July 22, 2026 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.
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- The UK and Florida sign deal establishing a £300,000 [$401,000] grant program
Small grants will be awarded to projects having partners in both the UK and Florida. It is not clear where the money is coming from, but I suspect most is coming from the UK, where its leftist Labor government has allocated $665 million for a variety of space projects, most of which are government-related.
- Blue Origin touts the completion of testing of its first Blue Ring orbital tug
For some reason this spacecraft is pink. No launch date has been set, and likely must wait until New Glenn is flying again.
- The final space shuttle mission touched down 15 years ago today
It was a 30-year program that essentially squelched an independent private American rocket industry. It accomplished some cool things, but overall its legacy is that of failure.
- The audio, with English subtitles, of Yuri Gagarin’s flight on Vostok-1, April 12, 1961
This is very cool. As Jay notes, “I have never heard the flight of Vostok-1 before, and you get to hear Korolev’s voice, which is a first to me. As a ham operator, I was able to discern the high pitch voices as being off frequency or the Doppler effect on another transmission.”
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