• The European Space Agency is Staying Busy with Sunshine

    While NASA is going crazy over budget cuts, the European Space Agency (ESA) is focused on new images from the Solar Orbiter spacecraft showing the sun’s south pole from a distance of about 40 million miles (shown above). Launched in February 2020, Solar Orbiter is an ESA-led cooperative mission with NASA designed to answer a…

  • Pic of the Week: A Fun Evening Steven Colbert’s Guests

    This week’s image comes from an episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which aired earlier this week. Mr. Colbert was interviewing William Shatner and Neil deGrasse Tyson about the absurdities on Earth and in the galaxy. In an odd twist, Dr. Tyson was generally quiet on the sofa while Mr. Shatner carried the…

  • Space Stories: Spirals in the Oort Cloud, Killer Asteroid Heading Towards Moon, and Starlink Messes Up Astronomy

    Here are some recent space-related stories of interest. —NDTV: “Visual Glitch Leads To Accidental Discovery Of Spiral In Mysterious Oort Cloud“ Scientists have long assumed the Oort Cloud, one of the most mysterious structures in our solar system, to be spherical. But during the pre-production of their new space show, “Encounters in the Milky Way,” they…

  • Video: The Dark Forest

    And now for something really different. If you are tired of national politics, maybe its time to talk about the extinction of all life in our solar system. Just for a change of topic, of course. The Cool Worlds Lab has an interesting video titled “Why I Don’t Buy The Dark Forest Hypothesis” that picks…

  • Star Wars: Another Political Take on the Empire

    While the libertarians at Reason magazine have their view of the imperial story-line in the Star Wars television series Andor, the liberal folks at Mother Jones magazine have a whole different take on the Star Wars universe. In an article last month titled “How Star Wars Reveals Conservatives’ Authoritarian Fantasies,” we read about how some…

  • What are NASA’s Plans for Starliner?

    It was this time last year – June 5th to be exact – that Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft was launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket towards the International Space Station (ISS). Hopes were high, but then things started to unravel. So where do things stand now, particularly with the new concerns about SpaceX?…

  • Giving Everything to SpaceX is Risky? Who Knew?

    According to the Washington Post, the leaders at NASA and the Department of Defense (DOD) have finally figured out that Mr. Musk is a potential threat to our space program and national security. Now where did they get that idea? The newspaper stated: NASA and Pentagon officials moved swiftly this past week to urge competitors…

  • Space Quote: Japanese Lunar Lander Fails a Second Time

    “Given that there is currently no prospect of a successful lunar landing, our top priority is to swiftly analyze the telemetry data we have obtained thus far and work diligently to identify the cause.” -Statement by Takeshi Hakamada, CEO and founder of Japan’s private space company ispace, in a press release following the failure of…

  • Pic of the Week: The Last SpaceX Dragon Approaching the ISS?

    This week’s image shows the latest, but hopefully not last, docking of the SpaceX Dragon with the International Space Station (ISS) back in April. Future flights of the Dragon to the ISS are now in question due to an ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, presumably over a bloated House budget bill. However,…

  • Space Stories: Dozens of Space Missions Cancelled, NASA Climate Cuts Impact Industry, and Budget Cuts Hurt Huntsville

    Here are some recent stories about the planned budget cuts at NASA. —USA Today: “Dozens of NASA space missions could be axed under Trump’s budget: Here’s a look at 6“ A total of 41 science projects would get the ax under the proposal, which would be NASA’s biggest single-year cut in the agency’s history, according to…