• China’s Space Program: The Next Five Years

    On January 28th, China the released its five-year plan for its space program. Titled China’s Space Program: A 2021 Perspective, the paper addresses both accomplishments to date as well as how the China National Space Administration (CNSA) and China Manned Space (CMS) Program will build upon those accomplishments. China has plenty to be proud of,…

  • Recommended Reading: Kim Stanley Robinson in The New Yorker

    The January 31st edition of The New Yorker has an article written by Joshua Rothman where he interviews Kim Stanley Robinson they hike through the Sierra mountains. The article,”Best-Case Scenario,” covers a lot of ground and has its ups and downs (sorry, I could not help myself). The Sierras offer a nice setting for experiencing…

  • Should We Name the Moon’s New Crater After Mr. Musk?

    In the early days of March, a SpaceX rocket booster is expected to crash into the surface of the Moon just north of its equator. Part of a rocket launched in 2015, the booster has been floating around ever since. In general, the Moon has not been used for trash storage beyond the lunar missions. Moreover,…

  • Follow-up: Other Anti-Satellite Tests

    In an earlier posting, I pointed out that both China and Russia have left debris in orbit after conducting anti-satellite tests. To be fair, they are not alone. Back in March 2019, India also blew up one of its satellites with a ground-based missile, spreading debris and jeopardizing its own space program as well as…

  • Pic of the Week: Jupiter and the Juno Spacecraft

    The image above was taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft on June 8, 2021. You can watch the full flyby video here that starts with the Juno spacecraft going past Jupiter’s moon Ganymede on June 7, 2021 before moving onto Jupiter. The violence of the storms in Jupiter’s atmosphere are smoothed into the beautiful giant marble…

  • Sidebar: Naming the James Webb Space Telescope

    Now that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is settling in at its new location 1 million miles away, we will be hearing that name for at least a decade every time NASA has new findings related to distant planets. It is worth noting that some people are not so pleased with the spacecraft’s designated…

  • Podcast: Interview with William Shatner

    On this week’s StarTalk Radio podcast, Neil deGrasse Tyson interviewed William Shatner (aka Captain Kirk) about his acting career and recent trip into space on a Blue Origin rocket. If you saw the Amazon Prime show called Shatner in Space, you have seen the Blue Origin drama (or the infomercial, if you prefer). In his…

  • Chinese Satellite Close Call

    Orbiting the Earth is complicated enough without the Russians and other creating new obstacles. China recently learned about these hazards when one of its science satellites came close to colliding with debris created last November from a Russian anti-satellite test. China’s satellite missed the debris by about 48 feet, which the Chinese government called “extremely…

  • Television: Updates on Star Trek

    If you are a Trekkie, you will want to stay abreast of some of the new and returning Star Trek series. I have provided some dates for your calendar. — Star Trek: Discovery: Season 4 returns with new episodes on February 10th after taking a short break. Here is the trailer for the season. You…

  • NASA and MIT Found More Than 5,000 Exoplanet Candidates

    The volume of possible new worlds continues to expand with the work of the MIT-led NASA mission to observe the heavens for potential exoplanet candidates. Since 2018, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) program has been monitoring stars for temporary drops in brightness caused by planetary transits (the mapping of the initial two years of viewing…