December 30, 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.
- Chinese pseudo-company Interstellor touts testing of the landing thrusters on its CYZ-1 crew capsule
It blurred the thrusters. Jay rightly asked “What’s there to blur? We all know it is a copy.” To my eye, it appears to be copying Stoke’s concept.
- Chinese pseudo-company Azspace touts absurdly ambitious plans for 2026
It says they will inaugurate a reusable suborbital capsule for tourists, a commercial space station, a larger orbital spacecraft, and a re-entry capsule. Wanna bet?
- Typical mainstream propaganda piece opposing White House proposal to close the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado
Mainstream outlets (in this case Space News) always oppose all government budget cuts, blindly and without any thought. This is just another example. I have become very bored with their empty-headed predictability.
- NASA touts Perseverance’s excellent health, bragging it can function until at least 2031
This story was from a week or two ago. It is just NASA lobbying for cash. Perseverance was always expected to last that long, if not longer, especially as it has upgrades that Curiosity lacks. And yet Curiosity is still going strong after more than a dozen years.
- A nice summary of what was learned when Voyager 1 and 2 passed through the boundary of our solar system, the heliopause
Voyager 1 crossed in 2012. Voyager 2 did it in 2018. Both are still functioning, though their lifespan is only another few years.
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.
- Chinese pseudo-company Interstellor touts testing of the landing thrusters on its CYZ-1 crew capsule
It blurred the thrusters. Jay rightly asked “What’s there to blur? We all know it is a copy.” To my eye, it appears to be copying Stoke’s concept.
- Chinese pseudo-company Azspace touts absurdly ambitious plans for 2026
It says they will inaugurate a reusable suborbital capsule for tourists, a commercial space station, a larger orbital spacecraft, and a re-entry capsule. Wanna bet?
- Typical mainstream propaganda piece opposing White House proposal to close the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado
Mainstream outlets (in this case Space News) always oppose all government budget cuts, blindly and without any thought. This is just another example. I have become very bored with their empty-headed predictability.
- NASA touts Perseverance’s excellent health, bragging it can function until at least 2031
This story was from a week or two ago. It is just NASA lobbying for cash. Perseverance was always expected to last that long, if not longer, especially as it has upgrades that Curiosity lacks. And yet Curiosity is still going strong after more than a dozen years.
- A nice summary of what was learned when Voyager 1 and 2 passed through the boundary of our solar system, the heliopause
Voyager 1 crossed in 2012. Voyager 2 did it in 2018. Both are still functioning, though their lifespan is only another few years.
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
“” A wall of superheated plasma at the edge of everything we’ve ever known—discovered by 1970s technology still transmitting from beyond our solar system.””
We never, EVER get tired of Voyager news & information.
Just imagine – The Voyager spacecraft use 8-track digital tape recorders (DTRs) to store scientific data, a form of magnetic tape technology, as their primary data storage, relying on this older, robust tech due to limited memory (around 69 KB) and the need to overwrite old data for new observations. These rugged tape systems, built with radiation-hardened components, has allowed the probes to function for decades in deep space, recording and playing back massive amounts of data before transmitting to Earth. Vintage tech still working in interstellar space.
(from Google)
Using the word “robust” is an understatement.
One of NCAR’s bright stars is Erik Rasmussen…”The Dry-Line Kid” and brain behind VORTEX SE. The mainstream is correct by and large.
That said, wind almost took down an atomic clock:
https://hackaday.com/2025/12/29/how-wind-nearly-took-down-boulder-ntp/
Where Greens corrupt things, and you want a Jack the Ripper approach–the best thing is to have guys like James Spann or John Christy in charge of things.
I was fortunate enough to work with Matt Biddle in 1998 and 2011 before his death…just serving as his arms and legs. He drove Probe 2 of the original VORTEX before Lou Wicker tried to put him out to pasture–but that’s another tale.
I am unconvinced that an orbital capsule would have windows that large.
ULA’s Vulcan for USSF-87 is now in the vertical assembly buidling at the Cape (SLC-41), by the way:
https://www.ulalaunch.com/missions/next-launch/vulcan-ussf-87
https://x.com/ulalaunch/status/2006400750763598051
No launch date has been set, but I assume it’s within the next 6-8 weeks given past launch timelines, unless a hiccup happens.
How many launches will ULA manage with Vulcan next year? The pressure is on to ratchet up the launch tempo. But given how things have lagged, I will take the under on any number over a half dozen right now.
Anti-icing fluid improvements
https://techxplore.com/news/2025-12-gelators-aircraft-anti-icing-fluids.html
Room temperature ammonia production?
https://phys.org/news/2025-12-sunlight-driven-nanoparticles-enable-cleaner.html
Jeff Wright & Anti-icing fluid improvements
Just reminded me of the civilian applications from the Apollo program developments. Then I wondered what future marvels the SpaceX programs, as well as the other rocket, space programs, will be used by the general public.
In 1973, this incredible High School math teacher, Mr Bubb, was retiring. He was one great teacher and mathematician. He loved teaching both basic and advanced math. Since he was retiring, we students all donated 1 dollar, to get him the latest HP calculator – $400. When he opened it, at first he choked up a little, and then went into explaining all of the incredible things he could do with the calculator in his “retirement.”
What marvels await us will be just as amazing.
Ronaldus Magnus:
I’m guessing the HP-45, which was revolutionary for the time, and a perfectly serviceable calculator, today. I never could get used to the OS on HP machines, and wimped out to the TI. The nerds in my high school [hand up] packed TI-57’s in belt holsters; the more well-heeled carried the TI-59, and I was jealous. Neither machine was allowed for exams: as the teacher explained “It’s programmable.” Although I bought handheld computers for later math classes, and specialized devices for particular applications, I found that the venerable TI-30 got me through most upper-division math classes, and later professional work. The challenge there, of course, is formulating the problem; the rest is just arithmetic. I still “daily-drive” a TI-68 on my desk that survived a trip through a ducted fan.
Perhaps of interest:
The Calculator Reference
https://www.vcalc.net/index.html
Lots of fakes
https://hackaday.com/2025/12/29/the-rise-of-fake-casio-scientific-calculators/
Hackaday reports that GitHub has “TULIP” for calculators.
On NCAR
https://talkweather.com/threads/massive-eruption-in-tonga.1901/page-4#post-186996