8 comments

• Yngvar

  January 17, 2026 at 10:20 am

  Isar Aerospace announces: “The launch is targeted for not earlier than 21 January, with the launch window opening at 09:00 pm CET, subject to weather, safety, and range clearance.” A night launch from Andøya Spaceport.

  (https://isaraerospace.com/mission-updates-overview)
• Richard M

  January 17, 2026 at 11:43 am

  For lack of a recent Orion thread to stick this one on…

  I normally don’t like recommending podcasts or videos, because most people do not have time for them, and like me I think the regulars here process information much faster by reading it rather than listening to it. But I have an item I would like to make an exception for: Jake at Off Nominal had Eric Berger and Casey Handmer on the podcast yesterday to discuss the slow-rolling disaster that is SLS/Orion. It’s about an hour long, and I think it has value, if y’all have the time for it:

  https://youtu.be/t22AJASj2Bc

  It was interesting because . . . well, multiple reasons. But starting with the one that both Eric and Casey are well-known critics of Orion, but they came out with different positions on whether NASA under Jared Isaacman (who Eric says basically made the decision to fly it before the big heat shield meeting in Houston two weeks ago was held) was right to go ahead with flying this mission with crew. Casey (a former JPL/NASA engineer) agrees with Charlie Camarda that he would cancel the whole thing, stat, but failing that would fly an uncrewed test mission with the revised heat shield first. Whereas Berger (who continually offers the caveat that he is not an engineer) felt convinced by the meeting that it seems reasonably safe to fly this mission, unlike Camarda, who sat right next to him in the meeting, increasingly seething with the whole thing. Eric notes that Camarda and a heat shield expert he brought along with him were “peppering the Houston team with questions. Some of them were in good faith, some of them were not.” He ended up deciding that Danny Olivas was more compelling and convincing than Camarda on this question. (I do not know enough to feel confident of even offering an opinion on that question.)

  But then, Berger stepped back to make a larger criticism, which I think most of us here would agree with:

  “I think what NASA did was to botch the public rollout of all this. They had tried to cover up rather than publicly share it. […]

  “It’s an absurd position to be in, because this is a 20 year old vehicle! And this is the heat shield we’re left to fly with, the first time we put humans on it, the one that failed the previous time, and you changed it up 11 years ago? It’s a *massive* failure in program management, in my opinion that this is where we ended up after 21 years, sort of with this kludged together heat shield that probably is going to be good enough to fly, and it’s not going to be used on Artemis III, it’s only going be used this one time, so we’re not actually going to get any valuable data from it! It’s just sort of emblematic of the whole Artemis program.”

  I wish Orion/SLS would be cancelled today and the hardware dragged off to rocket gardens and space museums, but failing that I *do* hope the mission ends up going off without a hitch. But I guess we’re going to find out, one way or another.
• Dick Eagleson

  January 17, 2026 at 2:56 pm

  Richard M,

  I watched that too and found it interesting for all of the same reasons you did. About all one can say at this point is that I hope we manage to squeak by, sans casualties, as we did with Starliner.

  That was Anthony Colangelo doing the hosting, by the way. His usual partner-in-crime, Jake, was otherwise occupied that day. FYI, Berger and other space journos such as Loren Grush are frequent guests on the Off-Nominal podcast and nearly all of the guests are interesting.

  On the general matter of podcast watching, I’m rather less abstemious than you. I regularly watch Anthony & Jake’s Off-Nominal podcast as well as those done by Marcus House and Felix Schlang (What About It) and most of those done by Scott Manley and Ellie in Space. I also watch Tim Dodd’s factory tour episodes. Anthony Colangelo also has an audio podcast called Main Engine Cut-Off that I listen to. I used to listen to Dr. David Livingston’s The Space Show a fair amount, but have fallen away as it has become less interesting to me in recent years.

  Of course, being a retiree, I have a tad more time at my disposal than anyone still in the workforce so my podcast indulgences do not keep me away from anything of major importance.
• Blair K Ivey

  January 18, 2026 at 7:17 am

  Re: Berger quote shared by Richard M: Wow.

  “You know, in certain older civilized cultures, when men failed as entirely as you have, they would throw themselves on their swords.”

  The Operative Serenity 2005
• Richard M

  January 18, 2026 at 5:44 pm

  Hello Dick,

  “That was Anthony Colangelo doing the hosting, by the way. His usual partner-in-crime, Jake, was otherwise occupied that day.”

  Ack. My bad. I can only claim lack of caffeine.
• Jeff Wright

  January 18, 2026 at 8:46 pm

  Quantum energy harvesting?

  https://techxplore.com/news/2026-01-scientists-uncover-quantum-state-power.html
  https://techxplore.com/news/2026-01-approach-energy-harvesting-quantum-world.html
• Richard M

  January 19, 2026 at 7:41 am

  This is news, not opinion, but I thought it worth mentioning for the regulars who check these Quick Link threads, not least because its stance is diametrically opposed to the one offered by mkent in the comments here over the last week:

  Andrew Follett, “It’s Way Past Time to Retire the International Space Station,” National Review, Jan., 18, 2026
  https://www.nationalreview.com/2026/01/its-way-past-time-to-retire-the-international-space-station/

  There are valid points, some wrong-headed points, and at least a couple serious factual errors in here on Mr. Follett’s part, which leads me to believe that NRO is best off leaving its space pieces to Rand Simberg, unless of course, our kindly host wishes to submit a guest piece to ’em.
• Richard M

  January 19, 2026 at 7:42 am

  P.s. Well, that was an embarrassing goofup: I meant to say, the Follett piece is opinion, not news!