Whether Biden knows it or not, the Oval Office moon rock is pregnant with wistful symbolism. No one has been back to the moon since 1972. Two previous attempts to return humans to the moon, proposed by President George H. W. Bush and then President George W Bush, fell prey to the vagaries of politics. The third attempt, proposed by President Donald Trump, now hangs in the balance. Biden holds the Artemis program, as NASA calls it, in the hollow of his hand.
Random thoughts on politics, current events, popular culture, and whatever else interests me.
Saturday, January 30, 2021
Friday, January 29, 2021
Thursday, January 28, 2021
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Tuesday, January 26, 2021
Monday, January 25, 2021
Sunday, January 24, 2021
The Space Launch System’s (SLS) development by NASA and a number of aerospace contractors proves that rocket science, which is really engineering to build spacecraft, is a term that describes something that is truly difficult for a reason.
Saturday, January 23, 2021
Friday, January 22, 2021
Thursday, January 21, 2021
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Jim Bridenstine will soon, as he promised, step down as administrator of NASA. He served in that position for just two and three-quarters years. But in that time, he has set America and her allies on a firm path to return astronauts to the moon.
Monday, January 18, 2021
Sunday, January 17, 2021
NASA recently announced that the Juno mission to Jupiter would be extended through 2025. The probe will have a new mission to conduct close flybys of three of Jupiter’s moons, using its suite of instruments to further unlock their secrets in a follow-up to the observations made by the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft.
Saturday, January 16, 2021
Friday, January 15, 2021
Thursday, January 14, 2021
Wednesday, January 13, 2021
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
Monday, January 11, 2021
Sunday, January 10, 2021
Almost unnoticed, tucked into the 2021 fiscal NASA funding section of the recently passed omnibus spending bill, is a provision that would seem to liberate the upcoming Europa Clipper mission from the Space Launch System (SLS).
Saturday, January 09, 2021
Friday, January 08, 2021
Thursday, January 07, 2021
Wednesday, January 06, 2021
The most common objection to NASA’s Artemis program to send astronauts back to the lunar surface for the first time in five decades is a variant of the phrase “been there, done that.”
Tuesday, January 05, 2021
Sunday, January 03, 2021
Axiom Space has announced that it is creating an office park and manufacturing center at the Houston SpacePort at Ellington Field.
The development is a hopeful sign that, despite foot dragging by Congress, a commercial replacement for the International Space Station (ISS) may well happen. The United States has a chance to avoid a “space gap” when the ISS reaches the end of its operational life, like the one that happened between the end of the space shuttle program and the first launch of the SpaceX commercial crew Dragon mission.