An Embarrassment of Rich Space History?

This site contains my opinions and ideas only, not the opinions or ideas of any organization I work for. It’s my idea playground, and I’m inviting you in. Welcome! Over four years ago, I had fun writing about the Buran, the Soviet Union’s (now Russia) answer to the U.S. Space Shuttle. You can read about […]

Your Comrade Through Space History

A friend of mine passed along this link today: http://inspacewetrust.org/en/. Before you click on it, you should have some time on your hands. This is an animated walk through history, thanks to Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency. It’s a very dynamic and cool way to present some of the more important historic bits in […]

Baikonur Cosmodrome

I found this 2001 Air & Space article during my research about Sputnik-1, the world’s first artificial satellite. It’s a very good first person account of a visit out to the Baikonur Cosmodrome and some of the run-ups and rituals for launching from there. The writer was there for a launch of the first permanent International Space […]

Repost: Soviet Dogs and History

This is a repost of a post from 3 Sept 2014. For those who just needed a reminder, yesterday was the 57th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s second satellite launched into space. This time with a dog named Laika on board. And while the Soviets’ accomplishment of launching the first living being into space shouldn’t […]

DIY Space: Ardusat

Before I begin the fairly short DIY part, this is just a reminder for those who don’t know, or just plain forgot. Today is the anniversary of Sputnik I, the first man-made satellite, which was launched into orbit on the top of an R-7 rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome. The R-7 had already been successfully tested as a […]