The Space Review

[Orionid]

14/IV 2026 [66-70]

66) Review: Return to Launch
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 6, 2026



Return to Launch: Florida and America’s Space Industry
by Stephen C. Smith
University of Florida Press, 2026
hardcover, 348 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-68340-656-3
US$38
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1683406567/spaceviews

During a press conference last Monday in the windowless briefing room at the Kennedy Space Center Press Site, the discussions about preparations for the Artemis 2 launch were interrupted by a rumble. The first thing that came to mind was thunder—it’s Florida, after all—but there were no storms in the vicinity. The rumbled continued far longer than one expected for any storm. A reporter calling into the briefing, unaware of the commotion, continued to ask his question while those in the room smiled, aware of what was going on.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5192/1

67) Ownership without oversight: Australia’s on-orbit supervision gap
by Jeremy Kruckel Monday, April 6, 2026


An image of a Chinese satellite taken by Continuum-1, a satellite now owned and operated by Australian company HEO. (credit: HEO)

When HEO acquired full title and operational control of an in orbit satellite from Satellogic in late 2025, Australia gained its first dedicated asset under Australian ownership. The satellite, renamed Continuum-1, was launched years earlier by the United States on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral. Australia played no role in its launch and is not a launching state under the Liability Convention.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5193/1

68)  Thirty years later, Mars 96 has not been found
by Dante Sanaei Monday, April 6, 2026

Unprecedented scientific collaboration, catastrophic failure, and an uncertain final resting place


Concept illustration of Mars-96 penetrators descending toward the Martian surface. (credit: NPO Lavochkin / Russian Academy of Sciences, via NASA SP-4515)

On the night of November 16, 1996, a strange light moved slowly across the skies of Chile. Observers in remote mountain regions described a brilliant object traveling horizontally along the horizon, far brighter than any star and leaving behind a luminous trail that lingered in the thin air. Unlike a meteor’s sudden flash, this phenomenon endured. For nearly a minute it crossed the darkness, shedding faint fragments that glowed briefly before fading from view. In the Andes, a landscape defined by silence and vast distances, the event felt both unmistakably real and deeply uncertain—something that did not belong in the usually peaceful night sky.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5194/1

69) Pinning the tail on the Moskva: POPPY and the dawn of satellite ocean surveillance
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, April 6, 2026


The Moskva's Top Sail radar was new and unique to that ship when it conducted sea trials in the Black Sea in 1967, making it possible for American signals analysts to connect the radar emissions to a specific vessel. This demonstrated that it was possible to track ships at sea from space. (credit: US Navy, modified by Benjamin Claremont)

In 1963, American reconnaissance satellites overflew a shipyard in Mykolayev, Ukraine, on the Black Sea, and photographed evidence of a new large vessel under construction. But it was not until 1965 that satellite photographs revealed it to be “an unusual ship,” in the words of a CIA report. Later that year, it became clear that it “was a helicopter platform, with either an ASW or amphibious assault mission.” It was launched in 1967 and began sea trial inside Soviet waters. This was a time when the Soviet Union was beginning to send its fleet further out to sea, challenging the US Navy, and any new large warship was of great interest to the Navy admirals.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5195/1

70) Artemis eclipses
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 6, 2026


Artemis 2 lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center April 1. (credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

At the final pre-launch briefing for the Artemis 2 mission March 31, a reporter asked NASA senior test director Jeff Spaulding if he was aware of any planned pranks for launch day. The launch, after all, was scheduled for April 1—April Fool’s Day—and astronauts have a long track record of practical jokes.

15/IV 2026 [71-75]

71) A tale of two Martian cities
by Thomas Gangale Monday, April 13, 2026


How should future Martian settlements be governed? (credit: SpaceX)

“Quid est enim civitas nisi concors hominum multitudo?” — Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Republica 1.39

“For now we see through a glass, darkly.” No Hari Seldon, as in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, stands ready with psychohistory to predict humanity’s future on the Red Planet. Yet the choices we make today about governance, rights, and human nature will shape the first permanent settlements on Mars in the 2040s and 2050s—and, by extension, the long-term trajectory of our species beyond Earth. The early decades of the colonial period on Mars will not arrive with a finished constitutional order already in place. Instead, two distinct settlements are likely to emerge, each still in the process of formation.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5197/1

72) Who watches the birds? Cold War era launch vehicle photographs
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, April 13, 2026


The first HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite sits on its pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in 1971. Twenty of these schoolbus-size satellites were launched, with one failure. They photographed huge amounts of territory during each mission, enabling photo-interpreters to detect and assess adversary weapons capabilities. (credit: Peter Hunter Collection)

