Year: 2025

Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation

8:00 am

Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln

As I wrote in 2023 for Thanksgiving, just six weeks after the horrible murderous massacre of innocent people by Hamas on October 7, 2023:

The date was October 3, 1863. The Civil War was at its height, with no end in sight and no clear sign yet of victory for the Union. For all anyone knew, the great American experiment in self-government, freedom, and constitutional law was about to end in failure, with one half of the nation committed to the idea that it was okay to enslave other human beings, based on their race.

In such a moment, President Abraham Lincoln did what all past leaders in America had done, call for a day of prayer to God for the future while giving thanks for the blessings still abounding. For this purpose he set aside the last Thursday of November of that year.

Since then, Americans have never stopped celebrating Thanksgiving on that day.

Though as always the world is filled with evil people and evil acts, there always remains much more to be thankful for. America still is that shining city on the hill, a beacon for freedom and the rule of law. Though many elites and their minions in our own country are no longer committed to these ideals, and are working daily to destroy them, they cannot succeed. “Government of the people, by the people, for the people,” based on “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” shall always be honored by ordinary people.

As I noted last year, Thanksgiving remains an utterly American holiday.

No other nation has anything like it. And it lives on, because deep down, all ordinary Americans — from all walks of life and political persuasions — are still hopeful and determined to build a life for themselves and their loved ones, with joy and justice and freedom at its heart.

Thus, the words of Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving proclamation still rings true to us all. Let us put aside our petty factional differences and, as Lincoln asked in his proclamation below, give thanks as “one heart and one voice by the whole American People.”

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November 26, 2025 Quick space links

2:52 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

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More glaciers on Mars

12:41 pm

Overview map

More glaciers on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 26, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The scientists label this image “Moraine-like assemblage exposed by ice retreat.” I say: If anyone still doubts the extensive presence of near-surface ice on Mars, this picture should put that doubt to rest.

The white dot on the overview map above marks the location, deep within the 2,000-mile-long strip in the Martian northern mid-latitudes that I label “glacier country,” because practically every picture taken there shows glacial features. This picture is just one more example. As the inset in the overview above shows, this flow is coming down from the exterior rim of an unnamed, partly obscured ancient 17-mile-wide crater, dropping about 7,000 feet from the rim’s peak. This particular section shows the last 3,000 feet of that descent, as the glacier worked its way through a gap in a ridge paralleling that rim.

The image label refers to the flow features that appear to be corroding away. It appears the full data set suggests that corrosion is exposing the material pushed downward by that glacier, what on Earth we call a moraine.

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European Space Agency faces reality: Its partnerships with NASA are fading

10:48 am

The European Space Agency

It appears that the European Space Agency (ESA) is now recognizing that two of its major partnership deals with NASA are likely going to fall apart, and it has therefore begun putting forth new proposals to repurpose those projects during a meeting in Germany this week of its member states.

The two projects are ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter intended to bring Perseverance’s Mars samples back to Earth, and its service module for NASA’s Orion capsule. In the former case, NASA’s decision to cancel the Mars Sample Return Mission leaves that orbiter in limbo. NASA might still fly a sample return mission, but it will almost certainly not do it as originally planned, involving numerous different components from many different sources in a complex Rube-Goldberg arrangement. ESA is now considering repurposing this orbiter as a research spacecraft studying the Martian atmosphere while also being a Mars communications satellite for other missions.

As for the Orion service module, ESA is now recognizing that it is unlikely NASA will continue funding Orion after it completes its presently scheduled missions, totaling at most four. ESA has contracted to build six service modules, and is now studying options for using the last few in other ways, such as a cargo tug in low Earth orbit.

ESA officials are also reviewing its entire future at the conference, considering how private enterprise has completely outrun it in all ways. Its expendable Ariane-6 rocket is a long term financial bust, being too expensive to compete in the modern launch market of reusable rockets. Its proposed IRIS2 satellite constellation will cost too much and launch far too late to compete with the private constellations already in service or being launched by SpaceX, AST-SpaceMobile, Amazon, and China.

