March 26, 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.
- China’s present planetary exploration roadmap
- 2028: Tianwen-3 Mars sample return
- 2029: Tianwen-4 to Jupiter and Callisto
- 2033: Venus atmospheric sample return
- 2038: Mars Research Station for ISRU
- 2039: Probe to Neptune and Triton
Jay notes correctly that China has apparently dropped a planned mission to Uranus, listed in a similar presentation in February 2023. The schedule has for all these missions also been pushed back significantly.
- On this day in 1948 Chuck Yaeger flew Bell X-1 to the highest velocity and altitude of any piloted airplane up to that time
The speed record set was Mach 1.45. The altitude record was 71,900 feet.
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.
- China’s present planetary exploration roadmap
- 2028: Tianwen-3 Mars sample return
- 2029: Tianwen-4 to Jupiter and Callisto
- 2033: Venus atmospheric sample return
- 2038: Mars Research Station for ISRU
- 2039: Probe to Neptune and Triton
Jay notes correctly that China has apparently dropped a planned mission to Uranus, listed in a similar presentation in February 2023. The schedule has for all these missions also been pushed back significantly.
- On this day in 1948 Chuck Yaeger flew Bell X-1 to the highest velocity and altitude of any piloted airplane up to that time
The speed record set was Mach 1.45. The altitude record was 71,900 feet.
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
Hello Bob,
I’m having some issues with my Google account, so I’m posting this here instead….
Tonight, Eric Berger is reporting that Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo ship for its next resupply mission (NG-22) to ISS has been determined to be . . . too damaged in shipping to be able to safely fly. So NASA is scrambling to load more consumables on the Cargo Dragon mission going up next month while it figures out what to do for the rest of this year’s ISS manifest.
Berger had a sharp observation to make:
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/nasa-sidelines-cygnus-spacecraft-after-damage-in-transit-to-launch-site/
I believe you were saying something about the value of redundancy in contracting the other day? :)
Richard M: Heh.
I am right now rereading some classic Greek tragedies. In one there is a character who was given second sight by the gods and can always predict what will happen quite accurately. Her problem: No one ever listens to her.
Describes my entire life in the space business. ;)
Looking Behind the Black, we discover a Cassandra!
Thank God for SpaceX. Where would we be without them? But we need other capable vendors in the trade space, desperately.
Dr. Jordan Peterson
“The Story Begins with Abzu & Tiamat”
2017 Maps of Meaning excerpt
https://youtu.be/NC6-QA-kCng
11:27
“Thank God for SpaceX.”
Thank Elon and Gwynne for SpaceX and the people they motivated and employed to build magnificent machines.