During the Cold War, the US Air Force launched hundreds of rockets from both the East and West Coasts. Usually, the military made some kind of announcement that a launch had occurred, or was about to occur, without releasing any further details, and for many years, rarely releasing any photographs. The result was that many military space launches—probably a significant majority of them—had no public photographic evidence that they happened. But starting in the late 1990s, an Australian space enthusiast by the name of Peter Hunter began collecting photographs of United States Thor, Delta, Atlas, and eventually Titan launches. Hunter was a 747 pilot for Qantas, and during his long layovers in Los Angeles he visited an archive of launch vehicle photos near San Diego. He was able to gain access to it through his professionalism, charm, and Australian accent. Over many years of hard work, he produced a collection of high-resolution scans of as many launches and launch vehicles as possible, later providing copies to multiple museums and historians.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5198/1

73) Strategic celestography and lunar competition: Artemis, CLEP, and the struggle for positional advantage
by Glenn Scofield Monday, April 13, 2026


The Moon and Earth seen during the Artemis 2 mission. (credit: NASA)

Human exploration of the Moon is often presented as a scientific endeavor, but the scale and scope of contemporary lunar exploration programs suggest that great power competition is expanding into the broader Earth–Moon system. As the United States and China expand their presence beyond geocentric orbit, lunar resource distribution and cislunar orbital dynamics are shaping a new phase of strategic competition. This rivalry increasingly revolves around two evolving lunar architectures: the US-led Artemis campaign and the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) with its Chang’e series of missions. Both programs seek to expand access, presence, and operational reach throughout the Earth–Moon system, and both will grow more capable as commercial launch systems and autonomous spacecraft operations continue to mature.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5199/1

74) Opening the path to the lunar surface
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 13, 2026


The Orion spacecraft Ingenuity splashes down to conclude the Artemis 2 mission April 10. (credit: NASA/Josh Valcarcel)

The timeline for the Artemis 2 mission included a six-minute blackout during reentry as the Orion spacecraft, entering the atmosphere at nearly 40,000 kilometers per hour, created a plasma sheath the cut off radio communications. Engineers determined exactly when the blackout would begin and when it should end, allowing for communications to resume.

That didn’t mean, though, that controllers weren’t nervous. “Blackout, there’s really no beating around the bush with that,” Rick Henfling, entry flight director, said at a press conference Friday night. “It’s a difficult time because the flight control team wants to see data. We want to look at the data, we want to provide input to the flight crew on how to fly their spaceship. And when we don't have data, we’re trying to figure out what to do with ourselves.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5200/1

75) Artemis 2, Apollo 8, and the problem with history
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, April 13, 2026


In December 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 flew a risky mission to orbit the Moon for the first time. Was the decision to fly this mission primarily because the LM was not ready and NASA did not want to lose time and momentum, or was it because the CIA concluded that the Soviet Union might attempt such a mission before NASA? (credit: NASA)

Last week, as the Artemis 2 crew looped around the Moon, taking spectacular photos and deftly handling media inquiries, numerous podcasts and news programs had on experts to explain why NASA was conducting this mission, and why it was pursuing the Artemis program to land people on the Moon. The answers were, of course, diverse. There were claims that NASA wants to find and use resources on the Moon like water ice and helium-3. There were statements that this was about competing with China. There were those who pointed out the pork-barrel politics aspects of the program. And, of course, there were the ones who claimed that this was about vision, about exploration, about boldly going where no one has gone before (at least since 1972, anyway.) None of these rationales was convincing, and all of them together are vaguely accurate but unsatisfying. What is lacking today is the clarity of the Cold War and the Apollo program. But even Apollo was a bit less clear than we think.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5201/1

[Orionid]

16/IV 2026 [76-80]

76) Who watches the birds? Cold War era launch vehicle photographs (part 2)
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, April 20, 2026


Launch of the first KH-11 KENNEN electro-optical satellite in December 1976 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. This satellite established a new and revolutionary capability for the US intelligence community. (credit: John Hilliard Collection)

Starting in the late 1990s, an Australian space enthusiast by the name of Peter Hunter began collecting photographs of United States Thor, Delta, Atlas, and eventually Titan launches. Over many years of hard work, he produced a collection of high-resolution scans of as many launches and launch vehicles as possible, later providing copies to multiple museums and historians.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5202/1

77) When the orbital layer is the kill chain
by Bharath Gopalaswamy Monday, April 20, 2026

AI and drones are getting all the credit. Space is doing most of the work.


