Two recent news items highlight the slow, but steady progress being made to set the stage for the robotic exploration and utilization of space beyond low Earth orbit. First, the tiny European nation of Luxembourg, already home to two of the world’s largest ComSat companies, announced a new initiative, called spaceresources.lu to promote space mining and […]
Congress Give’s President ARM the Finger What may ultimately go down as one of the the strangest and most half-hearted space policy proposals in American history is finally just going down. As spacepolicyonline reports in its usual excruciating detail, a Congressional committee has essentially de-funded the Obama Administration’s Asteroid Redirect Mission, or ARM. Yesterday, the […]
There is an interesting division taking place in the media as it relates to how NASA and the Space Launch System are being covered. On the one hand, NASA itself has done an excellent, if not overly enthusiastic job of promoting SLS/Orion and the “Journey to Mars” despite the fact that there is no such […]
Here is yet another entry in the “look how fascinating our solar system is” column, courtesy of NASA and the Hubble Space Telescope. From NASA.gov: Hubble Discovers Moon Orbiting the Dwarf Planet Makemake Peering to the outskirts of our solar system, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a small, dark moon orbiting Makemake, the second […]
Despite its current problems, which include a 30% cut in funding over the next decade, and the recently announced delay of its heavy lift launch vehicle plans, the Russian space program is keeping its long term ambitions focused squarely on the Moon. Sergey Krikalev, executive director of Roscosmos State Space Corporation told TASS on April […]
The journal Nature has published a fascinating paper which provides convincing evidence that the Moon’s axis shifted by roughly 5 degrees some 3 billion years ago. What makes the work more than a matter of scientific curiosity however, is the fact that the shift was traced by using data from a variety of spacecraft to […]
From playing a vital role in building, staffing, and operating the International Space Station over the last 15 years, to launching the ExoMars probe this week, there is no doubt the Russian space program is a vital, and even indispensable component of the global space exploration infrastructure. According to a report in Reuters with quotes […]
A collection of papers just released at the journal New Space makes the argument that thanks to advances by SpaceX. Bigelow Aerospace and others, the United States is in a position mount a return to the Moon and construction of a permanent base housing 6-10 people at the lunar North Pole in approximately 10 years […]
Editorial: It is has not been a particularly good week for United Launch Alliance, and especially for now former VP of Engineering Brett Tobey, who resigned after making a number of controversial comments during a speech at the University of Colorado-Boulder. The story has unfolded in a flurry of articles in Space News, which on […]
The Indian space program was on display yesterday at the week long “Make In India” event being held in Mumbai to highlight that nation’s transition into a rising technological and economic powerhouse. ISRO, the Indian Space Research Organization took the opportunity meet with suppliers in conjunction with its plans to largely privatize operations of its […]
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