A Spacewalking First
By Melissa Silva In what will likely be one of the final “firsts” in Earth-orbital spacewalking, at 7:38 a.m. EDT yesterday, astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir switched their spacesuits to internal power and made history, conducting the first all-female...
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Satellite Life Extension Becomes a Real Thing
By Dale Skran Copyright 2019 On October 9th, a Russian Proton lofted Northrup Grumman’s first satellite life-extension vehicle from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV) is designed to extend the life of satellites by providing...
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The National Space Society Mourns the Passing of Alexei Leonov, the First Spacewalker
Former Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, A Space Age pioneer and the first human to perform an extravehicular activity, or spacewalk, died today, October 11, at the age of 85. As part of the early cadre of Soviet cosmonauts, Leonov exited his Voskhod 2 spacecraft,...
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Spread the Word: Space Development Benefits Earth
From Dale Skran, Chair of the NSS Executive Committee: Karlton Johnson, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the National Space Society, has a great Op-Ed at Space.com titled "Spread the Word: Space Development Benefits Earth." I urge every NSS member to read and...
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SpaceX “Level of Enthusiasm” as viewed by NASA
Opinion by Dale L. Skran Just before Elon Musk made his impressive Starship progress update, NASA Administrator Bridenstine tweeted out the following: This statement left space advocates scratching their heads about what it might mean. There’s been a lot of...
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SpaceX’s Next Trifecta
By Dale Skran On the evening of Saturday September 28th, Elon Musk provided an exciting update on Starship progress at Boca Chica, Texas. By the time you read this, you’ll have probably seen some good articles in the space press summarizing the talk (the entire talk...
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NSS Congratulates Administrator Bridenstine for Moving NEOCam Mission into a Funded Initial Construction Phase as the “NEOSM Mission”
On September 25, the National Space Society delivered a letter (image below) to NASA Administrator Bridenstine congratulating him and his Science Mission Team for creating a robust budget line dedicated to planetary defense, one which includes full funding for the...
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Book Review: Countdown: 2979 Days to the Moon
Countdown: 2979 Days to the Moon, by Suzanne Slade. Reviewed by Clifford R. McMurray. Especially wonderful about this children’s book about Apollo are the illustrations by Thomas Gonzales that adorn almost every page—some of the finest space art I’ve ever seen. For the beauty of the story and the artwork, Countdown has won a number of well-deserved awards, including the National Science Teachers Association award for best STEM book of 2019.
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“Just Like Starting Over”: O’Leary’s Startling New Direction
This Space Available, by Emily Carney. In last week’s This Space Available post, we introduced Dr. Gerard K. O’Neill, a Princeton physicist, who, at mid-career, was struggling to bring his ideas about space settlement to a wider audience. While we will catch up again with O’Neill in future posts in this series, this week we will revisit Dr. Brian O’Leary following 1972, the year he introduced his friend O’Neill to a large, enthusiastic audience at Hampshire College – an event which would forever impact space history.
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“Power To The People” Meets “Imagine”: O’Leary and O’Neill’s Lives Intersect
This Space Available, by Emily Carney. At this point in Brian O’Leary’s life, his path crossed with that of another working scientist who he’d previously met while “auditioning” for 1967’s astronaut group. This scientist had qualified as a finalist for that group, but hadn’t made the final cut: the soft-spoken Dr. Gerard K. O’Neill, physicist from Princeton University.
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Air Force Space Command Study Calls for Space Settlement
The National Space Society (NSS) commends Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) for its September 5th report on its Space Futures Workshop entitled “The Future of Space 2060 and Implications for U.S. Strategy.” AFSPC’s report recommended that a U.S.-led coalition establish...
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U.S. Chamber of Commerce Small Satellite Roundtable: 25,000 New Space Satellites in 2029?
Story and photos by Mark Armstong The headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in downtown Washington DC was the location for a remarkable roundtable discussion in July of issues and developments hosted by the Chamber and the SmallSat Alliance. The program...
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