While AI and drones have received most of the attention in the ongoing confict with Iraq, space capabilities have played a critical role. (credit: US Central Command)

In the weeks since Operation Epic Fury began on February 28, 2026, the public debate about artificial intelligence in warfare has focused almost entirely on Maven, on Palantir, on whether an AI model selected the targets struck in Minab, and on the legal and ethical implications of machines operating inside a kill chain. These are real and urgent questions. But they are the wrong questions if what you want to understand is what has fundamentally changed about the character of modern conflict and what is most at risk in the conflict that follows this one.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5203/1

78) Commercial space station developers make their business case to NASA
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 20, 2026


Commercial space station developer Vast showed off its plans at the 41st Space Symposium while making the case there are sufficient markets for such stations. (credit: Space Symposium)

The general mood of last week’s Space Symposium conference in Colorado Springs was one of celebration of Artemis 2. With splashdown happing the Friday before the conference started, NASA and others used the event to take a victory lap for the first crewed flight to the Moon in more than half a century. (Organizers also likely breathed a sigh of relief that the mission ended before the conference began, ensuring that top NASA officials, including administrator Jared Isaacman, could attend.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5204/1

79) Big little rocket: The N1 Moon rocket and the cognitive dissonance of spy satellite photography
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, April 20, 2026


Satellite photo of an N1 rocket on its launch pad at Baikonur. The United States tracked the development of the Soviet lunar program primarily using reconnaissance satellites. (credit: via Harry Stranger)

Throughout the 1960s, American reconnaissance satellites overflew the sprawling Soviet launch complex in Kazakhstan, photographing construction and equipment, looking for changes and new developments indicating new Soviet rocket and missile projects. The CIA designated the facility Tyuratam (sometimes Tyura-tam), but the Soviets called it Baikonur. In 1963, a CORONA reconnaissance satellite detected the first signs of a big new construction project, and it would become a key target for American intelligence collection for the remainder of the decade—and remain a bit of an enigma for decades longer.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5205/1

80) Mirroring mango salad: How ISS culture shaped Artemis 2
by Deana L. Weibel Monday, April 20, 2026


Astronauts on the ISS (left) and Orion during a ship-to-ship call as part of the Artemis 2 mission, as seen from Mission Control. (credit: NASA JSC/Robert Markowitz)

Artemis 2 has frequently been described as humans returning to the Moon,[1] and it has sometimes been seen as an attempt to pick up where the Apollo missions left off. In truth, however, the Artemis missions, specifically Artemis 2, aren’t exactly either one of those things. The Apollo missions took place in a completely different time period, with a different level of access to technology and during an era when space exploration itself was still new. More than 50 years later, the Artemis 2 mission reflects a transformation that is not just about the use of new programming and equipment but also a significantly changed culture.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5206/1

17/iV 2026 [81-85]

81) The TWINSTAR mission concept: A pragmatic path to finding Earth 2.0
by Sherine Ahmed El Baradei Monday, April 27, 2026


The TWINSTAR starshade in its compact, origami-wrapped launch configuration, designed to fit within standard rocket fairings for transport to the Sun-Earth L2 point. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The search for a “Twin Earth”—a terrestrial world orbiting a Sun-like star with a breathable atmosphere—is the defining challenge of modern astrophysics. The Astrophysics 2020 Decadal Survey (National Academies, 2021) explicitly identified “Pathways to Habitable Worlds” as a top priority. However, the engineering hurdle is staggering: isolating the light of a planet from the overwhelming glare of its parent star requires a contrast ratio of 10-10, the equivalent to spotting a firefly next to a searchlight from thousands of miles away.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5207/1

82) Redefining success in space diplomacy: emerging space nations in the Artemis Era and the case of Türkiye
by Elif Yüksel Monday, April 27, 2026


Turkish astronaut Alper Gezeravcı on the International Space Station during the Ax-3 private astronaut mission in 2024. (credit: Axiom Space)

For decades, nations measured space progress through visible technological achievements: how many satellites they built and launched, which rockets they developed, and which orbits they reached. Today, the frontier has expanded to include participation in lunar missions, Mars exploration, and asteroid initiatives. These indicators remain valid measures of technological capability. Yet capability alone no longer defines success in space diplomacy.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5208/1

83) A Fortress Moon for cislunar security
by Alan T. Dugger Monday, April 27, 2026


The Orion spacecraft flying around the Moon during the Artemis 2 mission. (credit: NASA)

Geosynchronous Orbit, 16 October 2034, 02:19 UTC

The maneuver was filed as routine. A Chinese-licensed commercial spacecraft operating in geosynchronous orbit had submitted its trajectory adjustment notice 72 hours in advance, declaring its intent to depart Earth orbit and enter a translunar transfer. It was headed toward the Moon.

The mission profile identified the craft as a communications relay demonstrator supporting future lunar infrastructure as part of China’s International Lunar Research Station. Its launch, weeks earlier, had attracted little attention beyond the technical community. Commercial lunar missions had become increasingly common is the era of ILRS and Artemis. Its mass, propulsion profile, and declared purpose were consistent with its notice.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5209/1

84) Science Power Platform: the ISS’s cancelled power module
by Maks Skiendzielewski Monday, April 27, 2026


One of the 180GK configurations explored in the 1980s. Image: RKK Energia

The Science Power Platform is a name many station enthusiasts have heard, but it’s one for which it is surprisingly hard to find a detailed description. Before the name disappeared from International Space Station planning documents and “Assembly Complete” illustrations in the late 1990s, the module it represented was a key element of the station’s Russian Orbital Segment and a vital part of the accelerated assembly sequence that convinced the US to push ahead with the international project at full steam.

