Astro Blog

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/01/realestate/nasa-homes-moon-3-d-printing.html By Debra Kamin , The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...NASA is going to build houses on the moon — ones that can be used not just by astronauts but ordinary civilians as well. They believe that by 2040, Americans will have their first subdivision in space. Living on Mars isn’t far behind. Some in the scientific community say NASA’s timeline is overly ambitious, particularly before a proven success with a new lunar landing. But seven NASA scientists interviewed for this article all said that a 2040 goal for lunar structures is attainable if the agency can continue to hit their benchmarks. The U.S. space agency will blast a 3-D printer up to the moon and then build structures, layer by additive layer, out of a specialized lunar concrete created from the rock chips, mineral fragments and dust that sits on the top layer of the moon’s cratered surface and billows in poisonous clouds whenever disturbed — a moonsho...

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-blogs/space-missions-to-watch-in-2023/ By Sky & Telescope.  Excerpts: ...SpaceX’s Starship ...Axiom Space’s AX2 ... to the International Space Station ...ESA’s  Euclid  space telescope ...an infrared instrument, aimed at studying dark matter and dark energy ...Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) ...X-ray Polarimeter Satellite, ...and the Aditya L1 solar mission, headed to the Earth-Sun L 1  point. ...China’s  Xuntian Space Telescope , a sky survey telescope ...China also plans to launch two X-ray telescopes in 2023 ...The Moon will be bustling in 2023. Three missions [to the Moon] are at least partially NASA-funded through its  Commercial Lunar Payload Services . ...The  Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment  (PRIME 1) is set to launch in June, carrying with it The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain. The TRIDENT drill will delve three feet deep to bring lunar regolith up to th...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/28/science/nasa-moon-rocket-launch.html By  Kenneth Chang , The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...astronauts will not actually step on the moon for several years, and by that time, NASA will have spent about $100 billion.... “It’s a future where NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the moon,” Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator, said during a news conference this month. “And on these increasingly complex missions, astronauts will live and work in deep space and will develop the science and technology to send the first humans to Mars.” ...Today’s program was named Artemis by NASA leaders during the Trump administration. In Greek mythology, Artemis was the twin sister of Apollo. ...NASA is also hoping to jump-start companies looking to set up a steady business of flying scientific instruments and other payloads to the moon, and to inspire students to enter science and engineering fields.… 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/15/spacex-launch-live-updates-crew1/ Source:   By  Christian Davenport  and  Hamza Shaban , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station on Sunday in a spectacular evening liftoff that came days after the company’s Dragon capsule became the first privately owned and operated spacecraft to be certified by NASA for human spaceflight. SpaceX earned that designation and the right to undertake what NASA hopes will be regular missions to the space station and back after  it completed a test flight  of two astronauts earlier this year. That May launch was the first of NASA astronauts from U.S. soil since the space shuttle was retired in 2011, forcing the United States to rely on Russia for flights to orbit for nearly a decade....