Random thoughts on politics, current events, popular culture, and whatever else interests me.
The naming of Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy as interim NASA administrator was as much of a surprise as was President Trump’s withdrawal of his nomination of Jared Isaacman to the same post.
So, how is Duffy doing, trying to bring the space agency out from its summer of discontent?
The Russian space program has seen better days. However, what it can no longer do in real life, Russia is about to do in the form of a major motion picture. The trailer for “The Challenge,” a film partly shot on the International Space Station (ISS), has recently dropped.
The news that Dmitry Rogozin had been dismissed as director of Roscosmos, the state corporation that runs the Russian space program, was universally acclaimed in Western space policy circles. Rogozin’s history of making bellicose statements concerning Russia’s space partners has been a sore point even before his tenure at Roscosmos. However, his departure will not save the Russian space program from the systemic problems afflicting it.