In the end, the SPP was not as necessary as initially thought and, after suffering from a wave of funding cuts that plagued the Russian program in the ’90s and a series of redesigns that aimed to simplify the module while maximizing its utility, it was ultimately quietly dropped from the launch manifest.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5210/1

85) The great launch constraint
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 27, 2026


New Glenn lifts off on the NG-3 mission April 19. (credit: Blue Origin)

On the morning of April 19, Blue Origin’s New Glenn lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on the rocket’s third flight. The launch was widely anticipated for several reasons. One was that this was the first time New Glenn was using a reused booster. The first stage, called “Never Tell Me The Odds” by the company, flew the previous New Glenn launch, NG-2, last November, landing on the company’s ship Jacklyn in the Atlantic.

Reuse is vital to the business case for New Glenn, given the size and expense of the booster. Rather than taking the iterative approach SpaceX used for Falcon 9 landing and reuse a decade ago, Blue Origin needed to get landing and reuse down right away. (While the booster itself was previously flown, the company had swapped out its seven BE-4 engines between the two missions; CEO Dave Limp said that allowed them to test upgrades while saving the engines used on NG-2 for later flights.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5211/1

[Orionid]

18/V 2026 [86-90]

86) Review: Open Space
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 4, 2026



Open Space: From Earth to Eternity—the Global Race to Explore and Conquer the Cosmos
by David Ariosto
Knopf, 2026
hardcover, 384 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-593-53503-5
US$35
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0593535030/spaceviews

One aspect of NASA’s revamped lunar exploration plans announced in March is a sharp increase in the number of lunar lander missions the agency plans to help develop its lunar base (see “Igniting a new vision for NASA”, The Space Review, March 30, 2026). The first of three phases of the plan calls for 21 landings from 2026 through 2028, including nine landings in 2027 and ten in 2028.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5212/1

87) The fallacy of the Overview Effect: perception, power, and strategic reality in space
by Christopher M. Stone Monday, May 4, 2026


The effect that spaceflight has on people, like William Shatner, may be misinterpreted. (credit: Blue Origin)

Since the dawn of human spaceflight, some astronauts have described a profound cognitive shift upon viewing Earth from orbit—an experience termed the “Overview Effect” (White, 1987). This phenomenon is frequently associated with desires for global unity, environmental awareness, and the perceived insignificance of political boundaries. From this vantage point, the Earth appears to be a single, borderless system, seemingly reinforcing the notion that divisions among peoples and nations are artificial constructs of limited importance.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5213/1

88) Governance is always late to the party. Here's why that's not an accident.
by G. Theresa Quitto-Dickerson Monday, May 4, 2026


Emerging in-space activitiers like satellite servicing pose governance challenges. (credit: Astroscale)

Consider the governance position of nearly any operator who has completed an on-orbit servicing mission in the last three years. The hardware performed. The asset transferred. By every technical measure, the operation succeeded. And by the time the paperwork caught up, legal scholars were still sorting out which liability framework applied, whose safety standards governed the handoff, and whether the jurisdictional question had ever been formally resolved. This is a representative scenario: one that has repeated, in some configuration, across multiple missions and multiple actors in the emerging in-space services market.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5214/1

89) The Moonbase moment
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 4, 2026


An illustration of a proposed lunar base, the centerpiece of the NASA Ignition event in March. (credit: NASA)

Since early 2020, a group called the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (LSIC, pronounced “ell-sick”) has been meeting regularly to discuss the infrastructure needed for any future presence on the Moon, from power to resource utilization. The companies, universities, and other organizations that are part of LSIC had been working to identify key technologies and development strategies, even as NASA’s plans to use any such infrastructure were vague, at best.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5215/1

90) Battle for the heavens: intelligence satellite vulnerability in the 1970s
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, May 4, 2026


The Soviet co-orbital anti-satellite weapon was first developed in the 1960s and became operational by the 1970s. This one is in a Russian museum. By the 1970s, the Soviet Union was developing additional anti-satellite weapons. (credit: TV Zvezda)

Starting in the late 1960s, the Soviet Union began testing a new anti-satellite weapon system that maneuvered a satellite close to its target and then fired a shaped explosive charge at it, showering it with metal fragments. The United States detected these tests and, over the next few years, US satellite operators became concerned that in event of a war, the Soviet Union could negate America’s military and intelligence space assets.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5216/1

19/V 2026 [91-95]

91) Three steps forward but one step back
by Dale Skran Monday, May 11, 2026


The Starlab commercial space station is among the concepts threatened by NASA’s proposed changes to its Commercial EO Destinations program. (credit: Starlab Space)