To counter this trends, ESA has already made some major changes, shifting ownership and control of its rockets back to the private companies that build them. However, its bureaucracy has appeared resistant to this change, and is apparently lobbying for more funding and control at this week’s meeting, asking the member nations to increase their funding to the agency, giving it a total budget of 22.2 billion euros. There has also been lobbying by ESA supporters for a new Space Law that would supersede the individual space laws of its member states, and also attempt to impose its regulations on non-member nations, beyond its sovereign authority. That law is strongly opposed by the U.S., the private sector, and even some of ESA’s member nations.

The bottom line however is that the nature of the European Space Agency is undergoing major changes, with its work increasingly shifting to its member nations instead of being part of a cooperative effort. While ESA bureaucrats continue to push to protect and strengthen their turf, ESA’s member nations have been increasingly pushing back, and winning that battle.

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South Korea successfully launches its Nuri rocket for the third time

9:37 am

South Korea today successfully launched its government-built Nuri rocket for the third time, placing in orbit one large satellite to study the Earth’s aurora and a dozen cubesats.

This was the first Nuri launch since 2023. In the interim the government has made some moves suggesting it was transferring control of the rocket from its space agency KARI to one of its larger aerospace companies, Hanwah Aerospace. That transfer so far appears mostly superficial, as KARI appears to still control ownership.

As this was South Korea’s first launch in 2025, there is no change to the 2025 launch race leader board:

154 SpaceX
73 China
15 Rocket Lab
14 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 154 to 123.

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New study claims to have detected dark matter inside the Milky Way

9:21 am

Milky Way gamma radiation theorized to represent dark matter
Click for original image.

The uncertainty of science: A Japanese astronomer, Tomonori Totani, yesterday published a paper claiming he had detected gamma ray radiation surrounding the center of the Milky Way that matches perfectly the predicted location of the galaxy’s dark matter halo, thus being the first direct detection of dark matter.

The graphic to the right shows that high energy gamma ray halo, as measured by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. From the press release:

Using the latest data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, Professor Tomonori Totani from the Department of Astronomy at the University of Tokyo believes he has finally detected the specific gamma rays predicted by the annihilation of theoretical dark matter particles. … “We detected gamma rays with a photon energy of 20 gigaelectronvolts (or 20 billion electronvolts, an extremely large amount of energy) extending in a halolike structure toward the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The gamma-ray emission component closely matches the shape expected from the dark matter halo,” said Totani.

The observed energy spectrum, or range of gamma-ray emission intensities, matches the emission predicted from the annihilation of hypothetical WIMPs, with a mass approximately 500 times that of a proton. The frequency of WIMP annihilation estimated from the measured gamma-ray intensity also falls within the range of theoretical predictions.

Totani says this gamma radiation is not easily explained by other phenomenon, which is why he assigns it to dark matter. Other scientists are not so sure:

David Kaplan, a professor in the department of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University, said it’s difficult to trace emissions back to dark matter particles with any certainty because too much is still unknown about gamma rays. “We don’t even know all the things that can produce gamma rays in the universe,” Kaplan said, adding that these high-energy emissions could also be produced by fast-spinning neutron stars or black holes that gobble up regular matter and spit out violent jets of material.

As such, even when unusual gamma-ray emissions are detected, it’s often hard to draw meaningful conclusions, according to Eric Charles, a staff scientist at Stanford University’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. “There’s a lot of details we don’t understand,” he said, “and seeing a lot of gamma rays from a large part of the sky associated with the galaxy — it’s just really hard to interpret what’s going on there.” [emphasis mine]

In other words, this claim is hardly proven, and in fact should not at this point be taken very seriously. Totani has detected emissions that need explaining, but to immediately attach the gamma radiation to dark matter is risky.

