• Television: Starfleet Academy to End After Two Seasons

    Nothing gold can stay, Robert Frost once wrote. Just enjoy it while it is here. And so it goes with Star Trek as well. The new television series Starfleet Academy will last for only two seasons and then disappear. While I had originally thought that promising a second season before the first one aired was…

  • Space Quote: Is the Commercial Sector Ready for its Own Space Station?

    “We expected a launch market that was going to take off. We expected tourism to take off. We expected the ability to do research and technology development on the International Space Station, bring it back to Earth and mass produce it…We’re not seeing any of those three things.” –Statement by Joel Montalbano, NASA’s acting associate…

  • Pic of the Week: Multiple Views of Saturn

    This week’s images of Saturn from 2024 were just released by NASA. They show the planet in a variety of ways, depending on the telescope and instruments being used. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) and Hubble Space Telescope each have their own unique abilities that can bring the distant gas giant to…

  • NASA Changes the Mileposts, Again

    It is hard to keep up with the space program these days, between potential budget cuts last year, the recent changes to the Artemis III mission, and now the changes this week by the new NASA administrator. So what is the latest? Let’s start with the Moon mission in today’s post. According to a new…

  • Television: Season Five of For All Mankind

    If you thought last season of For All Mankind was hair-raising with the disasters and battles on Mars, wait until you see what happens this season. This trailer from Apple TV gives you a taste of the drama coming to your television on March 27th. We see the return of many of our favorite characters…

  • Space Stories: The Fate of Juno, the End of a NASA Probe, and “Extragalactic Archeology”

    Here are some recent space-related stories of interest. —Ars Technica: “A Mission NASA Might Kill is Still Returning Fascinating Science from Jupiter“ Jupiter’s colossal storms generate lightning flashes at least 100 times more powerful than those on Earth, according to scientists analyzing data from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. The findings were published March 20 in the journal AGU…

  • Russia Resupplying the International Space Station

    The Russians successfully launched a cargo shipment of food, fuel, and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) earlier today. The Roscosmos Progress 94 spacecraft left the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz rocket. Not everything was perfect, but there is no need to worry. An antenna issue may compromise the unmanned attaching to…

  • Another Take on NASA’s Ability to Maneuver an Asteroid

    While everyone is pretty excited about NASA’s ability to nudge a distant asteroid via its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, there is more than one way to look at this event. While many see this as a new tool to protect the Earth from approaching peril, Carl Sagan saw this it more as a…

  • Happy Spring Equinox!

    A Light Exists in Spring by Emily Dickenson A Light exists in SpringNot present on the YearAt any other period –When March is scarcely here A Color stands abroadOn Solitary FieldsThat Science cannot overtakeBut Human Nature feels. It waits upon the Lawn,It shows the furthest TreeUpon the furthest Slope you knowIt almost speaks to you.…

  • Pic of the Week: Exposed Cranium Nebula

    This week’s images come from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Each image shows a different view of the Cranium nebula depending on the JWST instrument being used. It is also called the “Exposed Cranium” Nebula because it looks like a brain in a see-through skull. Here is a little more from NASA on what…