The map that named the New World

1:56 pm

The Fourth Part of the World

One of the great mysteries of the New World is its name. Why were both continents named after a relatively unknown Italian merchant by the name of Amerigo Vespucci, rather than the great explorers who are much more well known for discovering and exploring its shores in the 1490s?

Even as a child I wondered about this mystery. My teachers would describe the voyages of Christopher Columbus, Henry Hudson, Vasco da Gama, Vasco Balboa, etc, but tell us little of Vespucci. Yet North and South America both honor him with his name. Why? How?

I finally got the answer to that question in reading Toby Lester’s 2010 history, The Fourth Part of the World. It not only tells the story of that European discovery of the whole world, beginning in the 12th century (when little was known outside Europe) to the 16th century (when Spanish and Portuguese sailors were circling the entire globe), it also puts that story in the context of map-making, which provided those explorers the information they needed to venture out into unknown seas.

Lester centers his story on one map, created in 1507 by a small somewhat obscure group of cartographers located in the foothills of the Alps near the German-French border, that for the first time put the name “America” on the New World, as shown below.
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EU sanctions five more Russian aerospace executives for their part in the Ukraine War

11:09 am

Though the action is mostly symbolic, the European Union (EU) on August 7, 2026 imposed personal sanctions on five executives who head important Russian aerospace companies, as part of an expanded effort by the EU to oppose Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.

On Aug. 7, the European Union added five Russian defense industry executives to its sanctions list, including Viktor Ivanov, director general of Roscosmos subsidiary NII TP, the developer of the Kasatka-R synthetic aperture radar system. The designation builds on previous EU sanctions imposed on the company itself, extending the pressure beyond its limited commercial exposure to the individuals running Russia’s military-industrial organizations. … Under the sanctions, any assets Ivanov holds in the EU are frozen, EU persons and entities are prohibited from making funds or economic resources available to him, and he is barred from entering or transiting through EU territory.

…The EU also sanctioned Sergey Bashkov, director of Irz-Svyaz, which the bloc described as a systemically important Russian manufacturer of navigation receivers for GPS and the Russian GLONASS satellite navigation system. Aleksandr Dyukarev, director general of Krasnoyarsk Machine-Building Plant, was also listed. The company manufactures the RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile as well as modules for carrier rockets.

The full list of sanctioned individuals and what they do can be found here [pdf].

This EU action is mostly meaningless, because it is unlikely any of these Russians have significant assets outside of Russia. It is also not going to act to defer any other major players in Russia’s aerospace industry from doing war work against the Ukraine, because they are likely also as firmly locked into Russia. They wouldn’t have the security clearances to do their work otherwise.

This announcement however essentially doxxes these individuals, providing the Ukraine information that it could use against them in drone attacks. It is this fact only that makes these sanctions carry weight, but only if the Ukraine decides to use it.

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Genesis cover

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 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

Webb data suggests early galaxies had more low-mass stars than predicted

10:54 am

The uncertainty of science: Using infrared spectroscopic data obtained from the Webb Space Telescope of nine massive galaxies, astronomers have found that they appear to contain far more low-mass stars than ever predicted.

The team studied nine massive, mature galaxies that ceased forming stars billions of years ago, combining extremely deep JWST spectra with previous ground-based observations from the Very Large Telescope. The researchers used these observations to reliably determine the proportions of tiny, faint stars and giant, bright stars present in such distant galaxies for the first time.

To achieve these measurements, astronomers split the light from a galaxy into a spectrum, in which subtle differences in colour reveal the types of stars within the galaxy. This spectrum is typically dominated by massive, bright stars, making the much fainter, low-mass stars extremely challenging to detect. “If a galaxy were a city, the brightest stars would be the skyscrapers that immediately catch your eye from afar”, says lead author Chloe Cheng (Leiden University), who earned her PhD in June based in part on this research. “Our models demonstrate that a far more numerous population of low-mass stars is concealed by those rare, bright stars, like houses hidden between skyscrapers. As a result, this galaxy turns out to be much more massive than previous estimates suggested.”

These results are quite uncertain, based on the techniques used to cull out the postulated existence of this population of low-mass stars. Nonetheless, they indicate several things. First, our estimates of the real mass of the universe — which seem inadequate and thus require the made-up existence of dark matter — could be wrong. There could be a lot of hidden mass out there.

Second, this result suggests that the massive galaxies that Webb has unexpectedly found in the very early universe could be even more massive than predicted. Furthermore, they could have large populations of low-mass stars. Present cosmology says such massive galaxies could not have formed so soon after the Big Bang. That cosmology also predicted the first stars would all be very massive. These results counter that cosmology, and once again suggest it fails to explain properly the formation of the universe.

