• Summer Movies Are Not What They Used To Be

    When you consider the weak showing of films this summer, particularly space-related films, its enough to make you give up and go online to revisit the classics. If you do so, you will probably bump into a number of great films that all appeared over eight weeks in the summer of 1982, including E.T. the…

  • Audit Report: Concerns about the Gateway Space Station

    In a recent audit report, Artemis Programs: NASA Should Document and Communicate Plans to Address Gateway’s Mass Risk, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) expressed some concerns about NASA’s Gateway space station, which will orbit the moon as part of Artemis IV . Specifically, the concerns relate to the first components of the space station to…

  • Pic of the Week: Cygnus Approaching

    This week’s image is from the International Space Station (ISS). It shows Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus resupply capsule on August 6, 2024 as the International Space Station’s (ISS) Canadarm2 robotic arm attempts to capture it. NASA noted that this Canadarm2 maneuver marked the 50th free-flying capture for the robotic arm.

  • Starliner: Return Date Now 2025

    I did not think it could get worse, but it has. NASA has announced that Boeing’s Starliner capsule attached to the International Space Station (ISS) might not return until next year, making it an unwanted appendage on a busy space station. At a press conference today, NASA discussed leaving the two Boeing astronauts on the…

  • Space Stories: A Polish Astronaut Heads to ISS, Two Astronauts Are Missing from Church, and Deadly Red Dwarves

    Here are some recent stories of interest. —European Space Agency (ESA): “Sławosz Uznański from Poland Will fly to International Space Station on Rourth Axiom Space Mission“ Axiom Space announced that it is partnering with India, Hungary, and with Poland through ESA to send three national astronauts to the International Space Station on Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4).…

  • The Space Station Supplies Have Been Launched

    The weather cleared enough in Florida on Sunday for the SpaceX launch to take place, sending the Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft towards the International Space Station (ISS) after some earlier delays. At 11:02 am ET, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launched Northrop Grumman’s 21st Commercial Resupply Services mission (NG-21) to the ISS from Space Complex 40…

  • Space Quote: Could VIPER be Resurrected?

    “I’m very disappointed in the recent NASA decision to cancel the VIPER rover…Please work with me as the bill moves forward to look for ways to repurpose the lander portion of this mission to advance moon-to-Mars objectives. The mission directly supports a national imperative for continued US leadership in science and exploration in the face…

  • Resupply Mission to the Space Station Hits a Weather Bump

    The weather in Florida has delayed today’s Northrop Grumman resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS). In fact, SpaceX is launching the payload for Grumman from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station rather than the typical launch facility in Virginia. The Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft with its 8,200 pounds of supplies will probably…

  • Podcast: Discussion with Ray Kurzweil

    Neil deGrasse Tyson interviews futurist Ray Kurzweil in this repeat StarTalk episode from November 2022 titled “Could We Someday Liver Forever? With Ray Kurzweil.” It is a heavy conversation about living forever as we integrate technology even more into our lives. Throughout the conversation Neil makes reference to a book coming out in 2023. In…

  • Pic of the Week: View of a Nearby Exoplanet

    This week’s image looks dark and simple, and yet it is an amazing sight provided by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It shows a directly imaged exoplanets that resides about 12 light-years from us. It is called Epsilon Indi Ab and is several times the mass of Jupiter. Here is an explanation from NASA…