Romania’s quixotic moonship scheduled for test on Thursday

The media have been describing it as raising serious questions about the reliability of the Soyuz spacecraft, but I consider today’s manual docking with the International Space Station to be a triumph. There was, indeed, a problem. The automatic docking system failed, and an actual human being—a cosmonaut—performed a successful docking manually. Man and machine [...]

The Augustine Commission is recommending cancellation of the Ares I rocket—which NASA spent hundreds of millions of dollars on as its future manned orbital launcher (for earth-orbital missions.) This is supposed to save money. Instead, that group advised NASA to alter and use an existing commercial rocket—developed by the employers of commission members—which is not [...]

I recently picked up an old oversized book in a used bookstore. The title is “The Moon As Viewed By Lunar Orbiter.” It was published by NASA in 1970. There are many great photos of the moon from back then, including the first picture of the earth seen from the moon. All of the photos [...]