Two NASA reports released late this week bring to mind the old adage “we don’t know what we don’t know.” The first concerns the explosion of an Orbital Sciences, (now Orbital ATK ) Antares booster carrying a Cygnus cargo ship to the International Space Station on October 28th 2014. One year later, a NASA Independent […]
With SpaceX, United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin all working on methane powered boosters, NASA is a little late to the party on this one, but maybe they’re bringing the good stuff. The Marshall Space Flight Center is testing a 4,000 lb. thrust pressure-fed methane rocket engine in anticipation of a developing larger descent/ascent engines […]
There is an interesting trend developing with the $20 million dollar Google Lunar XPrize. Earlier this year, Pittsburgh, PA. based Astrobotics, which hopes to develop regular deliver service to the Moon, announced that it has signed an agreement with the sole Japanese entry, Team Hakuto, to transport that team’s twin rovers to the Moon along […]
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is about to make a return visit to one of the most interesting environments we have yet discovered in the Saturn system, and that is saying something. On Wednesday, October 28th, Cassini will make a low flyby over the South Pole of Enceladus, the 300 mile diameter moon which appears to contain […]
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center has seen a number of exciting developments announced in recent years as it undergone a largely successful transition from the Shuttle era to becoming a “21st Century Spaceport.” While there is quite a bit underway on KSC proper, including the conversion of Pad 39B for SLS, and SpaceX’s high profile transformation […]
For SpaceX, the wagon train to Mars is about to get underway with a major transportation project of a decidedly more earthly nature. The Valley Morning Star reports that construction of the company’s commercial launch facility at Boca Chica is about to get underway for real with the import of approximately 310,000 cubic yards of […]
It is one of the “oldest” story-lines in science fiction. A ship of intrepid space travelers discover the remains of an incredibly ancient civilization distributed throughout a region of space. Eventually the realization hits, they were the “first ones,” the founders who seeded life throughout the universe. On occasion, Innerspace has suggested that perhaps the […]
On February 11, 2015, SpaceX conducted is first (and so far only) launch to deep space. The payload, officially designated as the Deep Space Climate Observatory, has a long and strange history dating back to the Clinton Administration and Vice President Al Gore’s proposal to launch a satellite which would show the entire Earth as […]
The NFL probably owes an apology to anyone who felt compelled to sit through the first half of a badly played Monday Night game to catch a glimpse of the new Star Wars trailer. In case you were smarter than that, or just enjoy competent football, here it is.
SpaceX has announced that it is making a change in the batting order as it prepares to return to flight following the June 28th failure of a Falcon 9 on the NASA/CRS-7 mission. Rather than loft the SES-9 satellite to geostationary transfer orbit on what will be a challenging assignment for a rocket featuring numerous […]
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