Category: Space Exploration

  • The Dream Is Alive

    John F. Lindner

    As a child of the Apollo program and a lifelong dreamer of spaceflight, I am thrilled to follow the Artemis 2 mission, carrying the first humans around the Moon in over half a century, with the intent to pick up where we left off, establish a permanent lunar presence, and proceed to Mars and beyond.…

  • A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes

    John F. Lindner

    100 years ago, physicist Robert Goddard designed and built the first liquid-fueled rocket. Powered by gasoline and liquid oxygen and launched from his Aunt Effie’s farm in Auburn, Massachusetts on 1926 March 16, the first flight lasted 2.5 seconds and reached an altitude of 12.5 meters. 7 years earlier, in 1919, Goddard published the seminal…

  • Moon Trees

    John F. Lindner

    As command module pilot for the 1971 Apollo 14 mission, Stuart Roosa was one of 24 people to travel around the Moon* in the heroic first age of lunar exploration. He was also a former U.S. Forest Service smokejumper, and he carried into lunar orbit about 500 seeds to test the effects of spaceflight on…

  • Fram2 Over the Poles

    John F. Lindner

    Historically, astronauts have launched roughly east to exploit Earth’s spin, as the terrestrial equator moves at nearly 1000 mph with respect to its center. But last week the Fram2 SpaceX Dragon crew launched south from the Kennedy Space Center to become the first humans to orbit Earth over its poles. The all-private, all-international, rookie crew…

  • Blue Ghost Eclipse

    John F. Lindner

    Last night’s lunar eclipse, as seen from Earth, looked like a solar eclipse, as seen from Luna. Firefly Aerospace‘s NASA-funded Blue Ghost lunar lander recently became the first commercial spacecraft to successfully land on Earth’s moon Luna. Blue Ghost’s mission is designed to last a single lunar day, about two terrestrial weeks. Last night it…

  • Mach Cutoff

    John F. Lindner

    Two weeks ago, I watched live via Starlink as the Boom Supersonic XB-1 test aircraft broke the sound barrier in level flight, the first all-civilian aircraft to do so. This success promises the return of commercial supersonic flight, at least over ocean. This week, during the final test flight, I learned that no sonic boom…

  • Outer Planet Cloud Colors

    John F. Lindner

    From my teens to my twenties, from junior high school to graduate school to young professor, I excitingly followed the first reconnaissance of the outer solar system by the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft. But the exploration isn’t over. For the last decade, the Hubble Space Telescope has been systematically observing the colors and dynamics of…

  • There and Back Again

    John F. Lindner

    I awoke yesterday at dawn in a log cabin in Vermont. Fortunately, the wifi was good. Each successive test of the SpaceX Superheavy Starship has been a significant improvement over the previous one, and test five was no exception, with both the booster and the ship demonstrating soft pinpoint landings — except this time, the…

  • Rey’s Theme

    John F. Lindner

    Yesterday, as part of the Polaris Dawn mission, SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis became the youngest person to walk in space. Today, on a space-qualified violin, she performed Rey’s Theme, composed by John Williams as the musical leitmotif for Rey, the central character in the Star Wars movie The Force Awakens. The performance audio and video…

  • Skywalker

    John F. Lindner

    Up before dawn this morning for the Polaris Dawn space walk, the first commercial space walk and the furthest from Earth since the Apollo program over half a century ago. After stalling for so long, human space flight is again advancing. Polaris Dawn’s Commander Jared Isaacman, Pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet, Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis, and…

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Categories

Archives

Meta

Log in