Thirty one years ago today, John Young piloted the world’s first re-usable manned spacecraft (the space shuttle Columbia) into orbit for a short jaunt, and returned safely (along with...
Manned spaceflight's ultima...
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Taikonauts, private spacecraft...
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What’s With Orion?
3Posted by Ray Katz
The NY Times on NASA’s Future
Today’s “Science Times” section of the NY Times has two articles about space: one about NASA’s future and another about private space companies. New Boosters Compared The first article nicely explains quite a bit about the Constellation program (the successor to the shuttle) and the booster (Ares I and Ares V)—and how they differ. The Ares one uses a...
Read MorePosted by Ray Katz
Early-ish Picture of the Moon…in 3D
Get out your 3-D glasses! Here’s an old stereoscopic view of Schroter’s Valley, taken on one of NASA’s lunar orbiter missions in the 1960s.
Read MorePosted by Ray Katz
Big Win for SpaceX!
The International Space Station will be re-supplied in the future by a private...
Posted by Ray Katz
Private Spaceflight Advances. But Wh...
The “carrier” plane for the commercial spacecraft SpaceShipTwo...
Posted by Ray Katz
Lunar Advertising
Sunday’s New York Times Magazine included a discussion of the idea of...
Posted by Ray Katz
NASA Administrator and Obama Battle
According to many news sources (including Time magazine), there’s a...
Posted by Ray Katz
Military Cosmonaut Dies
Not many people know that the Soviets launched military space stations. There...
Posted by Ray Katz
First 2-Teddy Bear Spacewalk
Okay, they only went about 30 miles up—not really space. And they were...
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Tourist trips to the International Space Station to End…or Not…
The crew of the International Space Station is scheduled to increase from 3 to 6. And, at that point, there may be no “rooms at the inn” for space tourists who pay upwards of $20 million for a visit. Your Seat Is Taken And the Russian Space Agency suggests that, after this year, there may [...]
Lunar Advertising
Sunday’s New York Times Magazine included a discussion of the idea of advertising on the lunar surface. This is, apparently, possible but very expensive. Coca Cola was reportedly considered using lasers to illuminate a portion of the moon with an advertisement for its flagship soft drink. But the number of lasers needed—to be visible from [...]
Satellites to send solar energy back to Earth
Will this happen? I don’t know. But there’s a plan for an agreement between Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and Solaren Corp. of Southern California, a somewhat mysterious startup. PG&E is asking the state of California for permission to sign an agreement with Soaren to purchase up to 200 megawatts of power—which Solaren plans to [...]