The Lonely ISEE-3 satellite

Just a fun XKCD.com link for you. The artist posted this strip on Monday. The cartoon is about the International Sun/Earth Explorer (ISEE) -3 satellite, which is real, and in a heliocentric orbit. I was only eight years old when it was launched in 1978. Some of the story is true, while the actual hacking, […]

“Frau Im Mond:” A SciFi Movie By Fritz Lang

This is a short movie review, but one concerning space. I happened upon this silent film as I was researching the Mittelwerk series. The English name of the film is “The Woman in the Moon.” It’s available in the US on Netflix streaming, so the wife and I watched it. The director’s last name, Lang, […]

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Rocket Gets Its Legs

“All four landing legs now mounted on Falcon 9…” Wait! What??! That was SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s tweet on 25 February, 2013. And there was a linked picture of it all, too. SpaceX is doing something NASA and the United States Air Force can’t do: adding legs to its Falcon 9 rocket. That’s right, the […]

Pocari Sweat, Protoss Carriers, and Space Junk

Singapore’s Astroscale may have a plan, and the tech, to clean up Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) space junk. At least, that’s what Astroscale’s founder, Nobu Okada, told the TechinAsia website in this post. If you want a visual of all the stuff out there in orbit for grabbing, just watch the video above. Astroscale is […]

Iranians Stop Space Monkeying Around–This Time

According to this Strategypage.com post, Iran’s space program is growing because of the restrictions placed on what it can buy from other countries. Example: Iran has just announced they’ve built their own satellites, which is interesting, but shouldn’t be surprising. They do have a very educated population, are industrialized, and have shown determination to stay […]