In more blunt terms, cosmologists have been guessing, and their guesses are likely wrong.

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Scientists: Mars’ moon Deimos is a rubble pile shaped by a major impact

10:06 am

Deimos, simulated and imaged by Viking

Based on computer models using data both from the earliest close-up imagery from the Viking orbiters in the 1970s as well from recent data from Europe’s Hera asteroid probe during a fly-by in 2025, scientists now believe Mars’ smaller moon Deimos is a rubble-pile asteroid whose smooth surface was shaped by a major impact sometime in its past.

You can read their paper here [pdf]. The image to the right comes from figure 4 of that paper. The top images were taken by the orbiters Viking-1 and Viking-2. The bottom illustrations come from the computer simulations, with displaced material indicated in orange. From the paper’s abstract:

Deimos, the potato-shaped, 12-km-diameter outer satellite of Mars, has a strikingly smooth surface covered by fine regolith, in contrast to its heavily cratered and grooved sibling, 22-km-diameter Phobos. Moreover, Deimos’s topography is dominated by a single large south-polar depression, whose formation we simulate to constrain the moon’s interior and surface geomechanical properties and to explain the origin and distribution of its regolith.

Here we find that an oblique impact by a 320-m-diameter projectile can quantitatively account for this depression, the global regolith layer and surface features such as bright streaks and crater infill. Our results show that Deimos’s upper layers are extremely weak and that its interior is highly porous and dissipative, resembling the recently visited rubble-pile asteroids rather than lunar regolith.

In other words, the impact shook the moon so thoroughly it crushed and smoothed its rubble into the fine-textured surface we see now. The scientists also believe this impact likely occurred recently — from 200 to 20,000 years ago — based on the moon’s present orbit.

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Conscious Choice cover

Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!

From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.

 

All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.

ULA names new CEO while L3Harris fires its boss

9:34 am

Two major aerospace companies made major changes in their top management since yesterday.

ULA logo

First, the United Launch Alliance (ULA), formed from a partnership of the rocket divisions of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, finally named a permanent CEO after its long time chief Tory Bruno left in December 2025 to work at Blue Origin.

United Launch Alliance (ULA) today named veteran aerospace industry executive Mark Peller as its next president and chief executive officer effectively immediately. Prior to being named to the top position at ULA, he served as the chief operating officer responsible for the operations of the Atlas and Vulcan launch vehicle programs, including engineering, supply chain, production, launch, quality assurance, information systems, and overall program management and integration.

Peller began his career in 1990 with Rockwell, which was then bought by Boeing in 1996. When ULA was formed in 2006 he moved there. This background suggests Peller is a company man who will force little major change at ULA, which has lagged far behind SpaceX in terms of innovation and competitiveness. For example, the company strongly resisted making its new Vulcan rocket reusable when it began design work in the 2010s. That resistance continues. Since Peller was a major player in that established work force, expect much of the same from him now.

Meanwhile, L3Harris yesterday fired its CEO Chris Kubasik, apparently for an “inappropriate relationship with an employee.”
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Floating Starship successfully reaches calm waters off Christmas Island

8:47 am

Starship still afloat

The Starship from the July 24, 2026 orbital test flight that after a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean remained intact and floating has now been successfully guided by the SpaceX recovery team to calm waters just off Christmas Island, about 900 miles west of Australia and 200 miles south of Indonesia.

After approx. 24 days at sea, the SpaceX Recovery team successfully guided Starship to a location just off the coast of Christmas Island. A team of SpaceX engineers is on their way to conduct additional analysis on the vehicle in calmer waters before attempting to return it to Starbase.

The picture to the right is a screen capture from the short video issued by SpaceX, showing both Starship in the foreground and SpaceX’s recovery ship in the background. That this spacecraft has remained seaworthy after all this time is a remarkable testament to its design and construction, and bodes well for future iterations.

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Leaving Earth cover

Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.

If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.

 
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke

August 17, 2026 Quick space links

3:06 pm

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.

Note: X now requires log in to view videos with sound. You can get around this by clicking on the three dots at the top right to get the embed code. Ask for the code for an “embedded video.” The video will then be available for watching with sound.

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Australian government issues $1.75 million grant to study spaceport concept in Western Australia

9:46 am

Proposed or operating Australian spaceports
Australian spaceports: operating (red dot) and proposed (red “X”)

The Australian government has awarded a Perth-based company, Space Angel, a $1.75 million grant to study whether it will be practical or possible to build a commercial spaceport in that country’s largely empty Western Australia province.

The company will receive $1.75 million, which it will match, to carry out site assessments needed for planning and regulatory approvals and to develop a business case for proposed spaceport sites in Western Australia. The funding was awarded through what the government described as an open and competitive process.

