March 19, 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.
- Documentary about OTRAG, a 1970s attempt by the Germans to build a private rocket launching from Zaire
Worth watching. They had one successful suborbital launch, followed by a spectacular failure seconds after launch.
- A report about another private startup studying ideas on grabbing an asteroid
Everything is very preliminary.
- Nice animation showing the deployment of Max Space’s proposed inflatable Thunderbird space station
The narration says the company hopes to fly it in ’29, but first it has to successfully fly a smaller demo mission planned in ’27.
- Vast touts the gyroscopes it is developing in-house to provide attitude control its space stations
Haven-1, scheduled for launch in ’27, will use these, as well the larger Haven-2 station, if built.
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.
- Documentary about OTRAG, a 1970s attempt by the Germans to build a private rocket launching from Zaire
Worth watching. They had one successful suborbital launch, followed by a spectacular failure seconds after launch.
- A report about another private startup studying ideas on grabbing an asteroid
Everything is very preliminary.
- Nice animation showing the deployment of Max Space’s proposed inflatable Thunderbird space station
The narration says the company hopes to fly it in ’29, but first it has to successfully fly a smaller demo mission planned in ’27.
- Vast touts the gyroscopes it is developing in-house to provide attitude control its space stations
Haven-1, scheduled for launch in ’27, will use these, as well the larger Haven-2 station, if built.
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
This should make you all very happy–SLS to be replaced
https://x.com/x/status/2034698115320516855
A bullet Starship with a nose dock similar to that left behind on the rump of Hubble turns it into a giant Agena.
This could make Starship basically an replacement for the giant Altair, even if Starship cannot land. It could shove Blue Moon around too.
I hadn’t thought of it being a giant Agena. Oh, well. Strange how a Mike Griffin plan killed the Mike Griffin rocket.
Any ideas towards MAF tooling….Stoke?
Loren Grush reporting plan to change Artemis architecture: Orion to LEO, Starship takes Orion to LLO. See “Ellie in Space” YT and discussion on NSF.
If Trump wants another $200 billion dollars on operation “blow up oil infrastructure,” I could see Senators/Representatives holding out until Mike Griffin replaces Jared at NASA around daylight or so.
In the meantime, I am laughing at MS Now (MSNBC)….I just landed there after channel surfing, where experts were talking about how not just America but the world needs free flowing oil.
All you libertarian Marion Stokes types….be sure to set your VCRs. You will never hear this admission again.
I think they just booted Bill Nye to the curb after telling NDT to get lost.
Thank you for the film on OTRAG! Fantastic things of which I had zero knowledge.
OTRAG simply has to be one of the absolute weirdest and wildest stories in the history of the Space Age, at least insofar as efforts that actually got hardware off the ground are concerned.
Brian Keating Podcast (March 20, 2026)
Avi Loeb on 3I/Atlas; The 22 anomalies”
https://youtu.be/1k0e7TqPlJw
1:47:42
To Richard M
I agree with you…OTRAG deserved better:
It also allowed very wide payloads due to its layout… without needing piggyback mount:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o6i2ymMwhc0&pp=ygURT1RSQUcgaGF6ZWdyYXlhcnQ%3D
Wide is good….optics, aerobrake heat shields, dishes, solar, etc.