October 31, 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.
- Blue Origin reports a successfull dress rehearsal countdown and 38 second static fire test of its New Glenn rocket
This is in preparation for launch on November 9, 2025, carrying NASA’s two Escapade Mars smallsat orbiters. It will be the second New Glenn launch, about 10 months after the first.
- Spaceport startup NordSpace joins the Global Spaceport Alliance (GSA)
Neither Jay nor I have ever heard of GSA, but that means nothing. Nordspace’s Atlantic Spaceport Complex in Newfoundland is pushing to beat the much older spaceport startup in Nova Scotia in achieving the first launch from Canada.
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.
- Blue Origin reports a successfull dress rehearsal countdown and 38 second static fire test of its New Glenn rocket
This is in preparation for launch on November 9, 2025, carrying NASA’s two Escapade Mars smallsat orbiters. It will be the second New Glenn launch, about 10 months after the first.
- Spaceport startup NordSpace joins the Global Spaceport Alliance (GSA)
Neither Jay nor I have ever heard of GSA, but that means nothing. Nordspace’s Atlantic Spaceport Complex in Newfoundland is pushing to beat the much older spaceport startup in Nova Scotia in achieving the first launch from Canada.
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
Since the general topic is space, let’s talk about what we’ve been learning about Venus in particular and stagnant lid worlds in general. Of late, what we thought we knew about planet Venus has changed utterly.
Venus is what happens—not, it tuns out, when there’s a climatic “runaway greenhouse effect” as hitherto supposed—but rather when you’re a world lacking in plate tectonics, which therefore is subject to so-called lid tectonics.
In Venus’ case, this transformed what could have been a semi-habitable world into the hellhole we see there today—not by means of any kind of a climatic catastrophe, but wholly geologic.
Venus geologically is a so-called stagnant lid world. (Other local examples: the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Vesta.) Rather than plate tectonics (a.k.a. “mobile tectonics”), as Earth enjoys, Venus experiences lid tectonics, which means that Venus’ crust—rather than being cracked into “plates,” whose motion, subduction, volcanoes, et al., act to release a great deal of internal heat—instead forms a thick cap (a “lid”) atop the venusian interior, insulating it.
For those who like to contemplate physics in operation, imagine what such an insulating layer lying atop its (heat-generating) interior does to a world.
But no need to imagine, we now know (from its complete surficial dearth of old, large craters) that Venus around half a billion years back underwent a tremendous convulsion—due to heat buildup in the “stagnant” mantle below—whereby Venus’ entire crust one fine day basically turned over and melted (obviously a stupendous catastrophe), then refroze into the nearly pristine surface (a scattering of tiny craters have arrived since the cataclysm, allowing rough dating) that we see there now.
The result is that any carbon hitherto resident in Venus’ crust—in calcite, limestone, coal, oil, or the bodies of any venusian inhabitants—would thereupon have been “cooked” and propelled into the atmosphere as CO2 gas. Thus, the situation we see on the planet today.
Indeed, this kind of “resurfacing” event (sounds so sanitary, doesn’t it?) is a previously unimagined danger that stagnant-lid worlds, we now realize, are generally (or at least many of them) subject to: a disaster which can “suddenly,” with almost no warning—over geologic timescales (of perhaps 100 million years or less), that is—transform formerly clement worlds into almost literal hellholes.
One might note that such disasters might occur repetitively to “lid” world(s) like Venus.
#ScienceFiction and #SciFi has contemplated many kinds of planetary catastrophes—but it never imagined this.
Michael McNeil: Wonderful stuff. A great summary of what I thought I knew about the present state of Venus as seen by planetary scientists, but much more informed. Thank you.
These theories of course raise the question: Why was the global geology of Venus and Earth so different? And one can’t help immediately wonder if the Moon is that major factor? Is so, then planets like Earth could be much more rare than we think.
Mars for example has no significant Moon, and its global geological history appears to more resemble Venus than Earth.
Michael McNeil, references please?
New theories are fun to think about, need more information of what led to the conclusions necessary to be examined.
Venus is full of mysteries that are fun to hypothesize about, like it’s negative spin, and it’s “day” being longer than it’s “year”. Is its atmosphere emitted from the planet? or captured from the Solar gases the way earth captures the northern lights and converts it into water. Why is the upper atmosphere colder than anywhere on earth? and yet it’s surface is hotter the mercury at 860°.
I believe I read somewhere that Venus has more shield volcanoes than any other planet but Jupiters moon Io. The strong magnetic south pole on the side of Jupiter passes over Io every 10 hours creating magnetic induction heating… does the sun have the same affect on Venus? Or is there another mechanism?
Max: McNeil’s summary is exactly what I have read now for almost two decades, based on our limited knowledge of Venus. It is a planet of a million volcanoes. The evidence suggests about a half billion years ago its entire surface got resurfaced.
