July 23, 2026 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay as well as the last link from reader Nate P. 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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- Bill to legalize supersonic flight just passed the Senate Commerce Committee unanimously
It has already been passed by the House, also unanimously. This bill would legalize without question recent FAA regulations that attempt to do the same.
- Startup InSitu Space touts its proposed Daedalus Hopper
It would be brought to the Moon on another lunar lander, use its engines to bring cargo to several other locations. The first demo mission is targeting a 2030 launch.
- A barge arrived at KSC today carrying the launch mount used for the Ares-1 rocket
No information on why or who is moving it.
- Scientists discover the first exoplanet orbiting a brown dwarf star
They don’t know how to label it. A moon orbits a planet. A planet orbits a star. This object orbits a brown dwarf, a failed star that is too big to be a planet but too small to be a star.
- On July 23, 1972 Landsat-1 was launched, the U.S.’s first US Earth resources satellite
It operated for 5.5 years, taking over 300,000 images. It was the first satellite to take multi-spectral pictures, using upgraded technology first tested by astronauts on Apollo missions.
- Introduction to Space, published March 26, 1958 and written by President Eisenhower’s Science Advisory Committee [pdf]
The statement was put together quickly to address the public’s strong concern following the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik. It laid the political ground work for changing NACA to NASA.
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