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Thirty Meter Telescope is finally considering a move to the Canary Islands

8:58 am

The consortium that has been trying to build the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) in Hawaii for more than two decades but has been blocked by native Hawaiian DEI activists, announced on November 11, 2025 that it has finally decided to consider seriously the $740 million offer by the Spanish government is to move the telescope to the Canary Islands.

TMT International Observatory LLC (TIO LLC) announced today that in response to the generous offer from the Spanish Ministry of Science, it is exploring a promising avenue for a new observatory based in Spain.

While the Members of TIO LLC continue discussions regarding the TMT site, this represents a prospective opportunity to allow TIO LLC to proceed with the TMT project. For this reason, TIO LLC will jointly develop with the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities a detailed roadmap toward the potential realization of the TMT at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (La Palma, Spain).

TMT was about to start construction in 2015, with a completion date expected by 2020. Instead, its construction was blocked by native Hawaiian leftist activists, aided by the support of the Democrats who control Hawaii’s government. Meanwhile, the astronomers in charge of TMT, being modern DEI-trained academics themselves, were generally unwilling to fight hard for their project. It has thus sat in limbo for a decade. Last year it was hit with a final blow within the U.S. when the National Science Foundation announced it would only fund the Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile, leaving TMT short of funds.

All of this remains the stuff of buggy-whips and horse-drawn carriages. Rather than spend billions on this giant ground-based telescope that will be seriously hampered first by the Earth’s atmosphere and second by the half-dozen-plus satellite constellations presently being launched, astronomers would be far smarter to spend that money on a new bigger replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope.

They aren’t, however, because their careers are grounded (literally) on this obsolete technology, and won’t change.

Meanwhile, the end of TMT in Hawaii signals the long-term end of astronomy in Hawaii. Those leftist activists are now in control, and they are outright hostile — to the point of bigotry — to any Western technology or any non-Hawaiians on their islands. They have been pushing to reduce the telescopes on Mauna Kea on the Big Island, and have had some success. Expect them to push harder to remove more in the coming years.

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Vast signs preliminary astronaut deal with the Maldives

8:01 am

Haven-1 with docked Dragon capsule
Artist rendering of Haven-1 with docked
Dragon capsule

Continuing a string of international agreements during the past few weeks, the space station startup Vast yesterday announced it has signed what appears to be a preliminary deal with the Maldives to fly astronauts to its proposed Haven-1 space station.

The agreement outlines that Vast and the MSRO [Maldives Space Research Organisation] will commit to exploring ways to engage the Republic of Maldives space sector. Through the partnership, the organizations will pursue astronaut flight opportunities aboard Vast space stations for agency astronauts, such as Haven-1, the world’s first commercial space station or Vast-provided private astronaut missions to the International Space Station. Both organizations will also collaborate on the development of educational programs and outreach activities, including projects conducted by MSRO astronauts onboard the ISS or Haven-1. These programs are aimed at specifically engaging schools, universities, and other educational institutions in the Republic of Maldives. [emphasis mine]

Vast has similar agreements with Uzbeckistan, Colombia, and the Czech Republic, as well as the European Space Agency. In every case, the agreement hints at Vast providing a space station visit for each country’s or organization’s astronauts, but no firm commitments. I now suspect that these are all preliminary agreements, pending the successful launch of Haven-1 in the first half of next year. Vast plans to keep Haven-1 in orbit for three years, during which it wants to fly four 30-day manned missions, using a Dragon capsule as the ferryboat.

At the moment the company has not announced any passengers or crews for those manned missions. Once Haven-1 is in orbit and operating, however, we should expect astronaut flights to be announced from one or more of these countries.

In a sense, Vast is doing the same thing that Axiom did with India, Poland, and Hungary, signing up each to fly astronauts to ISS. Both space station startups are simply hunting for passengers. And both know that every single third world nation in the world wants to fly its own astronauts in space. Vast, like Axiom before it, is now offering them a cheap way to do it.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

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