Rockets Archives - Escape Velocity Space News

Topic: Rockets

Starship: Dreaming of Mars, struggling for LEO

by Pamela Gay | Jun 26, 2025 | Rockets

I think it is fair to say that humans have dreamed of going to Mars for as long as we have known that Mars is a planet. We see these dreams in amazing books, like The Martian Chronicles and John Carter of Mars, and even in Percival Lowell’s attempts to map what we now see as fictional canals. Humanity’s first successful Mars mission was the 1965 Mariner 4 Flyby, and today, two US rovers explore the Red Planet. Mariner 4 was 60 years ago, and if the dreamers get what they want, we will have humans on Mars before the 70th anniversary of Mariner 4. … I’m just not sure that is going to happen,...

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Closer Look: Commercial Lunar Payload Services

by Pamela Gay | Mar 26, 2025 | In-depth, Rockets, Technology

The shadow of Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander on the Moon. Space exploration is at a weird point in its development. Some tasks, like launching small and medium-sized satellites to low earth orbit are now as routine as overnight shipping. At the same time,...

Crew 10 Delayed Until March 2025

by Pamela Gay | Dec 30, 2024 | Rockets

Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams in T-38 pre-flight activities at Ellington Field. Photo Date: August 16, 2022. Location: Ellington Field, Hangar 276/Flight Line. Photographer: Robert Markowitz In some late breaking news, NASA...

A Bit of Joy: Jury Duty Strikes Astronaut

by Pamela Gay | Nov 28, 2024 | Rockets

On Oct 28, Astronaut Don Pettit’s son posted to Twitter, “My family just got served two jury summons at once. And as if that wasn’t absurd enough, one is for the one of us in space right now.” I know that legally jobs are required to provide workers time off to serve...

Ep. 3.04 Planning for Asteroid Attacks, Dino Prints Cross Ocean, Viper Updates, & more

by EVSN | Sep 18, 2024 | Earth Science, Podcast, Rockets, Solar Systems, Video

This is another weird week for space news, where it felt like human space exploration was going to steal every headline. We saw the successful return to Earth of Boeing’s Starliner capsule, the successful launch of Polaris Dawn and what appears, at the time of this...

Remembering Apollo 8 Astronaut Bill Anders and Voyager Scientist Ed Stone

by Pamela Gay | Jun 22, 2024 | Rockets

We’d like to take a moment to celebrate the lives of to space science greats who have passed away. On June 7, Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders died when his Beechcraft T-34 Mentor crashed into the water near Jonas Island. He was age 90. While Anders never walked on the...

Ep. 2.23: Planning to go back to the Moon

by EVSN | Jun 19, 2024 | Galaxies & Cosmology, Podcast, Rockets, Stars & Nebulae

Let's take a quick tour of the latest news, including updates on the Hubble Space Telescopes and single gyro operations, EUCLID's image release, an amazing new image of Io by LBT, and new calculations of Pluto's oceans. We also look in detail at plans to return humans...

Closer Look: NASA’s Day of Remembrance and Celebrating the Robots of Mars

by Pamela Gay | Feb 7, 2024 | Rockets, Solar Systems

Every year, toward the end of January, NASA sets aside a day of remembrance to look back at the three missions that were lost with astronauts aboard: Apollo 1 on Jan 27, 1967 Challenger STS 51L on Jan 28, 1986 Columbia STS 107 on Feb 1, 2003 Apollo 1 Crew (l-r):...

Lucy Sends Science Home

by Pamela Gay | Nov 22, 2023 | Rockets, Solar Systems

Credit: NASA Back in October 2021, a mission called Lucy lifted off on a multi-year journey to visit Jupiter’s two collections of Trojan Asteroids. Today, it is making its way through the asteroid belt before circling back to use the Earth to get a gravitational...

Closer Look: Satellites versus Science

by Pamela Gay | Oct 25, 2023 | Rockets

Bluewalker 3 over Kitt Peak In this week’s closer look, we go where I haven’t really wanted to go before: we are going to look at the impacts of the growing number of satellites, like star links, on our ability to safely live and do astronomy. This closer look is...

Rockets Report: 2023/08/05

by Erik Madaus | Aug 5, 2023 | Rockets

Credit: SpaceX This week was a week of highs and lows. SpaceX launched the biggest commercial satellite ever but the last ever Antares 230 also launched. Plus a new radar satellite for Singapore and a bunch of Starlink and Chinese launches.First up is that...