The Labor government first put forth this grant program in February 2025, with Space Angel proposing spaceports at the Christmas Island and Eucla locations, and a different startup, WA Australia, proposing the Albany site. Space Angel’s proposal has apparently won out.

Whether there is any real potential for economic profits from such a commercial spaceport remains very uncertain indeed. Based on the track record of similar government-supported spaceports worldwide — with no specific rockets linked to the port — that potential is not very high. Without the commitment of a specific rocket company to launch from the location, the spaceport just sits there, unused (Spaceport Nova Scotia in Canada is the best example). It is like building a mall without a major department store as an anchor. Without that anchor no one has an incentive to show up, especially because there are plenty of established launch sites available elsewhere, with full facilities already in place.

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Weightlessness doesn’t appear to impact the heart’s ability to beat

9:22 am

While long term exposure to weightlessness has been found to impose a strain on the bones, muscles, back, and vision, new research on ISS using mice strongly suggests that it does not affect the heart’s ability to operate, on a fundamental level.

Researchers analyzed heart cells from five mice that were on board the International Space Station for 38.5 days. The researchers specifically looked at the mice’s sarcomeres, the motors in the cells that make the heart contract.

The contracting force in the sarcomeres was the same in mice on the space station as it was in the control mice that stayed on the ground. Molecular testing also found no major differences in the proteins that make up sarcomeres between the two groups of mice, the U of C said.

You can read the paper here [pdf].

This experiment is still of limited value, as it only lasted a little over one month, and involved a small population of mice. The results of manned missions of six months or more has shown that though the cardio-vasular system is weakened by weightlessness, it appears to eventually recover upon return to Earth. Whether there is any specific temporary impairment to the human heart, such as its sarcomeres, is not yet known. This research is a good first step to finding out.

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China launches earth observation satellite for the UAE

9:03 am

China yesterday evening successfully launched an earth observation satellite for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), its Long March 2C rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China.

Though the satellite was apparently built by the National Space Science and Technology Center at the United Arab Emirates University, this launch raises American security questions. Much of the UAE’s training and technology comes from American universities, which suggests that once it arrives in China it can then be stolen by the Chinese. American law forbids any American company or entity from working with China, but it cannot prevent a UAE university or government agency from doing so.

Meanwhile, China’s state-run press made no mention on where the rocket’s lower stages (using very toxic hypergolic fuels) crashed.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

99 SpaceX
54 China
11 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
10 Russia

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 99 to 91.

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Sight-seeing at Vandenberg while upgrading ULA’s Vulcan launchpad

8:01 am

The following report was provided by Jay, Behind the Black’s stringer who furnishes me the daily “Quick Space Links.” He describes his experience working at Vandenberg for ULA two weeks ago.

———————–
I was called upon to be the commissioning engineer for our company’s SLC-3 project for ULA at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. We have been doing critical infrastructure projects for close to two decades now. The regular engineer that had this as his territory was gone and I was his backup. I was sort of bribed to go to the site with the possibility of seeing two launches. I accepted, and tickets were booked for the project engineer and me.

An uneventful flight to Santa Barbara and we drove up to stay in Santa Maria. The next day we arrived on base at the north side to get our ID cards and off to SLC-3 (pronounced Slick-3). We traveled through the north base, where all the missiles are tested on that side and SLC-2. Many old buildings that have signs associated with older missile programs, some repurposed for newer programs, and a big new building for the Sentinel program.

SLC-3
SLC-3

We crossed a California road, which splits the base in two, and re-entered to the south base, got checked again, and proceeded to SLC-3. Driving for ten minutes, there it was, a great big building, SLC-3 (formerly called SLC-3E, E standing for “east”). They originally had two towers there, an east and a west, but they demolished the west one many years ago. Just for record, all these photos were taken in areas where photos can be taken, outside at a distance, and no photos were taken inside the secured areas.

The work we were doing was near the tower close to the 227,300-gallon liquid oxygen tank. That tank was a monster in size. I cannot talk about the specific work we were doing, but it is for the refurbishment of SLC-3 to launch ULA’s Vulcan rocket. Looking further west above the hill, once the marine layer cleared (fog), I saw the nose-cone to a Falcon-9 at SLC-4 a mile away. Since it was a launch day, they began kicking out contractors at 3PM.
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China launches nine more Guowang satellites

9:24 am

At almost the same time that SpaceX was doing two launches last night from opposite coasts, China was launching another nine satellites for its Guowang (Satnet) constellation, its Long March 12 rocket lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport.

Though China’s state run press made no mention of the number of satellites in the payload, all previous Long March 12 launches for this constellation have carried nine satellites. With this launch, the constellation now has about 193 satellites in orbit, out of a planned constellation of 13,000. The goal this year is to launch 310, followed by 900 in ’27, and 3,600 each year thereafter.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

99 SpaceX
53 China
11 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
10 Russia

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 99 to 90.

