July 31, 2025 Quick space linksCourtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, including the exoplanet piece I posted earlier today. 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.
- ULA touts the work it is doing on new Vandenberg launchpad
It says the work is 76% done and will be finished by the end of the year.
- Firefly touts its defense work using its Elytra space tug
It touts this work about once a month since it won the contract in April.
- Sean Duffy says that Gynne Shotwell has guaranteed the Starship lunar lander will be ready for the Artemis-3 manned landing mission presently scheduled for 2027
See my essay today: The word that best describes our present NASA lunar program is “delusional.”
- This week in 2005 astronaut Steve Robinson did the first in-orbit repair of the shuttle’s thermal heat shield
Attached to the robot arm, he removed gap fillers that were sticking out between the tiles.
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, including the exoplanet piece I posted earlier today. 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.
- ULA touts the work it is doing on new Vandenberg launchpad
It says the work is 76% done and will be finished by the end of the year.
- Firefly touts its defense work using its Elytra space tug
It touts this work about once a month since it won the contract in April.
- Sean Duffy says that Gynne Shotwell has guaranteed the Starship lunar lander will be ready for the Artemis-3 manned landing mission presently scheduled for 2027
See my essay today: The word that best describes our present NASA lunar program is “delusional.”
- This week in 2005 astronaut Steve Robinson did the first in-orbit repair of the shuttle’s thermal heat shield
Attached to the robot arm, he removed gap fillers that were sticking out between the tiles.
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
On lunar descent:
https://techxplore.com/news/2025-07-moon-mystery-game-future.html
Better metals
https://phys.org/news/2025-08-metallurgy-21st-century-precisely-metal.html#google_vignette