OF SPECIAL INTEREST
OF SPECIAL INTEREST NEWS
Artemis II: The impending launch of the Artemis II spacecraft tops the Special Interest category for this installment. It follows the non-crewed test of the system (Artemis I) and precedes the United States’ return to the Moon (Artemis III). See the Item of the Week for details.
NASA Funding Restoration! President Trump had proposed massive cuts to NASA that would have eviscerated a number of NASA Projects and Facilities and necessitated a very large Reduction in Force. Congress recently passed a budget for NASA that would restore most of the capability that would have been lost. The newly-passed funding would require some reduction, but the only mission cancellation would be for the proposed Mars sample return mission that would have retrieved the rock/soil samples being collected by the Perseverance rover.
Also avoiding major cuts were Congress appropriations of the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The latter two organization had a slight boost in funding compared to 2025, NSF suffered only a 3.4% annual reduction.
For details on this wonderful news, see: https://aas.org/posts/news/2026/01/congress-passes-fiscal-year-2026-spending-bills-nsf-nasa-and-doe , https://spacenews.com/congress-passes-minibus-spending-bill-that-rejects-proposed-nasa-cuts ,and https://nasawatch.com/congress/aas-summary-of-nasa-fy-2026-budget!
China Expands Military Space Capabilities: Aviation Week’s Military Space Editor Vivienne Machi posted an article on this important topic, here: https://aviationweek.com/space/budget-policy-regulation/hide-seek-orbit-china-expands-military-space-capabilities. And although it isn’t a direct military threat, she notes that China plans to launch a constellation of over 200,000 satellites to LEO… And the FCC just authorized SpaceX to make an expansion of its Starlink system. [Why am I having an Olber’s Paradox flash-back?]
OF SPECIAL INTEREST FYI
“How the U.S. Space Force Aims to Avoid a Second Sputnik Moment” is an interesting piece by Vivienne Machi, the Military Space Editor for Aviation Week. See it here: https://aviationweek.com/space/budget-policy-regulation/how-us-space-force-aims-avoid-second-sputnik-moment.
The latest on Comet 3I/ATLAS: Sorry Avi, it’s not a spaceship. Too bad, because NASA’s budget would have skyrocketed. But it is an important ambassador of science, carrying a “portfolio” of information from elsewhere in our galaxy.
Comet 3I/ATLAS is the third known object to visit our Solar System from interstellar space. The designation of this object is derived from “3” being the third object of this type, the “I” means it is “Interstellar” not Solar System in origin, and “ATLAS” was the part of NASA’s Planetary Defense Network that discovered it, the “Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System.” The other two Solar System interlopers were 1I/’Oumuamua, discovered in 2017, and 2I/Borisov, discovered in 2019. There has no doubt been others before, but we did not have the technology in place that would have allowed their discovery.
The object was first observed by the ATLAS survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile. The data was relayed to the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center (the clearinghouse for all such observations of new Solar System objects) on July 1 of this year. Continued observations soon showed that its speed and trajectory were proof of its interstellar origin. It reached perihelion on October 30, ~1.4 AU from the Sun (just outside of the orbit of Mars) and is now moving away from the Sun. The Earth was never threatened. You can see more about the trajectory of 3I/ATLAS on NASA’s wonderful “Eyes On” website: https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/solar-system/#/c_2025_n1.
3I/ATLAS is designated as a “comet” because it has an icy nucleus and has a coma, a cloud of gas and dust surrounding the nucleus that was liberated by solar heating. Its size was difficult to estimate because it did not come very close to Earth; estimates range from ~440 to ~5600 meters. To astronomers, the composition of the material liberated from the object, determined by spectroscopy, are very important because it’s our best look yet at planetary formation elsewhere in the Milky Way.
Scientists are already posting information about the chemical composition of 3I/ATLAS. It is a bit different than comets bound to the Sun. While CO2 and H2O are the principal compounds present in the comet’s coma, there is an overabundance of nickel and other elements, however small, and no iron has been observed. CO and OCS are also present in small quantities. The conclusion of the initial study now published is that “these signatures are consistent with formation in an Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stellar wind environment approximately 4.6 billion years ago in the Perseus Arm at 2.3±0.3 kpc galactic radius.”
Why Do People (Like Avi) Adopt Beliefs without Evidence? Social media is filled with Flat Earthers, Moon Landing Deniers, and others who hold “Extraordinary Beliefs” in the face of no or contradicting evidence. Some are motivated by their religion, which is OK; others are sh*tposting, which is annoying but generally harmless; but some are downright dangerous (RFK Jr.). Eli Elster just posted a piece on Space.com about the issue, “Flat Earth, spirits and conspiracy theories – Experience can shape even extraordinary beliefs.” He has some interesting ideas on the subject; check it out at: https://www.space.com/astronomy/earth/flat-earth-spirits-and-conspiracy-theories-experience-can-shape-even-extraordinary-beliefs.
OF SPECIAL INTEREST LINKS AND OTHER INFORMATION
For Those of You in the Colorado Springs Area: The Space Foundation Discovery Center on Garden of the Gods Avenue has undergone a significant expansion and updating. Find out more about it at: https://discoverspace.org and more about the Space Foundation at: https://www.spacefoundation.org. In addition, the Planetarium at the U.S. Air Force Academy offers a variety of public programs; for more information, see: https://www.usafa.edu/facilities/planetarium. But be advised that the Academy has new stringent requirements to enter. The Academy also has great STEM outreach programming for students and teachers, see: https://www.usafa.edu/research/stem-outreach.
Jack Cross: I have met an interesting fellow on-line via one of NASM’s wonderful Docents. His name is Jack Cross, and he proudly served in the U.S. Navy from 1950 to 1954 as a Bosun’s Mate. He was on a series of warships at first, then he moved over to the USS Yellowstone, a tender that served the Navy’s Sixth Fleet. He joined the Navy and saw the world!
Now retired, Jack has put together a series of picture-rich PowerPoint presentations. He kindly gave me permission to post three of them already, one about D-Day, one about “A Day of Mercy in the Sky,” and one about his Navy career, which gives a real interesting look at what Navy life was like at the start of the Cold War. Check all three out on the Archive: Other Stuff page of the website! Thank you, Jack!
DOCENTS (and all others interested in Solar System exploration history): If you don’t have an on-line copy of Fordham University’s Asif A. Siddiqi’s fabulous book, Beyond Earth: A Chronicle of Deep Space Exploration, you should. You can find it at: https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/beyond_earth_detail.html.