• Another Member of the Reusable Rocket Club

    Blue Origin did it, SpaceX did it, and now Rocket Lab wants to do it. The “it” is to successfully retrieve rocket boosters so they can be reused in the future. Back on April 6th, Rocket Lab stated: For the first time, Rocket Lab will also attempt a mid-air capture of Electron’s first stage as…

  • Space Quote: The End of Astronauts?

    “We should not have publicly funded programmes to send people to the moon, still less to Mars…It’s hugely risky, hugely expensive, and there’s no practical or scientific benefit to sending humans. It’s a pretty bad bargain for the taxpayer.” -Statement by Lord Martin Rees, co-author of the book The End of Astronauts, speaking to the…

  • More of Captain Kirk’s “Singing”

    Time for a little more about our friend William Shatner. You may be aware of his various recordings over the decades where he speaks rather than sings the lyrics of the songs. Some of his albums include The Transformed Man and Has Been. One noteworthy song is his version of “Bohemian Rhapsody” from his album…

  • Not the Remains of a UFO (Really!)

    If you came across the wreckage above if your back yard you might think of a UFO or even Martians. Yet instead it is the remains of Earthlings on Mars. The image comes from a little helicopter launched from NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars. The Ingenuity Helicopter spotted the remains of the components used to…

  • Pic of the Week: Martian Eclipse

    This week’s pic is actually a video from NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover capturing Phobos as it partially blocks out the sun. You can see the video here and read more from NASA here. It is certainly more dramatic than the two shots below from the Martian rover Opportunity in 2004. Deimos is just a speck…

  • Whatever Happened to Bigelow’s Space Hotels?

    Do you remember all of the talk about inflatable space hotels? Back in 2018, the U.S. space company Bigelow stated these expandable space station components would be launched by 2021: With the two launches of B330-1 and B330-2 expected in 2021, the time is now in 2018 to begin BSO activity. These single structures that…

  • Canada Wants its Own Space Force

    It was only a matter of time. Canada wants to develop its own version of the US Space Force later this year. According to media reports, the Canadian Space Division would eventually employ about 270 people, versus about 16,000 in the US program. The two nations are not alone. A quick check on Wikipedia shows…

  • Does Musk Still Want Mars?

    It was Stephen R. Covey who said, “When you have too many top priorities, you effectively have no top priorities.” Is that where we are today with Elon Musk as he buys Twitter and puts his fortune and name on the line? I thought he was the man with ideas for transforming our auto industry…

  • The Latest on Exocomets

    We have all heard about exoplanets and exomoons, but what about exocomets? It appears the bodies we can observe outside of our solar system are getting even smaller. In a Scientific American article, “Ukrainian Astronomers Discover ‘Exocomets’ around Another Star,” we learn about Ukrainian astronomers who found five such comets using data from NASA’s Transiting…

  • Bernie Sanders Has Questions About Private Space Companies

    In a recent The Guardian newspaper editorial, Bernie Sanders had some questions about the role of private companies, such as Blue Origin and SpaceX, in the future of space exploration or, as he sees it, space profiteering. In his editorial, “Jeff Bezos is worth $160bn – yet Congress might bail out his space company,” he…