• A Day in Astronomy: China Launches a Puppy into Orbit

    On this day in 1966, China launched a male puppy named Xiao Bao (meaning Little Leopard) into space. He was used to test the effects of space and was safely recovered after the flight. Thirteen days later a female puppy named Shan Shan (meaning Coral) was also launched into space. She too was safely recovered.…

  • Space Stories: NASA Aircraft Assist with Texas Flood, Chinese Satellites Do Something New, and Venus May be Probed by the UK

    Here are some recent space-related stories of interest. —NASA “NASA Aircraft, Sensor Technology, Aid in Texas Flood Recovery Efforts“ In response to recent flooding near Kerrville, Texas, NASA deployed two aircraft to assist state and local authorities in ongoing recovery operations. The aircraft are part of the response from NASA’s Disasters Response Coordination System, which is…

  • The Next Mission for Starliner

    The good news is that Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft will be returning to the International Space Station (ISS). However, the not so good news is that NASA may not trust it enough to carry humans – what it was designed to do – so it will probably be carrying cargo on its next mission instead.…

  • Space Quote: What’s the Strategy, NASA?

    “You’re losing the managerial and core technical expertise of the agency…What’s the strategy and what do we hope to achieve here?” -Comment by Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, regarding recent news that 2,145 senior-ranking NASA employees will be departing NASA as part of the ongoing downsizing of the agency. It…

  • Podcast: Winter is Coming? I Hope Not

    If you missed this podcast three years ago, you will want to catch it now. I listened to it again and enjoyed it just as much as last time. The Startalk podcast episode it titled “Nuclear Winter with Ann Druyan and Brian Toon” was first broadcast on August 9, 2022, but it was shared again…

  • Pic of the Week: Open Clusters NGC 460 and NGC 456

    This week’s image combines images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Hubble Space Telescope to create a compressive view of open clusters NGC 460 and NGC 456, which are located within the Small Magellanic Cloud orbiting the Milky Way. If you go to the NASA website hosting this image, you can see…

  • Temporary NASA Administrator Announced

    Earlier today President Trump announced that Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy will now be performing double duties as he takes on the temporary leadership of NASA. This follows the dropping of Jared Isaacman as the next NASA administrator earlier this year. This is not good news for NASA given that (1) a permanent leader seems…

  • Is Musk Taking a Chainsaw to SpaceX?

    The press is all abuzz about Elon Musk’s latest statements regarding his establishment a new political party called the America Party. Some of the stories also relate to his continued inattention to his companies, particularly Tesla. Fortune magazine quoted one security tech analyst who stated: Very simply Musk diving deeper into politics and now trying…

  • Space Stories: Mystery on Saturn, an Interstellar Visitor, and Hunting a Rogue Planet

    Here are some recent space-related stories of interest. —New Scientist: “Did Something Just Hit Saturn? Astronomers Are Racing to Find Out“ Something may have just hit Saturn – and, if so, an amateur astronomer could hold the key to confirming the event, which would be the first ever recorded on the gas giant. About seven asteroids…

  • Television: Star Trek’s Strange New Worlds Returns

    Season three of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns on July 17. It is the only remaining Star Trek series on television, so fans will not want to miss it. Fortunately, the series will be around for a little while now that it’s been approved for a total of six seasons, which should give the…