exits the Dragon Endeavour spacecraft on January 15, 2025. (NASA)
This week’s image shows return of Crew-11 from the International Space Station (ISS). They landed safely on the morning of January 15th. As shown above, NASA astronaut Mike Fincke was the first member of the mission to exit the capsule. You can watch the entire video here.
Earlier this week, Mr. Fincke posted a few comments about the team’s early departure from the ISS:
What stands out most to me is how clearly NASA cares about its people. Flight surgeons, engineers, managers, and support teams came together quickly and professionally to chart the best path forward. The ground teams—across mission control centers and partner organizations around the world—have been extraordinary. We’re proud of the joint work we’ve done and the camaraderie we’ve shared, including some great songs and more than a few dad jokes.
Image (Credit): The official portrait of the four members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission aboard the ISS. From left, are Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut, and NASA astronaut Zena Cardman. (NASA)
The Crew-11 mission departed the International Space Station (ISS) earlier today for their trip home. The four astronauts that are part of this medical evacuation – NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov – are expected to splash down off the coast of California early Thursday morning.
3 p.m. – Hatch closure coverage begins on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and YouTube.
3:30 p.m. – Hatch closing
5 p.m. – Undocking coverage begins on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and YouTube.
5:20 p.m. – Undocking
Following the conclusion of undocking coverage, NASA will distribute audio-only communications between Crew-11, the space station, and flight controllers during Dragon’s transit away from the orbital complex.
Thursday, Jan. 15
2:15 a.m. – Return coverage begins on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and YouTube.
2:51 a.m. – Deorbit burn
3:41 a.m. – Splashdown
5:45 a.m. – NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman will lead a Return to Earth news conference streaming live on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and the agency’s YouTube channel.
The remaining member of Expedition 74 will be commanded by Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, who will remain on board with Flight Engineers Sergei Mikaev (Roscosmos) and Chris Williams (NASA). The Crew-12 mission may be moved up to cover the gap caused by this early departure.
NASA is keeping quite about the underlying medical conditions, yet something will probably need to be said sooner rather than later. Maybe the news conference tomorrow will give us a few more details.
Our Awesome Universe 