Image (Credit): ValentinaTereshkova just before boarding her Vostok 6 capsule. (NASA)
On this day in 1963, Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova from the USSR became the first woman in space. She flew solo on the Vostok 6 for three days. It was her first and last time in space. Her importance as a symbol for women and the USSR meant she would never fly again lest something happen to her.
They forbade me from flying, despite all my protests and arguments. After being once in space, I was desperately keen to go back there. But it didn’t happen.
On this same day in 1977, German-American Wernher von Braun passed away. As the chief designer of the Saturn rockets that took men to the Moon, he was to see all of the Apollo missions before his death.
He is also quoted as saying:
I’m convinced that before the year 2000 is over, the first child will have been born on the moon.
It is unlikely he would have believed that it would be another 50 years before we found our way back to the Moon.
Image (Credit): Braun standing next to the first stage of the Saturn V booster he helped design. (NASA)
Scientists have long assumed the Oort Cloud, one of the most mysterious structures in our solar system, to be spherical. But during the pre-production of their new space show, “Encounters in the Milky Way,” they noticed a strange spiral pattern in the middle of the cloud. The show, which premiered on Monday at New York City’s Hayden Planetarium, featured a computer-generated visualisation of the Oort Cloud on the dome. The team was reviewing the animation when they noticed what appeared to be a spiral structure inside the typically spherical cloud shape.
The ‘city killer’ asteroid 2024 YR4 may not be on a collision course with Earth anymore. But NASA has raised the odds of it hitting the moon in just seven years’ time. According to the space agency, there’s now a 4.3 per cent chance that 2024 YR4 will smash into the moon on December 22, 2032…The impact event would be the first time scientists could watch a known asteroid create a lunar crater in real-time.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellites are leaking radio waves to such an extent that it could threaten our ability to study and understand the early universe, say astronomers. Interference from the thousands of Starlink satellites in orbit, where they provide a global internet service, has been a continuing concern for astronomers, who say that the radio emissions from the craft could affect sensitive telescopes that observe distant, and faint, radio sources. SpaceX has worked with astronomers to try to prevent this interference, by switching off their internet-transmitting beams when they fly over key telescopes, but it turns out that this isn’t enough.
According to the Washington Post, the leaders at NASA and the Department of Defense (DOD) have finally figured out that Mr. Musk is a potential threat to our space program and national security. Now where did they get that idea?
NASA and Pentagon officials moved swiftly this past week to urge competitors to Elon Musk’s SpaceX to more quickly develop alternative rockets and spacecraft after President Donald Trump threatened to cancel Space X’s contracts and Musk’s defiant response.
Why did it take so long? And maybe instead of nagging SpaceX’s competitors, NASA and the DOD need to do more.
Boeing’s Starliner may need some propping up at the moment as an alternative to getting humans to the International Space Station (ISS), and other parties that can assist with the ISS and military satellite launches may need help as well.
Such careful planning should have been done long ago. Compromising NASA is one thing, but putting our nation’s defense in the hands of one unreliable man was foolish from the start. David killed the Goliath represented by the large aerospace companies, but now David has gone mad. Great plan, everyone.
It may be time to consider nationalizing SpaceX if it become an Achilles heel to our nation, particularly if Mr. Musk decides to take all of his marbles and go home (or simply loses all of his marbles).
This reminds me of Russia where President Putin put so much power into the hands of one of his warlords only to see that warlord turn his weapons on Moscow.
I expect things will settle down, but the risk remains. It is time for NASA and DOD to make some clear plans to expand the procurement base and rapidly fund alternatives to SpaceX.
As far as the future of NASA, which is the focus of this website, this is another wrench in the machinery. The White House budget already guts much of NASA’s programs, leaving most of the focus on Artemis, which needs a SpaceX Human Landing System, and Mars, which has been pushed to the front of the line only because of Musk’s influence at the White House.
So now what?
It seems Mr. Musk is not the only party undergoing a rapid unscheduled disassembly.
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of the Resilience lunar lander approaching the moon. (ispace)
“Given that there is currently no prospect of a successful lunar landing, our top priority is to swiftly analyze the telemetry data we have obtained thus far and work diligently to identify the cause.”
-Statement by Takeshi Hakamada, CEO and founder of Japan’s private space company ispace, in a press release following the failure of the company’s second lunar lander mission to the Moon. The company noted that the lander experienced a “hard landing” when it failed to sufficiently decrease its speed on approach. The mission started back in January when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried both this mission as well as Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost, which had a successful landing on the lunar surface. The ispace lander was named Resilience – something it will need more of to stay in the space race.
A total of 41 science projects would get the ax under the proposal, which would be NASA’s biggest single-year cut in the agency’s history, according to the Planetary Society. Many of the science missions President Donald Trump looks to cancel are still in development, while others are extended operations with uncrewed vehicles already deployed to orbit. Here’s a look at six different types of space missions, from Mars exploration to future moon landings, that could be under threat if Trump’s budget were to go into effect.
President Donald Trump wants to decimate NASA’s climate research capacity. That could ultimately disrupt multiple sectors of the economy, writes Scott Waldman. In the White House budget documents released last week, Trump proposed slashing a quarter of NASA’s funding, specifically targeting the agency’s research on climate change. But many of NASA’s instruments that track human-caused climate change provide other critical data. The agriculture industry, for example, relies on satellites and instruments that not only track climate change but also keep tabs on shifts in climatic zones that affect plant growth. Trump wants to eliminate funding that keeps those tools operational.
NASA is being directed to phase out multibillion-dollar programs, managed from its flagship center in Huntsville, that are designed to ferry people to and from the moon…Eliminating SLS and Orion will, “[pave] the way for more cost-effective, next-generation commercial systems that will support subsequent NASA lunar missions,” according to budget documents. Both are key programs for Marshall Space Flight Center, one of the largest of NASA’s 10 field centers, which employs nearly 7,000 federal workers and contractors in Huntsville and manages a multibillion-dollar budget related to human spaceflight.
Our Awesome Universe 