December 19, 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.
- ICEYE and Rheinmetall win major contract from Germany worth billions for space radar reconnaissance
The contract runs through 2030.
- A 360 degree view of the Gemini-7 capsule interior where Frank Borman and Jim Lovell spent 14 days together in 1965
You can pan as well as zoom in. Jay: “Look at that Bulova clock in the instrumentation!” As Borman told me when I interviewed him for Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, it was like sitting in a Volkswagon with another guy for two weeks, the doors locked and the steering wheel turned all the way to the left making you go around in circles endlessly.
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.
- ICEYE and Rheinmetall win major contract from Germany worth billions for space radar reconnaissance
The contract runs through 2030.
- A 360 degree view of the Gemini-7 capsule interior where Frank Borman and Jim Lovell spent 14 days together in 1965
You can pan as well as zoom in. Jay: “Look at that Bulova clock in the instrumentation!” As Borman told me when I interviewed him for Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, it was like sitting in a Volkswagon with another guy for two weeks, the doors locked and the steering wheel turned all the way to the left making you go around in circles endlessly.
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
In the 1990s, solid rocket munitions surprised me in that some missiles almost looked to fly sideways
This have only gotten more complex:
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/Q4I9DKHncIY
I see Bezos wants to go…to Austin?
https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2025/12/19/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-space-texas-manufacturing.html
Don’t do it. Birmingport in central Alabama is a port of call on a river far from Hurricanes.
Highway 79 north of Tarrant has industrial parts up and down it—and no Austin weirdos.
Austin is just Portland, south.
“Austin is just Portland, south.”
Too true. There is a regular pipeline of people moving between the cities. Portland’s signature “Keep Portland Weird” is a direct rip-off of the motto Austin originated. If pressed, Portlanders will admit of it. I have never been to Austin, but I will let the two cities have each other.
Jeff Wright:
I checked the link, as well as looking at other videos, and need some edification. What doesn’t need explanation is the country of origin. As soon as I saw the vehicle: “Russian”. Russians have a particular style of building military equipment that is very recognizable, no matter the service.
I am curious why the ordinance uses a disposable guidance unit to orient to the line-of-flight. Would it be cheaper to have the tubes horizontal in the first place? What advantage is gained by launching vertically, and then using an entire system to properly orient the rocket?
Space.com reminds us that on December 21, 1968, Apollo 8 launched for the moon. 1968 was also a year of leftist political violence. The iconic Earthrise photo, taken by William Anders, and the recitation of the first verses of the book of Genesis by Anders, Borman, and Lovell helped to lift our spirits at that grim time. Mr. Zimmerman’s book Genesis, The Story of Apollo 8 does an excellent job conveying the facts and the emotions of that time. Buy it from the links on this website.
Hello Bob,
I saw the Apollo 8 launch anniversary trending on X and felt the temptation to whip Genesis off the shelf…
Speaking of lunar missions, Bob’s (I mean, the host of the blog, not Mr Wilson) favorite government body, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) held a surprise public meeting on Thursday night,to make up for the quarterly meeting they were supposed to have but which was wiped out by the shutdown. Of course, it was only virtual, and only an hour, so it was almost as if it was designed to be as inaccessible and available as possible.
Anyway, they were chiefly het up about Artemis. What’s that, you say? Were they worried about the decision to greenlight Artemis II with that dodgy heat shield and never tested in flight life support system? No, but they were skeptical, again, about Starship HLS and all the mission events its architecture requires. Of course.
https://spacenews.com/nasa-safety-panel-recommends-review-of-artemis-plans/
And yet there was a kernel of a what might be a valid concern also raised in this connection, which is that Artemis III will be having to do a bunch of program “firsts” all in one mission, and that this raises risks levels for the mission — which is true, to be sure. Artemis III will be basically combining what Apollo 8, Apollo 9, Apollo 10, and Apollo 11 did into one mission and doing it from a new orbit, which is a lot all by itself, and ASAP is not the first to make this point.
But we all know why NASA is choosing to do it this way this time around.
Maybe SpaceX can just do it all themselves.
Another major event in human history occurring in December was the first powered human flight by a heavier than air craft on December 17, 1903 by two American bicycle mechanics from Dayton Ohio. This was just 65 years before Apollo 8.
Richard M,
“Maybe SpaceX can just do it all themselves.”
I hope so. With Elon’s new personal and corporate motivation to get to the Moon I’d say the chances get better by the day.
When things seem to be going good—that’s when I am the most nervous.
For some reason, the terminally ill seem to get better—sometimes lots better—right before they croak.
I remember when Barnes & Nobel opened at The Summit. I had scraped up 80 dollars.
So help me—I get within sight of it on the interstate, my car quits. Not leaving—not headed out—but when I was at my most optimistic.
Every dollar went to the bloody tow-truck driver..
My guardian angel better learn judo—and soon. Jacob didn’t put half the beating on that worthy that I’m planning.
Bob / Richard–
“50-50” The Flight of Apollo 8
CBS Eye on the World; WOR 710 AM NYC
John Batchelor / Robert Zimmerman (2023)
https://archive.org/details/50-50-the-flight-of-apollo-8-with-robert-zimmerman-john-batchelor
And, grateful thanks to our Host Mr. Z., for having this scanned in 2020.
(If anyone can enhance this video, especially the first 45 seconds, please do so….)
“Amateur Launch Film of Apollo-8”
https://archive.org/details/apollo-8-december-1968-super-8mm-1440x-1080
Not exactly the Death Star, but…
https://www.al.com/politics/2025/12/trump-unveils-plans-for-laser-firing-battleship-named-after-him.html
Oh and…Jared?
Change your helmet dude:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EmpireDidNothingWrong/comments/xjg6r1/capt_isaacman_white_courtesy_phone_capt_jared/
Call sign, “Hux?”
You want to be “Wedge.”
I didn’t know T.I.E. fighters had two seats…rimshot please
There has been a new paper published in the SCIENCE ADVANCES journal with the title “Negligible contribution from aerosols to recent trends in Earth’s energy imbalance.”
Kalyani Chaubey (Cell Reports Medicine) has achieved full neurological recovery in animals with Alzheimer’s disease.
The Weizmann Institute of Science’s Eli Arama has performed a study (NATURE COMMUNICATIONS) which found that the very enzymes responsible for cellular destruction (caspaces) may also render certain cells resistant to death…