November 3, 2025 Quick space links
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.
- Building the ascent engine on the Apollo lunar module
Nice detailed video, describing how Bell Aerosystems built an engine that could not fail. It is especially revealing how much testing with real hardware they did prior to launch.
- Another Chinese pseudo-company, Deep Blue, touts the successful static fire tests of its Nebula-1 rocket’s first stage
It claims the launch is next. When was not stated.
- The Starlab space station consortium touts its on-going preliminary design review of the subsystems for its Starlab single module station
Of all the four station’s under construction, Starlab has built the least, though it has begun issuing contracts for that construction.
- Space station startup Axion touts the testing of the “conical tunnel for its station’s docking adapter”
They are checking for cracks, and finding none.
- As of today, humans have been in space continuously for 9,132 days, or 25 years
Sadly, if that record is to continue it will require help from outside the U.S., as it is not likely any of our proposed commercial stations will be ready for continuous occupation initially.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
- Building the ascent engine on the Apollo lunar module
Nice detailed video, describing how Bell Aerosystems built an engine that could not fail. It is especially revealing how much testing with real hardware they did prior to launch.
- Another Chinese pseudo-company, Deep Blue, touts the successful static fire tests of its Nebula-1 rocket’s first stage
It claims the launch is next. When was not stated.
- The Starlab space station consortium touts its on-going preliminary design review of the subsystems for its Starlab single module station
Of all the four station’s under construction, Starlab has built the least, though it has begun issuing contracts for that construction.
- Space station startup Axion touts the testing of the “conical tunnel for its station’s docking adapter”
They are checking for cracks, and finding none.
- As of today, humans have been in space continuously for 9,132 days, or 25 years
Sadly, if that record is to continue it will require help from outside the U.S., as it is not likely any of our proposed commercial stations will be ready for continuous occupation initially.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
If they hadn’t crashed DC-X, we might have had a Moon base for the last 10 years!
ascent engine lunar module–> Great stuff!
Well, a HTOHL SSTO is a big ask…and you get a 1% payload if that.
DC-X atop an SD-HLLV becomes a lander…MADV style.
Blue’s New Shepard is rather landerish itself.
Elon settled for just having a first stage land–first stages can be as massy as they like.
Hypergolics allow simplicity…like the LM ascent stage that could be used by hand.
A new material advance:
https://phys.org/news/2025-11-scientists-bullet-proof-fiber-stronger.html
New electric motor:
https://techxplore.com/news/2025-11-silicon-carbide-based-motor-enables.html
I don’t really like electric airplanes–which land as heavy as they take off–but the advance here might help Starship in that Elon doesn’t like hydraulics.
Axiom also debuted a new promo video for their station today. It’s a puff piece for what I presume are customers and investors, but I was struck by how much it leans on its ISS connection, and also the glimpse of the first flight module, which looks pretty close to complete on the outside now.
Jeff,
Hypergolics ARE simple, and very reliable, and they don’t require cryogenic temperatures, and that’s why Apollo employed them. I won’t gainsay any lander that decides to use them. But they have drawbacks, too: highly toxic, highly volatile, and you can’t readily refuel through ISRU on the Moon or Mars.
SpacexX and Blue Origin had to weigh these tradeoffs, and I think they did it carefully.
Deep Blue? Does IBM know about this?
Robin K Juhl,
Crashing the DC-X wasn’t the problem. Failure to get back up, dust off and continue was the problem. DC-X was always a redheaded stepchild at NASA. The reason we didn’t have a moon base a decade ago was not an engineering issue but one of defective organizational cultures at both NASA and its aged and infirm coterie of legacy contractors. Fortunately for the nation, SpaceX is now poised to do a decisive end-run around the whole multi-decadal NASA-centric mess. Moon Base Alpha coming soon.
Richard M & Jeff Wright,
The drawbacks of hypergolics are part of the same basic chemistry that makes them hypergolic. These cannot be gotten around. Hydrolox and methalox, in contrast, have drawbacks – mainly boil-off – that are addressable via engineering.