Some Artemis components, such as the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion, long held a complex position in the space community. For some, it was an exciting venture back to the Moon and on to Mars. For others, it was a Congressionally mandated boondoggle focused on a jobs program leading nowhere. A key part of the Artemis architecture was the lunar Gateway, which existed mainly because the underpowered Orion service module could not directly reach low lunar orbit.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5217/1

92) Strategy is easy, but logistics is hard. Golden Dome proves it.
by Bharath Gopalaswamy and Daniel Dant Monday, May 11, 2026


One concept for the Golden Dome missile defense system with space-based elements. (credit: Redwire)

General Omar Bradley’s aphorism, “Amateurs talk strategy; professionals talk logistics,” has aged remarkably well. Today, it frames the central challenge facing the United States as it pursues the Golden Dome for America: a visionary, multilayered homeland defense architecture that depends less on conceptual brilliance than on industrial endurance.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5218/1

93) Flagships on a budget
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 11, 2026


The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, NASA’s next astrophysics flagship mission, in a high bay at the Goddard Space Flight Center in April. (credit: J. Foust)

Last month, NASA held a media day for its latest astrophysics flagship mission, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Reporters crowded into a viewing gallery overlooking a high bay at the Goddard Space Flight Center. In the high bay was Roman, lit to give it almost a purplish hue. The spacecraft recently completed environmental testing and was being prepared for shipment to the Kennedy Space Center for launch.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5219/1

94) Exquisitely unnecessary: very high resolution satellite reconnaissance
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, May 11, 2026


A declassified image of an Iranian launch site taken in 2019 by an American reconnaissance satellite. Even though it is degraded, the image still provides an indication of the kind of detail available from the most powerful reconnaissance satellites. (credit: US government)

How good is good enough when it comes to satellite imagery? Today it is common for commercial satellites to produce images with ground resolution of 0.2 to 0.3 meters (with 0.5 to 1 meter being more common), but the US intelligence community has long been rumored to have systems considerably better, reportedly able to discern objects on the ground down to 0.1 meters—a capability often referred to as “exquisite.” Although the details are classified, some historical information has been released indicating that at several periods during the early years of satellite reconnaissance, from approximately 1963 to 1969 and then from 1969 to 1973, the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) grappled with the question of the requirement for a “very high resolution” imagery system, and determined that it was not necessary. Despite this, the NRO eventually accomplished such high resolution by upgrading existing systems.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5220/1

95) After Gateway: the case for a middle power lunar consortium
by Phil McCrory Monday, May 11, 2026


NASA’s decision to end the lunar Gateway (above) offers an opportunity for international partners to work together on their own lunar exploration program. (credit: NASA)

On March 24, NASA administrator Jared Isaacman announced the “pausing” of the lunar Gateway; an effective cancellation for the current project. ESA, JAXA, and CSA—whose combined hardware investments exceeded several billion dollars—learned of the decision alongside the general public. ESA’s Director General said the agency was “consulting closely with its Member States, international partners and European industry to assess the implications.” ESA has set a deadline of June, when the ESA Council holds its next meeting, to determine what that assessment produces.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5221/1

[Orionid]

20/V 2026 [96-100]

96) Review: It’s (Just) Rocket Science
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 18, 2026



It’s (Just) Rocket Science: Exploring Physics Through Spaceflight Missions
by Trisha Muro
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026
hardcover, 376 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-4214-5426-9
US$32.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1421454262/spaceviews

In the preface of It’s (Just) Rocket Science, Trisha Muro recalls an incident when she was a teacher and a student asked to drop out of her high school physics class. Why did the student want to drop the class? “I was hoping it would be more like story physics,” she recalls the student saying. Story physics? Muro didn’t ask for an explanation then, but was—and still is—perplexed.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5222/1

97) Deep Black on the West Coast: honoring the Secretary of the Air Force Office of Special Projects and the Star Catchers
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, May 18, 2026


A new memorial was dedicated at the National Museum of the United States Air Force on May 15, honoring the men and women who worked for the secretive Secretary of the Air Force Office of Special Projects (SAFSP) in California. (credit: Pat Pressel)

On Friday, May 15, a ceremony was held on the grounds of the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio to dedicate a monument to the people who worked for a secretive organization on the West Coast. The Secretary of the Air Force Office of Special Projects, or SAFSP, was located not far from the Los Angeles International Airport. It still exists, by a different name, but for decades during the Cold War it was so secret that there were few public references to it. People who worked there often referred to it only as “Special Projects,” if they mentioned it at all.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5223/1

98) Critiquing and defending the Overview Effect
by Frank White Monday, May 18, 2026


Seeing the Earth from space can have a transformative impact. (credit: Blue Origin)

