Image (Credit): Astronaut Thomas Kenneth Mattingly II. (NASA)
Last month we lost another astronaut who almost flew on the Apollo 13 mission and later flew on the Apollo 16 mission. Thomas Kenneth Mattingly II died on late last month at the age of 87 in Arlington, Virginia.
In addition to his work on the Apollo missions, he also flew on two space shuttle missions.
Mr. Mattingly is best remembered for his efforts to bring the Apollo 13 mission safely back to Earth after his lost his seat in that very mission when he was exposed to rubella. All of this was well documented in the 1995 Ron Howard film Apollo 13.
Okay, the plan is for Blue Origin to launch NASA satellites towards Mars, so don’t worry about Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk fighting it out on the Martian surface.
NASA has tapped Blue Origin to take two satellites worth about $79 into space, which will be the first use of the company’s New Glenn rocket. The launch is planned for next year, giving Blue Origin time to test the rocket and prepare for the mission.
The NASA mission, called the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE), involves two identical probes that were originally scheduled to fly with the Psyche mission.
The goals of the EscaPADE mission are to:
understand the processes controlling the structure of Mars’ hybrid magnetosphere and how it guides ion flows;
understand how energy and momentum are transported from the solar wind through Mars’ magnetosphere; and
understand the processes controlling the flow of energy and matter into and out of the collisional atmosphere.
Can Blue Origin be ready by next year when the window to Mars opens up? That is the big question given the continued delays with the New Glenn rocket.
It is good to see NASA spreading its launches into more hands. Now we just need the industry to meet the challenge.
While NASA seeks to maintain an uninterrupted human presence in low Earth orbit, an agency official said a short-term gap between the International Space Station and commercial successors would not be “the end of the world.” NASA’s current approach to its future in LEO counts on supporting development of commercial space stations with the goal of having at least one such station ready to support NASA astronauts and research by 2030, when the ISS is scheduled for retirement. A key question, though, will be whether any of the several companies working on such concepts will be ready by the end of the decade.
Hundreds of tech and science jobs will be lost in California if NASA moves forward with a plan to cut funding from the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, according to state lawmakers. U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.-30), sent a letter on Wednesday to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson to reverse a decision to slash the mission’s funding. The funding cut would “result in the loss of hundreds of California jobs, prevent the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from making its 2030 launch window, and lead to the cancellation of billions of dollars in contracts supporting American businesses,” the lawmakers wrote.
The Canadian Space Agency announced two astronauts will fly to space in the coming years on Wednesday (Nov. 22) as the country continues a historic ramp-up of its human space program in 2023. François-Philippe Champagne, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry of Canada, announced the assignments in front of a crowd of hundreds gathered in the lobby of Canadian Space Agency headquarters in Longueuil, Quebec.
“Is it easy to convince people? People want resources spent on things where they see the immediate benefit…And space exploration is something where the benefits, while they are current, a lot of what we’ll see is what’s anticipated in the future.”
–Statement by U.S. Senator Jerry Moran, the top Republican appropriator for NASA in the Senate, regarding NASA’s 2024 budget. He supports funding for NASA to ensure the US wins the space “marathon” with China. Like all federal agencies at this time, NASA is under a continuing resolution until the Congress votes on a final budget for this fiscal year.
Image (Credit): 2015 explosion of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. (ABC News)
SpaceX may have suffered a rocket loss yesterday, but everyone agrees that this is part of the process when trying something big.
What can we then say about Mr. Musk creating a second loss last week, but in this case it was a loss of confidence in his leadership at Twitter (yes, the site is also oddly called “x” even though the web address is still twitter.com)? Is that also part of the process when trying something big, or is he simply becoming a loss leader that is getting in his own way. And, more importantly to this site, is he squandering his other assets, including SpaceX?
The latest incident involves his support of an earlier post on Twitter that defamed the American Jewish community. It is unclear why Mr. Musk cannot act like an adult and focus on his businesses, but his actions have led to multiple firms pulling their advertising dollars from Twitter.
I agree his irresponsible behavior is nothing new, but it is starting to raise even more eyebrows as his businesses become more entangled with US Government missions. He is not just pushing a declining social app and electric cars, but rather he is also launching critical military satellites, bringing astronauts to the International Space Station, and planning to heavily support our return to the Moon.
Exhibit A – Kelsey D. Atherton, Chief Editor at the Center for International Policy, had this to say recently about Mr. Musk and SpaceX:
In the immediate term, Congress needs to investigate whether Musk’s public comments present a breach of contract on ethical or reliability grounds. Congress could require that any company that receives launch contracts must go public, ensuring at least some mechanism for shareholders to oust a CEO should they become a public or security liability.
I recommend reading the entire article. It is one voice at the moment, but the evidence is growing that Mr. Musk may be the wrong person to rely on in these times when he clearly cannot control himself. His “Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly” is painful to watch and something we need to guard against.
Our Awesome Universe 