• Bad News for NASA’s JPL and the Mars Sample Return

    NASA has started to crack under budget uncertainty. The Washington Post has reported that NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is laying off 530 employees and another 40 contractors. Overall, this is an eight percent drop in JPL staffing, most of it related to the Mars Sample Return (MSR) efforts that have been facing cost overruns…

  • Space Stories: Preparing for a Commercial Space Station, Ukraine Protests New ISS Crew, and Metal 3D Printing in Space

    Here are some recent stories of interest related to space stations. —SpaceNews: “Starlab Commercial Space Station to Launch on Starship“ Starlab Space, the joint venture developing the Starlab commercial space station, has selected SpaceX’s Starship to launch the station on a single flight. Starlab Space, a joint venture of Voyager Space and Airbus Space and Defence,…

  • Cosmonaut Surpasses Earlier Days in Space Record

    Just yesterday, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko surpassed an earlier record for the amount of time a human has spent in space. He has now been in orbit more than 878 days, this being his fifth rotation on the International Space Station. The earlier record was set in 2015 by cosmonaut Gennady Padalka. American astronauts have…

  • March 1, 2024: The Return of Dune

    While Dune: Part Two might have been delayed, I expect it will be more than worth the wait. In the meantime, check out the official movie site and latest trailer. I have also dropped in a few of the gallery photos below. And you might want to check out an earlier New York Times article…

  • Space Quote: NASA Cannot Do Everything in this Budget Environment

    “The current budget environment has significant implications for mission and safety risk. NASA has a very full mission plate. To the extent that their budget request is not fully funded, the leadership will need to acknowledge and make critical decisions with respect to program content or schedules, which will need to be adjusted to meet…

  • Commercial Benefits from the Space Program

    You may have been told that the earlier space program gave us Tang and Velcro. Well, that is not really true. For instance, Tang was already at your local supermarket back in 1959. It was not until 1962 when Tang was taken into space with John Glenn on Friendship 7 and only then did it…

  • Pic of the Week: Space Shuttle Finds a New Home

    This week’s image comes from California and shows the construction of a new giant exhibit at the future Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center. What you are seeing is a covered Space Shuttle Endeavour, which flew its final mission back in May 2011. You can view more images and videos related to the creation of this…

  • Podcast: Romans in Space

    If you are searching for a good podcast to listen to on your next drive, you might enjoy a recent podcast from The Rest is History discussing the ideas of the early Roman Republic that may have informed George Lucas and his Star Wars films. In the episode, “Romans in Space: Star Wars, Dune and…

  • Northrop Grumman Cargo Ship Heads to ISS

    Earlier today, Northrop Grumman launched a resupply spacecraft via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station (ISS). The Cygnus spacecraft is conducting its 20th mission to the station, making it reliable workhorse as NASA awaits even more commercial partners to come online. According to NASA, the resupply spacecraft contains numerous experiments, including:…

  • Space Stories: The ISS Succession Plan, Privately-built Moon Landers, and Working with Moonquakes

    Here are some recent stories of interest. —Aviation Week Network: “Safety Panel Raises Commercial Space Station Transition Concerns“ Concerns over a “very tight” timeline for NASA to transition human low-Earth-orbit operations from the International Space Station (ISS) to commercial successors tops a list of seven concerns raised by an agency safety panel. The latest annual report…