Let me begin my response to Christopher Stone by thanking him for his article in The Space Review (see “The fallacy of the Overview Effect: perception, power, and strategic reality in space”, The Space Review, May 4, 2026).My ideas are sharpened by responding to those who are critical of them, and he has clearly taken the theory of the Overview Effect seriously. His essay therefore calls for a serious response. Moreover, if there are others who see the Overview Effect as he does, my reply to him will answer them as well.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5224/1

99) The Isaacman honeymoon
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 18, 2026


The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, NASA’s next astrophysics flagship mission, in a high bay at the Goddard Space Flight Center in April. (credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

The clearest sign of NASA administrator Jared Isaacman’s relationship with Congress came about halfway through a hearing April 28 by the Senate Appropriation Committee’s commerce, justice, and science (CJS) subcommittee when Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), ranking member of the subcommittee, took the microphone for a second round of questions about the agency’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposal.

“Mr. Administrator, this would be a very different hearing if I believed the budget request from the administration your best judgement,” he told Isaacman. “To me, this is just a carbon copy of what OMB submitted last year, and I really think it’s a disgrace to the NASA mission.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5225/1

100) Space launch and reentry environmental concerns are real, but can be mitigated
by Michael Puckett Monday, May 18, 2026


New launch vehicles like Starship may launch more frequently, but have a lower environmental impact. (credit: SpaceX)

A recent wave of reporting has raised concern about the atmospheric effects of rocket launches. A February 2026 article in Nature described research suggesting that metallic vapors from reentry of rocket and spacecraft components could influence atmospheric chemistry and climate if launch rates increase substantially.[1][2] These concerns are grounded in a growing body of atmospheric research examining how rocket emissions behave when injected directly into the stratosphere and mesosphere.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5226/1

Note: Because of the Memorial Day holiday, next week’s issue will be published on Tuesday, May 26.

21/V 2026 [101-105]

101) Deep Black on the West Coast (part 2): Honoring the Air Force Special Processing Facility
by Dwayne A. Day Tuesday, May 26, 2026


In 2014, a plaque was dedicated at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in honor of the people who worked at the Air Force Special Projects Processing Facility in Massachusetts. The facility was responsible for producing film from top secret reconnaissance missions. (credit: AFFSPF Alumni Association)

On Friday, May 15, a ceremony was held on the grounds of the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio to dedicate a monument to the people who worked for a secretive organization on the West Coast. The Secretary of the Air Force Office of Special Projects, or SAFSP. But another group that was also technically part of SAFSP was left out of the ceremony.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5227/1

102) Reassessing NASA procurement strategy: A hybrid approach
by Eli Lichtenstein Tuesday, May 26, 2026


NASA has used cost-plus contracts on some parts of Artemis, like SLS (above), but fixed-price versions elsewhere. (credit: NASA/Sam Lott)

NASA is reshaping its spaceflight strategy on a scale not seen since the Space Shuttle’s phaseout in 2011. Unsatisfied with the pace of the Artemis program, administrator Jared Isaacman has proposed an ambitious agenda: monthly robotic lunar landings, annual crewed missions to the Moon, and a permanent surface base.

After decades of relegation to low Earth orbit, a refocus on more complex and long-term crewed missions is to be applauded. But each of these goals requires NASA to procure vehicles and other hardware, a detail NASA has yet to decide on. “The procurement method, how we would do it, I think that’s still open,” said NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya.[1] As noble as NASA’s goals are, history shows that how NASA intends to achieve them is just as important.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5228/1

103) Zarya: the three lives of the propulsively landed Super-Soyuz
by Maks Skiendzielewski Tuesday, May 26, 2026


General layout of the 7K-SM spacecraft. (Image: Vadim Lukashevich/buran.ru, processing by the author)

An earlier version of this article erroneously treated what is actually the 7K-SM as simply the initial version of Zarya, but the projects were distinctly different spacecraft, despite the many similarities. With newly published project documentation, both spacecraft can be described in more detail than before.

In the late 1980s, with the development of the first modules of Mir nearing its end and their launches on the horizon, NPO Energia started work on the station’s successor; another generational step after Salyut-6, which introduced multiple docking ports allowing continuous crewed operation and resupply missions; and Mir, which became the first truly modular station, drastically expanding the available volume and bringing specialized modules to the mix.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5229/1

104) Fear and panic in orbit around the Red Planet: Missions to Phobos and Deimos
by Dwayne A. Day Tuesday, May 26, 2026


Phobos is one of two mysterious moons of Mars. Over the decades many robotic and human missions have been proposed to visit the moons, but only now is a Japanese mission about to head to Phobos. Here, planetary scientist Paul Byrne blows up Phobos, just because he can. (credit: Paul Byrne)

They are named for the Greek gods of fear and panic, and flight. Phobos and Deimos are small moons orbiting Mars that have long harbored a mysterious secret. Where did they come from? Are they captured moons, drawn in by Mars’ gravitational pull, or are they pieces of Mars itself, thrown off the planet by a massive collision? There have been many proposals to send both robotic and human missions to the moons of Mars, but a Japanese mission launching later this year should finally help to answer this mystery.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5230/1

105) Starships are meant to eventually fly
by Jeff Foust Tuesday, May 26, 2026


SpaceX’s Starship lifts off on its Flight 12 mission May 22. (credit: SpaceX)

In a week filled with remarkable events for SpaceX, perhaps the strangest was the cameo appearance last Thursday during the company’s webcast for the latest Starship launch attempt. On a previous flight, it was Elon Musk who dropped by the webcast; this time, it was… Nicki Minaj?

