June 15, 2026 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.
- Pictures of Relativity’s Terran-R first stage test article vertical in California
It is acting as a stand-in for the real thing as the company performs a variety of launchpad tests.
- Isaacman: “NASA wasted $20 billion on dozens of failed nuclear power and propulsion programs that never went to space once.”
Video of his comments about NASA’s newest nuclear propulsion project during a forum this week. He is making the point that NASA doesn’t have a budget problem, it has had a management problem.
- On June 14, 1967 Mariner 5 was launched to fly past Venus
On October 19, 1967 it passed 2,585 above the surface, providing the first measurement of Venus’ 800 degree Fahrenheit atmosphere with pressures 100 times that of Earth. It also found no evidence of water, predicted incorrectly by some scientists and sci-fi authors as the main component of Venus’s cloudy atmosphere.
- On June 14, 1975 the Soviet Union launched Venera 10
On October 23, 1975 it touched down on Venus’ surface and operated for 65 minutes, taking a fish-eye panorama, where the corners look to the horizon and the center sees the foreground material.
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
The folks who worked on NERVA deserve more respect than Jared has given them. The Vietnam War, Great Society..pick your poison–they siphoned off the largesse…space programs are the eternal whipping boys. I remember when NASA Chiefs didn’t throw their own under the bus.
Jeff,
You’re reading things into it that were never said. As Robert wrote, he’s blaming bad management, not the people who worked on it.
Just think what NewSpace can do with a 20 billion dollar investment.
Jeff, you celebrate Government run Space Programs smallest successes, and yet overlook this massive failure and waste.
I’m glad he said this. I mean, I’d lost count of all the dead nuke programs . . . NASA wasted at least half a billion (at least, officially) on the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) alone.
Hello Jeff,
Even more to the point than what Nate has said, I listened to the entire clip, and Jared never even mentions NERVA. So where are you getting that?
I’m sure we’re all aware of the outrage at Musk becoming the world’s first trillionaire.
On X, someone posted a talking-head compilation of some of the offended, which included AOC, Elizabeth Warren, Joy Reid, and former astronaut Mark Kelly. They wailed and lamented that it was “unfair” and “unearned”, etc., etc.
Here’s a commentary by Professor Gad Saad about the reaction:
Oh, dear, the URL seems to have gone missing. Try again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cx4id6Kh5w