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 […]

Moving Big Things with, um, Big Things?

It’s been a fairly hectic few weeks with not so much spare time–relatives were visiting. Which is great, but didn’t leave much for posts. For now, I leave you all with another of my Apollo 50th Anniversary Moment posts for the Space Foundation’s Space Watch. I know everyone else posted about going to the moon […]

Too much XS–in government space

Every now and then, an article, like this one posted in USA Today, shows up. The gist of the article is: the Pentagon is looking for a “cheap” way to get satellites into space. In this particular case they’re looking at a “space plane” called XS-1. We’ve heard this before, with pretty much the same […]

Buran Buran: when notorious space programs die on planet earth, where do the buildings go? Rio?

Well, “the reflex”-ive answer is “Nowhere, of course!!” But what does happen to space launch facilities once a program goes away? Maybe some people “save a prayer” for them,” but in most of the modern world, facilities tend to be reused. Space launch complex-6 (SLC-6) at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, is a good example […]

Old footage of Soviet rocket launch attempts

Here’s at least one video, on Jalopnik’s page, of a failed launch. Note, Jalopnik’s accompanying post of why the Soviets failed to get to the moon before the United States seems to be supposition, but likely true. The Soviets made their equipment more complicated (see the article), giving Murphy (or perhaps the Imp of the […]