Yes, it was the singer whose claim to fame was the song “Starship,” recorded long before SpaceX publicly announced plans for a vehicle that would eventually become Starship. While this was the 12th test flight of Starship/Super Heavy, this was the first that Minaj attended—or any launch, for that matter, she said.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5231/1

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106) The “public” in public space agency
by Alex Li Monday, June 1, 2026


The Earth setting behind the Moon as seen by the Artemis 2 crew. (credit: NASA)

“I would suggest to you that when you look up here, you’re not looking at us. We are a mirror reflecting you. And if you like what you see, then just look a little deeper. This is you.”
— Jeremy Hansen, Artemis 2 mission specialist

On April 10, 2026, the Orion spacecraft carrying Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen came home after a nearly ten-day mission around the Moon. The mission took the crew roughly a quarter of a million miles from Earth. At its farthest point, they were farther from home than anyone else had ever gone.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5232/1

107) Lost and found on the Pacific floor: the Nimbus SNAP-19 nuclear generators
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, June 1, 2026


The SNAP-19 debris on the bottom of the Santa Barbara Channel off the California coast. In 1968, several search efforts were mounted to locate the radioactive payload, which proved elusive. (credit: NASA)

On May 18, 1968, a Thorad-Agena rocket carrying the third NASA Nimbus Earth observation satellite lifted off from its pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast. As it rose it started to arc out over the Pacific. But within two minutes, as it was over the Santa Barbara Channel, it began straying off course and the flight safety officer blew it to smithereens. Among the debris falling into the water north of San Miguel Island were two SNAP-19 radioisotope thermoelectric generators, or RTGs, carrying plutonium fuel.

The satellite was designated Nimbus B-1. Its RTGs were a new design developed after a 1964 accident involving a Transit satellite equipped with an RTG spread radiation in the atmosphere. They provided about 50 watts of power. The SNAP-19 was designed to contain the radioactive material during an accident. Whereas NASA could have left the rocket and satellite debris where it was, the plutonium had to be recovered.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5233/1

108) Debris with telemetry: the cyber pathway to Kessler
by Daniel Morgan Monday, June 1, 2026


Disabling control of hundreds of megaconstellation satellites could lead to cascading collisions in congested orbits. (credit: ESA/ID&Sense/ONiRiXEL)

It is a Tuesday morning in the late 2020s. At a satellite operations center on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, a duty controller is halfway through a coffee when the first telemetry anomaly arrives. A spacecraft in the operator’s mid-inclination shell, one of several thousand small satellites at an altitude of roughly 550 kilometers, has failed to acknowledge a routine stationkeeping burn. Ninety seconds later, a second satellite in an adjacent orbital plane reports the same fault. Then a third. In a cascade that takes less than four minutes to develop, 200 satellites across three commercial megaconstellations stop responding to maneuver commands.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5234/1

109) Big badaboom: the effects of a Saturn V launch pad explosion
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, June 1, 2026


In the AppleTV+ series "For All Mankind," a Saturn V exploded on the launch pad. NASA evaluated this possibility during the Apollo program. (credit: Apple)

On May 28, a New Glenn rocket became the biggest rocket ever to explode on the launch pad. There have been other bigger rocket failures before, most notably a Soviet N1 Moon rocket that blew up above its pad in 1969 and rained fiery hell below—the N1 rocket had more fuel, and made a bigger boom, than the New Glenn. Of course, there have been some innovative Starship failures, a Titan 34D that blew up over its launch pad in 1986, and many smaller missiles and rockets that blew up or over their pads at Cape Canaveral during the 1960s.

Although it was not the biggest, that New Glenn kind of explosion—let’s not call it an “anomaly”—was a concern during the Apollo program of the 1960s. Up until recently, the Saturn V was the largest rocket ever built by the United States. A true monster of a launch vehicle, it generated over 33 million newtons of thrust at liftoff and carried 2.5 million kilograms of fuel and oxidizer. If the Saturn V exploded, it could do so with the force of a small atomic bomb, the equivalent of half a kiloton, or about 1/26th the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Naturally, this was a significant concern for Apollo program officials.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5235/1

110) Artemis and the blue micromoon
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 1, 2026


NASA administrator Jared Isaacman surveys the damage to Blue Origin’s Launch Complex 36. (credit: NASA/John Kraus)

The full moon last weekend was called by some a “blue micromoon”. Blue because it was the second full moon of the month, or blue moon. Micromoon came from the fact that the Moon was more distant from the Earth than average, making it appear slightly smaller; the opposite of the “supermoon” hyped in recent years, even though the difference is size is difficult for the unaided eye to notice.