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SpaceX launches twice on opposite coasts

9:00 pm

SpaceX today completed two launches from opposite coasts, with both launches taking place at almost the same time.

First SpaceX launched eight Globalstar telecommunications satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force station in Florida. The two fairings halves were both reused, but the announcer only stated that one has completed its 8th flight. The first stage (B1090) completed its 14th flight (42 days after its previous mission), landing back at SpaceX’s landing zone at Cape Canaveral.

Then, only about 45 minutes later it placed a classified payload into orbit for the Space Force, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The two fairing halves completed their 27th and 29th flights respectively. The first stage (B1088), completed its 18th flight (48 days after its previous mission), landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

99 SpaceX
52 China
11 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
10 Russia

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 99 to 89.

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Ukrainian missiles hit Russia’s only Soyuz-2 rocket factory

9:48 am

Building 106A is the factory where Soyuz-2 rockets are manufactured
Click for source.

Using its Flamingo missiles, the Ukraine last night successfully damaged and possibly destroyed Russia’s factory where it builds the Soyuz-2 rockets, located in the city of Samara about 550 miles northeast of the Ukrainian border.

The image to the right shows the impact point, Building 106A of the the Progress Rocket Space Centre in Samara, which is where the Soyuz-2 and the upgraded not-yet-operational Soyuz-5 rockets are manufactured. Local reports also say Building 106B was damaged, which the company uses to integrate satellites [mostly military] to the rockets for shipment.

It appears this factory is a single-point failure. It is the only one in Russia that manufactures these rockets, used to launch Soyuz manned capsules and Progress freighters to ISS as well as military satellites and Russia’s new Rassvet constellation, aimed at providing it is own Starlink equivalent. If damaged badly, it means Russia’s ability to do any of these things is seriously limited, at least for awhile. It has Soyuz-2 rockets in stock, but only so many. And even if it gets the building rebuilt, the Ukraine has now demonstrated it knows where it is, and has the ability to hit it again.

The Ukraine considers Rassvet a military threat, as it will give Russia’s military high quality communications within the areas it has invaded, comparable (though likely inferior) to Starlink. In this context, the Ukraine has already used drones to threaten Rassvet launches at the Plesetsk spaceport in northwest Russia, forcing Russia to hide launch dates and even delay launches.

This attack illustrates Russia’s increasing vulnerability to Ukrainian drones and missiles, and signals the growing escalation of the war into Russia. Worse, Russia has a limited ability to respond, and either it gets Putin to end the war (very unlikely), removes him from power, or it does what Putin himself has hinted, use nuclear weapons against the Ukraine. The latter action would be incredibly stupid and counter productive, but then, everything about this Russian invasion of the Ukraine has been incredibly stupid and counter productive. We would be foolish to expect better from Putin now.

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August 14, 2026 Quick space links

2:38 pm

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.

Note: X now requires log in to view videos with sound. You can get around this by clicking on the three dots at the top right to get the embed code. Ask for the code for an “embedded video.” The video will then be available for watching with sound.

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Floating flakes on the flanks of Mount Sharp on Mars

9:47 am

Floating flakes on Mars
Click for full resolution image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, reduced to post here, was taken on August 9, 2026 by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the rover Curiosity.

This camera, designed to take close-ups like this of objects on the ground, is located at the end of Curiosity’s robot arm. According to the science team, when this picture was taken, the camera was approximately eight inches away, making these flakes only inches across and one to three inches long.

Such delicate features are impossible on the surface of the Earth, because rain and wind will destroy them. We do find them inside caves, where the environment is more benign, but even there such things are rare and when found are considered special and unique.
» Read more

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Elon Musk’s private jet visits south Louisiana

8:55 am

Pecan Island SpaceX facility?
Pecan Island SpaceX facility?

It appears Elon Musk’s private jet landed in south Louisiana at Lafayette Regional Airport early this week, along with another larger plane also believed to be linked to SpaceX operations.

Both planes arrived on August 10, 2026 and left later that day. Their appearance fueled more speculation that SpaceX is going to purchase a 130K acre plot of land near the unincorporated village of Pecan Island for its space and AI operations. At the moment however no one from the state government or the company has commented. The state legislature however in May passed two laws benefiting “aerospace flight entities”, one giving tax breaks and the other limiting lawfare against them.

My prediction is that we will get an announcement after the comment period ends on August 31, 2026 for the FAA’s new policy to exempt rocket companies from thirteen major environmental laws. At that point the Transportation Secretary will be able to initiate that policy, and SpaceX will be free to announce the purchase.

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