Michael merely added some interesting details to round those facts out, and added what scientists believe the consequences of such a geological history.
I can’t give you references off the top of my head because this summation essentially covers the entire field.
Max,
That magnetic flux tube is always on Io. You are correct, it is inductively heating Io’s core, along with Jupiter’s gravitational forces acting as tidal forces drive it as well.
As for Venus, we have always said that it is Earth’s twin, but it has a weak magnetic field. Some people hypothesize that the core is solid, and others think it is small due to slow rotation of the planet.
One item that has always fascinated me was how to reduce the atmospheric pressure of Venus. I have heard of sunshades to drop the temperature, dropping hydrogen, dropping iron to force the CO2 to form graphite, and of course crashing asteroids.
Michael McNeil observed about Venus’ lack of “. . . plate tectonics (a.k.a. “mobile tectonics”), as Earth enjoys, . . . ”
Unless you happen to be living in the vicinity of those ‘enjoyable’ plate tectonics.
Here are a couple of recent (2025) journal articles on the topic: Science and Nature.
Robert: I agree. Particularly with regard to Mars:
Mars for example has no significant Moon, and its global geological history appears to more resemble Venus than Earth.
That it does. The last gasps of the Insight lander’s only-seismometer-on-Mars has overturned popular mythology that Mars’ interior (particularly its nickel-iron core) was frozen and inert, like the planet supposedly—this is the “Mars is dead, baby!” syndrome as I’ve seen it enunciated. On the contrary, we now know that the interior of Mars—as a stagnant-lid world—is actually more molten than Earth’s. Not only does Mars possess both a liquid-iron outer core together with solid-iron inner core, much like Earth, but the lower portion of Mars’ mantle (unlike Earth) is also molten (silicate rock, not iron). Mars’ crust could, indeed, “resurface” like Venus someday, though that’s probably unlikely.
I would like to interject here that it’s vital that more seismometers be dropped on both Mars and Venus. Insight’s one-and-only seismometer energized by the lander’s last gasps of solar power gave us a revolution in our “insights” about Mars. But we need a network of perhaps a dozen seismometers placed around each planet to give us good coverage and directionality.
Blair:
Unless you happen to be living in the vicinity of those ‘enjoyable’ plate tectonics.
Ha ha! I hear ya. I happen to live about 60 miles from one of the world’s great stratovolcanoes (Mount Shasta) and another 40 miles or so from one of the great shield volcanoes (Medicine Lake—the volcanic source for Lava Beds National Monument), so I too am uneasily aware of the rumblings down in the deep.
I don’t want to alarm anybody, but something hit the moon:
https://x.com/JPMajor/status/1984300472052707638
I wish something big had hit Venus to have blown that atmosphere off and spin it up..
Michael McNeil,
Along with retrieval of the Perseverance samples, that Mars-wide seismometer net sounds like an early to-do list item for SpaceX’s Mars settlement project. Anyone planning to live on Mars long-term is going to want to keep tabs on the doings of its innards.
Michael McNeil noted: ” . . . so I too am uneasily aware of the rumblings down in the deep.”
I live in western Oregon, and as you know, there’s a lot of active geology not far off the coast. Still, I lived in various places on the East Coast for decades, and I’ll gladly trade the off-chance major quake for the near-certainty of ‘tropical weather’.
It’s tiresome that we’re forced to keep up on the politics at NASA, robbing valuable time on keeping up with actual science being done or actual space hardware being developed or flown, which our host does so well. But since we must….
Eric Berger has a new piece up at Ars Technica delving into a curious new document called ATHENA making the rounds in Washington, purporting to tsummarize the actions that Jared Isaacman would have taken, were his nomination to become NASA administrator confirmed. And as Eric tells it, it looks like a hit job by the Usual Suspects:
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/11/capitol-hill-is-abuzz-with-talk-of-the-athena-plan-for-nasa/
So, something to be aware of.
That’s a great idea, actually, Even just a handful of strategic locations, if the seismometers are capable enough, would provide a pretty good first order approximation of planetary tectonic activity sufficient for the base/settlement’s purposes.
There likely is better geology elsewhere on Mars anyway.
Some of Handmer’s hate for Marshall is that it threatened Pasadena pork.
JPL was perfectly happy with chain smoking Delta IIs with bomb-disposal robots atop them…or the occasional EELV. I and others viewed Delta as a crutch, and that it would make more sense to back HLLV development. MSFC is the only true Red State center, besides the Burke/Hare types in Houston who want everything anyone ever built in their back yard.
So JPL and Goddard always had it in for us.
I don’t get the Mars love.
IF Musk can get Starship and Teslabots to work–Titan should be his destination with seas of high test, methane….a Chevron world.
I couldn’t care less about Mars.
America needs larger hydrogen rockets made from the start to be used as payloads themselves that don’t have to re-enter.