The term might also reflect the mood in the space exploration community over the weekend. Barely 48 hours after NASA provided more details, and nearly $1 billion in contracts, to advance the lunar base plans it announced in March (see “Igniting a new vision for NASA”, The Space Review, March 30, 2026), the agency suffered a serious setback when one of the key vehicles needed for those plans exploded on the launch pad. Just how serious a setback, and how much further away the Moon now seems, is uncertain.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5236/1

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111) Review: The Ultraview Effect
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 8, 2026



The Ultraview Effect: What We Can Learn from Astronauts about Awe, Humility, and Exploring the Unknown
by Deana L. Weibel
University of California Press, 2026
hardcover, 240 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-520-40952-1
US$24.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0520409523/spaceviews

The concept of the “Overview Effect” is widely known in the space community: the change in perspective many people experience when they see the Earth from space. Popularized, and named, by Frank White four decades ago, it is something that today many people anticipate experiencing when going even on suborbital flights, although reactions vary and its significance remains debated (see “The fallacy of the Overview Effect: perception, power, and strategic reality in space,” The Space Review, May 4, 2026, and “Critiquing and defending the Overview Effect,” The Space Review, May 18, 2026.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5237/1

112) The first alien intelligence may not be alive
by David W. Falls Monday, June 8, 2026


The first sign of extraterrestrial intelligence we discover may not be biological.

If intelligent life exists beyond Earth, we may be picturing the wrong kind of encounter.

Most of us imagine other beings as biological creatures. They may look strange, but we still tend to imagine bodies. Eyes. Limbs. Skin or something like it. A living organism standing on another world, looking back at us. That image is powerful because it keeps alien life close enough to human life for us to understand it.

But the first intelligence we encounter may not be biological at all. It may not breathe, eat, or sleep. It may not reproduce in any ordinary sense. It may not have a face, a voice, or a body shaped by evolution. It may be a machine.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5238/1

113) Why the vagueness of the Outer Space Treaty was a strategically calculated move
by Aditya Raj Monday, June 8, 2026


Soviet Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin, UK Ambassador Sir Patrick Dean, US Ambassador Arthur J. Goldberg, US Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and US President Lyndon B. Johnson at the signing of the Outer Space Treaty on January 27, 1967 in Washington. (credit: British Pathé)

The NASA-led Artemis program is ramping up to return humans to the surface of the Moon for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. These mission are within the framework of the Artemis Accords.

These accords reaffirm the principles of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST) that are frequently criticized as outdated and geopolitically ambiguous. Yet it’s worth noting that the same criticisms of the treaty’s vague terms helped sustain the primary objective of intergovernmental cooperation and peace. This has occurred even without any major political animosity from the Cold War era to the present. Peaceful relations among spacefaring nation-states are achieved through the stable legal framework for space activities provided by the OST.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5239/1

114) America’s most exposed power projection platforms
by David G. Hanson Monday, June 8, 2026

Why United States Space Force installations must be treated as warfighting infrastructure


Schriever Space Force Base in Colorado, one of the Space Force facilities that plays key roles in military space operations. (credit: US Space Force photo by Dalton Prejeant)

The United States Space Force (USSF) is unique among the military services not merely because it operates in space, but also because it fights from fixed locations on Earth while delivering effects globally and continuously. Unlike Army brigades, Navy strike groups, Marine Corps expeditionary units, or Air Force wings that deploy into theaters of operation, the Space Force overwhelmingly executes its missions through an employed-in-place operational concept, where combat operations are conducted from permanent installations on U.S. and allied soil. This reality fundamentally alters the strategic importance of Space Force installations.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5240/1

115) Yesterday’s Future: space settlement and castles in the sky
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, June 8, 2026


In 1976, Isaac Asimov published an article in National Geographic magazine about a 2026 visit to a giant space station. The article was illustrated by the late Pierre Mion. (credit: Pierre Mion, National Geographic)

Fifty years ago this week, millions of Americans opened up their mailboxes to find the July issue of National Geographic, giving them their first introduction to the idea of cities in space. The issue contained an article by Isaac Asimov about life on a giant space station 50 years in the future—the mysterious and exotic year of 2026.

For most of the 20th century National Geographic was one of the primary ways that Americans learned about the rest of the world, as well as different cultures within the United States. July 1976 was the American bicentennial and National Geographic’s editors chose that issue to include a vision of America’s future 50 years hence.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5241/1

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