Space Stories: Telescope Moving from US to Spain, Starliner will be Cargo-Only, and Moss in Space

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rending of the Thirty Meter Telescope. (TMT International Observatory)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—Sky & Telescope: “Thirty Meter Telescope Considers Move to Spain“

The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) was conceived more than two decades ago as the largest and most advanced telescope in the Northern Hemisphere. However, the telescope has encountered significant roadblocks, from funding uncertainties — now heightened by President Trump’s proposed budget cuts — to local resistance to building the telescope on Mauna Kea, a volcanic mountain in Hawai‘i that’s sacred to native communities. Now, the telescope might find a new home in La Palma on the Canary Islands of Spain. In July, the Spanish government offered to host the telescope, with an investment of up to €400 million ($460 million) to help cover some of the costs. In a brief statement posted on November 11th, the TMT announced that it is officially considering the move to La Palma.

—Spaceflight Now: “NASA, Boeing Pivot Starliner-1 Mission from 4-Person Astronaut Flight to Cargo-Only“

In its latest shakeup to the Commercial Crew Program, NASA announced on Monday it has reduced the number of missions Boeing is required to fly to the International Space Station and changing the next flight from a crew mission to a cargo mission. The original contract NASA awarded to Boeing and SpaceX called for each to fly an uncrewed demonstration flight to the ISS, followed by a crewed demo mission and then conduct six regular crew rotation missions.

—Vice: “Moss Just Survived a Full Year Outside the International Space Station“

In the airless, radiation-saturated void outside of the International Space Station, researchers tested whether a common moss species known as Physcomitrium patens could survive at all, and if it could, for how long. The answers are yes and probably forever if it wants...Tomomichi Fujita, the study’s lead author, thinks moss could last up to 15 years in space, knowledge that could help build future extraterrestrial farms or entire ecosystems on the Moon or Mars.

Professor Loeb is Not Convinced by NASA Statements About 3I/ATLAS

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): October 2, 2025 image of comet 3I/ATLAS as captured by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)

Harvard Professor Avi Loeb is not satisfied with NASA’s comments this week that the interstellar object streaming through our Solar System is a normal comet.

In his blog, Professor Loeb stated:

NASA’s representatives should have emphasized what we do not understand about 3I/ATLAS rather than insist that it is a familiar comet from a new birth environment…We should not “judge a book by its cover,” because we all know about the Trojan Horse which appeared unthreatening to the guardians of the City of Troy. When monitoring an interstellar visitor, we should not fall prey to traditional thinking but scrutinize new interpretations. The public resonates with science as a learning experience, where the collection of evidence leads the way to new knowledge rather than reinforces variants on past knowledge.

Trojan Horse? That is certainly an alarming way of looking at this foreign object. Professor Loeb is not backing down one bit on his concerns, and refers back to his 12 puzzles, one of them being:

Its nucleus is about a million times more massive than 1I/`Oumuamua, an interstellar object discovered in 2017, and a thousand times more massive than 2I/Borisov, discovered in 2019, while moving faster than both, altogether with a likelihood of less than 0.1 per cent (see here and here). This suggests that it may have targeted the inner solar system rather than being drawn from the reservoir of icy rocks.

Again, using terms like “targeted” is certainly garnering a lot of interest by outside observers.

Maybe this will be settled next month with new images. Or maybe this will be a continuing controversy. Even if it goes nowhere, I think we can expect another book from Professor Loeb.

Pic of the Week: Wolf-Rayet Apep

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Dust spirals surrounding Wolf-Rayet Apep, as captured by the JWST. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Y. Han (Caltech), R. White (Macquarie University), A. Pagan (STScI))

This week’s embryonic image comes from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It shows what NASA calls “four serpentine spirals of dust” around a pair of Wolf-Rayet stars. Such stars are rare, with NASA estimating that only a thousand can be found in our galaxy consisting of hundreds of billions of stars. And binary Wolf-Rayet stars are even rarer.

NASA notes that the JWST, or Webb, provided a much better image of the spiraling dust:

Observations taken prior to Webb only detected one shell, and while the existence of outer shells was hypothesized, searches using ground-based telescopes were unable to uncover any. These shells were emitted over the last 700 years by two aging Wolf-Rayet stars in a system known as Apep, a nod to the Egyptian god of chaos...Webb also confirmed that there are three stars gravitationally bound to one another in this system. The dust ejected by the two Wolf-Rayet stars is “slashed” by a third star, a massive supergiant, which carves holes into each expanding cloud of dust from its wider orbit. (All three stars are shown as a single bright point of light in Webb’s image.)

Space Quote: Goddard Space Flight Center Threatened by Cuts

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Sign for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. (NASA)

“…actions taken during the last nine months threaten the workers at Goddard and their ability to lead the world in this science and exploration. Between unnecessary voluntary separations, deferred resignations, reductions in force, and other pressure, thousands of civil servants and contractors are no longer working at GSFC. Other countries with space programs from our political allies to our adversaries have been recruiting our top scientists and researchers with massive salaries, research budgets, and the promise of stability. Where the US has considered stepping back, China has made clear they are eager to step in. We can and must re-invest in the people and centers that make America the global space leader and that starts with Goddard.”

-Statement in a November 13th letter from Maryland’s Senators and Representatives to NASA’s Acting Administrator Sean Duffy regarding recent cuts at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland. The letter included four questions to be answered by November 17th.

Pic of the Week: The New Glenn Rocket Booster Returns

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The New Glenn booster after it landed on a platform in the Atlantic Ocean. (Blue Origin)

Today’s image comes from Blue Origin, which successfully completed it second launch of it New Glenn rockets, sending two NASA Martian probes into orbit. The image shows the reusable rocket booster right after it landed on a platform in the Atlantic Ocean.

Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy stated:

Congratulations to Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, UC Berkeley, and all of our partners on the successful launch of ESCAPADE…This heliophysics mission will help reveal how Mars became a desert planet, and how solar eruptions affect the Martian surface. Every launch of New Glenn provides data that will be essential when we launch MK-1 through Artemis. All of this information will be critical to protect future NASA explorers and invaluable as we evaluate how to deliver on President Trump’s vision of planting the Stars and Stripes on Mars.

SpaceX now has another competitor for military and space missions, which is good for everyone (including SpaceX since it will keep them focused).