Titan may be the most interesting world in the entire Solar System — I mean, aside from the one we are standing on. But Mars has one huge advantage over Titan: it’s a heck of a lot closer to Earth. Like, close enough that it’s not a pure fantasy exercise to think about sending humans there.
Humans on Titan is not something that’s going to happen in my Gen X lifetime. Very probably not the next two generations, either.
(The gravity is also a lot higher on Mars, too, and that may matter a lot. But that’s also traded off by the very thin atmosphere.)
Richard M,
Thank you for the kind words anent SpaceX on Mars.
I’m not sure “forced” is quite the word I’d use anent keeping up with the political shenanigans within and surrounding NASA. I think a better analogy is to voluntary visits to a zoo. More and more, we are able to view the monkeys fighting over bananas and throwing feces at each other as just a form of inconsequential entertainment. The doings of NASA and legacy contractors anent manned space are, like the zoo monkeys, sporadically amusing, but of no real consequence. The real work is being done elsewhere by others. That isn’t clear to the general public yet, but it soon enough will be.
All I know of the ‘Athena’ document is from Berger’s article. From his description, it sounds as though much of what Isaacman proposed to do as NASA Administrator would have broad appeal. The opposition seems entirely from the rapidly fading NASA Lifer ranks and the “usual suspects” legacy cost-plus-ers. These are static or shrinking constituencies. TX politicians counting noses should note that Elon’s various TX payrolls are increasing smartly while JSC’s is not. Ditto Florida. Alabama, not so much.
If Duffy has thrown in with the fading Old Guard and is playing this leaker game to monkeywrench Isaacman, I think he may find he is backing the wrong horse.
Jeff Wright,
“Better” is only definable in terms of goals. Given SpaceX’s goals for Mars, the places currently under consideration for the initial settlement spot seem plenty good enough.
Handmer, despite having once worked at JPL, is no particular fan of that institution in its current decayed condition. His critique of Orion – and, by implication, of MSFC – isn’t based on wishing to beggar Peter to pay Paul. He’s no friend of Paul either. Instead, his case is based entirely upon cultural dysfunction and engineering incompetence at both NASA and LockMart as evidenced by the ridiculous monstrosity that is Orion. You, of course, reject any criticism of MSFC and its works out of hand and refuse to address the grotesque specifics. You are quintessentially tribal in your outlook and your only riposte is to accuse others of simply favoring other tribes.
“JPL and Goddard always had it in for us.”
I don’t doubt that a bit. The centers within NASA have long resembled a burlap bag full of feral cats. Lots of snarling, hissing, scratching and biting. So what? The enmity of JPL and Goddard for MSFC doesn’t affect in the slightest the fact that Orion is a magnum load of road apples.
You don’t favor going to Mars. So don’t go. It’s not as though SpaceX is going to be sending press gangs into the streets to grab up random citizens to send Mars-ward. Elon wants people on Mars and he’s the one with the wherewithal to send them there. He who pays the band calls the tune.
Titan could prove a useful place for people to go at some future point, but it’s a very long way away and there’s no obvious reason for any mad rush to get there.
America may have some need for hydrogen upper stages – in which case Blue can supply them. There is no rational case for large hydrolox boosters for reasons I have explained to you repeatedly. Erstwhile such, like Shuttle, Ariane 5 and Delta IV, have already gone away. Newer ones, like SLS, Ariane 6 and H-3, will do the same before long. It’s just a bad idea.
Seismometers/temperature/weather/camera set up can be easily distributed across Mars at equilateral destinations by the “dozens” or “hundreds” by simply loading a tungsten tipped rod with a upgraded cell phone package, timed launched on approach to Mars, burying it’s self on impact across the planet as it spins, with a flexible solar panel parachute to significantly slow Impact.
Solar panel will remain on the surface keeping seismometer fully charged, while linked with the now empty mothership that goes into orbit gathering and storing the data.
Likewise a observational platform suspended in the atmosphere can be launched to any planet in the solar system. By dropping a probe full of cell phone packages with hundreds of simple button cameras, who’s combined optical resolution is equal to a lens of the same combined area.
Package is suspended by a flexible solar panel parachute that slows its dissent into the atmosphere. The parachute inflates with helium from a CO2 cartridge style tank at the desired distance from the surface. (The cartridge, when spent, can be discarded as ballast). Micro pump can control volume in balloon for height and temperature variations at night. The surface can be explored on any planet this way while mapping air currents.
Larger versions with propellers can seek out places of interest with landing capabilities. (perhaps a drone/helicopter or rover can be part of this style probe)
Richard M opined: “Humans on Titan is not something that’s going to happen in my Gen X lifetime. Very probably not the next two generations, either.”
You may be right: I may be crazy, but I think you may underestimate how quickly we are going to spread. If a profitably-extractable resource is found on Titan, you may get to see it.