July 14, 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.
- Orlando Sentinel details the NASA perks in the just passed reconciliation bill, including money to move the space shuttle Discovery on display in DC to Texas
The article is behind a paywall, but if you scan it quick you can get the gist. My sense is that this is a typical press report, naively in favor of all spending.
- On this day in 1969 the Soviet Union launched Luna-15 in a desperate attempt to get lunar samples back to Earth ahead of Apollo 11
The mission failed, with the lander crashing.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
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.
- Orlando Sentinel details the NASA perks in the just passed reconciliation bill, including money to move the space shuttle Discovery on display in DC to Texas
The article is behind a paywall, but if you scan it quick you can get the gist. My sense is that this is a typical press report, naively in favor of all spending.
- On this day in 1969 the Soviet Union launched Luna-15 in a desperate attempt to get lunar samples back to Earth ahead of Apollo 11
The mission failed, with the lander crashing.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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
I totally missed the woodpecker incident.
(Is that a real thing or did The A.I. go insane, again?)
wayne: Yup, that really happened.
Rats found coating of wires edible in the Soviet ICBM program.
Water lines iced up near the Atlas ICBM LOX pits such that worker boxed up some housings filled with steaming horse manure to keep the lines from freezing. Coffin silos some were called.
There is 5 – 6 seconds to scan the article, where some call the NASA cuts ‘extinction-level’. Perhaps that source is unclear on the meaning of ‘extinction’, or they are referring to their jobs.
Can’t blame the woodpeckers: a tall, round, orange thing is . . . . a tree.
There is something about wire insulation, whether rubber, fabric, or plastic seems not to matter, that is attractive to rodents. More than one house has burned down from wire-chewing, and if you ever rescue a ‘barn-find’ vehicle, you’re replacing wiring.
Blair,
I see this in electrical substations, cars, and anything else with wires. Peanut oil is used with some forms of wire insulation and it tastes sweet to the rodents. To protect my vehicles in my shop, besides traps, farmers told me to use mint or peppermint oil on a rag and wipe the surfaces where rodents would get into. The farmers spray it on their combines’ engine compartments when they are done harvesting and the rodents keep away. It works and it smells good.